Article Author:

dale
Open Water Scuba Instructor

Hello everyone,

My name is Dale, I am an instructor here at Rainbow Reef and I handle some other jobs here as well, So getting me to post on the web is a big deal! So here it goes and hopefully I will have the time to post many more times so you can all enjoy my pics.

This past month here has been great for diving as well as all of the students that I have had. they were all great and were openwater students or advanced openwater. I also had a few discover scuba diving and one lady who did a refresher and did a great job when she was in the water.

I would like to congratulate alex garcia, shane trittler, patty hundt, the devlin clan, and molly eliezer as our newest open water students. they did a great job and i look foreward to seeing them in the future. my newest advanced openwater students, vahe and anais and also the drankoski family who were great. and michelle gutiard was great and promised to dive a lot more now.

Article Author:

Captain D.J.
Master Instructor

Hi everyone!

We had one of the best weekends of the summer! The conditions were great, and we had lots of divers enjoying it all. George and Mel Yates from Team divers were doing check out dives as usual, but they had the youngest diver we’ve ever had on board doing his certification dives. He finished on Sunday and he as 10 years old and 3 days. He started the class on his birthday three days ago! That is virtually as young as you can possibly be and get certified! Congratulations to Juan and his family!

We had a great gang of wreck crazy divers from Scuba Quest in Orlando, you can see them in action in the video and see the unbelievable conditions they had on the Duane Saturday morning. Special thanks for Jairo and Warren for making everything so smooth with the group! Dave Humphrey who has been diving with us many times came down with Scuba Quest and he snapped an awesome shot (seen below) of the Voyager and a rainbow! He’s got some of his own pictures and video and info on his blog which is located at www.davescuba.com

It was my birthday on Friday so I had one of my friends visiting the Keys to celebrate with me and she brought her friend, so naturally, we had to put them in a Discover Scuba class. They had a great time with Jeff (one of the awesome RRDC Instructors) out at Hole in the Wall and Fire Coral Cave. You can see them in action in the video and get a better view of some of the outstanding conditions we had. My new HD camera setup really captured everything in vivid color and clarity, I think you will enjoy it since I figured out how to use it a bit better.

Cliff Boehm and Mike Boehm were in all week with a big chunk of the immediate family. They arrived earlier in the week when the waves were kind of big, but the visibility held up and the waves calmed down so they got some great trips in. We want to congratulate the Boehm/LeCompte/Grissom clan on 4 new PADI Open Water Divers, and one new PADI Deep Specialty diver.

The season is almost over and we want to thank all the divers who visited us all summer. We dodged the hurricanes so far, basically there were none. We hope you will come and discover how great September and October can be. The summer crowd thins, lots of room on the boats and honestly, we have some of the best conditions of the year when there are no storms, which there usually isn’t, regardless of how sensational they make it sound on the news.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE HD VIDEO FROM THIS WEEKEND!

Article Author:

Captain D.J.
Master Instructor

Hi gang,

I know it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to post to the blog, but we’ve had such a busy summer I really haven’t had time, so in a way, that is probably a good thing.

I got a new HD video camera and housing from Light and Motion and I was anxious to try it. Since I had a friend in town doing the Discover Scuba class, I figured it was a perfect time to take it on a test dive. I didn’t expect much since it was a new camera and a new housing, but it came out ok. Still working on getting the right white balance and colors, but so far I love the housing and controls. Tatyana had a great time on her first dives with her Instructor Jeff, and she also did a great job being a good student and making it easy for Jeff! I know he always appreciates that.

We went to French reef because there was a lot of current on Molasses Reef that afternoon. Vis wasn’t bad, probably about 50 feet or so, but we didn’t have current. The wind was blowing a bit so the waves were 2-3 foot so it made it a little bit more challenging, especially for the new divers. Captain Bill was also in the water teaching his Open Water students, so all things considered with the weather everyone did great..

Hope to get back to posting regularly and getting some other people at the shop more involved in keeping the blog up to date!

I hope you enjoy the video!

Click here to watch French-Reef in HD

Article Author:

Owen
Master Scuba Diver Trainer

Mike Fonda, from the upstate New York/Albany area is PADI’s newest Open Water Diver to be certified in beautiful Key Largo, Florida. Mike endured some rough surface conditions, and had to periodically deal with some current and flow, but he performed his skills like a champ, and successfully completed all four of his Open Water dives to complete his certification. Mike was congratulated for his efforts by some of the native inhabitants of Molasses Reef. Namely a couple of Nurse Sharks, a Green Moray Eel, several large Barricuda, and an Eagle Ray. Congratulations Mike!

Article Author:

Suzette
Advanced Open Water

Well, there was some incredible diving this week.

I know that everyone who was out on the dives that I was on will never forget the incredible sights. My favorite was Horseshoe reef, which had several incredible bait balls that we were able to observe, photograph, and swim through. Visibility there was amazing, and since it’s pretty shallow there the corals were vibrant and a sight to behold. While we were below exploring the reef, the snorkelers above were treated to a shark sighting as well as a big turtle. Here are a few pictures of the reef and the bait balls we came across.  Happy diving! ~~Zette

Article Author:

Captain D.J.
Master Instructor

Hi gang,

Another busy weekend in the Florida Keys.. We had a whale shark sighting at the Duane, an underwater engagement and even a birthday celebration! We had great visibility, it had to be getting close to 100 feet, and there was no current and very small waves..

