Author Archives: admin

Today someone posted this on ScubaBoard:

“I was recently in Las Vegas and had a chance to stay at the newly opened Palazzo Hotel. There is an Asian Restaurant on the casino floor called Jade, and we decided to try it out. I was shocked to see that they served Shark Fin Soup, given what we all know about the destruction of this creature. :angry: :angry: I spoke with the manager, told him how upsetting this would be to many people, and asked that he remove the item from the menu, but he said it was a corporate decision and that the restaurant is owned by Venetian/Palazzo. So I’ve sent emails to them but have heard nothing back, and now I’m publicizing this on scuba diving boards. Palazzo is a part of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. group of casinos and I’d bet they serve Shark FIn Soup in Macao and will in Singapore too. It’s a public company (LVS) and maybe like Disney they’ll respond to public pressure.

This has got to stop; it’s bad enough it’s an established part of some cultures but to bring it to the Strip gives it a novelty flair and it’s just that many more thoughtless people who will cause that much more thoughtless killing. Here’s the emails I could find, you might come up with additional contacts so post them here. And while I hope it’s gone soon, DEMA is in Vegas this Fall. Maybe a little personal visit/publicity/picketing might be helpful?”

The email addresses that were posted for complaints are:

foodandbeverage@palazzolasvegas.com
comments@palazzolasvegas.com

There is also a webform for feedback.

So, I decided to do my part, and wrote an email:

Dear Sir or Madame:

Recently it has come to my attention that the Jade restaurant, in your Palazzo Hotel is offering Shark Fin Soup on it’s menu. Please don’t mistake me for some PETA tree-hugger or other kind of hippy – I assure you that I am far from that. However, surely you know what a disturbing and disgusting practice shark-finning is. These animals are removed from the water, have their fins cut off, and are dropped back into the water to eventually die a slow death.

This would be the equivalent of chopping off the legs of a cow while its still alive, and letting it die a slow death. Would you do this to a dog or cat? Would you do this to ANY animal?

In light of these facts, I’m requesting that you remove shark-fin soup from your menu, as it supports the most barbaric treatment of the animals in our oceans. In the end I think you will find that its better for your restaurant to remove this item now, rather than face the hugely negative press that this practice attracts in the near future.

Sincerely,

G.Phillips

I encourage everyone to do the same. This is a truly messed-up practice that needs to be ended.

So I just got back from my annual Turkey-Day trip to Texas – my home country. What you see in the picture above is the yurt that I grew up in. Pretty small eh? It somehow seemed bigger back then…

Oh well, it was a fun trip full of relatives and good food. My father, as always, was in charge of the turkey dinner and didn’t fail to impress. It was a world-class meal that left me beyond full, and the leftovers lasted for days. It was good to see everyone again, especially because it seems like we only get together once or twice a year.

Had an interesting night at the local bar there, where I ran into someone I knew way back in intermediate school. It was a little odd, as he was able to remember things about back then that I would never have remembered. In fact, it was very odd because he still had all the old yearbooks, and other junk that (I think) most people tend to shed as junk over the years. I mean, intermediate school? Really? Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t think a lot about those years.

Anyways, to sum it up: Great time, good TexMex food, fun bars, and plenty of relaxation. Can’t complain about that! I’m certainly looking forward to the next time around.

Oh ya, and I finally passed Divemaster class! YAY!!!

Tonight was my first class assist. I have to say it was a lot of fun! Basically, I was the training dummy for the instructor. Beats the hell out of doing all the exercises I had to do last week!

Tonight was all about training a set of new Open Water (OW) divers in basic skills (mask removal, air-share, etc..). This reminded me of my own OW class, and how alien this all felt to me back then. Since then I’ve basically been obsessed with diving, and in my obsession I’ve collected a TON of useful tips; most of these from scubaboard.com posts.

I realized that I haven’t really seen a single place where all these great tips can be found. Sure, you can use the search function on scubaboard, but thats no fun. So, I’ve started a Tips section on this site, and I’ll be adding to it as I run across useful tips and tricks! You can use the Tips link up top to see what’s there so far.

Well, it certainly hasn’t gotten any easier. As I write this, I’m almost completely out of energy. Tonight was more DM pool work, and I think I actually got some stuff done.

I completed the scuba don at depth thingy, but the scuba ditch&don gave me some problems. The biggest problem was not being able to get down there fast enough, and expending too much effort on the way. This was solved by putting 26 lbs of weight on my weight belt. Wow! It was like being strapped to a boat anchor! Obviously this was going to be a one-way trip on the express elevator down, which was a BIG motivator to get it right the first time.

