Sport Watch

“Lobster Diving”

Lobster diving or “Bug Diving” as it is known to scuba divers is very popular. Not only do hunting these crustaceans make for interesting and fun dives, but also the rewards of such dives are quite tasty.

Lobster diving is popular in both the Northeast where divers will go after the familiar Maine Lobster, or in the south like in the Florida keys, where its warm water cousin the Spiny Lobster is on the menu. The California coast is also home of California Spiny Lobster. In any case there all lobster dive areas have specific Lobster seasons and special dive tours organized around them. Check with local fish and game authorities for the official lobster seasons, the best time to dive for lobsters, and limits on size and amount of lobsters you can catch.

One of the great things about scuba diving for any species of lobsters is that the bugs inhabit some of the most interesting places you would want to be diving anyway – like shipwrecks and reefs both natural and artificial. Like anything having to do with diving, “bug hunting” takes skill and practice, and half the fun is in the learning. The cold water lobsters, the guys with the really big claws can be the most daunting. Those claws are strong and can give you a nasty bite, and lobsters are very fast in the water. You are more likely to loose your prey by it scuttling rapidly away from you, then getting bit. No special equipment is really required for “bug diving” except a good pair of gloves and a collection bag.
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“Scuba Divers”

One of the best things about having a friend or spouse that is an enthusiastic scuba diver is that they are easy to buy gifts for. There is always that new piece of gear that they need or want, and not to mention dive related books, movies, clothing and jewelry.

While diving is of course a participatory sport, and scuba divers enjoy most having their own experiences, there are some great dive DVD’s fiction and non-fiction that divers will love to add to their collections. Divers enjoy discussing their favorite “dive” movie, and from The Abyss, to The Deep, to my own personal favorite – “Thunderball” there is a wealth of dive fiction available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, E-bay, or anywhere else you buy videos. For those that prefer their underwater thrills be more documentary or instructional there are also many non-fiction DVD’s that make great gifts for divers from the many Jacques Cousteau Odysseys and National Geographic Specials, to the Award winning “Coral Sea Dreaming” which features probably the best footage of the Great Barrier Reef ever filmed. Of course there are also hundreds of books on diving and famous divers, and magazine subscriptions to any of the popular dive publications that also make good gifts for divers.

On the more “hands on” side are gear gifts. If you are not a diver yourself buying a gift of a piece of equipment for a diver can be difficult, because the selection of some pieces of gear is a very personal thing, or require special fittings, but one you can’t go wrong with is a Dive Computer. If your diver friend does not already have one, he or she will thank you immensely for this high-tech piece of gear that many are calling the greatest breakthrough in recreational diving in the last 10 years. While the Dive Computer, which can be worn on the wrist, is replacing the traditional Dive Watch these also still make great gifts for both men and women. Seiko is still one of the top names in Dive Watches and offers many types and styles to choose from. As does Citizen and Invicta. Digital underwater cameras continue to come down in price, and a high quality camera can be had for under 200.00, like the Bonica Digital Snapper a 3.2 MegaPixel camera with a 4x zoom lens rated to 180 feet.
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“Scuba”

Scuba as a recreational sport is really still in its early stages. Since the Aqualung first came available in the ’50’s, diving did not really catch on until the 60’s; it reached its heyday in the 80’s, and experienced a technological boom in the 90’s. Much has changed since the early days, mostly for the better, and since dive certifications are for life, what you learned during your original open water training, or even during a recent refresher course may have changed.

I for one received my Advanced Open Water Diver Certification over 20 years ago, and have been quite surprised at some of the new information and new practices that I have discovered while researching these articles. Like most divers I learned to “go deep” first. In other words to on any given dive descend to the lowest planned depth, and then gradually work your way upward, and also to plan the deepest dives in your day first. The rationale here was that the shallow depths will provide decompression for the deep dives that came before. But this year while the practice is still recommended – it is no longer a rule. The main reason is a technological advance – the Dive Computer. Dive computers take the guesswork out of nitrogen exposure, and are infinitely more accurate then using dive tables. More about Dive Computers, they are probably one of the single greatest advances in diving in the last ten years, and a must have dive accessory. Like with any piece of digital technology as the price of Dive Computers continue to drop, dive experts expect them to become mandatory equipment, soon rendering dive tables obsolete.
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