Jackson point – Marine railway

 

Location	Jackson Point	Bottom	Sand/Silt
Official Name	Marine Railway	Current	Low
Access	Shore	Hazards	Fishing Lines
Level	Novice	Dimensions	200’x25’
Depth	0-35 ft	Traffic	Low

 

This heavy old marine railway (there are three railways) is the place used for hauling boats and ships out of the water for maintenance or to avoid the ravages of winter ice. It is a threatened historical dive site in the south eastern part of Lake Simcoe.

The railway is fairly large approximately 25 feet wide between the outer rails, 200 feet of track.

This is pretty much what is left, the cart is gone, nothing else survived. Heavy timbers that used to act as the rails for launching boats now serve primarily as a playground for visiting divers.

Apparently there were some more tracks on land but they disappeared under a parking lot and a boat-launch ramp; all that remains is the part of the tracks in the water.

Unfortunately, this site is threatened, so dive it while you still can and help support the project to Save the Jackson's Point Marine Railway.

J.C. Morrison

 

Location	Barrie	Official Name	J.C. Morrison
Access	Shore	Material	Wood
Level	Novice	Propulsion	Paddle Wheeler
Depth	30’	Type	Steam/wheeler
Bottom	Rocks and sand	Built	1854
Current	Low	Sunked	1857
Hazards	Boats traffic	Position	Upright - scattered

The J.C. Morrison, a 150-ton "floating palace" that ran out of Bell Ewart was frequently blown off course by wind and waves. 
The Morrison was built in 1854, three years later J.C. Morrison caught on fire. To protect the harbour, the ship was cut loose and set adrift. It burnt right down to the water line, as it wafted towards its final resting place.

She burned to the waterline and sunk approximately 300 from the shore in 30 of water, nice and easy dive with a fair visibility most of the time (10-30).

Though the ship mysteriously caught fire in 1857, its burned hull was not discovered until 1974. Artifacts from the Morrison can be viewed at the Simcoe County Museum. This place is a pleasant nice dive with a good visibility most of the time (10-30).

You can see parts of the paddle wheels, plenty of fish, and unfortunately the wreckage is entirely encrusted by zebra mussels. There is a line from the shore along the bottom all the way to the wreck.

A large yellow buoy is tied to the stern marks the wrecks. The wreck has a "Save Ontario Shipwrecks" plaque attached to it which features a cast of items found at site.

Because most of the day we can see heavy traffic from boats and surfers use a dive flag or the marker buoy.

Scuba 2000 has a map on how to get there.
Here is the link to it, many thanks Scuba 2000!!

CURACAO - Ocean Encounters Diving

 

Diving in Curacao - LOCAL SITES

CAR PILE

A unique, deep underwater car graveyard, this is a must see for antique car enthusiasts and wreck lovers alike. Dumped atop a healthy existing reef in the 1960’s in an ill planned effort to create an artificial reef, the Car Pile is gradually being reclaimed by the sea. You’ll find not only cars, but also trucks and construction equipment dating back to the 1940’s. Take a wide angle lens and get a picture of your buddy posing with their favourite model, but be careful, the cars have gotten a tad rusty and there are many sharp edges! 

This is an easy shore dive, located just right of Superclub Breezes’ house reef. Breezes has an onsite dive shop, showers, restaurant, and full amenities. This site can also be accessed for free from the neighbouring public beach of Marie Pompoen. Currents are generally light, but the surface can get a bit choppy.

En route to the car pile you’ll swim over a variety of shallow coral along the artificial breakwater. This area is great for snorkelling and novice divers. Stony Corals dominate, with Squirrelfish, Angelfish, and Parrotfish  swimming among the rocks. Continue until reaching the drop-off a few minutes further on. Look for the pontoon wreck at 65 feet and continue down to the cars. The reef starts at 80 feet and the wrecks are scattered around at 90 feet and below, nicely encrusted with sponges and black coral.

Spotted Drum Fish grow unusually large in these waters and can be found hiding among the wrecks. Trunkfish also populate the Car Pile, swimming in their seemingly awkward manner between the corals.
This is a deep dive - remember your training and plan accordingly.

 

BOCA TABLA

This site, which is well known for it's famous cave is part of the Shete Boka National Park. It is suited to advanced divers only.  To reach this site by car, head towards Westpunt. Boka Tabla is signposted to the right. A small entrance fee must be paid at the gate of the national park. Divers should head towards the overflow which ensures that excess rain water flows out to sea during the rainy season.

Enter the water when the sea is calm i.e. when the winds have died down. The sea bed is covered in sea-weed and coral, such as Brain Coral, Finger Coral, and Plate Coral interspersed with small patches of sand. There are a good number of reef fish here, including Trunkfish, Parrotfish and Doctor fish.

