While at the day job today, looking at techie type sites, I found a link to something actually fun.
There’s an underwater webcam in Bonaire. It’s about 15 meters below the surface at a dive site called “Something Special”. The local dive instructors keep it clean, so that must be fun to tune in as people are down there diving.
I always like watching webcams while I’m at work. I used to try to watch the Bra Boys surfing at Maroubra Beach in Australia, but with the time zone difference, it was normally dark. Tuning in at sunrise or sunset is pretty awesome though.
But, for those of us who’d prefer to be diving instead of sitting at our desk, maybe the Bonaire Underwater Webcam can help keep us amused. It’s gotta be better than a goldfish. Maybe I’ll have to use my second monitor to just show this….You can set the screen to refresh anywhere from 2 seconds to 5 minutes, depending on your connection. On 2 seconds, you can actually see the fish moving around.
If you’ve found any neat underwater webcams you’d like to share, let me know. We could all use an escape from the office.
Since I’m headed to Australia soon, I was thinking about the differences in Diving between the US and Australia. The biggest difference, is probably in the Flags used by divers. I always thought most people recognized the Red and White Diver Down flag. However, after doing a shore dive off Magnetic Island on one of my trips home, where some British Backpackers tried to kill me with their jetski by doing doughnuts around our dive flag, I worked out that perhaps it wasn’t as universal as I thought.
Signal Flag Alpha
Diver Down Flag
Turns out in countries like Australia, the Signal Flag Alpha is the more recognized flag. At least out in the open water. It’s a Universal Maritime flag that means that a vessel has limited maneuverability due to a diver in the water. Of course, this probably doesn’t help a couple of British backpackers who have rented a jetski for the day. They probably wouldn’t have recognized either flag, since all one needs to rent a jetski is a land drivers license. Maybe when operators rent Jetskis, they should be required to inform renters of Dive flags, to avoid potential accidents. Next time you go diving, check out which flags are being used locally. Even in Australia, it seems Dive Operators that cater to International Tourists use the Diver Down flag. It’s on their shop window, on their T-shirts, painted on their boats. But they may still fly the Signal Flag Alpha while out diving. In the US, most people only use the Diver Down flag.
There’s nothing that says you can’t use both. So next time you’re out diving, feel free to use both flags. Then, whether you’re dealing with locals or tourists, hopefully they’ll recognize one of them, and steer clear of you.
We’re re-doing the Going Down website. We’ve changed direction; we’re now focusing on becoming a web series. Hopefully, you’ll be able to sit at work dreaming of Scuba Diving, and now you can just hop on over to Going Down Online and see a new scuba destination. We’ve got a bunch of footage in the can, ready to be edited. I need to make an image map, so you can click on a scuba flag and it will take you to that Scuba Diving destination.
I’m looking into some new places to go visit. Currently I’m in San Antonio, so if you’ve got a great local diving destination near San Antonio, I’d love to hear about it. Then we can come film the diving action and let everyone else see it too! We’re interested in what you do for the whole weekend. So dive bars, dive hotels, dive restaurants, dive clubs, the whole enchilada.
So stay tuned for some new dive destinations on Going Down Online.
