Cozumel Anchor Ahoy

The subject of this post was hijacked by a derogatory subject by the
idiot Bob Crownfield in rec.scuba. I am reposting it without the
rec.scuba groups, to preserve the proper subject in any further
discussion of the subject.

-- Bob.

Reef Fish wrote:
Jer wrote:
Reef Fish wrote:
Jer wrote:

Reef Fish wrote:


For those divers who are concerned with the anchoring cruise ships
damaging the reefs of Cozumel dive sites, I can say positively and
unequivocally (based on my well over 1,200 dives in Cozumel) that there
is NO WAY in Hell (ooops, that's in the next stop at Grand Cayman) that
the anchoring at that distance from shore in the channel that it could
damage any coral (if there's any at that distance and depth) that is
ever
seen by any diver in Cozumel, nor could it possibly make any difference
to the reefs south of the Puerta Maya pier.

What about the reefs north of the damaged pier? We can't not consider
those - they're the mating areas of eagle rays. I realize not a lot of
divers go there, but that's beside my point. Everything matters, not
just the parts most divers see. Out of sight != out of mind.


First of all, you have to know a bit more about the geography and
current of the island.

The mating areas of eagle rays are in the upper NORTH (near the
East side) of the island. Even if there is constant excavation of sand

and silt at the spot the cruiseship was anchored, the direction of the
current will likely NEVER get there!

It takes MILES before it reaches the San Juan Reef north of the
Square. Then the 3-4 knot current of San Juan goes WEST when
it meets the current of the Barracuda Reef.

I know some things about the geography and currents of the island too,
but I'm not going to get into a ****ing contest about it.

So far, you're the only one ****ing in this subthread. I gave you some
straight and factual answers telling you that there is no way that the
Star Princess cruise ship anchored half a mile off Puenta Maya could
in any way affect the eagle ray mating site/season 15 miles NORTH
of the anchoring spot and OFF the path of the current.

Those are FACTS -- anyone familiar with the geography of the island
of Cozumel could have told you the same thing.

However, I welcome any disagreement from anyone, and I am glad
to respond to your post, point by point, since this a a RARE case in
the past two weeks (where the signal to noise ratio is at most 1 to 20,
no thanks to the idiots of rec.scuba.* and the one-and-only-idiot of
rec.travel.cruises in this thread) that you have at least some opinion
and facts about crusing/scuba relative to the eagle ray mating site
and season in Cozumel.

So, on with my rebuttal and question of the credibility of some of your
points.

Yes, I know
where eagle rays mate, we've been filming them off and on for 20 odd
years between the marsh and San Juan.

If you have been filming them for 20 odds years, then they are NOT
the recent phenomenon, of a much larger scale, discovered at a site
DIFFERENT from your site. This is not to question your statement
above, but to suggest that before 1998, you've been filming different
eagle rays at different locations.


Besides, what make you think that the eagle rays would be affected
by a few drops of sand. They stir up more sand looking for food than
the cruise ships!

True, but they're just doing what comes natural to them - you're not.
Therefore, what they do is inconsequential to us and expected - the
reverse of that is inexcusable.

First of all, you are making the ERRONEOUS assumption that that the
few grains of cruise ship stirred up sand could even REACH the eagle
ray mating location.

Next, you're talking about Man interfering with the natural environment
of marine animals as being "idiots", your ****ing, hypocrisy, and
shallowness of knowledge about marine animal showed. This is
the passage in our later exchange:

The marine animals are much smarter and can adapt to changing
environments (as "survival of the fittest") much better than homo
sapiens, or the myopic give them credit for.

You can try shopping that crap around with your pod friends, but for all
the areas of the world that have been adversely affected by coastal
development and the pollution from it, you're an idiot, and we know it.
Now you do too.

Have you ever been to Coco's Island? It's not a costal development,
but it's a marine park besieged with illegal shark poachers for sharks
fin. Hundreds and thousands of sharks were illegally killed by
Japanese
fisherman for fins, throwing the rest of the body back into the ocean.
This caused international outrage by the marine scientists, ecologists,
and scuba divers who take tortuous 36 boat rides (on 110 ft or smaller
liveaboard dive boats, the only way to get there) to dive with the
hammerhead and white tip sharks there.

The shark population was not affected in the slightest by the shark
poachers in the past 15 years since I first dived there in 1992.
That's
part of the big picture of the "survival of the fittest".

