Galapagos unique?????
mike gray
Galapagos Islands. This represents a 7.5% decrease over the same period
in 2008.
That's "unique" like Times Square on New Year's Eve is unique.
Get away from the crowds - dive Boynton.
esg
Greg Mossman
Surely you're not comparing total number of tourists visiting the
islands with the number of divers diving the many dive sites? That
would be like comparing the number of the tourists visiting Florida
with the number of divers diving Boynton. The vast majority of
tourists in the Galapagos do not dive there, they come to look at
boobies (you could probably say that about many tourists to Florida as
well).
I think you might find that there were a few more tourists visiting
Florida between January and March 2009 than tourists visiting the
Galapagos. You'd probably also find more divers diving Boynton reefs
at any one time than diving at Wolf or Darwin islands. You can also
look at this way: if Boynton were more "unique" surely more tourists
would want to visit? Galapagos is unique enough to convince many
Americans to fly a long way to South America, overnight in either a
yellow-fever and malaria zone or at high brain-decaying altitude, then
slog another few hours over to unhospitable desert islands filled
giant lizards and smelly sea lions. On the other hand, plenty of
Americans can get in their car and drive to Florida.
Your manatees are "unique", that's about it. Compared to the
Galapagos, where you'll find more endemic species on every dive in the
main islands than you can count on your fingers and toes, and
encounter whale sharks, hammerheads, and Galapagos sharks on every
dive at Darwin Island, even Boynton is rather mundane.
mike gray
> On Dec 19, 8:32 am, mike gray <omg...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>>Between January and March 2009, a total of 41,146 tourists visited the
>>Galapagos Islands. This represents a 7.5% decrease over the same period
>>in 2008.
>>
>>That's "unique" like Times Square on New Year's Eve is unique.
>>
>>Get away from the crowds - dive Boynton.
>
>
> Surely you're not comparing total number of tourists visiting the
> islands with the number of divers diving the many dive sites? That
> would be like comparing the number of the tourists visiting Florida
> with the number of divers diving Boynton. The vast majority of
> tourists in the Galapagos do not dive there, they come to look at
> boobies (you could probably say that about many tourists to Florida as
> well).
>
The vast majority of tourists visiting Boynton do not dive there.
Indeed, the vast majority are unaware that there is a reef there.
There are some similarities. Tourists to both places tend to be older
and wealthier than the average tourist. The rich old farts are seldom
seen on the Boynton reefs, but are common underwater in the Galapagos
In the Galapagos, �Approximately 8 land-based dive shops offer day trips
and approximately 25 tour vessels offer ... live-aboard dive cruises.�
Of these 25 boats 15 legal vessels capable of carrying 268 divers
advertise dive trips. Then there�s the illegal vessels operating from
the Galapagos, from Ecuador, and from other countries yielding a
significant additional number of dives/year.
In Boynton (including Lantana), diving is offered by 8 vessels licensed
to carry 112 divers, plus a large number of legal, small vessels
carrying 1-3 divers. The latter yield an insignificant number of dives/year.
There�s no question that the Galapagos are crowded, over-dived, and
over-run with tourists trying their damnedest to kill everything in
sight, then drown.
In Boynton, it�s rare to see another diver or a manatee, whale sharks
are also rare but occasional, hammerheads are frequently seen. If ya
want guaranteed "sees", go to an aquarium. This ain't no zoo. There are
no Galapagos sharks on the Boynton reefs, but there are a few thousand
species not found in the Galapagos. Fingers and toes?????
esg
Greg Mossman
> There are some similarities. Tourists to both places tend to be older
> and wealthier than the average tourist. The rich old farts are seldom
> seen on the Boynton reefs, but are common underwater in the Galapagos
Not that common. The conditions are hardly the calm warm seas that
rich old farts prefer. On my past two trips there were a handful of
divers in their 50s and only one of them even close to what I might
call "rich". The majority of divers were in their 30s and 40s. On my
last trip we had a farrier, a vet, a couple IT types, an electrician,
an engineer, and a teacher. My previous trip included a vice cop, a
mortgage broker, an accountant, and a pastor. Both trips were on
"luxury" liveaboards. I imagine the income levels of the passengers
on the budget liveaboards would be a bit less.
> In the Galapagos, Approximately 8 land-based dive shops offer day trips
> and approximately 25 tour vessels offer ... live-aboard dive cruises.
> Of these 25 boats 15 legal vessels capable of carrying 268 divers
> advertise dive trips. Then there s the illegal vessels operating from
> the Galapagos, from Ecuador, and from other countries yielding a
> significant additional number of dives/year.
>
> In Boynton (including Lantana), diving is offered by 8 vessels licensed
> to carry 112 divers, plus a large number of legal, small vessels
> carrying 1-3 divers. The latter yield an insignificant number of dives/year.
The Galapagos Marine Reserve covers 133,000 sq. km. That's over 21
Palm Beach Counties. Palm Beach County has a population of over 1.1
million people. Projecting that population on an area the size of the
GMR would result in a population of over 23 million people. That's
not even counting the tourists.
Instead, you have the 180,000 or so tourists a year and approximately
40,000 residents. That's less than 100 times the population density
of ultracrowded Palm Beach County.
