Spotted Eagle Ray jumping out of the water

Hello from the S. Most cameraflyer. this news story going around of the eagle ray is misleading. They are showing STING RAYS over and over. What, they don’t have any eagle ray footage? Want some?

SMC

Philosophy of “Do No Harm” Sets Tone for Underwater Protocol

Read the interview with Paul Dymon, of Paul Dymon films, inc reveals his company’s capability and technical advantage producing underwater imagery in the era of higher resolutions.

Las Vegas, Nevada – March 19, 2008

Paul Dymon films, inc. is a high definition production company with underwater camera specialty. The entity established in 1999 was recently retooled

Do you Flog?? You’re here so either you Flog or you are being Flogged. Whatever, you can use this code for $6.00 credit in our store. Download some HD clips for iTunes, grab the oceanic screen saver series, get the featured DVD at a great price. You can even combine other promotions. Because I’m too lazy there shall be No Restrictions.

FL399.792WW

Here’s the catch… (did you really think it was that easy?) You should feel compelled by our mindless generosity to tell a few friends about us and our non-profit causes. Why? Would you hand them six bucks for the heck of it? No? Tell ‘um about the discount… it’s the next best thing. If you comment on an article - bonus!

Jump to hd2o.tv

Support us so we can afford a better studio.

LOL ###

In the last part (also the first part) In the first and last part I mentioned stopping junk mail. Not only does it save paper, think about the energy savings of the US Postal Service. Processing junk mail takes man hours and fuel, and we all know how fast they move because we named it “snail mail”.

41pounds.org charges $40 to stop junk mail for five years.

greendimes.com sharges $20 and claims to stop about 90%.

Non-profit groups can reuse many items you would be temped to just toss out. SafeNest and Catholic Charities will take furniture and appliances for needy families. Other groups can swap the stuff for cash or more appropriate items they need. And you take the tax credit. Just get a receipt cause I don’t want to hear you crying when the tax man comes for giving up some $200.00 jeans. That’s what you paid new? Too bad, sorry to hear it.

Appliances are a drag when they break down. If you drag it to the street chances are your community will pick it up and it’s out of your hair. Unfortunately for Mother Earth that steal heap is headed for a landfill. Older refrigerators contain freon that will eventually leak. Why not look for company that extracts and resells the steal. You know they will be regulated to handle the freon removal as part of their business.

So that it! That’s my take on recycling. Do what you can feel good about, a lot or a little, everything helps. I don’t know the reality on Global Warming. I do know the cleaner the planet the healthier we are. Clean is good. Right? Like the beautiful waters of the Florida Keys. Want a closer look? Click the image for the full res view. Wanna get even closer? We’ll take you inside! Literally. Buy our DVD today.

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One amazing day at Island Dolphin Care…

A decommissioned Air Force ship, that once tracked Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space launches off Florida, is being prepared in a Virginia shipyard to become a new habitat for marine life and an attraction for recreational divers in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Information on diving the Vandenberg.

This link yoursafetymatters.org/ covers related issued sinking a ship.

This link www.thespacereview.com/ covers the ship’s role with NASA.

Retired in 1983, the 524-foot-long General Hoyt S. Vandenberg floated for 24 years among ships in the U.S. Maritime Administration’s James River Naval Reserve Fleet at Fort Eustis, Va. It saw cinema duty as a Russian science ship in “Virus,” a 1999 release starring Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin and Donald Sutherland.

The almost $6 million ship-to-reef project is scheduled to culminate in the late spring of 2008, with the vessel’s intentional sinking in 140 feet of water, about six miles south of Key West.

Prior to sinking, workers must rid of the vessel of all environmental hazards. That means removing paint, stripping out almost 800,000 feet wiring loaded with toxic PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls) used in insulation before being banned and off-loading any remaining waste petroleum products.

More than 50,000 man-hours of work will be necessary, but the end result, project officials say, will be a diversified shipwreck that should appeal to divers of all skill levels.

