Well Mike, come to Juneau. The diving's great and I need some new buddies.
In fact, that's an open invitation to anyone on the list who wants to visit
Alaska.  I'll take you out and show you some good diving.

The simple fact is that I'd never have gotten anywhere nearly as deep into
the equipment end of things if I lived in the lower 48.  When I lived in
Seattle I had 2 AL80s and never had need for anything else because there's a
dive shop with a fill station near just about every dive site in Puget
Sound, and most of them are open on Sundays too.

Up here the reality is that if you really want to get out and discover the
very best diving, then you have no real alternative other than doing
everything yourself from the boat to the fills.  Lots of local casual
recreational divers are perfectly happy to just do the occasional shore dive
from the Juneau road system or short-distance boat dives off of skiffs.  But
if you wanted to push out and discover the most spectacular sites and
wrecks, that means a pretty major investment in equipment.  You can plan way
ahead, get some friends together, bareboat charter a yacht, rent a
compressor, and set out on an adventure.  I've done that too.  But the risk
of planning a major dive trip months in advance is that the weather will
turn bad on you and will wipe out your plans.

I have often wondered if a liveaboard dive charter boat would be successful
up here.  The diving is certainly good enough and the scenery and wildlife
above the surface is without equal.  But the season is pretty short and the
weather can be unpredictable.  There are a lot of mini-cruise ships and
liveaboard charters that do ecotourism, kayaking, whale watching, fishing,
birdwatching, that sort of thing.  But I don't know of any that have ever
specialized in diving.  Maybe when I burn out working in commercial
fisheries management and decide to retire!

-Kent-

> -----Original Message-----
> From: SouthEast US Scuba Diving Travel list
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Mike Wallace
> Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 6:18 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [SCUBA-SE] UBS stick?
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kent Lind" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > Strike wrote:
> >
> > > Kent!  Sorry to be so slow in the uptake on this, but what method
> > > do you use
> > > in mixing your own nitrox?  (The reason that I ask is that I'm a nosey
> > > bastard!)  :-)
> >
> > I have a RIX SA-6E oil-free compressor in my garage along with a 5
> cylinder
> > HP storage bank.
>
> You suck!  :-)
>
> Mike
>