Diving with the Watson Brothers

I went diving the other day with Joey, and Joey's brother John. Joey is one of my past students and his brother was out here diving. Some of you may remember Joey because he was on the dive where he didn't show me a seahorse, and I blogged about it, because I was so upset. Anyway... he is forgiven now because I saw a seahorse the other day.

It was so super tiny, really tiny, but sooooo cute. I am in love, really. It must have been about 1.5 cm in length and looked just like a floating bit of seaweed but with this sweet little head bobbing up and down. So, Joey is forgiven.
The Watson brothers went diving for two days with us and we had a blast. Diving with Joey is always fun because he is so full of energy. Whenever I looked around he would be upside down, doing sommersaults, sometimes his fins would be off.... when he did his open water we had a long discussion about "stealth" underwater, and he is defintely incorporating some James Bond into his diving!

We also had Hans diving with us who was from Holland and our good friends Heather and Laura. Heather and Laura were both instructors with us when we worked at Stuart Cove's in the Bahamas, so we kind of had a little reunion. It was so nice to see them, and they really helped out a lot. Heather even taught an open water class for us, and Patrick and Fred were really glad for that!

We had four great dives, doing a drift dive behing Creole Rock, another dive at Turtle Reef and then two dives at Tintamarre, at Japanese Garden and the Tugboat. We saw turtles and eagle rays, and just had lots of fun.... Here are some pics for your enjoyment.

Some other news at the moment, boat construction still going on. We just installed the new engines (they look great!) and we are putting in the tank racks tomorrow. Then we will anti foul the boat, (it was never anti fouled becuase it was always taken out of the water every night.) We are going to make sure that the boat is comfortable for riders as well as divers. We are really excited, so any divers that come and dive with us in October will be on the new boat!!!

Alright, gotta do some boring accounts now.

It is the end of August, can you believe that? Where did the summer go?

(Sally wrote this blog :) )

Congrats to Open Water Students....

Wow... I can't believe that it has been so long since I last blogged! This month has just flown by because so much has happened...

First of all I want to say congratulations to all the students that we have certified in the last couple of weeks. They all did fantastic, and we could not be prouder of their accomplishments.

So, here are some pictures of them. They are, from left to right and top to bottom, Tom and Leo (from France), Tricia and Aaron (from California), Patrick (from Quebec, Canada), Ilene (from NYC), Tricia (from San Pedro, California), Fred (from Quebec, Canada), Aaron (from California). Alicia (from NY), Melissa and Robin (from France), Laura (from Indiana), Josh (from NY as well) and finally, Robin and Melissa (from France).

Other news is that the new boat is here! Yeah! Chris is working on it, diligently, putting in new tank racks, replacing the engines, rewiring the boat, putting in new guages, and lots of other stuff I don't even really understand! His goal is to make it a really comfortable boat to dive from, and also to relax on in between the dives. It looks beautiful. We are making final changes this week, and hope to put her on a sea trial next week! So exciting! We are calling her "Octopussy" in keeping with Octopus Diving. What do you think?

You wouldn't believe that Octopussy arrived the day before Hurrican Bill. That meant that we had two boats to worry about as Bill passed us. Luckily, Bill passed about 300 miles away, and we had some rough seas and winds, but nothing major. The visbility wasn't great for a few days, but it is back to normal and we are diving regularly again.

Alright, I want to blog again tomorrow, so if I don't, send me an email to nag me. Tomorrow I want to post some photos of a dive I did with the Watson Brothers! I can't right now as I have four students who should be here now... they are 15 minutes late for their final exam.... they're in big trouble!

(Sally wrote this blog :) )

August update

Its a beautiful day today here in St.Martin, the sun is shining and the sea's are calm. All is about to change in the next few weeks.
Check out this link: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

As you may know its hurricane season and we are having a spell of tropical cyclones passing through with one large depression expected in 7 days time, so fingers crossed. We have our Hurricane action plan ready and our boat is planned to be lifted out at a minutes notice if needs be.
A Hurricane plan is difficult, how far do you go? How much food do you really need? What if the roof blows off the house, or we lose our sea wall defence again? Its a very difficult decision to know exactly what to do, but after Hurrciane Omar last year we are now even more prepared mentally and physically and each person in the team knows thier job.
I just checked the website again Aug 12th 1400hrs and in the last hour the storm on the West coast of Africa has just intensified considerably..........

We have had another extremely busy week this week, with 8 open water certifications in the last 10 days which is just amazing considering that we are still in a reccession and a fully booked schedule again.

