How We Go Diving Again, and NEEMO Aquanaut Dawn Kernagis

SPEAKER_08 0:13

Welcome to the Deeper Blue Podcast, your weekly guide to everything that is happening around the world underwater. My name is Stephen Whelan. I'm the founder of DeeperBlue.com, the world's most popular diving website. Every week, the Deeper Blue Podcast covers everything that's happening in the scuba diving, freediving, diving travel, and ocean advocates world. So join us as we explore the Deeper Blue.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Hi, it's Jason Elias, producer of the Deeper Blue Podcast. In the future, at the top of every show, you'll almost often hear from Stephen Wheland, founder of DeeperBlue.com. Every week, Stephen will give you his perspective on current news from the dive, free dive, travel, and ocean advocacy world. But since we're still at the beginning of this journey with the podcast, we wanted to follow up on our conversation last week with dive journalist Michael Menduno about the state of the dive and free dive world under coronavirus. So this week, as the world begins to slowly unfold and lift its head up from lockdown, I had a conversation with Stephen and Ted Clark, the scuba guru and free diver about what we can expect as we all start to contemplate getting back in the water. As an introduction, Steven Whelan is the founder and principal of deeperbloop.com and the host of this show. And our guest with him is Tech Clark, host of League of Extraordinary Divers Podcast, also host of the Dive Locker Podcast, and associate director of Nova Southeast University's academic diving program. Gents, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_04 2:07

Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

So it's been a tough time around the world, and it feels like things are starting to open up again. And for the dive world, it's starting to open up again. Could you guys tell us a little bit about what that means for both divers and free divers, what they can expect and how we can actually get out there again?

SPEAKER_08 2:24

Yeah, absolutely. So uh so first of all, Tech, thanks for uh joining the uh the podcast this week.

SPEAKER_04 2:30

You're welcome. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_08 2:32

So I think it's a really interesting time because we're we're starting to see some positivity come out. So last week's episode, we talked a little bit about the impact of coronavirus, and it may have been a little bit depressing to listen to, and uh, but we are seeing positivity. And this this actually, this episode came about because Tech and I were having a chat, and and uh especially in the northern hemisphere, we're starting to see people would normally be getting back in the water. Yeah, they would normally have been thinking about how do they start getting back in the water maybe two months ago when the diving season started, right? Uh and maybe thinking about getting on a plane, going somewhere and diving in some beautiful warm waters, uh, which of course we haven't been able to do. We were very much thinking about how do you now we're allowed to go diving again. How do we do that safely? Because safety is something that is very dear to I know Tech's heart. Uh he and I have talked about it many times, but dear to my heart as well. And we're doing, you know, how do we do this safely so that we don't end up with a whole bunch of people uh rushing into the water and causing themselves problems? Tech, what do you what do you think about certainly let's let's start with scuba diving. What do you think we should be uh we should be doing?

SPEAKER_04 3:43

Well, I think first of all is that this is uh an exciting time to look at the releases that are taking place worldwide, and that now government is finally attaching to business, business with government, and these systems and procedures are starting to unfold right now. They've made their way to the diving industry, and so now you're starting to see that awakening, that opening take place back with retail dive operations, back with scuba training, and back with charter boat operations. We're also seeing it with live aboards, right? So this is coming back. We are coming back to diving, and this is awesome. But I live here in South Florida. In South Florida, we have seasonal diving. Um, now you might be thinking that year-round we can dive. You're absolutely right, but we have people that will only go diving once lobster season hits. And so here comes the end of July, and it's time to dust off the scuba equipment and uh and go hit it for lobsters. Well, what do we see every year? We see a massive increase, a huge spike in diving incidents. They can be missing divers, they can be fatalities, they can be boat strikes. There's all kinds of things that can take place. And what is really the root of it is that people have not properly prepared themselves to come back. They think it's like riding a bike, and we even say it, some of us are guilty as instructors to say, oh yeah, you know, just come back in the water. It's like riding a bike, you'll be fine. Actually, that's not correct for many divers. And so to come back into our sport, we need to look at this and the the holistic concept of the diver in not only their equipment, as we you know, might allude to that there could be equipment problems, but there's also the issues of memory, motor memory, and academic memory. So we all know that there are perishable skills that exist within diving, and that could be mass clears, it could be neutral buoyancy, it could be just comfort in and of itself. And so if we've gone a period of time, like with this coronavirus, where we have not been able to engage in not only diving, but we haven't been able to engage in water activities, all of a sudden we start to lose that watermanship that comes to play. And remember that watermanship is one of the most important things to aquatic comfort. Being able to be surrounded and immersed in water, to have water around your face, at your eyes, and your ears, that is such a fundamental thing that we need. And so I would say that as we're coming back to life, one of the things that we really need to look at, divers and pros alike, is that we are gonna do this gently, slowly, not aggressively. Our first dives should definitely be tame, mundane. Now, some people will argue that there is no such thing as a mundane dive, right? Okay, but let's talk shallow, let's talk limited duration. Let's really focus on what that's going to be like when we first plan those dives. And then, you know, there's also the whole beat of getting refreshers. This is a huge thing. But we might have people that their local dive center is still shut down or their instructor isn't teaching right now, and they can't get a refresher before their first opportunity to do a local dive or a shore dive. That all of a sudden becomes an issue. That's why we need to be conservative right from the get-go, right when we come back. Let's take it easy, and then explore other options of training and equipment and different things like that.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

