Blog Roll Addition: Prime Scuba

Hey divers!

Just wanted to give a shout out to the latest addition to our illustrious scuba diving blog roll: Prime Scuba Blog.

The Prime Scuba Blog is an extension of their main site, PrimeScuba.com, which provides discounted scuba equipment. We love discounted scuba equipment.

They're just getting their blog up and running, so kick over and give them some love! Oh, and don't be afraid to let them know you think they should carry some items from the Neutral Dive Gear scuba diving clothing line.

Go dive!

;-)

BREAKING: Watson Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter

It takes a sick individual to allow his new bride to die right in front of him. Watson deserves to be charged with murder -- and knows it. So he's pleading guilty to manslaughter to get out of the punishment he deserves.

Bubble wrap salesman David Gabriel Watson, who has since remarried, admitted to manslaughter in a Brisbane court hearing.

...

Prosecutor Brendan Campbell accepted the plea on the basis that Mr Watson had failed in his duty as her dive buddy by failing to give her emergency oxygen when she needed it.

Mr Watson allowed Tina to sink to the ocean floor without making any serious attempt to rescue her and also failed to inflate her buoyancy vest or remove weights from her belt to allow her to surface, Mr Campbell said.

"He virtually extinguished any chance of her survival," he told the court.

Sicko.

Under this plea, Watson won't get anything close to what he deserves.

Prosecutors sought a five-year jail term for Mr Watson, with the possibility of parole after 18 months. He was due to be sentenced later on Friday.

Does anyone really think a punishment of five years in prison with the possibility of parole after just 18 months fits this crime?

Terrible.

Carl Spencer: Modest Professional

Last week the UK-based Telegraph released Carl Spencer's obituary, which we think does a good job at encompassing for all that he lived.

Carl Spencer, who has died aged 39, was one of the world's most accomplished deep-wreck divers and led several high-profile explorations of famous wrecks, including that of Titanic; he was killed in a diving accident during an underwater filming mission exploring Titanic's sister ship, Britannic.

Although best known as a talented technical diver with a glamorous career in the oceans of the world, Spencer also followed a more workaday calling as a heating and air conditioning engineer based in the Midlands. A modest, self-effacing man, he invariably told people that he was "just a plumber from Cannock".

This spring he was part of a 17-strong crew commissioned by National Geographic magazine to dive on Britannic, which sank in the Aegean Sea, off Greece, in 1916. The wreck lies on its starboard side in 120 metres of water and is well-preserved.

The diving mission was part of efforts by the Britannic Foundation, headed by a British historian and businessman, Simon Mills, to convert her into an underwater tourist attraction by running tours in mini-submarines.

Spencer's team was due to spend nine days on an internal and external analysis of the wreck, first discovered by the French explorer Jacques Cousteau in 1975. A veteran of three expeditions to Britannic, Spencer made his first dive on the wreck six years ago, uncovering evidence that the ship had been sunk by a mine rather than a torpedo, a question that had long divided historians.

Some had believed that she was attacked for carrying weapons while being disguised as a hospital ship. Survivors spoke of seeing torpedo trails in the water, in which case the Germans would have committed a war crime by attacking a hospital ship.

But Spencer favoured the theory of a mine explosion – a view reinforced when his team discovered debris entangled in mine anchors laid in the Kea channel of the Aegean.

Spencer found that when Britannic was mined, the ship's watertight doors had been open, allowing water to flood through; she sank in less than an hour, much faster than Titanic. He became the first diver to find and film the doors which, with the lower portholes, had been left open because it was so hot below decks.

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Our thoughts and prayers remain with Spencer's family and friends.

Police Divers Retrieve Ditched Loot

Scuba diving is quite useful when a thieves decide to ditch stolen goods in various waterways.

Columbus police divers have recovered about $22,000 worth of stolen jewelry and coins that were tossed into water, as investigators continue searching for property taken by a multimillion-dollar burglary ring.

An estimated $800,000 worth of items remain missing from a break-in at 4252 Shire Cove Rd. in December 2007, said Hilliard police Sgt. Mike Redmond.

The priciest item recovered by divers was a Rolex watch worth $16,000.

"It was still ticking," Redmond said. "I guess they really are waterproof."

Seven members of the ring, which burglarized more than 25 homes in Hilliard and on the Northwest Side, have been convicted; two others await trial.

As part of plea bargains in the case, some of the burglars agreed to tell investigators where stolen goods were dumped. "At some point, they panicked and threw stuff in different waterways," Redmond said.

A team of eight Columbus police divers spent about 15 hours Wednesday and Thursday searching bodies of water in Franklin County, said Columbus Sgt. Jeff Sacksteder. The waters were so murky that investigators used metal detectors, he said.

Most of the items were found in one location, but investigators aren't revealing where they searched. "We don't want people to start scavenger hunts of their own," Redmond said.

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We really dig law enforcement dive teams.

Christina Watson's Father Gives Television Interview

The father of alleged scuba diving murder victim Christina Watson gave an interview recently in which he vowed to "keep going" until his daughter can rest in peace.

In a teary interview on Good Morning America (GMA), Tommy Thomas described his daughter as an angel watching over his family.

Christina, 26, died in October 2003 while on a Great Barrier Reef diving expedition with her husband of just 13 days, Gabe Watson.

The Alabama couple flew to Australia for their honeymoon and Queensland police allege Watson murdered Christina during the dive.

"To us, she is an angel that's watching after us," an emotional Thomas said in Thursday's interview with GMA.

