On Mon, 1 Oct 2001 Reef Fish <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

<large snip of the Prolog by the Kiwi shears> .....
>.. End of Editorial resulting from a self-imposed 90-days of
>observation of newsgroups and LISTS, having been absent from
>posting in Scuba-SE and Scuba-L.

Welcome back :-) ....  been bloody boring with many of our more regular
and knowledgeable posters off-line for various reasons. There is only so
much us 'Sydney & Elsewhere' folk can post without some input from You,
Bjorn, Andy, Crusty, Jeff, John Nitrox and a few of the other more vocal
posters ;-))

<snip of the kiwi shears again>
>Meanwhile NONE of the checked bags of DOMESTIC-flight passengers
>was manually inspected at all! Only those with a FINAL INTERNATIONAL
>destination had the privilege of being thoroughly searched, manually.
>It apparently didn't occur to the geniuses behind this safety-check
>scheme that DOMESTIC travellers are just as capable of having bombs
>in their checked luggage as we were, and all of us were on the SAME
>plane, landing at the SAME destination, the Houston Intercontinental
>Airport, also known as the George Bush airport, before going our
>separate ways to different planes and different locations!

Yikes! What about the enemy within? The naturalised American/illegal
immigrant who takes up the call AGAINST the US in the name of religion who
plans to wipe out as many of his fellow citizens as he can BEFORE the plane
flys out over international waters.


>THE SUN DANCER II
<snip of a great trip report>

Bob, You are getting so good at identifying all those Pacifc fish you will
have no trouble getting to know ours, on this side of the pond, when we
have our Indo-Pacific NEDfest sometime in the not-too-distant-future.

<snip>
>Two of the expected 12 didn't make it.  Two of the remaining 10
>arrived late the week before because they were stranded in Guam, and
>so they got to dive the first two days of this week's charter to
>complete their week.  After the first two days, there were only EIGHT
>divers.  Except for one passenger from Malaysia, the rest were all
>from the USA, mostly from the West Coast.

Dive buddies of mine ended up diving off Truk Lagoon (Chuuk) with a party
of 6 on the liveaboard SS Thorfinn during late December 1999 going into New
Years due to many Americans pulling out because of Y2K fears with planes.
I assume many of those who cancelled would have lost quite a bit of their
deposits.

But back to your trip report. Nice to hear no scuba-cops being a pain in
the arse too ;-) There is a huge difference between giving out advice where
warranted ie newbie diver pushing the limits without realising the
consequences .. and being dictated to.

On the 13th of November I will be up diving on the Ningaloo Reef with a
couple of mates of Strike's. Steve & Coralie Steward who a couple of years
back where the Manager & Manageress of the Layang-Layang Resort. Steve is
on 6 weeks leave after a stint of commercial diving in the Middle East.
Strike, ya think you could get Scotty to beam you up & over to the Ningaloo
Reef Oct 13 - 20. I am pulling out on the 16th due to work commitments but
by then You, Steve & Coralie would know the location of all my favourite
dive sites off Coral Bay so you could make your own fun :-)
Viv