Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone!

I wish the very best to any and all of you during the holidays and in the coming new year. I have much to be thankful for and much of it has to do with every one of you!

(about the photo: This photograph was taken by one of my longest time scuba students, photography student and great friend, Scott. And taken many years ago. I wanted such a photograph to use to make that year's Christmas cards with. We determined to scuba dive on a Coast Guard cutter, the USS Duane, which was sunk for diving in 1987. It rests a few miles off shore from Key Largo and in roughly 125 fsw. It is a beautiful wreck encrusted with orange cup and other corals and is home to schools of fish of many species. On a right day:good vis, calm seas, and no current; it is one of the best dives in Key Largo. Scott got a nice capture of a not so great subject, disguised as Santa. Kudos to Scott!)


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Welcome back to Key Largo, Rob!

Many, many years ago, and soon after I launched my website, one of my very first scuba students to come to me through my website was Rob and his wife, Tammy. They had completed the academics and confined water portions of their Open Water Diver course up in the frigid north (Iowa). They engaged me to help them complete their course by doing the four requisite open water training dives. We had a very successful outcome and an enjoyable time. While here, he, being a techie type and me not being one, helped me install my first ever photo editing application on my computer. At that point I considered him to be my new best friend!
Rob and Tammy went back home to Iowa. And I continued teaching my scuba and underwater photography and the years went by. A couple weeks ago, Rob contacted me and was headed back to Key Largo and wanted to do his Nitrox course and Dry Suit Diver course with me while here! We set this up and in the process, I learned that he had since gone on to do his Advanced course and his Rescue diver course. And he and Tammy had been continuing with and in their diving.
I have the credential to teach Nitrox. I do not have the credential to instruct dry suit diving. So, I hooked Rob up with Pam W. who is a friend and a PADI Course Director. Pam learned to dive in NC and they use dry suits up there, more than we do down here. I snapped the photograph above, while Pam was working with Rob in the pool and during his Dry Suit Diver course.
We had excellent diving conditions as he managed to catch one of the few window periods here, in 2008, where the winds had abated. Rob saw his first shark while we were diving at Snapper Ledge!

Rob successfully completed both courses and like many of you reading this blog, is a good student of scuba. He will be taking advantage of the new knowledge and skills he learned here as he dives in Lake Superior. He intends to return this summer bringing Tammy, as she is like me, and prefers to dive in warm waters and sans the need for a drysuit!

So after all these years, I was able to welcome Rob back to Key Largo and will see both he and Tammy again this summer!

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Hector logs his 1000th scuba dive!

One use I have found to make use of 'My Blog' is to recognize achievements and accomplishments of 'my guyz'. I met Hector a little over a year ago. He had recently been discharged from the military and was in Key Largo doing his Instructor Development Course. Shortly after his successful completion of his IDC, he participated in my underwater photography course. Hector did both these through Ocean Divers, http://www.oceandivers.com/, the dive charter company I engage. After leaving me and Key Largo, Hector packed his new instructor and photo credentials, scuba and underwater camera and moved to Hawaii. He is engaged as an instructor and photographer at this time and on the island of Oahu. Two of Hector's images, photographed there, are featured in my website's Contributors Gallery. A short while back Hector sent me the photograph above, which was taken on the day he did his 1000th scuba dive! That is a heck of a lot of diving Hector and kudos to You!

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Tee-shirt Contest Winner!!!

For the past ten years and around Thanksgiving, I send out a mass emailing to my students of scuba, of underwater photography, to my 'guyz' who regularly dive with me, associates, peers, photography clients and customers, 'mermaids', family and well; just_plain_ole_friends!
I do this after I have finished making my annual changes, additions and edits to my website. I accumulate ideas during the year and begin making the changes beginning after Labor Day, when diving in Key Largo slows down a bit.
The email serves many purposes from just being a way to better keep in touch with everyone to promotional. Like diving, the undercurrent is, it is also for fun. This year in the email, for fun, I conducted a 'contest' and the prize was one of my logoed tee-shirts. To win, the contestant needed to be the first person to email me and in their email identify three changes I made to my website. I mentioned, in this year's emailing, I would announce the winner of the contest here in 'My Blog'.
This was the first ever contest and this year, the contest winner is Mike and Kara. Kara has been diving with me for years and taken many scuba courses from me, including her Divemaster course. She is a great little scuba diver and now a mother and she is also a horsewoman. I feature her here in this blogpost competing in another contest that, I believe, she took third place in.
Congratulations, Kara (and Mike) for winning not one contest but two!
The changes 'they' noted to my website were: that I added two new images to my Gallery, 'Big Mouth' ( a Moray) and 'Natalie's Queen Angelfish' (self explanatory). Somewhat ironic that Kara would notice 'Big Mouth', as Morays have never been her favorite 'critter'! They also noted a new image on my Fun Top Side page: that of Mary M with her camera system. I made additions to the Contributors Gallery and they noticed those, and among those were: Jessica's 'Eye of the Octopus' and Melissa's 'Eyes of the Ray' (validating my premise that in UW photography, the 'eyes have it'). They also noticed links to a 'guyz' ability to order my way kewel logoed tee-shirt, and I believe that their seeing these compelled them to enter the contest. And, of course they noticed my addition of this- 'My Blog'.
Great fun to 'conduct' this contest and not sure what I will do next year! Me being unimaginative and not very creative, will likely do the same thing. So, if you missed out this year, there is always next year. Or, alternatively, you can just order a real kewel dive tee-shirt now!