The new boat is on its way from Florida and scheduled to be here in a week or two, the new engines have been ordered, once fitted we are ready to go - can't wait! Lets hope it doesn't get blown away in the storm...

The SNUBA operation is full steam ahead, the contract with Club Orient is signed and sealed and they have used Sally's awesome photographs on thier website with a great link to our website: http://www.cluborient.com/waterSports.php

SNUBA will be available to all aged 8 through 80 and is so easy compared to Scuba, just a 15 minute briefing and you are in the water, no heavy tanks or weights, just a tube to the surface and some fins and you are diving!!
The new website www.octopussnuba.com will be up and running in a few weeks after Sally makes some finishing touches to it.

I have had the go ahead from Mercury to train as a Technician at thier manufacturing facility in Miami. This now means that any downtime will be kept to a minimum if we experience technical problems with the boat. I leave in September for a week for an intensive 4 day course.

Sadly, Jean Phillipe has left Octopus Diving, he will be missed by the Staff and Customers alike. We are currently seeking his replacement on the PADI Website. Bon chance JP !!

We have some Freinds staying at our apartment at the moment, Heather and Laura. They are old Friends and instructors from Stuart Cove in the Bahamas. After living with 3 girls for less than 72 hours, I have now learnt the do's and don'ts of "foundation" (after enduring a make up video last night for an hour), I never knew just how complicated foundation can be, I now understand why it takes them so long to leave the house!
They are off for ladies night at the movies tonight so I get some peace, if they ever get there!!
Heather and Laura if you are reading this - we will miss you when you leave !!

Trip Advisor is looking very healthy with a total 51 reviews, 5 stars and of course we are still number 1 attraction on St.Martin.

The review from the Schneider Family is great. This family of 4 came on a private boat charter and thier youngest Daughter 4 years old was snorkeling at Turtle Reef and saw turtles - we couldn't get the mask and snorkel off her all day - she loved it. Then we went to Green cay and she saw Eagle Rays and Sting rays. We took them to Pinel Island for Lunch and then headed home - a fantastic full day boat charter and the highlight of thier week on a Caribbean Cruise.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g147351-d1092282-Reviews-Octopus_Diving-Grand_Case_St_Maarten_St_Martin.html
Thanks to the Schneider's for a great day and also to our instructor Christian for being a great Snorkel guide.

We will keep you updated with Hurricanes so watch this space.

That's about it for today,

Have a great week

Chris.

What do we do on our days off?

A lot of people ask Chris and I what we do on our days off. Well, first of all, there aren't many. We are open 7 days a week, so that means that we sneak a morning or an afternoon off once in a while. Sometimes a long while.... and then there is the added component of actually getting a day off together, this is the most difficult.

Not that we begrudge any of this, it is just one of those things when you own your own business.

However, saying all that, Chris and I finally did manage to get a day off together last week. So, what did we do? We went diving! I have told a lot of people this, and they seem kind of shocked, that diving would be the last thing that we would want to do on our precious and rare days off together. But at the end of the day, diving is what Chris and I love, and it is also what brought us together in the first place.

I do love diving with customers and students, but there is something so wonderful about just diving with your husband, not worrying about anyone's air, or if they are finning too far away. Not thinking about currents or water clarity, just diving. It was also super nice because I didn't even have my camera. We were just diving for the sake of diving. We didn't even go anywhere special, we went to Turtle Reef. We both must have done this site a hundred times, but it was amazing! We spent 98 minutes down there and didn't even notice the time pass. We were just looking, observing, searching. That is what diving is all about for us, discovering the mysteries of the underwater world.

We found a tiny octopus, a shrimp I had never seen before, some tiny crabs, we saw loads of turtles, I found a tiny tiny pigmy file fish, there was a barracuda that we got so close to I couldn't believe it.

I also think that it is necessary for us to dive like that sometimes. So that we never forget why we are so blessed to be doing what we are doing, because we truly love it.

Anyway... that is how we spent a large portion of our day. The rest of the day we spent at Happy Bay, relaxing, reading, sleeping. Then it was back to work (can you hear the crack of a whip?)

I have recently revamped the website, added some more photos, a couple more pages, just tried to make it more professional and more friendly to use. Let me know what you think about it, and also if there are any broken links or anything.

We have a really nice boat this morning, three people from Holland, two from Virginia, and one from NY. They are diving on the dutch side as they wanted to see some wrecks!

I will try and be more diligent about the blog, I realize that I have been slacking.

(Sally wrote this blog. :) )