One of the best Caribbean wreck dives is the wreck of the C/S Charlie Brown on the island of Statia (St. Eustatius). Statia is only a quick 10 minute plane ride from Saba. I truly love vacationing on Saba. It is well away from the crowded reefs like Bloody Bay Wall on the Cayman islands or Palancar reef on Cozumel.

In its hay-day the C/S Charlie Brown spent almost 50 years lying fiber optic cable around the world. She was built in 1950 and is 327 feet long with a beam of about 41.4 feet.

The wreck of the Charlie Brown lies in 98 feet in water lying peacefully on its side. This wreck offers advanced divers, wreck divers, and underwater photographers the opportunity of a life time to watch everything from sea turtles to nudibranchs on the outside of the wreck.

For those of us who are more advanced, exploring the lone hallway that runs down the middle of the wreck is truly breathtaking. This hallway is wide open and runs about 120 feet through the wreck. Once inside you must visit the cable tanks and galley or move all the way forward to explore the reel room.

Unlike most wrecks the Charlie Brown was purposefully sank to form an artificial reef. But, she was not completely salvaged before the sinking. This now provides a look and feel of a real ship wreck.
Now, a little about how to get to Saba to start this dream vacation; Saba is what is called the Dutch Caribbean. The best way is to book your airfare to the island of St. Maarten. (SXM). Once you are on St. Maarten you will have two choices on getting to Saba:

* Take the Winair flight to Saba
* Take the 2 hour ferry to Saba.

Everything is really close. Saba is only 5 square miles while Statia is 8 square miles. You can get to most dive sites within 15 minutes. Saba is a volcanic island with spectacular lava tubes underwater. The best way to truly explore these Dutch islands is to start at Statia for a couple of days, then move on to Saba and end up at St. Maarten. St. Maartin has a great rain forest and this makes a great day to decompress after all of the diving.

For more information on scuba vacations, visit our website – http://www.scuba-info.com/Scuba-diving-vacation.html

Greg Deskin has been a PADI Course Director for over 12 years. With thousands of certified students, he has been asked many questions about scuba and scuba equipment. You can visit his scuba website at http://www.scuba-info.com

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Have you done much cold-water wreck diving? If you’re used to Caribbean diving, this is a whole different experience. You’re going to want to get trained and certified for drysuit, and you’ll want to either buy one (check eBay), or find a shop that has one for rent in your size. You can try, but it’s really hard to rent a drysuit. If not integrated in your drysuit, you’ll also need a hood, gloves, and boots. If the conditions are just right, you might get away with a 7mm wetsuit on shallower dives, but when the water temps at depth get down into the 60s, 50s, and even 40s, you’ll be uncomfortable without a drysuit. You’ll need open-heel fins (slipper fins don’t work well with boots), main and backup lights, a tank light, and a wreck reel. Signaling devices are also a good idea, such as a safety sausage or a whistle. Many wreck divers carry a knife or shears, too, in case of entanglement. If you want to do more serious wreck penetrations, you should train for Wreck certification, too – you’ll live longer.

I’m not some serious, expert, North Atlantic wreck diver – I’ve only done two 2-tank excursions here in the NY Metro Area, and three dives one day in Lake Michigan (which is surprisingly similar), but I’ve logged over a third of my 91 dives at a cold local quarry called Dutch Springs, plus two at another quarry called Brownstone. I’ve also done the PADI advanced and Rescue courses, and completed the specialties to earn PADI’s Master SCUBA Diver certification, but I have no professional or technical training. I know I’m only a couple of North Atlantic wreck dives ahead of the rank beginners, but from my experience, I have two suggestions…

First, I’ve seen some rank beginner OW divers get into circumstances beyond their comfort level, and it makes for an unenjoyable (if not dangerous) situation for them. Education and experience will always be an advantage. Don’t stop at OW – take AOW certification – it’s not a terribly brilliant course of study, but it will give you experience in five different skill areas. U/Nav taught me to check my compass periodically, keep track of my surroundings and landmarks, and measure distance by time, air pressure, or fin kicks; until then, I always used to just blindly follow a dive master like a tour guide – it made me more self-reliant. Wreck taught me to lay and take up a line, ways to avoid stirring up silt, and to be aware of situational hazards. Drysuit and PPB taught me how to better control my buoyancy and trim. Night taught me to use lights and signals, and to be comfortable in low-visibility environments – it made me more confident. Deep, Multi-Level, Altitude, and Nitrox helped me understand more about the physiological effects of diving – awareness of my own body and mind help me prioritize and make better conscious choices, even while stressed, rather than let situations own me.

Most (albeit not all) instructors and many advanced students are also some very good divers, worthy of emulation. Spending more time training with them will improve your diving in ways beyond just the content of the training courses.