> In Boynton, it s rare to see another diver or a manatee, whale sharks
> are also rare but occasional, hammerheads are frequently seen. If ya
> want guaranteed "sees", go to an aquarium. This ain't no zoo. There are
> no Galapagos sharks on the Boynton reefs, but there are a few thousand
> species not found in the Galapagos. Fingers and toes?????
Fingers and toes of informants cut off by Columbian drug lords and
tossed over the sides of their cigarette boats? That's nasty.
I didn't see a single finger or toe diving on the pristine Galapagos
reefs, though a vicious moray did try to take off a poor lady's hand
(not Janna's). The Columbian drug lords in Ecuador stay on the
mainland instead of polluting the reefs with body parts to add to all
the other crap, both literarally and figuratively, that 1.1 million
locals and oodles of tourists contribute.
Another nice thing about diving Darwin: no sewage outflow other than
what the boats leave behind. If 1.1 million output 0.5lbs/day, that's
275 tons of fecal matter deposited on the local reefs every single day
of the year. 100,375 tons per year of crap on the reefs, probably
more if you take Christmas and Thanksgiving into account. No wonder
there are so many species of fish. I bet new species are mutating all
the time.
Population of Darwin Island: 0. Population of the nearest island,
Wolf, 40 km away: 0. Call that crowded if you must, but my math says
0 < 1.1 million. That's a lot less crap between you and the sharks.
Scott
news:FfudndfZ1LlgwrDW...@earthlink.com...
<el snippo mal grande>
> esg
You guys are all full of shit until you dive Gods Country.
Greg Mossman
A quarry in the Bible belt?
Curtis
Gotta be a cave diver to do that! ;-)
Curtis
> Gotta be a cave diver to do that! ;-)
Speaking of which, was waiting to see if there were any announcements
from my lunch buddy last Saturday.
Curtis
Greg Mossman
> > You guys are all full of shit until you dive Gods Country.
>
> Gotta be a cave diver to do that! ;-)
Since when did God live in an underground cave? Isn't that where the
other guy lives, the one with horns on his head and a long forked tail?
Scott
"Curtis" <cavey_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4b32cd00$0$4846$9a6e...@unlimited.newshosting.com...
>> You guys are all full of shit until you dive Gods Country.
>
> Gotta be a cave diver to do that! ;-)
http://www.boydski.com/photogallery/Galleries.htm
Greg Mossman
> "Curtis" <cavey_cur...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
I found galleries for Galapagos, Truk Lagoon, Palau, and Cave Diving
on that site. Which one do you consider God's country?
John Hanson
rec.scuba:
Isle Royale shipwrecks? I've done that.
John Hanson
<jha...@northernlinks.com> wrote in rec.scuba:
A few of the pics I took...above water:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104485&id=667112966
Some of you should be able to see these.
Dan Bracuk
>http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104485&id=667112966
>
>Some of you should be able to see these.
Why don't you post them where all of us can see them?
John Hanson
wrote in rec.scuba:
Basically because I'm too lazy to post anywhere but on Facebook.
-hh
> Dan Bracuk <NOTbra...@pathcom.com> wrote:
> > John Hanson wrote:
> >>
> >>A few of the pics I took...above water:
> >>http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104485&id=667112966
>
> >>Some of you should be able to see these.
>
> >Why don't you post them where all of us can see them?
>
> Basically because I'm too lazy to post anywhere but on Facebook.
Nah, he's just after getting more FB 'friends' requests :-)
BTW, how many tanks are there actually in photo#13?
-hh
John Hanson
<recscub...@huntzinger.com> wrote in rec.scuba:
I'm not sure but we all had doubles, an argon bottle and 3 stages on
every dive except for the 2 dives on the second day where the current
had pulled the float under the water on the Kamloops and we couldn't
find it. We dived the Congdon and the Emporer instead and only needed
2 deco bottles as they were both relatively shallow at a max depth on
the Congdon of 202 FFW and 170 FFW on the Emporer.
So, there were 5 sets of doubles, 6 argon bottles (there was one
extra), 17 stage bottles and if I remember right, there was a short
steel 80 that had extra argon. I think that was just inside the cabin
though.
John Hanson
<jha...@northernlinks.com> wrote in rec.scuba:
>On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:48:20 -0800 (PST), -hh
Oh, I almost forgot. Capt. Brian had his gear onboard too so a 6th
set of doubles and 3 more stages. It was his "extra" argon bottle
that I'm remembering. I think Brian's doubles were inside though.
Brian made one dive on the Kamloops. He had a ridiculous mixture of
like 12/70 or something though. He dived with Keith as a buddy, who
was using a more normal mixture of around 15/50 for that profile.
Keith abandoned Brian finally at 20' when Brian's computer said he
still had about 20 minutes of deco left and Keith's had been clear for
a few minutes already.
Dan Bracuk
<jha...@northernlinks.com> wrote:
>Basically because I'm too lazy to post anywhere but on Facebook.
Posting on picassa, photobucket, etc instead of facebook takes the
same amount of time and effort.
John Hanson
wrote in rec.scuba:
>On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:55:45 -0600, John Hanson
Except I don't have an account on any of those.
Brad
"Scott" <nu...@nope.com> wrote in message
news:Rtqdnf3kKK-5q63W...@supernews.com...
: "mike gray" <omg...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
:
:
:
When were you here???
--
Brad Leyden
6� 43.5816' S 146� 59.3097' E WGS84
To mail spam is really hot but please reply to thread so all may benefit (or
laugh at my mistakes)
>
>