George and Mel from Team Divers were down as usual, but this weekend it was Mel’s birthday so we couldn’t resist getting her a cake and signing her happy birthday!!

As far as that engagement stuff! Jake called ahead to see what we could do to help him pull off his caper! We explained how we’ve done it before and made sure it was all secret from Kim. So, about half way through the first dive Jake popped the question to an unsuspecting Kim while at Hole in the Wall in Key Largo. When they got back on board, we asked both of them if they were feeling any effects from nitrogen narcosis before, during or after asking or answering the question! Apparently not, so smiles all around… Dale (one of our newest DiveMasters) was on the scene with the camera so he snapped a few shots so we could post them here.. You should be able to tell from the pictures what the answer was, so we won’t spoil the fun!

Article Author:

Captain D.J.
Master Instructor

Hi gang,

We had some really nice folks down from Canada with us for the past 2 weeks. Wayne and Dale Friel hail from Belleville and did a bunch of dives with us and are avid photographers (or at least as far as we can tell!). They were kind enough to leave us with a CD of some of the shots they got on the dive trips they did with us, and wow, they look really nice so we decided to share them with you. Since I’m not a very good underwater photographer, I can’t be sure if our Key Largo dive sites are making them look like good photographers, or they are great photographers making the Key Largo dives sites look so good! I guess you can be the judge! Hahhahah. Anyway, they left us with about 60 great shots and we can’t post them all, but I’ll try and pick a few of the nicest ones to share with everyone.

Well, we hope we see them again some day soon, as they were a pleasure to host, and we hope you will come see some of the things they saw and photographed while they were here!

Article Author:

Captain D.J.
Master Instructor

Hi Gang,

We had a little bit of everything today.. We had some people finishing the AOW certifications, and a Divemaster in training participating in the class. We had the MSDT Prep class going on following another successful IDC class, and then last but not least, we had James and his friend Kevin spearfishing. You can see all that action in the photos, Kevin shot a HUGE Amberjack.. I think they are going to smoke it.. yum yum!

We also got the Tropical Adventure back in the water after being in the boat yard for the week. Fresh paint on all the decks and we compounded and waxed the rest of the hull. She’s fresh and ready to go for Spring Break. Next week we are working on repainting the Tropical Voyager from top to bottom.. She will look like a new boat when we get her back to the Dock..

Article Author:

Captain D.J.
Master Instructor

What the heck does that mean? Well, yesterday Capt. Bill was guiding some divers on the Wreck of the Eagle in Islamorada.. Capt. Dan had heard a rumor that a fishing boat had sunk at the site the day before.. We didn’t believe it.. Oooops!

After it blew everyone’s minds on that trip, we decided to revisit it today and get you some video of what is probably quite a unique experience… When we got out there, Sea Tow had already started to take down lift bags so they could lift it up and salvage it. They were nice enough to let us dive it before they inflated them, in fact we even spent a few minutes and helped haul a few of them down there. Alex was the diver from Sea Tow and it sure looked like he had a tough job.. I think he said they were using five 7,000 pound lift bags, and 3 5,000 lift bags.. Either way, that thing was coming up sometime today, so this was our only chance to see it and hopefully grab some video for you!

It pretty much looked like it just came to rest gently on the bottom, but it was laying right up against the Eagle… Anyway, I guess it doesn’t happen every day so it was interesting to say the least.. On our little impromptu trip we had Col. Mike Cosby from the USAF who is based in Iraq and involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Every time I see him, I thank him for defending our country, so I’ll say it again here.

Happy New Year to everyone! Enjoy the video!

Click here to see the Wreck VIDEO! (requires Flash)

Article Author:

Captain D.J.
Master Instructor

Another year is in the books at Rainbow Reef and we would like to thank everyone who came down to dive with us this year, and we hope to see you next year as well. We’ve met so many nice people over the past few years, and this year was no exception. On behalf of the entire staff we want to wish everyone a happy, healthy and safe holiday season, wherever you find yourself.

May the new year bring you prosperity and be better than 2008. No doubt that this was a tough year for most people with the economy faltering and the pressure that put on all of us. We were paying almost $5.00 a gallon for Diesel fuel at one point, but we are thrilled to be back around $2.50 a gallon again. It is hard to keep the dive trips affordable when fuel is that high, and if a business has to raise prices, it’s a vicious circle.. You have no choice, but then you begin to price people out of the market. So, we did all we could to stand firm and we didn’t raise our prices last year, and we are proud to say we were just about the only shop around that didn’t either raise prices or add a fuel surcharge. We plan on keeping the prices just the same for this coming year, so we hope you will come back and see us! 

We had our annual Holiday party last night. Lots of people came and we had fun telling all the funny stories from the past year.. You would think we all see each other every day, but not really.. Between the two shops and days off, it is rare that we are all under one roof. Not only did we have the whole crew, we were also fortunate enough to have some special guests! George and Mel Yates from Team Divers joined us, along with Anya and Rob from Scuba-Fun.. Candy also came, she is the Dockmaster in Key Largo.. Some of you may even remember my brother George! He came down from West Palm beach! Just about everyone in the crew brought a guest so we had a whole room at Outback Steakhouse to ourselves!

Bridget Findley (Capt. Bills wife) was kind enough to send me a few pictures she took… Some of you we will see this week over Christmas.. The rest of you we will see in 2009!! Look forward to it!