Off-topic Discussion moved from Diver Missing in the Bahamas thread

[drrich2]

Is there a charter boat or live-aboard dive op. that is not for profit?

 

[ScubaPink]

Is there a charter boat or live-aboard dive op. that is not for profit?

I should have been more clear. Exploiting sharks- baiting them to you for a photo and bragging rites...and thump on the chest...whatever your reason. As divers we should respect the marine environment and merely be observers to the world we have intruded upon.

These ops are "sharing their love for these misunderstood creatures".....I am just calling bull. It is about the Benjamins....all about the Benjamins and nothing but the Benjamins.

 

[Blyslv]

I should have been more clear. Exploiting sharks- baiting them to you for a photo and bragging rites...and thump on the chest...whatever your reason. As divers we should respect the marine environment and merely be observers to the world we have intruded upon.

These ops are "sharing their love for these misunderstood creatures".....I am just calling bull. It is about the Benjamins....all about the Benjamins and nothing but the Benjamins.

Not to mention torturing other fish, making them die slow deaths; to attract a few more wanna-be, he manly-mens.

I bet this post gets deleted because it does not comport to the prevailing Groupthink.

 

[The Chairman]

This is the second time you're used the word "jihad" in this thread. Are you going for cheap emotionalism? Do you even know what it means, or how incredibly snarky it is? Please stop equating people holding valid opinions with violent, religiously motivated murderers and war mongers. It's sleazy.

Of course I know what a jihad is and it's never good. It's done by narrow minded people trying to eliminate all other opinions and yes, that applies to a few who are trying to push their catechism of anti-shark feeding upon us. In other words, they remind me of any religious zealot who feels that only they have the truth. Is it snarky? I hope so. I have absolutely no stomach for them trying to use this tragedy to push their unholy agenda. It's gross. It's ugly. It's nothing but a mean jihad based on nothing more than a failed belief that they have the right to tell others what to do and do it through fear mongering and character assassination.

It's not like I called them a Nazi or equated this to the holocaust.

I get that this is an emotional issue. People who have very few facts are acting like they are experts. In reality, a lot more research needs to be done to figure this out. Simply banning shark feeding on a gut feeling is wrong and un-American. We need fewer laws based on emotion and laws that actually make sense. Like spear fishing, if you don't like it: don't do it. Vote with your fins. There's no need to trash people's businesses out of petty jealousy and a need to poke your nose into how they run their business.

 

[The Chairman]

I bet this post gets deleted because it does not comport to the prevailing Groupthink.

Let me understand this. A large group of people disagree with you and it's "group think"??? Secondly, you don't think I like controversy? This kind of open debate is GREAT for the site. It's also great for the sharks and the community. The more everyone posts their conflicting opinions, the more Google likes ScubaBoard. We've been kind of blase' for a bit, so this is good stuff. Don't ever think we don't like conflicting opinions. We exist because of them. On the other hand, don't expect your opinion to always be the popular one. The only time we exclude people is when they are mean. Disagree early and often. We love the traffic!!! Now, ScubaPink might suggest that this too is "all about the Benjamins", and She'd be wrong, wrong wrong. Most diving businesses began as hobbies and simply consumed our time and energies making it imperative to find a way to make a living off of it. We need those Benjamins so we can continue having fun and pay the rent. Like ScubaBoard, I can tell you that shark feeding was all about having fun first and sharing it second.

 

[danvolker]

Years ago there used to be many great ski slopes, with awesome trails that would twist through the woods, and many skiers thought these were the ultimate experiences to enjoy....Then, a someone ran into a tree, and died..maybe a few of these incidents out of millions of skier runs down the hills, but the Nanny types grabbed these deaths, and shrieked that someone must prevent the evil ski slopes from having such dangerous threats on their properties, as the trail systems....and so today, many slopes have REMOVED the trails, due to the Nanny types...the people that feel we must be protected from ourselves.... I wish we could be protected from the Nanny types....!

 

[boulderjohn]

Years ago there used to be many great ski slopes, with awesome trails that would twist through the woods, and many skiers thought these were the ultimate experiences to enjoy....Then, a someone ran into a tree, and died..maybe a few of these incidents out of millions of skier runs down the hills, but the Nanny types grabbed these deaths, and shrieked that someone must prevent the evil ski slopes from having such dangerous threats on their properties, as the trail systems....and so today, many slopes have REMOVED the trails, due to the Nanny types...the people that feel we must be protected from ourselves.... I wish we could be protected from the Nanny types....!

Nice theory, but not remotely true, at least here in Colorado. Here are videos from four different mountains nearby. Yes, I have skied all these runs. There are a lot more like them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEGeAkM6yk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0dhYn7cJ2o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-n1b6H9NyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v90i_VvEZYo

 

[Doug Kahle]

I am not going to contribute more the this thread but really felt the need to post a link to a youtube video on an Abernathy dive whereby a diver, our of our camera lens, continues to "pet" the sharks. The gut-wrenching thing is when you see the sharks reaction- eye-rolling to signify aggression.