That's a really interesting point. I work as a professional photographer and I just did a big pitch for a client. And one of the big things that I talked about is that we have to shift our mentality, is that things just need to go a little bit slower. We need to take our time and make sure that we are being as safe and cautious as possible because the natural inclination is the opposite of that. We can get back in the water, let's go for it, right? Right. So you're basically saying that it's not even necessarily a coronavirus specific thing. It's actually the effects of coronavirus, we've we've all gotten a little rusty. And to make sure we get we ease back into this and we're we're taking the safety precautions and diving safely like we need to.

SPEAKER_04 8:20

That's right. Absolutely. And I would add to that, if your local dive center is and many of them are coming back to life, and one of the top things that dive centers are offering right now are refreshers because they want to get people back into the water. Pools have been opened up here, at least in the United States. And so as that's taking place and the government is starting to make the recommendations on chlorinated, properly chlorinated pools, those dive centers that have pools are starting to open them back up. And of course, all the parameters are theirs, the social distancing and everything like that. That's great. But if we can get wet first, if we can take these baby steps before getting into the water, that's huge. And I think that that is a huge thing to think about here. We're talking divers, what we could be talking seasoned divers, we could be talking dive pros. These are the individuals that may actually have a more challenging time as we come back because they want to get back into what they left and do it exactly as they left it. But we, that individual, that seasoned diver or pro might actually be different. So I think that that's a major thing to take a look at.

SPEAKER_08 9:31

One of the other interesting aspects here is you know, diving, and we we we've touched on this before. So I think diving is a very travel-oriented sport. A lot of people go and get on planes or do long journeys to go diving. And that still isn't really possible in the current climate. A lot of people are gonna be wanting to go diving, but diving more locally, which is a fantastic opportunity, where a lot of people learn, but not necessarily where a lot of people continue doing their diving. So they're gonna be diving in locations, so you know, where I am in the UK, a lot of people learn to dive uh and then go and never set foot in another uh UK dive site ever again, because it's big it's colder than going and diving in the Red Sea or in the Caribbean or anything like that. So when they if they are going diving, they need to go diving safely and understand that they will have a different environment to where they are used to. If you're used to diving in uh nice warm water, a three mil wetsuits, you're not having to wear it, and suddenly you're now diving in uh water temperatures where it's a semi-dry or dry suit. Suddenly you've now got your dry suit and and all the air that goes into your dry suit to worry about and all those sorts of things. You might be having bulkier equipments to to dive with, hoods and so on. And people may just may it's a very different type of diving, so you need to approach it as Tech you said, very carefully and very cautiously and enjoy it. I mean, look, what what a fantastic way to get back into a type of diving you've never you haven't done for a while or may never have done, right? That's a fantastic thing, I think. It is. I uh one one thing I've got a question for you, Tech, because I know that you're a free diver as well as a scuba diver. What what about the freediving side of things? Because you know, freedivers are a little less encumbered by uh you know they're needing to go and get air fills and all those sorts of things. What about being safe getting back in the water as a freediver?