According to your natural environment theory, nobody should be even
DIVING with those sharks in their natural environment, or in all those
natural environments in French Polynesia where I've dived with
armies of sharks that make the squadrons of eagle rays pale in number
by comparison. Were those sharks adversely affected by admiring
scuba divers diving in their natural environment?

Only the myopic and prejudiced would think so.

But the biggest hypocrisy of all is that you think it's perfectly fine
for
YOURSELF to dive and film those eagle rays for decades, while it's
NOT okay for divers like myself to be diving in their natural
environment and SHARE my experience with them?

Just THINK about your own faulty logic and hypocrisy.


Eagle mating season in Cozumel (Dec - Mar) was a relatively new
phenomenon discovered by some locals where dive shops DON'T
go. I was diving with those eagle rays in 1998 before any dive shop
even knew about the eagle ray mating in the North. I posted this
in March 2000, when someone reported that Blue Angel was taking
divers to the spot between downtown and San Juan reef where
eagle rays visit regularly from the North:

I don't need no stinking dive shop to take me anywhere I want to go - I
use my own boat any time I want.

Did I say I dived with the eagle rays with any dive shop (stinking or
not)?
You are NOT the only local who has boats you know?

For you to be a local, you certainly have posted very little facts
about
diving in Cozumel during the past 15 years or rec.scuba, have you?
I wonder why?


And some locals have known about the
eagle rays for a lot longer you - some tried to keep a lid on it until
Cousteau opened his mouth long before you did.

Your credibility is sinking to a nadir right THERE! The Cousteaus
are not exactly ones shy of publicity of their own discovery. Jacque
discovered the sleeping sharks in Isla Mujeres, and within days, the
entire world (those tuned to marine biology and scuba) knew about
it. Why on earth should Cousteau NOT open his mouth and share
his experience -- except *I* have not heard anything about Cousteau's
discovery of those mating eagle rays in Cozumel.

Why should ANYONE try to keep a lid on the discovery?

That's you supreme selfishness and hypocrisy!

Finally, it is IMPOSSIBLE for the small island of Cozumel, where I
know the most-informed locals about diving, as well as the DMs who
often dived or fished near the eagle ray mating areas on the North
East side of the island NOT to have known about it for 15 years
after you claim you knew. Paul Padilla, Charos, and a few other
Cozumel DMs who know the divable locations throughout the
island like the palms of their hands would have known about it.

Are you affiliated with ANY dive shop? What did you do with the
filming of the eagle rays you did for 20 year?

In what you posted above, I simply question your credibility SERIOUSLY,
on factual as well as circumstantial evidence (that you have offered
NO knowledge about the eagle ray mating season/location BEFORE
or AFTER I made them public by posting in rec.scuba; and that you
have offered NO knowledge about various other dive sites in Cozumel
where the shop I dived with found the sleeping nurse sharks at the
palancar site now known as Palancar Bricks; or all those sites where
I wrote about the abundance of LARGE (six-inch or more) sea horses
of black, brown, striped, orange, and yellow.

I supposed you've filmed all of those 30 years ago, and was trying to
keep the lid from anyone else knowing about it, right?

IMNSHO about diving in Cozumel, you have an abundance of lack of
credibility, and plenty of prejudices.


From your description, I think you were at the site where I dived, a
ledge
at 75 to 90 fsw of very swift current. I am curious as to what profile
you
did with Blue Angle (depth/time). When I did it privately, we were
always
small groups of air-misers and we dived with EAN36 and were able to
stay
at 80 fsw for nearly an hour, hanging near the ledge while watching the

squadrons of rays pass by over and over again. That was a couple of
years
ago, before any dive shop took divers out there.

That put my first encounter with those squadrons of eagle rays back
to 1998, before the new cruise ship piers were built. The arrival of
the cruise ships, as much as 10 on some days, did not affect the
annual mating of those eagle rays one whit.

That's an opinion which some locals don't share. When we were filming
up there, we routinely ran the magazines dry. Now? what's the point?
There's not enough to bother with. Don't presume to tell me the eagle
ray population is the same today as it was in '98, or long before that.
That's an opinion that is shared by some locals, and me.

We weren't even talking about the same LOCATION of eagle ray mating
in the latest (circa 1998) discovery. Marine animals are known to
migrate to other locations at will. That's how they came to Cozumel
(from nowhere so to speak), and they could decide to go elsewhere
for plenty of reasons other than what YOU (an obvious non scientist
and non marine-biologist and non echthyologist) speculated.