 

THE WALL

An impressive wall dive, this site is a must see for those who enjoy vertical drop-offs. To reach the Wall by car head to Blauwbaai, near the Blue Bay Golf Resort. There’s a parking fee, but if you tell them you’re there to dive they’ll halve the price. Facilities include showers, bathrooms, snacks, and a full service dive shop. The dive shop requires you rent their tanks, even if you’ve brought your own.

Enter the water at the right side of the beach and swim right towards the cliffs. The reef starts at about 25 feet and drops almost vertically to more than 140 feet. Hanging over the vertical drop off can give you the sensation of flying.

If you begin to feel any vertigo, keep an eye on a fixed point of the reef until the feeling passes. Also keep a close eye on your depth gauge, as it’s easy to drop below your planned limits.

Along the edge of the drop-off there’s a healthy mix of Gorgonians and Stony Corals, with some large Sea Fans waving in the current. Trumpet Fish like to hunt here, hanging upside down in the hopes that they’re mistaken for a Rope Sponge by an unwary fish. They look slow, but if you get too close you’ll find those looks to be deceiving.

Following the wall back in the direction of the beach there are some impressive coral formations and large schools of fish, with some of the better specimens at a depth of 40 – 60 feet. This is a good site to find the Long snout Butterfly fish searching the recesses for invertebrates.

Don’t forget to take some time to examine the nooks and crannies yourself for Lobster, Eels, and Spotted Drums. Photographers, bring the wide angle.

Curacao – Moments from the city

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Cuba – Cayo Coco

 

There are only two dive centers in Cayo Coco: Blue Diving, which is join venture Cuban-Italian and is pretty good and Trip Cayo-Coco, which is entirely Cuban.

The guys from Blue Diving are pretty good, gear is pretty good, good briefs, personnel friendly I was pleased with their service. They have one big boat, which can hold 18-20 people, and their own bus so any trip you plan you'll have transportation provided by them. Trip Cayo Coco is a mess I don't even want to talk about this.

 

Here are few locations listed on Blue Diving center:

La Jaula Depth: 17/30 meters
Las Coloradas Depth: 12 meters
Casasa Depth: 12/30 meters
Los Tiburones Depth: 16 meters 
Negro Depth: 30 meters
Peñon Depth: 24 meters
Eqnest Depth: 24 meters
Academia Depth: 10 meters
Punto Nuevo Depth: 14 meters
El Ancha Depth: 10 meters
El Paredon Depth: 30 meters
Mogoles Depth: 3/10 meters

Some photos from the trip:

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Dominican Republic – Neptuno Divers

 

 

La Romana - San Dolio

Access: boat only
Level: Beginners to advanced
Depth: 30-120 ft

Recommendation: Do not leave without a camera.

There are plenty of dive shops on La Romana. Of all Neptuno Divers is the best one with the best rates. Checkout on the first day what they have on the board and be there first thing in the morning to book. Prices are 25$/dive when you buy a package so good luck. Visibility is good when you go diving in the morning (30-40ft), it goes worse in the afternoon (20ft).

For snorkelers good luck, the coral reef makes waves break close to the shore, the visibility is not very good but still you can see some coral formations and coloured fish.

There are more than fifteen dive sites in Juan Dolio and are always discovering new ones, all with mooring buoys. The only access way to these sites is with speedboats and can reach them in five minutes. There are two regular dives a day and depending on weather conditions dives in the afternoon and night dives on a frequent base. Depth ranges from 30 to 100 feet and depends on the experience of the diver. At the house reef you can expect to find an interesting UW topography consisting of deep channels and ravines, a large diversity of soft and hard corals and the smaller but vibrantly colourful typical reef fish. Smaller life forms are abundant and make fantastic macro opportunities for the UW photographer. Visibility can be expected to be between 50 and 100 feet.

Paradise Reef:
Depth 8-15 meters, Distance from the base: approx. 5 min. Amazing rock ad coral formations with many hard and soft corals, swarms of fish and with a little bit luck nurse sharks, stingrays and morays.

Patato:
Depth 5-14 meters, distance from the base approx. 8 min. Impressive rock formations with many small passages and caverns, good chance to see crayfish, lobster and Barracudas.

La Cueva:
Depth 8-13 meters, distance from the base approx. 10 min. Reef with many caverns and caves to dive. You will often meet stingrays, lobster and sometimes nurse sharks.

Tanya V:
Right in front of the dive base (Neptuno Divers) there is the Tanya V wreck. It was sunk on October 21st 1999, creating a new dive site for local and visiting divers alike. Approximately 195feet/65meters in length, the Tanya V now rests quietly on a sand bank at depth of 22-34m, making it a good deep dive for experienced, advanced divers. Although it's going to take time and patience for marine life to flourish, already Tanya V has acquired her very own barracuda guard!