SPEAKER_04 11:23

Well, I think that there's a few things that take place. Freediving is definitely uh more physical sport than scuba diving to s to many degrees. I mean, you know, that could be debatable, but when you really look at it and break it down, uh freediving does encompass some pretty robust skill sets to be able to do it and to do it well. And we're not talking snorkeling here on the surface where you're just floating and you got your snorkel vest, and you know, we're talking free diving. And so, with that, you've got to remember all of the things that go along with that, the proper breathing techniques, the kicking, the you know, all the safety procedures and so forth. And I think that what you're going to see is that here so many of us sit in this new COVID-19 time where we're at our desks more than ever. Now, what is coming out from all the health and fitness gurus right now? You can't sit as much as you do, you can't hang around your house as much as you do, you've got to stretch, you've got to have, you know, a little bit more of that. Well, if the fitness centers are closed and our people just walking, maybe they're doing a little running, so we get some cardio there. But the one thing that is extraordinarily noticeable is when you start to kick those fins again. The legs are not in the same shape that they were. The dynamics, especially with us in these positions, these seated positions all day. So you start to feel that, which can lead to cramping. It can lead to early exhaustion. And we don't want that when we go into our favorite dive site and we think we can come back here and do just what we did before. But you know, the other thing is that this has been a remarkable time. Although I noticed that, how did we do so well? Well, you know, fitness apps. So this has been a time of awakening for us. My family, I got them all fitness apps, and so I have been taking yoga, which is awesome. I've never done yoga, and so now all of a sudden I'm stretching every day. I'm doing chest stretches, leg stretches, I'm doing warrior three. I don't even know what that is, but it's warrior three, which is really cool. So I'm doing all these things, and to go and then have a dive has been wonderful. And I'll also say, like this, I think of this as a great time when we are kind of locked in and we're doing all this, and it looks so negative. You know what? I wrote the word transform on my mirror so that I can transform, use this time to be a better me, come out a better me. And guess what? That means for me, I'm I am focusing on yoga. I'm focusing on breathing techniques. So performance free diving has their vitamin free diving, right? And you've got Ted Hardy with immersion free diving, and he's got his 28-day free diving transformation, and you've got Stig Severenson who did his his book, Breathology, and he did it for free. So many things are opening up to us right now. This is a great time to embrace being better. So I feel adequately prepared to go a quarter mile offshore and do some free diving because I didn't just sit and be cold with it. And I think that that's an important thing to take note of.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

That's an incredibly positive message to take from this tech, and certainly probably something we all appreciate hearing. Obviously, we're not at the end of this, but as things start opening up, it feels like you guys both feel positive. Am I correct in that?

SPEAKER_08 15:01

Yeah, absolutely. I think I I I feel very positive. I think the the key thing here is this shouldn't be any different to if you've been out of the water for a while and you're getting back in the water. These should be things that you need to you need to be doing and understanding. And it's very often something that we forget. Now I'd been out of the water, you know, up until a couple years ago for probably three or four years. I hadn't been diving at all. And I was going a big trip to Fiji. So I spent six, six or nine months getting ready for that trip. But it was so easy to say, you know, I'm someone with several thousand dives under my belt, been diving for 24, 25 years, probably even longer now, actually. And you know, just throw my kit in a bag and off I go to the other side of the planet to go diving. It was easy to be able to do that. But actually, uh a bit of foresight and a bit of thinking meant that I was able to get in the water and really enjoy my trip rather than spending the first few days faffing about trying to figure out, you know, put my mask on upside down and you know, fins on my hands and all that kind of silliness. You know, I actually got in and enjoyed the stuff. Uh and that's what people will do. People, people get in the water and feel they're very positive because they're they're really enjoying the dive rather than rather than trying to worry about doing something that may end up being uh being wrong.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

I would agree a hundred percent. You know, there's so much benefit that comes from diving, and right now we need diving more than ever. We need a release, we need an opportunity to immerse ourselves in something countercultural. We need to have the silence and the beauty and the diversity and the balance and the colors and everything that speaks to us and resonates to us as divers and free divers. This is really needed at this time. There's so much negative in the world happening right now. And getting out there, getting underwater, focusing on your breathing, hearing those bubbles chiming and looking at that marine life being so serene and beautiful. It's what we need. It's what we need right now.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Well, that's a great place to end it. Thanks, Jens, for coming on and sharing your perspective. And I know we'll be talking with both of you soon. Thanks a lot, guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 17:24

