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The apnea academy in cuba

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
Folks - this is the last warning. This forum is NOT the place to discuss politics. If this topic does not get back on track I will close the thread and start editting and removing threads.

Persistant offenders who ignore the forum policies risk being banned from the forums.
 
John is unfortunately correct in his assessment of this thread's worth. It became worthless in a freediving forum as soon as it strayed from the freediving related topic at hand and dropped into politics. There is a place to discuss politics but DB isn’t it.

I can fully understand how much passion a topic like this generates but shouldn’t freediving be something that unites us as people? I have grown to absolutely love freediving and all that it entails. Freediving is a big part of my life and getting the chance to speak to other freedivers on this forum is a huge bonus, so it's pretty damn lousy to see such divisive talk on here.

Please can we lose the politics and just talk diving?

Bring on the love fest I say

Thanks for listening to my 2 cents.

Ash
 
Rogue Wave...do you intend to allow pm's or emails? I would like to tell you how my dog got in this fight but I will repect Stephens request. If you really want to know, feel free to contact me.

Jon, I know what you mean...I have done the same thing. Just look at spearboard and how many times I try to get people over here from there b/c I believe this forum is a better place. Sometimes I feel the need to get involved when maybe I shouldnt. Hell, how many people out there have 6 DB tshirt besides Stephen and I? (ok...it helps to be a repeat winner of the caption contest... )
 
let's not pertend the freedive community is a "perfect world". i do not see why a healthy "off topic" debate should not be allowed on the forum. it helps us to understand other freediver's points of view. to me, freedivers most of the time, share similar values and beliefs. so why would i not want to engage with people of a similar nature about an off topic. it is only natural.

i understand stepping in once in a while when people get really rude but aren't we all adults. while an arguement of some subjects might take it to far, i don't see a problem with this one. i think off topics should be allowed. afterall, there is more to us than just freediving.

quick question, how many people could go to work day after day and be restricted to "work only" conversations?

ash: i agree with you 110% on the " can't we all just get along" idea but the way i see it, freediving HAS united all of us. it's united us to a certain level. i haven;'t seen anyone drop from the forum because of a little debate. it may not be as "united" as some would like but it's a start. also i find that there has been value in this thread, it's not worthless.

forrest
 
Reactions: roy_nexus_6
Side-stepping the whole Cuba issue, and getting back to the original story, I found it interesting that she was also planning on opening up a school in Cozumel.

After more visits to Cozumel than I can remember, I would be most interested in this since I can do two, almost three, trips to Cozumel for the price of just one trip to Divetech on Grand Cayman.

Cozumel would be a much more affordable place to visit and the weather would be more consistent than some of the places that Kirk's courses are taught- just ask Scott and Don about their openwater dives they did in his last clinic. Cheap(er) flights, good food, clear water, cheap hotels, and no politics to get in the way while enjoying your stay on this island.

Another, more interesting, question would be about what exactly her course would entail. Since her school is named after a Cuban water god would it by more mythology, like Pipin, or more sport's science, like PFD?

Jon
 
Reactions: Shadowkiller
Jon: What kind of costs would one incur for a week or so at Cozumel? And can you spearfish there?

As for the non-freediving debate: This kind of rubbish doesn't belong in a thread on freediving. Period. If you want to discuss it, open a new thread in the BeachBar... If this had occured on the forum that I moderate several people would be explaining to me as to why they should be allowed to stay. Personal attacks are the hallmark of a losing side in a discussion. It just shows you've run out of other ways to get your point across.
 
I love Mexico's water!

right on, Cozumel is an awesome place. i'd definitely be up for some diving over there. but the absolute best thing about Mexico is the tap water. YUMMMMMM YUMMMM!!! By the way, if you have a problem with people at work eating and drinking your lunches. bring them back a souvenier from mexico, freshly bottled tap H20!
 
Got Lungs,

Have you ever heard of Crypto?
Where I'm from, Milwaukee, we had a pretty bad outbreak back in the early 90's. Almost half the city got sick, I was one of them, and 85 people died.

This happened at the same time Jeffery Dahlmer was caught, which prompted people to wear T-shirts that read: Milwaukee, where you can eat the people, but can't drink the water

In all of my visits to Mexico I only got sick once, and that might have just been a bad margartia. While in the states, friends of mine and I have gotten violently ill just from diving in the water!

As far as prices go, I have always been able to pull off a week of diving for almost exactly half of what a week in Curacou, Belize or Bonaire cost me. I have looked into going to Cayman many times, but the costs have always been too high. Ted just booked a trip to Cozumel for next month. Maybe he can tell you what he paid. I know that it was a lot less than a Cayman trip would have cost him.

About 10 years ago I ran a scuba refresher course for the Milwaukee harbor master. It turns out the he had been a scuba instructor in the past, but had been out of practice for a while. I asked him where he taught and he said Texas. When I asked him where he dove in Texas he said he didn't know because they did all of their openwater check-out dives in Cozumel. I guess 4 day weekend trips to the island were so cheap that it didn't make any sense to dive locally. I think that he mentioned 22 trips down to Cozumel to do check-out dives in a two year period.

The only thing tricky down there would be the currents, but they didn't seem to Stop Pipin when he broke 500' for the first time, on a "single" breath, in Cozumel.