House Reefs:
On the house reef you can expect to find deep channels and ravines, a large diversity of soft and hard corals and the smaller but vibrantly colourful typical reef fish. Depths range from 30 to 100 feet and depend on the experience of the diver. Smaller life forms are abundant and make fantastic photographer. Visibility can be expected to be between 50 and 100 feet.

Catalina Island:
The Wall in front of Catalina Island can be reached by boat in 30 minutes from Bayahibe. Starting at 18 feet with a vertical plunge it is draped with sponges and Black Coral to a depth of 130 feet. The top of The Wall is full of marine life: corals and sponges in all colors, shapes and sizes, Elkhorn corals and myriad of colourful Caribbean fishes in shallow water. You can enjoy them just with snorkelling gear.

For the advanced divers the dive sites near the small island Catalinita offers an exciting experience with black tip sharks, hammerheads and big rays.

Costa Rica Diving - Gulf of Papagayo

 

COSTA RICA - GUANACASTE (Resort Divers)

Diving in Guanacaste area is spectacular and when I say this I'm referring to the marine life less to the water visibility which is around 30ft - 45ft. I've seen humpback whales, dolphins, white tip sharks, several varieties of eels, hard and soft corals, starfish, jewfish, turtles, octopus, hundreds of rays of all types. See bellow few of the photos I’ve taken – some are posted for sale.
I interested on purchasing any photos, please contact me trough form bellow on comments section.

Water temperature was most of the time around 78-84F with few thermo clines here and there specially in deep water. Dive Masters are ok, they sometimes go fast on the safety part of the briefing, and sometimes go for the deeper dive after the shallower one but overall they're pretty good and knowledgeable. Bottom is mostly dark sand spotted with rocks or coral, sometimes rock formations with channels in between give divers the option to do a drift dive.
You'll need a shortly for protection mostly, jelly fish tentacles are abundant in the water. I've seen some rented equipment and it looked pretty good for a resort dive shop. Once you're in the boat your gear is assembled and ready for you.

I went with Resort Divers (www.resortdivers-cr.com) across the bay from us; the personnel is very friendly and they know how to make you enjoy the day. I arranged everything through email days before arriving in Costa Rica. Once we've got to the hotel, I called Resort Divers and the next morning they picked me up, I paid for the package deal and that was it. Every morning at 8:15 the boat was waiting for me at the beach to go diving.

There are few pinnacles in the water, rock formation corridors, monkey heads so you'll not have the chance to go twice in the same place. About two hours by boat from the Gulf of Papagayo you can find Catalina Island and Bat Island -popular places for diving where you can spot giant mantas, sharks of all types (bull, tiger sharks, and sometimes whale shark), moorish idols, and nudibranchs.

 

LOCAL SITES:

Punta Gorda
A great spot for macro. Everything from white-tips to frog fish. Several varieties of eels in rocks. One of the few sites with hard coral. Usually grunts, sergeant majors, and stone fish everywhere. We have seen as many as 10.000 golden/cow-nosed rays on the site as well as sea-horses and occasional eagle rays. This site is 15-20ft deep on one side of the pinnacle and drops to 75-80 on the outside, with most of the life at the top of the rocks.

Bajo Tiburone
This is a great site for white-tip sharks. We also see southern sting rays here. There are some crevices that house white-tips and squirrel fish. The top of the rock is at 20-30 ft, making the safety stop interesting. We have sighted 500 to 1.000 mobulas (Family Mobulidae) on many occasions lately on this site. There are 3 basic rock formations with sand channels between.

Virador
This is a singular rock pinnacle, 20 ft on the front side and 90 ft or so on the back side. There are horse-eye jacks, butterfly fish, grunts, sergeant majors and many other varieties of schooling fish to see here. We have also seen the harlequin/clown shrimp here as there are several varieties of starfish. You may see white-tip shark, Jew fish and turtles too. 

Los Meros
This is a perfect place for a check-out or refresher dive as well as a great local dive. You will not see larger schools of grunts on any other site we have. There are also eel, octopus and nudibranchs. If you want to go deeper then 40 ft, you will have to bring a shovel. 

Catalina Islands
These are located approximately 50 min. to 1 hour from our dive shop. We have seen white-tip sharks, bull sharks, tiger sharks and huge schools of horse-eye jacks, along with moorish idols, tangs, and many other varieties of eels and starfish. There most times non anchored dives with surge and some current. During the months of Jan-April, you will be delighted to find Manta Rays with 14 to 24 ft wingspans. We have seen as few as one and as many as 50 on one dive!!