Hi, this is Paul Tuma, president of Raid, Dive Attic, Metalhead, Flicker, tattoo fundamentalist. And you're listening to the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Today we're chatting with Don Carnegis, a research scientist in the Human Performance Extreme Environments area. Don, thanks for being on the show.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

And thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

So for people that may not understand what a dramatic title like that is, can you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Absolutely. So I'm a research scientist. I work for the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and actually lead a program there that is focused on studying how to help humans that work in extreme environments. So anything from undersea, which is why deeper blue, all the way to outer space and a little bit in between too. We do a lot of work with individuals who work in high altitudes. So, example, pilots or people working in the mountains.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

That's a very interesting insight into a world that maybe some people don't even know exists, that kind of job category. But that's led you to do some work for some interesting clients, right? Could you talk about some of the people you've helped train in those areas?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Absolutely. So we get to do, we get to work with really awesome people, just by the way. So we get to work with a lot of different types of divers. So free divers, military divers, commercial divers, recreational divers. We get to work with astronauts as well. So that's pretty cool. So an astronaut is also living undersea. So I actually got to be part of an undersea mission that NASA runs every year called Nemo, so NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operation. I actually got to be a researcher on that mission and also a crew member, which meant I got to live undersea. So that was kind of a neat, unique asset to my current job position.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Anytime you get to hang out with astronauts. But before we get to that, can you just tell me a little bit about like this? Seems like such an interesting and unique job in the world. How did you discover your connection to the ocean and what led you to this?

SPEAKER_00 19:25

So I've always been a geek. I always knew I wanted to get into science. I actually carried around all different types of books with me since I was a little kid. And when we were, when I was eight years old, my family moved from Iowa, which is a bit landlocked, to North Carolina. And I've been to the ocean once before in California, but we went to visit the ocean again once to move to North Carolina. They couldn't get me out of the water, absolutely fell in love with the ocean. And I told my parents, I was like, I want to be a marine biologist, this is what I want to do when I was eight. So they bought me the Jacku Stow books and I carried them around with me everywhere, which is why I think I have a bad back now, because they're in my backpack and I read them all the time. And I became certified and essentially they couldn't get me out of the dive shop at that point. I just got into cave diving and technical diving, and I saw a lot of different things from the cave diving and technical diving in particular with respect to decompression sickness and other things that those divers were experiencing. And that's what led to my interest in diving medicine. So I got funding from the Navy, went to Duke, and I said, if I have this funding, could I potentially turn this into a PhD project? Which now there have been a couple of people who have gone through with funding from the Navy as graduate students at Duke, which has been really cool in that in that space. So it's kind of been this really cool pathmaking opportunity from a field perspective and an applied perspective, where I was one of the divers, and now I'm researching things that were important to us as divers and they're important to my existing colleagues in the diving medicine world.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

Wow, that's so fascinating. I think one of the things I'd like to discuss here is that that led you to what you're wearing on your shirt right now, which is a patch for Nemo. Could you tell us a little about what Nemo was and then what your experience down there was like?