This "show of affection" from this diver begins at around the 10.19 and happens again at 10:48.

The shark is not enjoying this "petting."

Shark expedition with Jim Abernethy's Scuba Adventures - YouTube

Wow! The eye does not roll to signify aggression. The protective membrane covers the eye automatically when the shark's snout is close to contact with anything. The sharks can leave anytime they want; the Tiger you refer to was in no hurry to go anywhere. If it were not for JASA and other shark feeding operations in conjunction with photographers the masses of people would not know the truth about sharks and shark conservation would be nowhere near where it is right now. Eco-tourism, ie, making money from sharks, is what will prevent the extinction of the sharks and will save the ocean in the long run.

 

[Mike]

What we are NOT talking about is poorly trained OW Divers....divers that get turned out en-mass by the big agencies, and really should have no more than a "Learner's Permit"....
What "we ARE" talking about, are the pro level photographers that frequent Abernethy's boats, Randy Jordan's boats, and other boats that cater to divers that are actually "Advanced Divers".....and this is certainly not to be mis-construed to mean the Advanced Open Water Cert, which offers zero indication of the diver's skills or awareness levels. There is a "common Sense" understanding of an "Advanced diver", someone with thousands of dives, that enjoys dives in challenging conditions, absolutely does not need a dive guide or dive master ( is probably BETTER than many dive guides or Dive Masters), this is a diver that has great peripheral awareness....and that avoids going out on boats that cater to students and novice divers, and would be very annoyed to find themselves on a boat where the captain or crew would presume to direct them in any way, on the basics of safe diving ( how much pressure to come up with, the suggestion that they need to use a buddy they don't know, the list of suggestions crews make to novice divers goes on ad nauseum.

This is likely to describe MANY in this thread, and it describes a very large portion of the shark diving fraternity.

Dude the day you can fend off a baracudda attack we will have something to talk about. I talked about fending off marine life at close range, you then boiled it down to a very specific scenario. If you're experienced as I know you to be you've witnessed more than once the lightening speed that some marine species move at when they have targetted something as prey and the only thing for you to do at this point would be to agree or fall back on another specific scenario.

This is what I said

Once marine life be it sharks or other predators get in close you have no defense against them, you're at their mercy at that point and what happens you'll only be along for the ride for at that point.

A specific scenario of fending of fat lazy tiger sharks with a camera doesn't negate every scenario or every marine species.

It also doesn't have anything to do with dividing up divers between your super hero species of diver and the poor lazy slob divers who make up the rest of us.

 

[danvolker]

Nice theory, but not remotely true, at least here in Colorado. Here are videos from four different mountains nearby. Yes, I have skied all these runs. There are a lot more like them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEGeAkM6yk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0dhYn7cJ2o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-n1b6H9NyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v90i_VvEZYo

John,
Now if I had been lucky enough to grow up in the area around Vail and Beavercreek ( which I have skied several times), it would probably be easy for me to believe that this was THE ONLY place to ski in the world, and that the only skiing that was important, was the skiing in co....Instead, I grew up in Western New York, and the ski area like Glennwood Acres, Kissing Bridge, and Holiday Valley were heavily laden with awesome trails back in the 70's....( not awesome by C0 standards I am aware )
Today, while I have not skied this area for a decade or so, my understanding from friends back in Western NY, is that the trails are gone, due to liability.
So you might want to modify your response to my last post a bit..

---------- Post added July 25th, 2014 at 05:07 PM ----------

Dude the day you can fend off a baracudda attack we will have something to talk about. I talked about fending off marine life at close range, you then boiled it down to a very specific scenario. If you're experienced as I know you to be you've witnessed more than once the lightening speed that some marine species move at when they have targetted something as prey and the only thing for you to do at this point would be to agree or fall back on another specific scenario.

This is what I said



A specific scenario of fending of fat lazy tiger sharks with a camera doesn't negate every scenario or every marine species.

It also doesn't have anything to do with dividing up divers between your super hero species of diver and the poor lazy slob divers who make up the rest of us.

OK, I will agree that IF a big 8 foot cuda ( or 4 foot cuda) decided to blast in at full speed and bite on impact....we would have a very hard time even tracking them with our eyes--so our attempts to fend the cuda off with a camera would be hot-or-miss Maybe we would get lucky, maybe not.

In the 70's I was in places off tobago with thousands of cudas everywhere---and with hundreds following us and often the smaller ones making fake high speed passes at us.
Because of the way they came in, they were very easy to shoot with a speargun, but again, if all you had was a camera, you would be less than happy about the Cuda making serious passes at you.

The thing is, in over 4 decades--all very outrageous adventure diving....even with spearfishing I have never had a cuda actually try to bite me....They do look scary...and if you somehow figured out a way to FORCE ONE to attack, it would be hard to deal with given only a camera in your hands.....if that is what you want me to agree with, you have it