Many advise that you should not scuba with a ruptured eardrum, but I got a special device that will hopefully keep my ear dry while I'm underwater. Conventional wisdom says that the risks of Barotitus can lead to permanent loss of hearing, plus it's painful as hell to get water in your middle ear, believe me.
I did my first dive at Key Largo a few weeks back, and it was AWFUL! Because I’m pear-shaped, the weights would not stay around my waist, and because I’m so buoyant (read “fat”), that I needed 40 pounds of lead to sink! Plus, I have to wear a choking full-head rubber mask (to hold my earplug in-place), and it squeezes my head like crazy and makes me dizzy. It looks sorta like this, with a cut-out for my face:
Most of my friends and co-workers scuba dive like Robert Freeman, Harry Conway and John Garmany (who is a certified scuba instructor). I’m getting lots of pressure to join-in on the fun.
Diving in North Carolina is among the best in the world, and we are considered the top place in the world for wreck diving, with hundreds of wrecks off on Cape Hatteras.
“Bathed by the clear, warm waters of the Gulf Stream, the coast of North Carolina offers some of the best scuba and wreck diving in the United States.”
But it's not just the ocean. Our local lakes are full of treasures too. Here is a German wreck from our local waters:
Me, I want to get those cool full face masks that let you talk underwater via a walkie-talkie, and they are only $1,500 each:
Of course, you have to buy two of them if you want to talk to anybody, so it gets pricey real-fast! Hopefully, I’ll survive the weekend and get-started in my quest to join my underwater friends and family. . .
From the Mailbag:
I’ve received several queries from folks wanting to get-in on my sale of several hundred tons of horse manure, and I’m thinking of featuring poo-mountain on eBay.
I’ll run the potential profit numbers and do a post next week. . .