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Absolutely. So Nemo was just a really cool opportunity for me to bridge together that diving background that I had into the diving research background that I've developed. And so had the chance to live and work undersea for eight days. And so this is not just living in a submarine-like environment where we would be at normal pressure like we are here, you know, on ground, but we were actually under pressure. So we were living in saturation, which meant that we were breathing compressed gas at about 45 feet equivalent of depth, and it was air that we were breathing. So you have a little bit of a change in air density with that. So just little things that you notice with voice changes in your ears. What's interesting is you're living under sea, so you're sitting in a habitat that's sitting on the seabed, and this is just off the coast of the Florida Keys. And so it was interesting because you have waves going overhead, obviously, and your ears would actually pop. If you got bigger waves that came through. So you'd just be sitting in the habitat and your ears would be pop, pop, pop, which is a little disconcerting when you're not used to it. And also kind of threw off your balance sometimes. You know, just like I said, the the sounds, just everything that you would expect with a little bit denser air around you. The size of the habitat was about the size of an Airbus RV, a little bit bigger than that. So we had bunk beds that are all at the all the way at the back. And so there are three on one side and three on the other side, and pretty, pretty cramped quarters, but six people living down there. Six people living. So we had four crew members at a time, and then you had two habitat technicians. So they're essentially the people keeping us alive. So they were the experienced Navy and commercial divers that I mean pretty much operated the habitat and made sure everything was operating as it should on the life support side. And then we were doing all the scientific objectives and all of the technical objectives for the mission itself. Yeah, it was fantastic. We had a crew that we just we all get along really well, thankfully, because we lived in a space that small that you could see if you didn't get along with the hub, that would get old pretty quickly. You know, we had a little refrigerator that was cooler. It wasn't cold, so uh you had to be careful about what you kept in there. And then you had a low-powered microwave. So essentially that was for heating up water to add to camping food, is what we use that for primarily. And then we had excursions that went outside the habitat. So we took turns every other day. Two of us would go outside and work outside of the habitat for around six hours or so and do do mission objectives, just like astronauts do on space station, where they go outside of the space station to do different objectives. We were simulating that outside the habitat. So it was kind of fun because it never felt like you were really cramped because you did get those excursions outside of the habitat too. So it was an incredibly amazing opportunity to experience, get a little bit of a dose of what it would be like to live on space station, in the sense that you're not in microgravity, you're not floating around, but just living in smaller quarters and trying to work around other people in the small spaces and doing lots of different types of science, which was really cool for somebody who has a scientific background. That was that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

What an amazing experience. And what was the purpose of Nemo? I know it was it was funded by NASA, correct? And what was the purpose of it?

SPEAKER_00 24:15

So Nemo is actually funded by a lot of different organizations that chip in for the they all have different science objectives or technical objectives, as I mentioned. And actually, Aquarius Reefbase, where we lived and worked, that is actually owned and operated by Florida International University. And they actually have other missions over the course of the year, every year, that run through Aquarius Reefbase. So Nemo is not the only one. But the reason that they run Nemo every year is to test out hardware and software and different things, even protocol that are getting ready to go to space station and just kind of work out the kinks in an extreme environment before it gets sent to space station. So we're still isolated from other individuals. We can still communicate back and forth the ground just like space station does, but we're still relatively isolated and they can induce things like communication delays, like you would have for a long-duration space mission. So you can do a lot of those things and test those things out before you actually send things to space. So, just as an example, one of the big things that we tested out was a device that allowed you to sequence DNA. And typically a DNA sequencer is a pretty big device in the lab. And this device actually fits into the palm of your hand, which is pretty amazing. And so they're testing out protocol for that sequencer before it went to space station. So we were the first people who got to sequence DNA under C. I laughed at I don't think we had a lot of competition on that topic. But we were really excited. And probably the last for some time at least. But it was a really cool opportunity to like test it out. And we kind of worked out kinks in the and or little kind of space like parts of the protocol that needed to be sussed out. And then I think it was about three months later that same protocol devices all went up to space station, and Kate Rubens, one of the NASA astronauts, actually was the first person to sequence DNA in space. So it was kind of cool to see like where our work actually translated into what they ended up doing on space station. Wow, what an amazing life experience.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Yeah. So would you consider yourself does that make you an aquanaut?

SPEAKER_00 26:12

It does make you an aquanaut. So I think officially it's after you've been undersea for 24 hours. So yes, aquanaut in saturation. And two of the six total crew members that we had over the course of the entire mission were also aqua astronauts, I think is what they call them. So they're people who had actually flown in space and had also lived undersea. So that was a pretty cool thing to see them reach as well, an achievement for them. Do you ever just think to yourself, like, oh my god, I can't believe what life I'm living? That's just amazing. All the time. The people I get to surround myself with, it's pretty amazing. It's very humbling too. You know, like oh, I mean, just like they're they're normal, it's just so far out there. But like we work with special operations community, you know, working with astronauts, working with deep sea divers from all different perspectives, and pilots as well. We work with a lot of high performance pilots. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Wow, amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that story, and thanks for coming on the podcast to share it.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yeah, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_05 27:15

Hi, this is filmmaker and underwater cinematographer David Diley, and you're listening to the Deeper Blue podcast.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Welcome to Deeper Blue's Top Tip. Today we speak with Luke Inman. Luke has a history in photography and cinema, having worked on projects from Planet Earth 3 to Star Wars Phantom Menace. Today, Luke gives us his take on shooting underwater. Luke, thanks for doing this. As a photographer myself, I'm very curious to hear what you'd like to tell our listeners.