Thank you Kara and Mike for noticing these changes to my site and I hope Mike enjoys wearing the tee-shirt. Congratulations to a winning couple!

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An interesting photo shoot.

Once in a while I get contacted to photograph subjects that are not underwater and it is always an interesting shoot. I never know where my own diving and underwater photography will lead me, only that it will be 'interesting'. A week or so ago a local friend of mine, Rick, was contacted by an individual who needed some photographs of his gemstones taken to use in the individual's advertising campaign to sell these stones.

This week, I spent parts of days engaged in photographing some very beautiful and ornate gemstones, Turquoise and it was a new challenge for me. The individual, Capt. Shon, who, along with his partner, Lee, also own a restaurant here in Key Largo, Captiain Shon's Seafood Grill and Pub. They had already purchased all the photographic equipment necessary to do this type of photography and shoot.

We used a Canon dSLR and its 100mm macro lens and a 'shadow box'. Once we got organized the shoot went well. I learned many new things and most of which was about the stones themselves. I did not know how popular they are and as such, there are only three mines in the world that contain enough turquoise to make the mining of them profitable. I had no idea how valuable these gemstones are but learned it when we would weigh each one and weigh them to the 100th of a carot.

Interesting life's experience for this scuba diver. Camera settings were ISO 1600, AWB, F-Stop of F-22 and a Shutterspeed that varied from 1/60th of a second and faster, and varied only due to the reflectiveness of the stone photographed. The camera lens was set to manual focus and each stone focused individually. The shadow box had different types of light choices, and the photos were taken using the halogen choice. We mounted the camera to the box and I used my remote control to trigger the shutter, to avoid camera shake and out of focus photographs.

I wish Capt Shon great success with his endeavor and it was an interesting experience for me to be a small part of. Thank you Rick and Capt. Shon and Lee and for her help in organization!

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Working with CBS

Earlier this month I received a call from my friends, Rob and Aja, who own Pleasure Diver, a dive charter company here in Key Largo (http://www.pleasurediver.com/). They had received contact from a CBS film crew who needed some footage for a pilot that will be produced by CBS and aired this spring. The crew privately chartered Pleasure Diver for the day, and Rob and Aja wanted to and did engage my diving and photographic services to help support the film crew's effort. The shoot occurred on November 5th and 6th. The crew captured their needed footage on the first day, but, had such great diving they stayed on to dive the second day!

For me it was a very interesting challenge as they needed water that looked like the Pacific Ocean, as that was where the pilot program was taking place! We were lucky and on the days they were here we found beautiful blue water. Luckier still that on their shooting day, 'everything' that could show up 'critter-wise' did! We needed sun for filming and the sun was out. We were void of current and surge which made filming easier. And we had great visibility with clean water. The film crew Dennis and Eddie were an absolute dream to work with. They were very serious minded about their task at hand, to capture the footage, but were very easy going and laid back about it none the less. Fun to be on the boat with and to dive with.
Was a nice 'kudo' for me to be a part of and especially given the success the film crew had. And aside from doing a bit of bragging here in 'my blog' ('cause I can!) I want to use this as a forum to thank my friends Rob and Aja of Pleasure Diver for the opportunity. Thank you Rob and Aja!