Also completed was the buddy-breathing gear exchange. This worked a LOT better once I had a flat surface. By the way, this drill is just dumb. Here’s how it works: One person has on all their gear and sits on the bottom, while the other person only has fins and a weight-belt at the surface. The person at the surface dives down to the person on the bottom and they begin the old puff-puff-pass regulator share. The person one the bottom takes off their scuba unit and mask, and passes it to the skin diver who puts it on, all the while you are maintaining the puff-puff-pass rhythm. Once this is done, the pair must swim underwater 25 ft and then surface! I ask you, when in real life would this ever be required? Think about it: You have a complete equipment failure, so you put on your buddy’s gear leaving them with nothing. Oh, and after that, you keep swimming underwater! Ya, I don’t see this EVER happening.

I still suck at the 25 yard underwater swim and the skin diver ditch&don – basically I just need to work on my endurance on a single breath. Also I need to do the marathon 880 yard swim, as well as the 440 timed swim. Really not looking forward to those.

On another note, the pool we went to tonight was one of the oddest public pools I’ve ever seen! This ain’t no standard olympic pool! No sir. This damn thing had TWO water slides, hot tubs, and all kinds of craziness!

With all these classes and all this pool-time, I wanted to take advantage of a free weekend and log some ME time. The plan was simple: Three friends and I would kill 2 tanks each out at Millbrook Quarry. The only requirement I had was that I not have to do much of anything, just muck around between platforms or wander around aimlessly.

We did just that, and it was everything I thought it could be. We had 2 relaxing dives where we just followed the wall around 30 ft. and enjoyed whatever scenery we could see. Of course we experienced some of the worst visibility I had ever seen there, but it still didn’t suck! 🙂

One of the coolest things that we found in our wanderings was a HUGE bass. I swear this thing was around 2 1/2 feet long, and had a massive gaping maw! By the time I got the camera ready, he had decided to take off, but I was able to snap one shot of him (seen above) as he was departing.

So this week I have more DM class to deal with, starting with a pool session on Thursday. I have no doubt that I’ll sleep well on Thursday night…

This weekend was all about DM skills attempts. On Saturday it was the pool, and Sunday was the quarry. I have to be honest here. Some of these skills looked pretty simple in theory, but in practice became something else.

They are in fact very stressful, and difficult. Add to that the fact that I’m grossly overweight and out of shape, and I smoke like a chimney. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised at my performance this weekend. Lets see how I did:

50 Yard Tired Swimmer Tow: PASSED (barely)
Buddy-Breathing No-Mask Ascent: PASSED (big deal..)
Skin-dive Ditch & Don: FAIL
SCUBA Gear Exchange: FAIL
25 Yard Underwater Swim: FAIL
440 Yard Timed Swim: are you kidding??
880 Yard Swim: ya right…

So in a nutshell, this past weekend sucked! My plan? Well, its like this:

•I quit smoking on Sunday night.
•I’m running up 16 stories worth of stairs every day.
•I’m going to start riding 5 miles a day
•Wednesday is pool-day.
•I may throw tennis into the mix too.

I just HAVE to get in better shape so I don’t die, and I can pass this crazy class damn it! NO SURRENDER!

Occasionally while looking for new places to dive, I’ll run across a post here or a blurb there mentioning a whole town at the bottom of Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. Of course, nobody has a map of where the town can be found underwater, and there are no diving charters that can take you there. Is this an urban legend, or is there really something down there? Well, the one thing I really hate is not having information, so I decided to do some research of my own!

First, some history:
Smith Mountain Lake is the result of a dam being built back in 1963 downstream of the Blackwater and Roanoke rivers. The two rivers filled in the land and now there is a pretty lake there! However, before the dam was built, it is rumored that there was once a town where the waters are now. Some websites even talk about a beautiful church with high steeple, countless stores, and scores of homes down there!

Research:
I decided to take a whack at finding this mystery town. Naturally, my first resource was Google Earth. My theory was that the town would probably exist somewhere near where the two rivers met. However, Google Earth offered few clues as to the original pre-dam path of the either rivers.

Finally I did some searches on the USGS website, and came up with pay dirt! USGS had some aerial photos from 1949 that were nearly perfect. The evidence is pretty convincing. You can definitely see man-made structures all over the area, as well as what Google Earth calls the Anthony Ford Bridge (historical site). You can find the photos here. Study the “then and now” shots and see if you can identify the bridge!

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