“We came up with the Vandenberg from a list of about 400 ships, because the Vandenberg seems to offer a little bit to everybody,” said Joe Weatherby of Reefmakers, the company coordinating the project. “There’s going to be 10 or 11 places along the entire length of the ship that will come up to within about 40 feet of the surface. That’s a lot more area for a rookie (diver) to explore.”

Most of the funding for the project is coming from Florida Keys government sources, including the region’s tourism council. MARAD is contributing $1.25 million to the effort.

“We have a huge set of ships from World War II and beyond that are now destined for scrap,” said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who examined the project in early October. “By taking ships like the Vandenberg and instead (turn) them into an artificial reef, we create a new conservation opportunity for marine wildlife and also generate economic activity.”

Project officials say the Vandenberg reef should generate $8 million annually in tourism-related sales after it is sunk and point out environmental benefits, especially alleviating recreational diving pressure on natural coral reefs.

The addition of the Vandenberg is to anchor the lower end of a dive experience that area dive shop owners are calling the Florida Keys Wreck Trek. At the top, off Key Largo, is the former U.S. Navy Landing Ship Dock Spiegel Grove, another ship that was “mothballed” at James River.

“It’s the final piece in the wreck trek puzzle,” said Bob Holston, president of the Keys Association of Dive Operators. “We’ll have wrecks of every size and age from … ancient galleons to freighters and military ships.

The Vandenberg began its nautical life in 1943 under a different name, the Gen. Harry S. Taylor, as a troop transport ship.

After participating in World War II, the Hungarian Revolution and the Cold War, it was overhauled to become a sophisticated missile-tracking vessel in the Atlantic. When christened for that assignment in 1963, it became the Vandenberg, named after the former Air Force general and director of the Central Intelligence Group, predecessor to today’s Central Intelligence Agency.

For “Virus,” the ship was repainted and stenciled with Russian lettering. Much of the lettering remains, but the ship is now being primped for a different purpose.

“You ask yourself, is she rusty?” Weatherby said. “Yeah, she’s rusty, but where’s she going, she’s fixing to get rustier and the fish are going to love it.”

Should be a boon for HD2O services!

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It’s not that hard. There is no excuse.

With the exception of a few, we all want to do our part to help the environmental movement. Not everyone has the same level of commitment or concern, and that’s okay. Participation in any worthy cause will lead to greater involvement. It just takes time to form the good habit. Let’s face facts: It’s no day at the park to cull out salvageable materials, but recycling shouldn’t be a big deal considering the result - it will leave a better place for future generations. No where is the impact of recycling (good and bad) felt MORE directly than our Oceans and coral reefs.

1. To emulate Shakespeare’s words about the rose; Junk is junk, is junk. But it doesn’t start as junk. Your JUNK MAIL begins its long, nasty, dirty journey to the landfill along with 100-Million trees, sacrificed for promotional materials. STOP JUNK MAIL altogether! Several web sites act as “anti-clearinghouses”. They contact solicitors on your behalf and ask to cease and desist. Put the post office out of business. I will post a few web links in part 2 for one click service to stop your junk mail.

2. What is/ isn’t recyclable? This is the big question for most of us. Styrofoam coffee cups: some styrofoam types are while the twizzler sticks are not. Plastic milk containers are while the plastic cap is not. Wax-paper juice containers are not recyclable, but so many people put them in that the cost of reprocessing goes up. HELP! This is getting silly and confusing so let’s recycle the basics first. If you want to do more contact your local community’s program.

Start with the big three. PLASTICS are petrolium based products and with crude oil reaching $90. per barrel… do the math. PAPER is energy-intensive to produce from trees. Basically reducing the tree to sawdust to begin. How sad a fate when each ton of recycled paper saves enough energy to power a three bedroom home for three months. ALUMINUM from recycled material takes 95% less energy. Again, 95% less. If that isn’t reason enough to recycle your can off, the mining of new bauxite is expensive, dangerous to rivers, and degrades the land. The very manly exercise of crushing soda and beer cans with a slight twist uses 1/3 the space at home and inside the collection truck resulting in less fuel overall.