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"September 2008 Dive Spectacular"

Many years ago and for years, I have had the idea to get a group of my 'regular guyz' together and take a trip somewhere cool. Down to an island in the Caribbean, whereever. That is a huge undertaking to say the least and the least of which would be the ability to get a dozen or so different 'guyz' from all parts of the country and world together on the same dates! Last spring it came to me that I have a pretty good list of 'regular underwater photography guyz', who all live in Florida and maybe I could put together a less ambitious undertaking and right here in Key Largo.
So in March the plan began with emails to 'my guyz'. The "our September Dive Spectacular" was born. The above slideshow captures best in imagery what it was all about. Most drove down from all over Florida, and even one came from the UK, on the previous Friday night, or that Saturday morning.
We had arranged to privately charter our own boat for the afternoon. There were around 20 of us on the boat and I was able to handpick both the boat and crew and picked a boat and crew that most of my guyz were already familiar with. We met at noon that Saturday in September, and the weather, even during our hurricane season, fully cooperated. Sunny, warm, calm seas. We provisioned the boat with snacks including: a rumcake, an apple/caramel fruit platter, Sunspree soft drinks ( and a couple beers were spirited aboard), bottled water, crackers, cheeses, chips and dips and salsa and mixed nuts, cookies and a plate of brownies. Oh yeah, we also brought our scuba gear and the camera tables and other spaces were jammed with underwater photography equipment of any and all types!
The dives were just wonderfull with great visibility and swim suit warm water. It was amazing to hear about all the cool stuff that everyone 'said' they saw even after just the first dive! The captain and I came to the conclusion that 'the first liar did not stand a chance'. There were 'claims' to Manta Rays being seen, Eagle Rays spotted, Sharks, including a Tiger shark, a big mouthed green Moray Eel and a very large menacing Mantis Shrimp and more than one seductive Mermaid. At least one diver claimed to seeing a Whale Shark! Another claimed he missed seeing that because he was busy watching a humpback whale and her calf. And a third missed both events due to being busy dodging a pod of bottlenosed dolphins!!
In case any of you missed the event, or missed seeing these things, they are included in the slide show.
I was overwhelmed by this whole event and especially the comraderie. Everyone met and immediately got along! And throughout the day and later after the dives at our planned happy hour and cookout, that was held dockside. New friends were definitely made. While we had around 20 'guyz' on the boat, we invited the crew and dive operator staff to our happy hour and cookout so I guess we had around 25 or 30 people during this part of the 'Dive Spectacular. Only one person, Brian, and his wife, could not make it as a last minute work issue rose its ugly head. But, Brian you were there in spirit as evidenced by a photo of you on the boat!
To top off the good diving, we did what divers do after diving. Debrief and Celebrate. We had both types of beverages, the second type being 'adult'and in abundant quantities. Iced and ready for us when we got off the dive boat! Four grills were fired up to cook the things we used to make shiskabobs with: all the colored peppers and onions and mushrooms and big cubes of marinatetd sirloin steak, and nice chunks of marinated and plain chicken breast filets. To tide us over one of the 'guyz' brought a large crockpot full of bbq-ed pulled pork, and, one of the Mermaids got a bunch of chickenwings from the adjacent bar. Along with all this we had potato salad, macaroni salad, and one of the guyz grilled 30 ears of corn on the cob. Breads, butter, coleslaw, more chips and dips and the usual condiments were all there. Oh, I almost forgot, we grilled scallops in butter!! I do not believe anyone went hungry! Or, thirsty! And we had music too, thanx to a guy bringing a small boombox! So, there was some dancing (not me).
Everybody chipped in with the preparation of all of this from beginning to end. And made it such a spectacular event. It began with an idea last spring and started at around noon that September Saturday. Continued on until the last of the 'younger guyz' attending quit at around midnight. A few of the heartier souls showed up the next morning for a debrief session over Bloody Mary's and Mermosas. I had coffee, thank you!! Laughing
We are already talking about doing this again and perhaps a little differently and likely between now and before next September! I have been diving a long time. This event, to me, epitomized what scuba diving can be , should be, and is, all about! Great fun from start to finish! It was overwhelming and indeed a 'Dive Spectacular'! And made possible, simply, by good divers and good people just gettin' together and goin' divin' ! September 20, 2008.
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Happy Birthday, Natalie!

Happy birthday, Natalie. And congratulations again on all your accomplishments as a scuba diver and student of scuba.

Your successfull completion of your Underwater Navigation specialty course with me, and, your hard worked for Rescue Diver credential with my friend, Sasha, who owns South Beach Divers, http://www.southbeachdivers.com/ in Miami.

