Technical Scuba Diving
Intro / Background We initially dove this P38 in 2022. Lora @ Marissa Charters recently ran a trip to visit this deeper P38 off Solana Beach and then a shallower but more visited P3-8 off Torrey Pines. It was a "double P-38 day." I had a very specific dive plan since I wanted to be [...]
Intro Deception Island was our last stop...upon reflection, it really tied everything together. I will start with a small detour and add an interesting twist and a bit of symmetry. By chance, literally 48 hours after I landed back home from Antarctica, I was fortunate to see Mensun Bound speak at the Adventurer's Club in [...]
Intro After our adventures crossing the Antarctic Circle and at Detaille Island, we headed North with haste. The ocean was rough enough that once again, the portholes on my lower cabin were closed for the journey. After a rocky might at sea, we had a leisurely morning as we continued to our next destination, Fournier [...]
Intro The Hondius idled slowly towards the Antarctic Circle on 22 March as passengers got going with their fill of coffee and tea. Everybody was excited to be traversing south of the Antarctic Circle. Theoretically, when you are north of this imaginary circle, you are in the "Southern Temperate Zone" and it isn't until you [...]
Introduction After our stop at Mikkelsen Harbor, we headed south to Lemaire Channel. The channel is a narrow gap between an island and the mainland of Antarctica and is very majestic and impressive. It is little less than 7 miles long but only 1700 yards wide at the narrowest point. In fact, we arrived at [...]
Intro After our adventures at Devil Island and Brown Bluff, we went for a long boat ride up and around the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula towards Mikkelsen Harbor which is on the south side of Trinity Island on the northwest side of the peninsula. The originl of the name Mikkelsen Harbor comes from Peder [...]
Background The next stop on our Antarctica trip was slated to be the only stop on the mainland of the 7th continent. All other other stops were islands around the mainland. Usually, after a dive, the divers would join the land team but sometimes that doesn't happen for various reasons. Therefore, I wanted to be [...]
Background Devil Island was our first stop after Elephant Island. The images below (left to right, top to bottom) show our traveled path out of Elephant Island (in red) and our planned path to Devil Island (in yellow) when they gave us the daily update the night before. Devil Island is in the James Ross [...]
Background Our first stop on the epic trip to Antarctica was Elephant Island. Our path to Point Wild (Photo: Becky Kagan Schott) When I asked the expedition team "why is it named Elephant Island," I got a funny look and then they said that is is likely either (1) because Elephant Seals used to live [...]
As the saying goes "I"m hard to shop for." This Christmas, my wife was creative and very thoughtful when she arranged for a Gyotaku art class -- with a world class artist who happens to live very close to us. I've always really enjoyed the look of Gyotaku art and admired the prints during my [...]