If you want to be constructive about your KNOWLEDGE of marine
life in Cozumel, why don't you tell us some of YOUR discoveries or
experiences -- which had been more or less vacuous until the not
credible claim of your in this thread.


The marine animals are much smarter and can adapt to changing
environments (as "survival of the fittest") much better than homo
sapiens, or the myopic give them credit for.

You can try shopping that crap around with your pod friends, but for all
the areas of the world that have been adversely affected by coastal
development and the pollution from it, you're an idiot, and we know it.
Now you do too.

Now you're just ****ing rather than dispensing any KNOWLEDGE, or
even trying to substantiate your OPINION.


So, that's good news.

Cruise ships are always bad news.


Only to the myotic and prejudiced.

-- Bob.

Imagine that... a pod person calling me myotic and prejudiced. How
quaint.

You can call me a "pod person" after you've dived in Easter Island, AND
after you have been the ONLY passenger on the entire cruise ship who
chose scuba diving in Easter Island over gawking at the world-famous
giant statues, the moai.

Half you dived anywhere in the world other than in your own boat
filming
eagle rays the past 20 years?

Myopic and prejudiced -- I think I sized you up pretty accurately, and
this post DOCUMENTED the reason why.

-- Bob.

Reef Fish wrote:
Jer wrote:

Reef Fish wrote:

Jer wrote:


Reef Fish wrote:



For those divers who are concerned with the anchoring cruise ships
damaging the reefs of Cozumel dive sites, I can say positively and
unequivocally (based on my well over 1,200 dives in Cozumel) that there
is NO WAY in Hell (ooops, that's in the next stop at Grand Cayman) that
the anchoring at that distance from shore in the channel that it could
damage any coral (if there's any at that distance and depth) that is
ever
seen by any diver in Cozumel, nor could it possibly make any difference
to the reefs south of the Puerta Maya pier.

What about the reefs north of the damaged pier? We can't not consider
those - they're the mating areas of eagle rays. I realize not a lot of
divers go there, but that's beside my point. Everything matters, not
just the parts most divers see. Out of sight != out of mind.


First of all, you have to know a bit more about the geography and
current of the island.

The mating areas of eagle rays are in the upper NORTH (near the
East side) of the island. Even if there is constant excavation of sand

and silt at the spot the cruiseship was anchored, the direction of the
current will likely NEVER get there!

It takes MILES before it reaches the San Juan Reef north of the
Square. Then the 3-4 knot current of San Juan goes WEST when
it meets the current of the Barracuda Reef.

I know some things about the geography and currents of the island too,
but I'm not going to get into a ****ing contest about it.


So far, you're the only one ****ing in this subthread. I gave you some
straight and factual answers telling you that there is no way that the
Star Princess cruise ship anchored half a mile off Puenta Maya could
in any way affect the eagle ray mating site/season 15 miles NORTH
of the anchoring spot and OFF the path of the current.

I've already told you I'm not just interested in what I, or anyone else
sees when diving. My concern is also for all the other things we don't
see when diving. You either need to try harder to keep up or put your
dinner forks down and take notes.


Those are FACTS -- anyone familiar with the geography of the island
of Cozumel could have told you the same thing.

However, I welcome any disagreement from anyone, and I am glad
to respond to your post, point by point, since this a a RARE case in
the past two weeks (where the signal to noise ratio is at most 1 to 20,
no thanks to the idiots of rec.scuba.* and the one-and-only-idiot of
rec.travel.cruises in this thread) that you have at least some opinion
and facts about crusing/scuba relative to the eagle ray mating site
and season in Cozumel.

So, on with my rebuttal and question of the credibility of some of your
points.


Yes, I know
where eagle rays mate, we've been filming them off and on for 20 odd
years between the marsh and San Juan.


If you have been filming them for 20 odds years, then they are NOT
the recent phenomenon, of a much larger scale, discovered at a site
DIFFERENT from your site. This is not to question your statement
above, but to suggest that before 1998, you've been filming different
eagle rays at different locations.

Maybe, maybe not, I don't really care.




Besides, what make you think that the eagle rays would be affected
by a few drops of sand. They stir up more sand looking for food than
the cruise ships!

True, but they're just doing what comes natural to them - you're not.
Therefore, what they do is inconsequential to us and expected - the
reverse of that is inexcusable.