Huge congrats, tooo, on your completion of your Divemaster course. You are such a good student of scuba and always come well prepared for your course and ready to go!


You also make a wonderfull dive buddy and not a bad underwater model for this humble photographer.

Have a great day today on your birthday.

"Matt's Kids"

I consider myself fortunate and and am very thankfull for being able to do what I do. I teach people how to scuba dive and or underwater photography. It is rewarding for me to help my students reach their goals. I make an analogy to when we were all kids. And when we meet and make a new friend, one friend knows something that the other does not know or know much about. And I am the new friend and the one showing the other friend something the friend does not know.

Years ago, I met a new friend, Professor Matt Landau, who came to me and spent some days with me learning underwater photography. Matt is a PHD and college professor who teaches the Marine Sciences at Stockton College in New Jersey. Each year, during the summer, Matt conducts a couple of week-long field trips to the Florida Keys with a group of his college students, who we here in the Keys affectionately refer to as ' Matt's Kids'. They are in my mind the future 'Cousteaus' of the world. They are all good 'kids', dedicated and studious and work hard while here. Matt's field trips are not junkets for college kids. Their days are long and begin early and end well after dark.

Matt asked me years ago, if I would spend a day with him and his 'kids' working with them and helping introduce them to our local marine environment and I readily agreed to. Over the years, these days, one day during each of the two week field trips, that I spend time with Matt and his Kids, are among the most rewarding days of my year.

As the years passed, Matt's Kids have graduated and went on to work in their field. And make a contribution. Each year, Matt brings new groups of these kind of people.

I thought I would use my blog to applaud not only Matt, but, his 'kids'. To in some small way give recognition to them and their energies and dedication to their endeavor. Thank you Matt and a thanx to your 'kids'. Our Kids! It has been my good fortune to meet and work with them.

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Turtle Rescue in Key Largo

We have a lot of fun scuba diving and being out on and visiting our wonderful reefs here in Key Largo. And once in a while during the midst of it all, we come across a chance to do something in return for the fun we all have. One day this past August that 'something' appeared on the horizon. I had already finished my dives that day and was back on the dock. Enjoying a dive debrief and a beer. When, I started to hear about a turtle being rescued; so here is the 'story' as I remember it and am attaching a slide show that helps document this:

Scotty who works for our marine sanctuary patrol, was on duty when he spotted a turtle on the surface. Scotty drove his boat over to check out the turtle and noticed it could not dive. Scotty knew something was wrong with the turtle and he could not, single handedly, do anything to help it. So, he got on his marine radio and hailed Ocean Divers' boat, 'Santana' as it was in the area. Santana arrived on the scene and between Scotty and Santana's crew, they managed to land the turlte onto Santana. A call was placed to our very own 'Turtle Hospital', a non-profit entity headquartered in Marathon, and they have a 'Turtle Ambulance'. The Turtle Hospital's ambulance arrived at the dock to meet the boat and take the turtle to the hospital.

I had originally heard that the turtle had ingested a plastic bag, which they do do, misstaking these baggies for jellyfish. This can be deadly as the plastic plugs up the turtle's system. But, in this case that was not what was ailing the turtle. I am not sure what exactly was wrong, but, some sort of infection in a body cavity causing an inability for the turtle to dive. The turtle is being treated with anti-biotics. The Turtle Hospital staff named the turtle 'OD' for Ocean Divers and in their gratitude for the efforts of Scotty and OD in rescueing the turtle. For more about this rescue visit the Turtle Hospital's blog here: http://www.turtlehospital.org/blog/?m=200808

To me, it is pretty cool , that we can be out there scuba diving and having some fun and sometimes, get the chance to do some real good for the environment which we recreate in!

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Some tips for other Bloggers

As I mentioned early on in my blog, I set this blog up in January of 2007, but, really did nothing with it until this fall. During the fall of each year, I make annual changes and additions to my website, and last year, determined that trying to incorporate a blog reference and blog was too much of an undertaking due to the other changes I was making that year.

Well, the fall of 2008 has now arrived and I determined to incorporate 'my blog' into my website so began developing the blog itself. I've learned a few things from other bloggers and doing some research on-line and the purpose of this post is to share these with other bloggers. I will probably update this post from time to time when or if I find or learn something new and usefull. Here goes:

My blog's template is 'Minima' but I believe these tips will work on other templates as their CSS/HTML seems similar. A word of warning, though, is if making changes to your existing blog, is to always save a copy of your template before trying to change anything, or, note your blog's prior settings. That way you can always go back to square one, should your attempt fail, or, you do not like the result.

