Since so many of you seemed to enjoy the story about the lunatic who dove to 313m, here's one about a guy who dove to 282 point something meters. But here's something interesting about that... He did it at altitude, and his adjusted corrected depth would come to 337m. Personally, I think he should still hold the world record - after all, altitude diving has real effects and it's only fair to consider them in his feat. Then again, I'm also biased cause I used to dive with his ex-wife. In any case, they are both completely insane if you ask me. If the location sounds familiar, it's cause I've posted about it before on our sister site Gadling. The diving community is small - Deon was a friend of Nuno and his wife and had helped them set up for Nuno's previous training dives at Boesmansgat.

Those of you that read my previous post on Cayman Brac may want to head back to my photo site. I've finished updating the "other" photo sets which include pictures of the resort and the rest of the island as well as all the 'throw away' underwater shots. I think I finally figured out what I had set wrong on my camera - it may not have been the flash to blame after all. Oh well. The link below will take you to the photo set.

 Now here's one that I've haven't seen before. Widow sues dive buddy for not saving her hubby's life. Worse, the widow accuses the dive buddy of intentionally causing this guys death. That got me thinking - is it feasbile? The story says that the air hose disconnected and his BC failed as a result - presumably this only means that it would have been difficult for the diver to become positively bouyant and come to the surface no? I dont know about you, but I don't wear so much weight that if my BC is empty I can't at least swim to the surface. Though, if his air hose became disconnected, he probably would have been surounded by a huge wall of blasting air, which I guess would be pretty confusing. It's not clear if his reg was still delivering air, but I would imagine it would be, wouldn't it? After all, regs still work with a blown o-ring. Anyone out there know what might happen if an air hose became completely disconnected at the stage level?

Plus, how would you engineer the gear setup so that an air hose comes loose (note also that it doesnt say if it came loose on the BC end or on the stage end)... Seems difficult to do. I remember a few friends and I once debated the best way to kill someone using only scuba diving gear and get away with it. We determined that the best way was to ... you know what? I probably shouldn't say... :)

 Go diving. Hit some strong currents. Bad visibility. Come to the surface just 300ft from the boat, but no one sees you. Watch the boat dissapear into the distance as you are swept out to sea. Pretty dire circumstances, no? This guy actually manages to swim to a beach and save himself. If we had a lucky guy of the year award (we don't), I'd definetly nominate him for it. Read on for more of the story.

In the following post I talk about my trip to Cayman Brac. For those not in the know, the Caymans are known for their visibility and easy diving. Did it stack up to all the hype? Read on to find out.

 I'm curious as to what other people usually tip for dives. I was reading a magazine last night that made a good point. It went something like this: Most liveaboards cost between $2000 and $3000 a week, 18 divers per boat, each leaving 10% (which is what liveaboard suggest) is between $3600 and $5400 per week. Say the boat has divers on it roughly 45 weeks a year, thats between $162,000 and $243,000 a year. Divide this by your standard crew of six, and you've got tips ranging from $27,000 to $40,000 per person. Suddenly 10% seems like a lot doesn't it? So, what do you normally leave? I'll go first: I only tip if I feel I've recieved excellent service. Good or OK service just doesn't cut it for me. If I tip, I usually tip at the end of the trip and tend to stick to leave between $100-$200.

 I don't even know why I'm linking this story. The title is so misleading. I was hoping for some kind of crazy story "Whale sharks have grown huge teeth in some kind of mad-scientist-gone-wrong expirement conducted in Cuba and they have made it into the Great Lakes and now seem fine in freshwater for some unexplained reason." Instead, well.... read for yourself and share in my dissapointment.

 It's kind of an old story, but I thought it was interesting anyway. Most scuba deaths always seem to come back to the same root cause: "A series of mistakes that compounded eventually causing panic and a poor decision resulting in death." This case has that, but it also has cocaine (which I guess would fall under the "mistake" part of the sentence above). What I don't get is, how can they say cocaine played no part? Seems like a heckuva odd statement.

 Read the link below for the story. In short, the guy got attacked by a barracuda but he's fine. I remember when I was in Tulum, I heard a story of a woman who went swimming with a shiny necklace. A barracuda came up, interested in the shiny reflection of the necklace and attempted to bite it and run off. Problem is, the barracuda supposedly bit off part of her jugular too. She bled to death in the water. I've heard that a lot - barracuda like shiny things... Anyone know if thats fact or fiction?

 Indian Divers have found even more evidence of an underwater city made visible in the aftermath of the Tsunami. Theory now has it this is an ancient mythical city called Mahabalipuram. In case your wondering, I don't think you can't dive the site even if you can pronounce it.

 A team of amateur divers have unearthed 3,000-year-old Bronze Age artifacts from what may be one of the oldest shipwreck sites in the world. If you think that makes them lucky - it's the second time they stumble on treasure. In 1995 they found the biggest collection of Islamic riches ever found off Britain.

 I'm sure we have all heard stories of how [insert any dive destination here] was sooooo amazing 20 years ago and now all the coral is dead, the fish are gone, etc. The article below basically says: enjoy your diving now because by the time you die, your children will be diving a wasteland. It's sad to say, but they are probably at least partially right.

 File this under "different diving". Go diving for golf balls, sell em at $3 each, get a few thousand a day... I've heard stories of people making upwards of $100,000 a year doing nothing but diving golf courses in search of golf balls. Just be careful if you do this in the UK.

Maybe I should make Tuesday's wierd animal day or something. I dont care that this one eats plankton. If I saw something that big that looked that much like a snake underwater, I think I might swallow my regulator. Just like my previous post, this one is also another one you probably wont run into in your dives.

Three structures with carvings of animals have emerged near the costoal town of Mahabalipuram.I'm suprised this story hasn't had more momentum. Ok, so this isn't Atlantis but - wow - wouldn't this be something to discover?  Makes me wonder what else might be discovered in the coming months elsewhere in the world.