The segment showed Thomas visiting his daughter's grave in Alabama.

"I just tell her that I love her and I just keep telling her that I'm going to keep going until I can help her rest and be at peace," Thomas said.

Watson has maintained his innocence and in a surprise move voluntarily flew to Australia on May 13 to face the allegations.

Here's the story and video from ABC:

As Gabe Watson waits in an Australian jail to defend himself in court against accusations that he killed his new bride on a scuba diving trip in 2003, the woman's father, Tommy Thomas, has no doubts about what happened in his daughter's final moments.

"He had turned off her oxygen," Thomas told "Good Morning America." Like the millions of viewers that saw media reports of the death, Thomas has seen the image of his daughter floating motionless in the water as captured by a tourist's underwater camera. Watson is not in the picture.

"He had held her until she went unconscious, then turned it back on and let her go to the sea bed," Thomas said.

Regular readers know that we've been tracking this story here at the Scuba Diving Blog for just shy of a year now. For those of you who haven't been following the Watson story, here's a list of past posts to get you caught up:

- He's Back Down Under

- David Watson Officially Charged in Wife's Scuba Diving Death

- Material Witness: Gabe Watson's Story Makes No Sense

- US Investigator: Many "Red Flags" in David Watson's Story

- Husband Charged with Honeymoon Scuba Diving Murder

Again, we will continue to follow case developments to the best of our ability. But we would still like to caution the dive community against forgetting that David Watson is - and should be - granted the presumption of innocence until a court finds otherwise.

May justice prevail.

Diver Error to Blame for Experienced Technical Dive Instructor's Death

Last week it was reported that failure to use a mooring line was a contributing factor in the death of a scuba diver who drowned at a popular dive site near Nanaimo in November 2007.

[C]oroner Kim Bailey found that Daniel Harrington, 32, died on Nov. 24, 2007 of accidental drowning due to a scuba diving incident.

Harrington was exploring the HMCS Cape Breton off Snake Island with a friend when they entered a small room and stirred up a cloud of silt, reducing visibility to zero.

One diver was able to find her way out of the room, but could not find Harrington and surfaced to get help from other divers.

Immediate searches were unsuccessful and Harrington’s body was not recovered by RCMP dive teams until Dec. 6, 2007.

The body was found in the room where Harrington and his friend had become separated.

Bailey’s investigation found Harrington was an experienced, certified technical driver/instructor (sic) who had been to the wreck many times in the past. His equipment was found to be functioning normally at the time of the incident and his tanks were found empty of air.

But part of his equipment, a 76-metre spool of line intended to be tied to the outside of a wreck, was not used.

Bailey classified the death as accidental and made no recommendations.

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While the sport of diving enjoys relatively remarkable safety statistics, accidents can and do happen to even the most experienced among us.

"The ship of all ships"

Only a few short days after divers first made the first descent, already some claim the newly-sunk Vandenberg to be one of the best.

A retired Air Force missile-tracking ship intentionally sunk to create an artificial reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
opened Saturday, May 30, to the public.

The 523-foot-long Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is situated about seven miles south of Key West. The bottom of the ship’s hull rests on sand in depths that average 145 feet. But the ship is so massive that the superstructure begins about 45 feet below the surface.

“I’ve dove a lot of ships,” said Tom Kanczuzewski of South Bend, Ind., after surfacing Saturday. “This is the ship of all ships. I’d love to come back in a year and see all the fishes.”

Saturday morning, a lone barracuda patrolled the superstructure of the ship that once tracked the U.S. space program’s launches off Cape Canaveral, monitored U.S. defense missile test launches and eavesdropped on Russian missile launches during the Cold War.

But project organizers think it’s just a matter of days before additional marine life takes up residence.

The wreck is already fulfilling its promise of attracting visitors to the Florida Keys.

“We have calls coming in from as far as Germany and Norway from people planning to come just to dive this wreck,” said Bob Holston, owner of Dive Key West and president of the Keys Association of Dive Operators. “We have more pre-bookings for the summer now than we’ve had in 38 years of being in business.

"This is probably going to be one of the world’s classiest wrecks to dive," Holston said. "And it’s just a corner piece of the wreck trek of the Florida Keys.

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We don't know about you, but we can't wait to get over to the Keys!

Nation's Largest Desalination Project Up for Final Approval

Here's an interesting story out of Southern California.

Desalination's transformation into a viable, mainstream water technology has long hinged on nettlesome fights over permits and politics. But with the largest proposed seawater conversion plant in the United States poised to be approved this week in San Diego, there is another problem: money.

The proposed $300 million plant, which would be built next to a coastal power station in Carlsbad, Calif., has long been viewed as a symbol of desalination's plight in the United States. The project developer, Poseidon Resources Corp., has been winding its way through a maze of state and local agencies for six years, battling community groups, environmental organizations and wary politicians who fear desalinated water will mean added expense and environmental damage.

But that picture could change if the San Diego Regional Water Board votes for final approval. The stakes are high for desalination as many in the industry consider the plant a test case that could trigger a wave of development, especially in thirsty California.

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The question is, of course, what will this mean for coastal wildlife and shallow ocean life in the area?

Further, in 2007 Florida's largest desalination plant was five years old and $40 million over budget. At a time when California is so deeply in debt, are residents to expect the same from this project?

If this development is approved, let's hope project managers do everything in their power to limit -- and avoid all together -- any negative environmental or fiscal impacts to California.

Hat tip: Blogfish