One long standing problem I have had as an underwater photographer and having my photographs on the Internet was anyone else's ability to copy and save them and use them without my knowledge or permission. I've enjoyed having a website and now a blog, but the first thing that took the fun out of my having a presence on the Internet was having my images ripped. To this date there is no way a photographer can prevent this. It used to be easier to, but, that was long ago, and before many regular guys grew in their technological competencies. I am not going to elaborate here on how to copy someone else's imagery from the Internet, rather, advise what I have done to make it more difficult to.

I at least have prevented (in most cases) a viewer's ability to 'right-click-and-save' a photograph.

I added as a gadget to my blog, a piece of javascript. If you created your blog and are reading this , then you will know how to add a gadget. One gadget you can add is HTML or Javascript. To find the javascript that I added, using your browser, select VIEW, then SOURCE. Scroll down and you will find some 'html' that begins with a bracket: <> with Java inside it. The script's end tag reads something like this < / java 1.1 > . I am paraphrasing this script or tag, here in this post. Copy and paste this javascript into your 'gadget' and save. This will prevent some one from right clicking and saving your photographs you have posted in your blog. You can also find this same script by viewing my website's source code. My webmater, Bill Dunbar, of http://www.net-creations.net/ coded this for me and it was a huge favor. If you have a problem finding the javascript and need it, send me an e-mail: larry@larrygates.com .

The next thing I noticed was when I posted a post that had a photograph in it, was a person could curse over that photograph and 'left-click' and open a page with a very large version of the photograph and then, 'right-click-and save' that version! It took some study and thought for me to come up with a solution to this issue. I resolved this by using one of the blog's tool, which enables me to edit the blog's HTML. But, only the HTML within each post already posted. Not the blog's template. (This is much less perilous, if one errors)

We bloggers can post and later edit our posts and an edit choice is 'Edit HTML'. So, I make that choice just after I make a post that holds a photograph, and, I edit the anchor tag that would lead a viewer to that larger image. The anchor tag begins with: <>. com. I simply replaced the reference to 'blogspot.com' with larrygates . com. ' You could use 'anything . com '. Literally! The result of what I did was to create a 'dead-link'. Again if you have any questions about exactly how I did this, please send me an email.

On another matter altogether, I oftemtimes include links within my posts. As a reference to what I am posting about. I want the viewer to be able to 'see' the link, and the viewer to be able to 'click-on' it and go to that page or site. This saves the viewer the time and effort of having to copy and paste the link into their browswer's address bar. I managed to get this done by beginning in my blog's Dashboard. Then I selected 'Settings'. Next I selected 'Formatting'. Then I scrolled done until I found "Show link fields" and selected the 'YES' box. Then selected 'Save Settings'.

So, for now, fellow bloggers and photographers, either underwater or topside, the above are a couple things I learned that were useful to me in developing this blog. I can at least afford the same protection to the photos in this blog as I am already doing with those in my website and if I want some one to be able to view a link within a post, can do that as well.

Good blogging to you! And as the 'techies' would say: " hope this helps" .

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'Save Snapper Ledge!'

Snapper Ledge is a small, easy to dive, shallow dive site; that we in Key Largo favor because it is probably the most fishy dive site anywhere. Marine scientists have studied the site and cannot explain why there are so many fish on this site nor can they explain the diversity of the fish and aquautic life there. Because of the diversity and density of the fish-life there it is immensely popular as a dive site. Schools of grunts and goatfish are so thick you literally cannot see through them. It is home to nurse sharks, moray eels of different species, lobsters, squirrelfish, parrotfish, trumpetfish, both yellow and southern stingrays, all the macro creatures and an occasional gray shark or eagle ray visit Snapper Ledge.

It is not part of the Sanctuary Preservation Area program. Therefore, any and all activities, fishing, spearfishing, lobstering are legal to do at Snapper Ledge. Over the very few years that mankind has visited Snapper Ledge, word has spread about its existance and wealth of marine life there. In its early days, only a few knew of it, and only a few had its GPS numbers. Several years ago, a mooring ball was installed at Snapper Ledge and this made it easy for everyone to find Snapper Ledge and enjoy it.

However, this summer a tragic event occurred at Snapper Ledge. It was discovered by recreational scuba divers engaged in underwater photography. Someone had caught a small nurse shark and eviscerated it, and, released it back onto the reef, where it died a slow death over some days' time.