Spearing is allowed outside of the marine park, wich covers the entire south west section of the island. I've known divers who speared, but it was up on Barraccuda reef.

Jon
 
Forrest, I agree that we’re all adults (well most of us – I seem to be getting mentally younger every year) and I believe that healthy debate is great. Off topic threads are cool as well because it gives us a chance to see what other people think about issues not related to freediving. This sort of topic on the other hand is something else entirely. Politics is never a simple matter to discuss, especially when the people aren’t face to face and it’s so easy for tempers to flare but this is beyond simple politics, it’s somewhere between inflammatory and explosive. It will always be hard to keep things civil when there are such strong feelings and once the thread gets into insults and personal attacks, it all goes downhill fast.

As for people leaving the forum, well I have seen it happen on other sites. The whole culture of one of my favourite forums was changed for a while, with people leaving and a huge amount of bitterness and personal attacks being the rule and not the exception. As Jon says, some other dive related forums are pretty much all about attacking people and discussing everything except diving. I would hate that to happen here, so I guess I am a little concerned because it doesn’t take much before things turn bad, even amongst people who are here because of a common interest. Maybe I am a little to cautious in this regard but as I say, I’ve seen it happen and once burnt twice shy.

It’s not a perfect world but these forums are damn close to being a perfect gateway to the perfect sport, hobby, lifestyle or whatever you want to call freediving.

Getting back to the new topic at hand, a freedive course in Cozumel sounds like an excellent idea. I am pretty sure my wife has had a few short term job opportunities there in the past, so she could spend a few months working while I go diving

Cheers

Ash
 
Originally posted by rigdvr
Hell, how many people out there have 6 DB tshirt besides Stephen and I? (ok...it helps to be a repeat winner of the caption contest... )
Click to expand...
I'd better start having words with Sven about this...

 
I work in the Internet industry so have seen my fair share of flame wars and forums going bad. Because of this when we set up this forum and it started to grow rapidly we put in place a great team of Mentors who help keep this place in order! I'm keen to ensure that the conversation stays on topic and that this is the friendliest place on the 'net for all types of diver.
 
Hey, I'm on here all the time... I'm just restricted to hunting
 

<pft, cough, sputter....> [milk flies out nose]

In the words of Ace Ventura...Hoooooly Testicle Tuesday! Spearing is allowed up on Barracuda Reef?

Jon, I am staying at the Paradisus. My bud and I could rent a small boat and hit that sucker every day [whilst the ladies work on their drunken tan, poolside]. Now I need to reassess my original plan NOT to bring my gun. This trip could be hellagood.

Shadow, I set myself up with air, lodging for under $800 US. The timeshare also covers as much booze and chow we can stuff ourselves with. Hotel deal I got through a buddy. His old man gave us his 'time'. We 'only' have to cover the 'maintenance' cost (300 bones / head). Might be a good deal, or a screw....we'll see. Plane tickets we got for 430 a pop off Priceline. Oh yeah, and we're staying a week.

Nash,
Sorry to divert your thread this much further....but, as far as I can tell, this one was already covered with a white sheet.

Ted
 
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I didn't mean I was leaving the forum. Just thought I should shut my mouth (as well as having 2 days of long hours to put in at work) for a bit. I'll accept most, if not all of the responsibility for the rancor on this thread. My hat goes off to the Forum mentors, moderators and veterans for the work they must have to do to keep politics pretty much off this (sports) site. Insults and animosity should be easy; people like me and whoever I was sparring with should just be adults and not do it. But it must be tough to be responsible for keeping politics and sports seperate on an internet forum.

If you can believe it's possibe in this day and age, I'm actually new to the internet and chat rooms and forums and such. When I registered @ DeeperBlue this summer, it was the same time that I first had anything near to daily access to the internet. Never had it at home, only have had occasional need to use it @ work, never been in a chat room, etc. I've never had much problem refraining from discussing politics/religion and such at dinner tables or cocktail parties, but give me the new and sometimes intoxicating semi-anonymity of a computer terminal and an internet forum and for me at least, politeness is much easier to lose along the way. There's other kinds of trouble I've come close to getting into via cyberspace... put it this way: it's a good thing the network administrator here at work likes me alot (xxx )!! :naughty

I was'nt even sure where to place this post. Here or in the Beach Bar? Moderators: feel free to put it there or even dump it, since I'm still not talking about freediving (which I will exclusively do in the future)!

Roan
 
I could post again.

Roan, I can see you could be quite a nice guy after drinking a couple of beers before posting. Toss me one!

No hard feelings, bud.
 
Reactions: OceanSwimmer
Likewise Antonio, no hard feelings. The rounds are on me if you're ever out here in California.
 
Ted,

You'll have to work hard to find someone to take you there. The place is off-limits without special permisson from the harbour master since they lost so many bubble blowers up there due to the currents. I have had friends get on there to dive, and even spearfish, but I have always been surrounded by too many greenhorns to be able to take a whole group out to a site like that.

I have heard about some nice turtles and sharks up there and some wickedly fast currents.

You should have a nice stay since your on the end of the island that doesn't get as much traffic.

Double check the speargun issue with the airport down there. When my others buddies went down there they just rented spearguns from the divemasters as part of the charter fee.

Jon
 
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