URIs, Bonaire, Dodgers, and more

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It's nice to write this from the comfort of home instead of on the road . . .

NAGGING URI - Especially for those of you who know me well, it seems I am "susceptible" to picking up some cold or whatever at the tail end of these trips we do, and then I'm sick for the week when I get home. This one's no exception, but in spades. A cold is one thing but this is some sort of a URI that over half of our divers on the Philippines trip got. I thought I kicked it while on the trip but it came roaring back once I got home and it still lingering, especially in my sinuses. (It got so bad I even went to see my doctor.) So it's just a general word-to-the-wise to be as careful as you can when you travel on these types of trips, be aware of anyone else you may come into contact with who might have something, and do the best you can. But sometimes even those precautions aren't going to be enough. This is where good travel insurance comes into play. But it also may well be that whoever Patient Zero is, they may be infectious before they're symptomatic, so they don't know they're passing anything on nor do you realize you may be exposing yourself to something, and then a few days later, multiple people are sick. It's definitely a persistent problem and perhaps exacerbated even more so by the fact that our Reef Seekers groups tend to be older, so maybe we're more susceptible to these things.

WHAT PROTECTIVE STEPS CAN BE TAKEN - One of our divers from this trip asked me if there are protocols we can put in place to lessen the likelihood of this happening on another trip. It's a conundrum because I rely on the good judgement and honesty of those traveling on a trip. I'm certainly not going to start requiring medical clearance a few days before a trip starts to confirm you're healthy. But I do rely on your good judgment that, if you're getting sick, you would decline to even start the trip. (Again, this is where trip insurance comes into play.) If anything develops during the trip, as it did in the Philippines, I'm relying on the sick person to let me know what's wrong. Certainly if something's severe enough to prevent you from diving, I might then suggest isolating from the group, wearing a mask, having meals in your room, stuff like that. I will also let the group know someone's not feeling well and they can then choose to keep their distance or not. (These are steps we took on the Philippines trip.) We've probably all gone diving with a cold or the sniffles. So how do we know when it's more than that? And we certainly don't want to miss out on dives because of a sneeze, but how do we know that sneeze isn't a precursor to something worse? There are certainly no easy answers here nor any formula that will work in every scenario. Just do the best you can, be aware of what's happening within you, and realize that viruses happen.

GOOD TRIP - URIs aside, it was a good trip, I sent out the link for the trip report, pix, and the Thresher Shark video (definitely the highlight of the trip) separately, but if you missed them, here they are again (just click on the title to go there):

TRIP REPORT

SMUGMUG PIX & SLIUDESOW LINK

THRESHER SHARK VIDEO

FAVORITE PIX - One of the creatures we'd hoped to see were Blue-Ring Octopuses, winner of "Deadliest Animal on the Planet" award since their venom is highly toxic. (Also, if you didn't know, they're tiny for an animal that can be so deadly, with a body only 2-3 inches long.) Anyhow, I have no idea what this guy was doing as we followed him around the dive site but it's my favorite pix because it looks like he's trying to hail a taxi.

LOBSTER SEASON OPENED FRIDAY NIGHT - As many of you know, I'm the scuba fatality consultant to the L.A. County Coroner and we're on alert for any issues when lobster season opens each year. I'm happy to report that, as of 8:30PM Sunday evening, we don't have any reports of any fatalities within the jurisdiction. YAY!!! I also put in a call to the Chamber to see if there was any non-fatal activity there and they just let me know that they also had a quiet weekend. So it seems like those of you who participated in the opening weekend were good divers and avoided any diving maladies. But let us not rest on our laurels. One year (I think it was 2012), we made it all the way to the opener with no fatalities and even got through the initial weekend with no fatalities. Then we had five deaths in the next five days and ended up with 11 for the year. (The annual average for L.A. County is 4 scuba deaths per year.) So congrats on a safe opening weekend but let's not let our guard down. As Dan Orr is fond of saying, "Safety is no accident."

BONAIRE IN JUNE - Assuming all of this sickness-on-trips talk hasn't gotten you spooked . . . We're going back to Bonaire June 11-19, 2027. Whether you're a newbie, a veteran, or anyone in-between, Bonaire is always a great choice and especially because of the way we set things up with Buddy Dive, our home-away-from home. Our first dive day there (Sunday, June 13) is strictly check-out dives on the house reef so you've got time to set up gear (including cameras), get weights and buoyancy set and - especially if you haven't been wet for a while - get the feel back for diving again. Plus, the Buddy Dive house reef is really a great dive with a lot of variety along with options to dive it deep, shallow, or in-between. Then we'll get into the Mon-Fri sked which is generally two boats dives in the morning, break for lunch, one or two shore dives in the afternoon (either the house reef or we drive somewhere), dinner, and then a night dive for anyone interested (or we do a dusk dive before dinner). So you can dive as much or as little as you like, get in as many as five dives in a day, explore parts of the island (we'll definitely do a looking-for-Flamingos drive around the island), and just really relax and have a good time. We've got both 1- and 2-bedroom apartments booked right now so that you either have the place to yourself in a 1-bedroom, or you have your own bedroom and bathroom in the 2-bedrooms with some shared space (living room, kitchen, patio/balcony) as well. Best of all, the price is the same for either one. That would be $2,495/diver which includes all the diving, nitrox if qualified, breakfast daily (on our own for lunch and dinner), a rental vehicle (FYI, they only have stick shifts), and crew/staff tip. We've got eight folks confirmed so far and will max this out at 16 divers. A $500 deposit locks in your spot. If you need additional info, call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail to this addy.

WHITHER THE DODGERS? - More like they withered. Would have been nice to be up 2-0 but I guess 1-1 is better than 0-2.

And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon!!!

- Ken