I was recently interviewed about diving and my book “Does This Island Go To The Bottom?” on the dive site DiveMoreWorkLess.com. This is great site with informative articles, awesome photos and interviews of fantastic people within the dive world. Check it out.
Tag Archives: scuba
The Red Lip Batfish.
“I really don’t want to go,” I said.
“This night dive you’re almost guarantied to see the red lip batfish,” our underwater naturalist said.
I was beat, tired. We did four dives already and I just took a hot shower. I was nice and comfy. Fact is, most of the divers didn’t want to go. We had been on the Lammer Law live aboard in the Galapagos for five days now and just left Darwin Island where we dove with whale sharks, schooling hammerheads, pods of wild dolphin and countless other creatures. So who cares about a red lip batfish?
“I’ll go if Julian goes,” my girlfriend, Lori, yelled in the galley. Julian was from the UK and was diving the whole time with a hole in his dry suit the size of a soft ball.
“Boody hell,” Julian said as he got out of his bunk. “All right then.”
Lori looked at me. She was the one who motivated all the divers to do the night dive that night. “Well?” she said.
I shook my head and walked out of the galley to the back deck and started putting on my cold, soaking wet suit.
There was about eight of us who decided to do the night dive in search of the red lip batfish. We all geared up and hopped into the ponga (dingy,) and headed out to the dive site. The sun was gone and the sky was black as coal with little specks of stars scattered about.
“This looks like a good spot, right here,” our dive guid said as the inflatable boat slowed.
We all sat on either side of the ponga ready for the word to all make our back-roll entry at once. All the divers that night were well advanced divers, divemasters and instructors. The Galapagos Islands are not for the novice diver.
“OK, go.”
We all rolled back into the cold, dark water at once. Suddenly my tank hit something about two and a half feet underwater, causing a loud “ping” to echo through the water.
Then, ping, ping, ping!
We made our entry into only three feet of water!. It must have been a comical sight. Here was a group of well seasoned divers on their backs with their legs and fins sticking up out of the shallow water, kicking and flailing. After we crawled off the rocks and out to deeper water we went down and did see the red lip batfish. But the best part of the dive wasn’t the batfish, it was the entry!
Taken from “A Power Nap.”
This section in the book takes place the morning after a very rough night on the cruise ship which I was working on. It was a party every night. The cruise ship at the time was crowned The Raddison Diamond, pictured below.
Taken from the chapter “A Power Nap.”
I was underwater quite some time. I can’t even remember how many people Damon sent down to me, maybe nine or ten? I was tired, starting to peter out. It didn’t look like no one else was coming down so I decided to just sit on the bottom of the pool and rest for a minute or two. That’s when everything went black.
There was a VW Bug tricked out in Baja fashion with stubby wings on each side gliding in open water just off the coral reef wall. It had its mouth open and was filtering plankton through the gills located behind each fender. Brick colored smoke was pouring out of its exhaust pipe like smoke from a locomotive. A 354 pound black lady with an orange beard was in the drivers seat puffing on a huge stogie.
What the hell?
I looked at my depth gauge. I was 122 feet down and kneeling on a little ledge. I can’t be narced. I have only suffered from nitrogen narcoses once, and that’s when I went to 180 feet for some unknown reason. I looked back at the VW which was soaring back and fourth about twenty yards in front of me. Then the driver rolled down the window and looked in my direction. She pulled the cigar out of her distorted, fat mouth and said, “Watch out, it’s starting to rain snowballs.”
All of a sudden, snowballs the size of lemons were falling all around me. One hit my head. I winced, closing my eyes. I almost spit my regulator out of my mouth. Then another one hit my head. And still another.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself still sitting on the bottom of the pool. Holy shit, I fell asleep underwater! The snowballs that I felt were Pretty Boy tapping me on the head with a pole. I went to the surface.
“Jesus dude, I thought you died down there,” Damon said. “There was barely a trickle of bubbles coming out of your reg. What were you doing, meditating?”
“Meditating, hell, I fell asleep.” I said.
“You passed out underwater?” Pretty Boy started to laugh.
“Yeah. Damn, I had one wild dream too.”
“Hey Eric, these are our new students,” Pretty Boy said. There were six people standing beside him that I had just given the scuba demo to. They all had terribly concerned looks on their faces.
“Don’t worry, I’m a trained professional. You’re in good hands.” I said.
Sharks on a Wreck
Diving with sharks just never gets old. And they listen to Bad Religion too!
A Close Call
This is a better clip of one of the shark dives I did where a Caribbean Gray Reef Shark bumped my hand while is was using a tiny GoPro. Look closely at the part in slow-mo, you can see its protective membrane cover and uncover its black eye.
Stay Wet . . .
Book Trailer
The book trailer fir “Does This Island Go To The Bottom?”
It’s short, grainy, rough and to the point, like the book.
It’s been a an incredible experience writing this book. I’ve learned a lot from people I’ve met through Social Media, people willing to take the time and give me a few pointers. And from all the instructors who I have worked with in the past. You know who you are and you are more than just friends, you’re my family.
Late August I’m shooting for the books release. I should have a dedicated author website for my novel and a link to where to get a copy at that time.
I have a future blog story in the making for this site about a wild incident in Jamaica involving a Voodoo vile of blood. No kidding.
Later, Eric
Galapagos Video, Re-Post
Galapagos Video, Re-Post
I thought I should re-post this video again where it can easily be clicked on and viewed rather than going to this link and that link. I know it’s a bit long in this world of instant gratification but for those of us who love the underwater world, it has some pretty cool stuff in it. So, if you have 33 minuets to spare check it out.
(I sent in footage to the Whale Shark Research Institute and they confirmed that the female in this video was pregnant.)
Excerpt II – Does This Island Go To The Bottom?
Excerpt II – Does This Island Go To The Bottom?
I stood on the white sand of Coki Beach. The warm Caribbean water in front of me was like tinted glass, smooth and blue. I had never seen water this calm and clear. It was as though God dumped massive amounts of chlorine into the ocean. The clouds danced swiftly in the wind. Thatch Cay stood majestically across the channel. The small island seemed to hold a secret mysteriously hidden since the days of pirates. Coki Beach had only a few people scattered about it at this time in the morning. Mainly local West Indians. A few were walking the beach. Some were enjoying a nice early swim. A small group of kids were playing on and jumping off a jetty of rocks into the water: splashing and laughing with no worries in the world. Coral World stood in the background; an underwater observatory rising up from the ocean floor with a huge, semi- flattened dome like a flying saucer.
I turned away from the water and saw the first safari bus full of pasty white tourists roll onto the beach. Marty the Jew was behind the wheel chewing on his filthy dog turd. That’s when all hell broke loose. . .
PasleysDivingAdventures 