Second, take things one step at a time and don’t get in over your head. I had already completed Rescue certification, a bunch of the above-mentioned specialties, and 60-total dives, including many in the cold-waters of Dutch Springs and Brownstone before I ever went out on a North Atlantic wreck dive. Visibility was just past arm’s length and the water temps at depth were 59-degrees (in late July!). I’d gotten used to such temps at Dutch Springs, but add in low viz, chop, current, a touch of sea-sickness, and the lack of personal space on a “cattle” boat, and you’ll see how the stress and task-loading start piling on. Reflecting back on it afterward, I realized that there were a lot of mistakes my buddy and I made on that dive, despite all the training I’d had at that point. Everything turned out well, but tying our wreck reel to the anchor line was a classic newbie error, for example. My buddy was less-experienced, and was relying on me, to some degree, since I had some fraction of the requisite skills for the circumstances. If I had to advise anyone else getting into such diving, I’d say, take it one step at a time:

1. Get AOW and Drysuit certified
2. Get a drysuit and get used to it; practice the Drysuit controls, buoyancy, and trim in a pool
3. Practice more at a protected local quarry or lake
4. Practice more skills and/or earn specialties for Night, U/Navigation, Deep, and of course, Wreck
5. Practice night dives
6. Practice laying, following, and taking up line with a buddy; using a wreck reel is a skill all it’s own, and you can even practice it on the silly little wrecks at your local quarry or lake
7. Do some local night dives at your quarry or lake and try the line exercise again with a buddy – get capable of using a reel and lights at the same time
8. Once you’re good at it, look for some deeper wrecks; everything is more challenging when you’re cold and deep – once you’re comfortable with that, do it again on a night dive
9. Last, but not least, before you go on your first serious open-ocean cold-water wreck dive, I can’t overstate the value of Rescue training; don’t think of it as training to enable you to save lives – think of it as training to make yourself a better, more-aware diver. Before my Rescue class, I used to be just another tourist on a dive boat – now I get my gear squared-up early and I’m more aware of the divers around me. I can observe and help the less-experienced divers, and watch and learn from those more-experienced. An important lesson from the Rescue course is to foresee and avoid situations where rescue would become a necessity.

Brian Blum is the founder, president, and chief consultant at Maverick Solutions IT, Inc. Maverick Solutions provides affordable IT consulting and technology support services, primarily to schools, NFPs, and SO/HOs in the New York Metro Area. Maverick Solutions is the alternative to keeping your own in-house IT staff, and we’d be happy to help you get more value from your existing technology investment. Visit our Website to learn about the services we offer, or read our blog, Maverick Ramblings, for assorted tips, tricks, and information of technology interest. When he’s not geeking it up, Brian enjoys SCUBA, skiing, cigars, travel, reading, and motorcycling. He’s a PADI-certified Master SCUBA diver with specialty certifications for Wreck, Deep, Night, Nitrox, Drysuit, DPV, U/W Navigation, U/W Naturalist, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Altitude, and MultiLevel. He’s been logging recreational dives while trying to decide whether to pursue technical or professional certification next.

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Safety is the biggest concern for all scuba divers but even more so for wreck divers. There is a risk of becoming trapped or lost in a wreck. Special training is available to scuba divers where they learn how to use special equipment. Reels of line are used to lay down a safe path through the maze of a ship wreck. Extra tanks of air are slung from the diver. Powerful underwater lights are required to light up the darkness. Wreck divers learn how to plan their dives so that they use one third of their air to reach the wreck, one third of their air to enjoy the wreck and return to the surface and hold the last third in reserve in case of emergency. Wreck divers have to especially cautious of hazards such as sharp and jagged metal.

Many recreational divers enjoy diving on artificial reefs. These are ships that have prepared and sunk on purpose in especially designated spots. Divers can practise their skills in the relative safety of a ship wreck that is well-mapped and sitting a safe depth. These ship wrecks are called artificial reefs because they soon become the habitat for corals, anemones and creatures of all kinds. Some artificial reefs will host up to four times their own mass in living creatures.

Most divers adhere to a policy of “non-disturbance” This means they do not interfere with the wreck or carry anything away. It is only fair to leave the ship wreck untouched so that other divers can enjoy it. But the environment soon starts to change the wreck. Breakers pound the metal or bust up the wood. Down deeper, currents carry away loose pieces and scatter them across the ocean floor. Even the creatures that make the wreck their home slowly start to break it down.

There is a compelling beauty to a sunken ship and great sense of adventure and challenge to learn the skills and become a wreck diver.

Rocky Boschman is a marine biologist and founder of Scuble.com. (http://scuble.com/) He has been actively promoting conservation for many years. Scuble.com is an online community and a great resource for information about the oceans. Join now, its free.

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