First of all, you are making the ERRONEOUS assumption that that the
few grains of cruise ship stirred up sand could even REACH the eagle
ray mating location.

It's not about the damn sand Ding-a-ling - my point, which wooshed right
over your pointy little head, is about your crummy anchors. They have
no business in a wildlife protected area, aka national park. Next time
you and your scrummy captain do each other, tell him to get his ****ing
anchors out of the ****ing park, or Sundays won't be the only days he
and his ilk aren't invited.


Next, you're talking about Man interfering with the natural environment
of marine animals as being "idiots", your ****ing, hypocrisy, and
shallowness of knowledge about marine animal showed. This is
the passage in our later exchange:


The marine animals are much smarter and can adapt to changing
environments (as "survival of the fittest") much better than homo
sapiens, or the myopic give them credit for.

You can try shopping that crap around with your pod friends, but for all
the areas of the world that have been adversely affected by coastal
development and the pollution from it, you're an idiot, and we know it.
Now you do too.


Have you ever been to Coco's Island? It's not a costal development,
but it's a marine park besieged with illegal shark poachers for sharks
fin. Hundreds and thousands of sharks were illegally killed by
Japanese
fisherman for fins, throwing the rest of the body back into the ocean.
This caused international outrage by the marine scientists, ecologists,
and scuba divers who take tortuous 36 boat rides (on 110 ft or smaller
liveaboard dive boats, the only way to get there) to dive with the
hammerhead and white tip sharks there.

Is there a point here? or are you trying to remind me there's still a
few poachers out there that deserve to be finned?


The shark population was not affected in the slightest by the shark
poachers in the past 15 years since I first dived there in 1992.
That's
part of the big picture of the "survival of the fittest".

So, your saying that abusing the little animals is okay until they show
up on the endangered species list? Or does your Abuse Acceptibility
Quotient go beyond that? I'm just curious how far your pod ass is
willing to go.


According to your natural environment theory, nobody should be even
DIVING with those sharks in their natural environment, or in all those
natural environments in French Polynesia where I've dived with
armies of sharks that make the squadrons of eagle rays pale in number
by comparison. Were those sharks adversely affected by admiring
scuba divers diving in their natural environment?

Not so far as I know. I certainly didn't notice any fins missing, and I
didn't notice any floaters either. So I suppose everybody behaved
themselves.


Only the myopic and prejudiced would think so.

But the biggest hypocrisy of all is that you think it's perfectly fine
for
YOURSELF to dive and film those eagle rays for decades, while it's
NOT okay for divers like myself to be diving in their natural
environment and SHARE my experience with them?

You're welcome to dive and share whatever you want so long as you're not
****ing with anything that don't belong to you.


Just THINK about your own faulty logic and hypocrisy.


Eagle mating season in Cozumel (Dec - Mar) was a relatively new
phenomenon discovered by some locals where dive shops DON'T
go. I was diving with those eagle rays in 1998 before any dive shop
even knew about the eagle ray mating in the North. I posted this
in March 2000, when someone reported that Blue Angel was taking
divers to the spot between downtown and San Juan reef where
eagle rays visit regularly from the North:

I don't need no stinking dive shop to take me anywhere I want to go - I
use my own boat any time I want.


Did I say I dived with the eagle rays with any dive shop (stinking or
not)?
You are NOT the only local who has boats you know?

I'm not a local, my boat is.


For you to be a local, you certainly have posted very little facts
about
diving in Cozumel during the past 15 years or rec.scuba, have you?
I wonder why?

Because I've already told you I don't share the good **** - I keep my
yap shut because I don't want the pod people ****ing it up.




And some locals have known about the
eagle rays for a lot longer you - some tried to keep a lid on it until
Cousteau opened his mouth long before you did.


Your credibility is sinking to a nadir right THERE! The Cousteaus
are not exactly ones shy of publicity of their own discovery. Jacque
discovered the sleeping sharks in Isla Mujeres, and within days, the
entire world (those tuned to marine biology and scuba) knew about
it. Why on earth should Cousteau NOT open his mouth and share
his experience -- except *I* have not heard anything about Cousteau's
discovery of those mating eagle rays in Cozumel.

Cousteau was paid to share, I'm not.


Why should ANYONE try to keep a lid on the discovery?

That's you supreme selfishness and hypocrisy!

Selfishness? Yup. hypocrisy? Not even.