3. USE LESS STUFF (in the first place). This is the real secret to a self-sustainable society. Start with the easiest; grocery bags. Bring your own cloth bags to the store. Plastic store bags should be banned from seacoast communities. Do you really NEED a bag for that pack of gum? Carelessly handled bags fill with water and set adrift could be mistaken for food causing a horrible death to an unsuspecting animal. That cannot be fair.

The ‘very classy‘ human being in all of us wants to be ‘exceptionally hip’. Start your personal hippness by bringing your own grocery bags to the store. Believe me, you will stand out and you will be respected for doing it. My wife gets a nickel for each bag. People grasp the concept. How many times have I heard myself say, “I could do more, and perhaps one day I shall.” Today I did do more.  I wrote this article!

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When it comes to discussing global warming, glaciers melting, or oceans rising it’s sure to charge up some tempers. Pick a side and start firing across the fence. There’s an overwhelming ‘peek pressure’ to convict without a jury anyone who doesn’t see it a certain way! I try to present a balanced view, but we all have our prejudice and peeves.

VP Al Gore has a movie, Academy Award, & Nobel Prize and yet I’m not going to fall over backward, sorry. For anyone to question any point about Earth temperatures is like a crime equal in shame to calling the earth flat and asking for equal time to present that view. That’s just not the case. If you feel the evidence is compelling and indisputable I encourage you to do whatever you can. If you don’t think there is accelerated human impact it still makes total sense to support a cleaner planet and to recycle. For the middle-of-the-road folks I suggest a reasonable combination of these two approaches. Just don’t flip off the guy driving a Hummer because he may, in his way, be doing more than you!

MIT Technology Review (Nov - Dec 2007) stated that science has a POOR understanding of the ice sheets. With poor data it would be hard to predict how sea levels will respond. Scientists tend to agree sea levels are rising due to rising temperature, but the impact on the oceans is near impossible to determine with poor data.

Use of Stock Footage: I have the exact same shot used by Mr. Gore’s Academy Award film showing in slow motion as a chunk of glacier falls into the sea. Very emotional especially in slo-mo. That’s not uncommon. It’s what glaciers do - they constantly move - they recede - they retreat to the sea. All hope to resolve or understand Global Warming was lost forever when a United Nations’ formed a Panel to analyze and report. They predicted from 7 - 24 inches of ocean rise this century. What? Can they hit a barn with a snowball? Way to narrow it down for the rest of the world to comprehend and rest easy. But wait, there’s more; this same panel conceded the estimate “might be unreliable” because knowledge of how ice sheets disintegrate is limited. So they took a wild guess for the heck of it? Why not just say they can not make an accurate determination vs. guessing?

MIT Scientists (WJS - 11/02/007 Section: B6 The Informed Reader) will have data from an archaeological expedition setting out this summer to drill into an ice sheet in Greenland. They will study cores from glacier ice that formed 115,000 to 130,000 years ago, WHEN GREENLAND WAS ABOUT 12 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT WARMER THAN IT IS TODAY!

Did I miss Mr. Gore covering these thought-altering facts? He had to run across these studies just as easily as I did. After all, too much Political Science and not enough Natural Science don’t make him right. Not saying he’s wrong, but he doesn’t really know.

New flash player for blogging adds dimension to info. Let’s see how it works and please: let me know what you think of the quality! Here’s a few clips from HD2O ~ The Keys. Pick up the DVD and relax!
Regards,

We are using a technology that has only been available for weeks. There are a few bugs to iron out. For best video performance click the red title above to open the article’s full page. Videos are not always available in the drop-down page mode. In the interest of quality- videos are being compressed using the H.264 codec which provides about 3:1 advantage over MPEG 2. You will need the latest Flash Player to play some video files! The link will tell you your current Flash version, Mac and PC.

[flashvideo filename="http://hd2o.tv/flog/wp-content/plugins/flash-video-player/videos/13xsample.flv" /]

[flashvideo filename="http://hd2o.tv/flog/wp-content/plugins/flash-video-player/videos/SAMPLE14a.flv" /]

The video samples above are from Key Largo Florida summer 2007.