SPEAKER_07 27:50

You know, I think I think the key is storytelling, not technology. What I see regularly in the in the dive industry is I see people get lost in the technology of cameras, video cameras, housing. I hear people say, I've only got a GoPro. Can I put my cell phone in a housing, my mobile phone in a housing? Should I buy Canon? Should I buy Nikon? Should I buy Sony? Is Mirrorless better than this? Should I be shooting 4K? Is it okay if it's only high dev? What should I edit on? It doesn't matter. None of that matters. Take whatever you can afford. I don't care if it's a Ari Alexa shooting direct to ProRes and you've got a video village on the s on the liverboard that you're on, and you're editing there, and or whether you've just got your mobile phone or your cell phone in a housing or a GoPro. Take whatever you've got and tell a story. There's a wonderful book on editing by Walter Merck, and I don't think anyone can argue with Walter Merck. He won an Academy Award for The Godfather and Apocalypse Now as the editor. I think he knows what he's talking about. And he said the three most important things when editing anything are emotion, emotion, and then the third one is emotion. There's nothing more boring than watching people's dive videos that don't know how to tell a story. And there's so much technology out there from GoPros to red cameras to ARI to beautiful mirrorless cameras. I just want to see people tell beautiful stories. And they can be about behavior, they can be about conservation, they could just be visually stunning. But people should just focus on telling the story.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Yeah, I think this is something that you and I you and I were just talking before we started recording on this. That I I work as a photographer myself. Young photographers ask me, like, what kind of camera should I get? Should I get an icon or a cam? And I always say that's like asking, should I get glasses or contacts? It's not necessarily about the tool, it's about being able to see. And then I always ask, are you when they say, well, yeah, but this has more resolution or this one's sharper, or this one has the better colour gamut. And I always say, Do you think that Andre Brussai would have been a better photographer walking around Paris in the 1920s if he had had a modern camera?

SPEAKER_07 30:14

100%. The next time somebody asks me what camera to buy, I'm gonna say it doesn't matter. Buy anything. Because within three years it's gonna be an expensive and complete paperweight. And the more money you spend, the more expensive that paperweight will be. You know, and it'll be back to the rising sun with it. It doesn't matter if it's a GoPro or an ARI or a red, tell a story.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

Hi, this is Lyndon Wolber, professional entrepreneur mate and ocean edutainer. And you're listening to the Deeper Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_08 30:58

Finally, every episode we share a story from you about the dive community, where we ask you to tell us about your best dive ever.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

Hey guys, this is John Liang. The coolest dive I ever did was in 1986, my first one after getting certified in the Red Sea off the Sinai Peninsula. This particular dive, however, was not off Charmos Cafe. It was in Lake Atitlan, a volcanic lake in Guatemala. My cousin Marina had gotten certified with her then husband Colin, and they had been planning to dive the lake themselves. For whatever reason, she couldn't dive the day they meant to dive, and since we were a similar height and build, she incredibly generously let me use her wetsuit and dive gear. While nowadays there's a dedicated hottie dive center on the lake that can take you to the coolest rock formations and volcanic hotspots or freshwater plants. In those days there wasn't much of a dive infrastructure at all. And I honestly don't even remember how Colin and Maria had scuba tanks with them to begin with. After diving the Red Sea with its incredible, almost limitless visibility and veritable explosion of fish, diving a volcanic lake was a polar opposite, with maybe 30 feet, 9 meters visibility and next to no fish on the day we dove. The Red Sea's abundance of multicolored corals were replaced with black volcanic rock that had probably formed during Atilan's formation thousands and thousands of years earlier. But the coolest, the coolest thing for me when I dove Lake Atilan was the idea that I was underwater yet at altitude. The lake itself is about 1,500 meters or over 5,000 feet above sea level. Colin and I only did one dive, and I don't think we went much past 30 feet in depth and stayed pretty close to the shoreline because that we knew we were driving back to Guatemala City that same day. Now, neither Colin nor I suffered any problems post-dive, and in hindsight, driving back to the city the same day of the dive was pretty much not the best idea. But 30 plus years later, that just makes the dive that much more memorable. Thanks.

SPEAKER_08 32:45

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