Bat Islands
These are located approximately 1:45 to 2 hours from our dive shop. Here we go looking for the BIG Bull Sharks. They range from 9 to 15 ft in length, with some of them weighing around 2.000 lbs!! The site is called Big Scare. The large schooling fish-snapper, jacks, rainbow, runners and gafftop-sail pompanos are unbelievable. Our other sites at Bat Islands also have these and more. We have sighted the giant Manta Rays here many times as well as eagle rays, and occasionally schools of thousands, yes thousands of golden, cow-nosed rays. There are non-anchored and very challenging dives. We make a day of it and stop in a wonderful area called the Refuge for snorkelling on the surface interval. This trip is a must for everyone who wants to see the best the area has to offer.

Info was collected with help from Resort Divers. Thank you!

Thrill of a lifetime

Reynard Formula 2000 Car

Everything from their incredible handling and acceleration to their amazing braking capabilities will entice you to want to push yourself and the car to greater heights each and every session.
A dream comes true!

Chassis: Tubular, open wheel
Weight: 1,000 lbs appx.
Aerodynamic wings: Fore and aft
(Provide increased downforce for high speed handling)
Engine size: 2.0 Litre
Engine power: 125 HP – (weight ration 500 hp) 
Brakes: Racing Performance Friction Carbon metallic disc brake pads on all 4 wheels
Gearbox: Four-speed, non-synchro
(Delights experts while challenging novices.)
Tires: Bridgestone Potenza S-03
Other features: On-board extinguishing system
6-point safety belts

 

Track Details

Purpose-built training tracks that were designed from the ground up expressly for driver development. Really learning to drive at the limit is easier to do when you aren't thinking about walls and guardrails!
On the Mosport Driver Development Tracks, we impose no artificial rev limits, speed limits, spin - mandatory pit rules, etc. It's your choice: spend your money racing or fixing guard rails!

 

Experience

I’m no race car driver but I recently had the opportunity to drive a real race car - Reynard Formula 2000 Car.
Not knowing quite what to expect, I was surprised to see that I was about to drive a real race car. Bridgestone Racing Academy - The organisers or this trilling experience - did an outstanding job on preparing these courses.

Course started at 12:00PM and for over 2 hours we covered introductions safety, car driving techniques, safe stopping and following distances, shifting (up and down shift), momentum and centrifugal force, things to do if you feel you loosing control control of the car, etc.

After about two hours of in-class instruction, we were suited up with racing gloves, socks, shoes, balaclava, helmet and full-body suit. Very hot day, no wind so expect clammy hands and no A/C.

Moments from the race

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Warm up (10-12 laps)

11 people were divided into two groups and each did a warm up session to get to know the car and the track. Keep your eye open on track staff and check if they’ll display any flags – each has a safety meaning – in case something happens.

I was the first from group A so I had no chance on seeing anybody else ahead of me and did not know what to expect. I made a successful run and I managed to drive pretty fast and without any incidents. First lap of the warm up session was more to learn the car, shifting, and how to prepare for each turn point.
RPM had a max suggested of 5500 and during the track you’ll probably use first gear (can go to 100 km/hour), second gear and third gear. Forth one you’ll not be able to use during warm up sessions, at least I wasn’t.

The groups are instructed to always follow the instructor and leave a safe distance of 5-6 cars between instructor car and first car that follows. Each driver has the chance to be the lead on his group so don’t be worried that somebody will drive slow ahead of you and keep you RPM low. Is not going to happen. Instructors can drive fast enough based on your comfort level.

Speed session (15-20 laps)

Second run is just exhilarating. You are now comfortable with your car, the gears and you have a better understanding on how to avoid skidding or bumping the concrete walls.
The adrenaline level is up to the limits and your mind's thinking ahead on what is the next corner and nothing else. The cars has solid 125 HP, which doesn't sound like much, but when you consider the car only weighs 1,000 lbs, you're talking more like 500 HP.
This second session is a lot longer and the numbers of laps vary on how groups size and comfort level.

I was again first on my group (group A) and we’re only 3 people on group – I guess we did good on first session LOL!!!
After two laps, third chap from our came too hard a double apex and went of the track. Staff went to help him out right away, nothing serious happened. The good thing about this incident – only two racers plus the instructors left for almost 5 laps. On 6th lap the chap returned and full groups enjoyed the remaining laps.

The day ended with lots of pictures, impressions and a strong feeling that we drove a real race car. As you looked around there was a smile on every face. Drivers were telling their story and exchanging impressions.

At the end, we returned the equipment, got our diploma and drove home – this time on a different different car. A day’s worth of fun, no crashing, no spinning out, no lawsuit.

Again, The Bridgestone Racing Academy did a very good on having this course, it is considered to be among the elite racing schools in North America. 
I highly recommend the experience and encourage others to check it out here: www.race2000.com.

It was the best birthday gift that a person can receive…