Paul Dymon films, inc has announced the DVD title release of : The Keys. Featuring HD widescreen underwater content. Way more than an aquarium, this visit to the reef is perfect for entertaining, relaxing, meditation, or exercise. An excellent gift for those on your list who have just about everything. Special Holiday offers available in our store: visit this link.

Happy Holiday’s to All

Thank you,

Do you know the basis of the international Three Mile Treaty? Each nation has a three mile right to the ocean off their land mass. It’s called the Cannon Shot Rule because that’s about how far they fly. In 1702 sailing within three miles without permission could draw cannon fire. Things are different today. We’ve got bigger cannons! We realize the treasures lying beneath the ocean. Not scuba-type treasures, but the natural resources and shipping lanes.

Recent Arctic news has been mostly doom and gloom. Gore grandstanding and crowd pleasing consensus “on ice” is a Nobel NOT for science. Svante Arrhenius was a scientist, and the first to describe the greenhouse effect, but he didn’t get a Nobel Prize for it. There was no mass media hysteria. He did get one in 1903 in science for something else. Green is back and this time it has political punch, vengance, lobbying and available media pumping into the crowd’s belief. Hundreds of billions of dollars per year is the cost for the US to counter what China projects as their emission growth over that same period. It makes no sense to Go Green on some sort of global agenda. We can’t control China or even the local city hall. Green is local. Your house. Turn off the extra light, turn down the AC by one degree, recycle all make total sense on a personal level. Green has an impact on all of us at the local dump, your trash. Here’s a big one we can all do instantly. Take our foot off the gas peddle and glide when we see the light is red ahead. Instant results on an individual level. That’s green.

Now the Arctic thaw may open waterways that would be oceanic shortcuts for navigation. This has to be good news, right? Less fuel taking cargo either East or West? That can save money and fuel. Ships put out spent fuel, but the level per ton has to be lower than any other means of moving cargo. But it has to be managed.
First problem(s): Who owns the mineral rights? Who will manage the ecosystem? Keep peace in the shipping lanes? Collect taxes, zillions of barrels of oil, precious metals and harvest who knows what else is down there for us to take.

Second problem: Do we really need another tug-of-war international organization to manage this?

Russia (which I thought was dissolved into smaller countries) has planted a flag below the Arctic Ice Cap, some 15,000 feet down. Does this mean Russia owns everything below the ice? Russia should get some, as should Canada, US, Greenland (which should have been called Iceland) should hit the jackpot. Iceland doesn’t even have a piece of polar ice.

In the end I hope there is a supercomputer program that can take into account all the wants and needs of the world. Divide up the ocean floor so we can wait a few thousand years for the ice to reveal what we have won.

I watched a special some time this year about “Jellyfish Invasions” on the Sea of Japan. Jammed up fishing nets of Jellyfish were basically mashed in an effort to destroy them, but the swarm was not impressed, in fact they multiplied because of the attempt to destroy.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article, also a video showing a 6 foot 250 pound jellyfish you must be a subscriber.

The brilliant Professor Kohzoh Ohtsu has researched the jellyfish since it became a national problem a few years ago. His works are mentioned often.

Jellyfish are delicate marine invertebrates, they float about at the will of they sea and yet somehow man has found a way to make them mad. If you read my recent blog article on Japan Whaling you may consider this theory in football terms; The Whales have sent the Jellies in to run a ‘Contain Defense’ on the Sea of Japan backfield of whaling boats. Just a thought.

Could this invasion be a natural recurring cycle? Or Three Gorges Dam in China? Over fishing? Something is causing this “jellyfish spiral”. We live on planet Earth. Global change is guaranteed on a dynamic planet like Earth. Humans need to adjust, but Jellyfish Ice Cream? That’s going too far for me. Would you eat Jellyfish Ice Cream??? We’ve got to find a use for them…

Comment: Would Jellyfish Ice Cream top off YOUR delicious seafood dinner?