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Dan it sounds like you wish to sell tech diving to an ever increasing >audiance and reap the dollars as the south Fla. dive guru. I am sure >that Vail used to be a great place for hard core skiers but now it is >diluted with candy-ass yuppies. Is that the future of teck diving (you >could just sell "in touch with ones self" tech to hordes of unappreciative >yahoos)? > >Sam Frushour (Tech diving is more than a big wallet and a big ego.) Sam, I have no method of "reaping" dollars from a big technical market. And I'm not "selling", you anything... Even if all the tech divers in the world came to South Florida, this would not be a giant market people could get fat on. I don't have a dive shop or charter boat business. I put out a dive magazine, but its aimed at recreational divers. I know there are people who prefer to dive in five feet of viz, in 50 degree water, and stir around a muddy bottom in hopes of finding a piece of something. If thats what you want, I have nothing to say to you. If you are trying to protect some little hole in the ground somewhere, from tech divers finding out that much better diving is available in south Florida, than maybe I can see what has got you so paranoid. The fact is, South Florida has the best technical diving sites, based on any rational thought process. And its easy for me to prove. Since you appeared to like my skiing anology, I'm surprised you missed the point. I don't know what kind of skier you are, or even if you ski, but I'll assume you do for a moment. Find your favorite run at Vail---maybe its "Look Ma" if your good, or maybe some of the extreme shit not serviced by lifts if you're really good. You would NOT be able to ski this stuff with 1940's equipment. Not even with 1960's equipment. Tech diving needs a market focus to develop to the point where the equipment does what we need it to do, at a price any of us can afford... "Candy ass yuppies" will never be tech divers. Most will stay P.A.D.I. AOW divers, and thats where they belong. In case you did'nt notice, my e-mail was to techdiver@terra.net, not to rec.scuba I don't want the average diver to get into technical diving. There's even alot of technical divers I've seen on boats in the last two years who don't have the physical fitness they need to dive deep (gross obesity or lack of cardiovascular conditioning), and several who are clearly are unsafe below 150 feet. The "focus" I'm talking about could help eliminate the slugs, or force them into shape. If you had done only 5 or 10 technical exposures beyond 250 feet, don't you think it would be better for you to dive with some of the world's best tech divers (yeah, you find more of them diving Pompano Beach, Fl than anywhere else) and learn from them, than to dive with a bunch of local yahoos where you knew more than any of them? Would'nt it be better to see and even try out the best equipment and configurations with their help? Or should everyone stay in their own little pond, and believe that whats "close" is always whats "best"? As far as "opportunism" is concerned (your subject header), alot of tech divers have the opportunity to come here and have more fun technical diving, than they have ever had before. And "you" would have the opportunity to come here and learn not to make comments about ego until you know who and what you are talking about... Dan >On Wed, 19 Jul 1995, Dan Volker wrote: > >> Date: Wed, 19 Jul 1995 14:04:56 -0400 >> From: Dan Volker <dlv@ga*.ne*> >> To: techdiver@terra.net >> Subject: Do you want "tech talk" or "tech diving"? >> >> I'm seeing an awful lot of tech talk on this group, but very little actual >> talk about diving. Its almost like a bunch of guys who like to get together >> and talk about girls, but few of them ever actually "do things" with girls. >> Personally , I got into tech diving to see big fish, big sharks, and an >> ecosystem not yet shut down by commercial overfishing. I wanted shipwrecks >> that looked more like my childhood fantasies than like a stripped rowboat on >> a sixty foot reef. And I wanted deep reefs covered with big marine life >> that had never seen divers before. >> >> One of the things that excited me about this tech diver list serve, was >> that with it, there could be enough of us to begin a more commercially >> viable reason for good dive operators and manufacturers to cater to >> technical divers. I was hoping to hear more about tech dives people were >> planning, and to see more opportunities to explore deep virgin sites. >> While South Florida has what could easily be considered to be among the >> world's finest deep wreck and reef dives, it doesn't have enough of us to >> drive a technical diving Mecca into existence. Its alot like 20 or 30 people >> sitting around a big mountain in Colorado called Vail (lets say the year was >> 1940) talking about how cool the skiing is, and wondering about how great it >> could be if we could get the public interested. "Then we wouldn't have to >> walk up the hill, maybe we'd be able to pool our money and make a "rope tow" >> to pull us up to the top. Maybe we could even get somebody to start making >> skis for us better than these wooden boards we are strapping to our feet now. " >> >> I think all of us want more exciting dives. I think all of us would like >> more boats to cater to us. Most of us would like better equipment and more >> access to the best stuff. If we could turn South Florida into a "Vail", we >> could cause the evolution of technical diving to accelerate, and each of us >> would be alot closer to getting what we want out of diving than we can now. >> If any of you are unfamiliar with how much better the technical diving is >> here in South Florida than in other places, I can easily mpeg compress some >> of our video footage and place it in my ftp site for you to down load. this >> would cost you nothing, and once you see it, you will never again dive the >> Keys or that little hole in the ground Hal Watts charges people for. And if >> I was'nt sure I could prove what I'm saying to be true, I would'nt say it. >> >> What I'm proposing is to set up a series of tech dives here in South >> Florida. "Out of towners" could either be offered a weekend stay by a local, >> or could book into one of the hotels that caters to divers already with $40 >> per night deals. We could get local boats here to set up special trips for >> these groups, out to the best sites, and to provide this service at the >> normal dive rate of around $50 for as many tanks as you can do in 4 or five >> hours. Oxygen and Helium would be available. All this would be very easy. >> >> So we can either continue to have discussions about climbing up ladders, O2 >> sensors, and fools, or we can use this list serve to facilitate better >> diving experiences for all of us, at reasonable rates. If enough members of >> this list have an interest, I can have local operators set this up, and even >> have Dive USA add in demos of high tech gear like the Odyssey Rebreather, >> full face masks, nitrox computers and alot more. >> Dan Volker >> 407-683-3592 >> >> -- >> Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@terra.net'. >> Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@terra.net'. >> > > Dan Volker 407-683-3592
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