Word of this tragic event spread first among us local divers and then more regionally, and, there is now a movement on to try to get the authorities to add Snapper Ledge to the SPA program and make it a Sanctuary Preservation Area.

The movement has circulated an on-line petition and the link is above, embedded into my photograph of fish at Snapper Ledge and here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/snapledg/petition.html .

I've signed it. I believe over 2000 others have also signed it. I would urge you to sign it as well.

Snapper Ledge is a very rare phenomenon and it is my belief that we should do all we can to preserve it.

Your own Website!

Obviously I have my own website, a virtual domain, www.larrygates.com. And it is rich in content and particularly photographic imagery. I make changes to my site each year, and some miner changes during the year and adding images has always been a real chore for me, the scuba diver, to do. I managed to learn how and in that process later came across a person who can create much easier to edit websites than mine.

His name is Mike and is pictured above. He is a friend now, and before that one of my Rescue Diver students and is also a friend of another friend of mine, Hans. Hans was also one of my Rescue Diver students and took instruction from me in underwater photography.

As a new underwater photographer, Hans wanted his own website where he could feature his work and one in which was 'mo betta' than using the more mainstream and (I think) mundane photo sharing sites 'out there' in cyberspace.

Since then, I had another long time scuba student and dive client, Steve , who also took instruction from me in underwater photography and completed his course about a year or so ago. Steve, like Hans, determined to have a website also. Steve, as Hans did, engaged Mike to construct and launch Steve's website.

Check these sites out:
http://www.hansdejager.com/

http://www.sjmphotos.com/

To me, Mike's websites are very rich in both appearance and features and you can see for yourself by 'clicking-on' either or both of the links in this post that take you to Hans's and Steve's websites!! The big advantage that both Hans and Steve derive from their sites is their ease in setting up Galleries and adding their images to these Galleries. Their images are first viewed as thumbnails and mouse cursing over them leads to a larger view. The images are also 'right-click- protected.

So, I am impressed, and thought I would pass this on to you, the readers of my blog. In the event you are contemplating having your own website and having one that is easy for a scuba diver to add to, edit or whatever!!

Mike is a good guy (as you can tell by the photo of him I added to this post), a scuba diver and now Rescue Diver, and also a very smart 'techie-guy'! Mike can be reached via an email to: mikeselleck@msn.com

Tell Mike, Larry sent ya!!!

Dolphin Rings via an Email

I received this video clip from a friend, Sally, who is a Course Director and teaching scuba in Guam. What follows is a copy and paste of the text of her email that tells the story:

"The attached video is of dolphins playing with silver colored rings which they have the ability to make under water to play with. It isn't known how they learn this, or if it's an inbred ability. As if by magic the dolphin does a quick flip of its head and a silver ring appears in front of its pointed beak. The ring is a solid, donut shaped bubble about 2-ft across, yet it doesn't rise to the surface of the water! It stands upright in the water like a magic doorway to an unseen dimension. The dolphin then pulls a small silver donut from the larger one. Looking at the twisting ring for one last time a bite is taken from it, causing the small ring to collapse into a thousands of tiny bubbles which head upward towards the water's surface. After a few moments the dolphin creates another ring to play with. There also seems to be a separate mechanism for producing small rings, which a dolphin can accomplish by a quick flip of its head. An explanation of how dolphins make these silver rings is that they are 'air-core vortex rings'. Invisible, spinning vortices in the water are generated from the tip of a dolphin's dorsal fin when it is moving rapidly and turning. When dolphins break the line, the ends are drawn together into a closed ring. The higher velocity fluid around the core of the vortex is at a lower pressure than the fluid circulating farther away. Air is injected into the rings via bubbles released from the dolphin's blowhole. The energy of the water vortex is enough to keep the bubbles from rising for a reasonably few seconds of play time."

I do not know how Sally came across this video, nor, who made it. To me, it is very cool!

Happy Birthday CJ !!

No need to mention how young you turned.

Nor kid Andrianna how many turtles you saw!

I had a great day divng with you and congrats

on your birthday present from 'mother ocean';

You saw your very first turtle, and three more!

This can't be rocket science!

Hopefully any of you will laugh at 'technology boy' (me, the scuba diver) trying to get this 'blogging thingee' sorted out!

I have attempted to create this blog in a way that its appearance closely resembles the appearance of my website www.larrygates.com.

Mouse cursing over either my logo, my link, or my photograph; found in the sidebars, and clicking will take you to my website.