Finally, it is IMPOSSIBLE for the small island of Cozumel, where I
know the most-informed locals about diving, as well as the DMs who
often dived or fished near the eagle ray mating areas on the North
East side of the island NOT to have known about it for 15 years
after you claim you knew. Paul Padilla, Charos, and a few other
Cozumel DMs who know the divable locations throughout the
island like the palms of their hands would have known about it.

I've met most DMs there at one time or another, sometimes just across
the gunnels for a brief chat. Since I don't need one, I really don't
see much else from them.


Are you affiliated with ANY dive shop? What did you do with the
filming of the eagle rays you did for 20 year?

No, no shop affiliation here, don't need that either. The shutterbugs
are students from the B I G school in Mexico City, they don't have their
own boat and not much money to hire one, so I loan them mine. Sometimes
they let me tag along as a volunteer handler. They get to go places rec
divers aren't allowed to go. Ever been in the navy training area?
Didn't think so.


In what you posted above, I simply question your credibility SERIOUSLY,
on factual as well as circumstantial evidence (that you have offered
NO knowledge about the eagle ray mating season/location BEFORE
or AFTER I made them public by posting in rec.scuba; and that you
have offered NO knowledge about various other dive sites in Cozumel
where the shop I dived with found the sleeping nurse sharks at the
palancar site now known as Palancar Bricks; or all those sites where
I wrote about the abundance of LARGE (six-inch or more) sea horses
of black, brown, striped, orange, and yellow.

I supposed you've filmed all of those 30 years ago, and was trying to
keep the lid from anyone else knowing about it, right?

Like you, I've seen many wonderful things while diving. Unlike you, I
don't make a point of coming in here to brag to the world about it.


IMNSHO about diving in Cozumel, you have an abundance of lack of
credibility, and plenty of prejudices.

I guess we are alike in this regard.




From your description, I think you were at the site where I dived, a
ledge
at 75 to 90 fsw of very swift current. I am curious as to what profile
you
did with Blue Angle (depth/time). When I did it privately, we were
always
small groups of air-misers and we dived with EAN36 and were able to
stay
at 80 fsw for nearly an hour, hanging near the ledge while watching the

squadrons of rays pass by over and over again. That was a couple of
years
ago, before any dive shop took divers out there.

That put my first encounter with those squadrons of eagle rays back
to 1998, before the new cruise ship piers were built. The arrival of
the cruise ships, as much as 10 on some days, did not affect the
annual mating of those eagle rays one whit.

That's an opinion which some locals don't share. When we were filming
up there, we routinely ran the magazines dry. Now? what's the point?
There's not enough to bother with. Don't presume to tell me the eagle
ray population is the same today as it was in '98, or long before that.
That's an opinion that is shared by some locals, and me.


We weren't even talking about the same LOCATION of eagle ray mating
in the latest (circa 1998) discovery. Marine animals are known to
migrate to other locations at will. That's how they came to Cozumel
(from nowhere so to speak), and they could decide to go elsewhere
for plenty of reasons other than what YOU (an obvious non scientist
and non marine-biologist and non echthyologist) speculated.

If you want to be constructive about your KNOWLEDGE of marine
life in Cozumel, why don't you tell us some of YOUR discoveries or
experiences -- which had been more or less vacuous until the not
credible claim of your in this thread.

It's only an opinion, Ding-a-Ling, get over it. You're welcome to
construct whatever you want from it.



The marine animals are much smarter and can adapt to changing
environments (as "survival of the fittest") much better than homo
sapiens, or the myopic give them credit for.

You can try shopping that crap around with your pod friends, but for all
the areas of the world that have been adversely affected by coastal
development and the pollution from it, you're an idiot, and we know it.
Now you do too.


Now you're just ****ing rather than dispensing any KNOWLEDGE, or
even trying to substantiate your OPINION.

Oh, okay, the lack of a thriving reef structure in S. Florida is just a
bad dream. You've been so helpful.



So, that's good news.

Cruise ships are always bad news.


Only to the myotic and prejudiced.

-- Bob.


Imagine that... a pod person calling me myotic and prejudiced. How
quaint.


You can call me a "pod person" after you've dived in Easter Island, AND
after you have been the ONLY passenger on the entire cruise ship who
chose scuba diving in Easter Island over gawking at the world-famous
giant statues, the moai.

Half you dived anywhere in the world other than in your own boat
filming
eagle rays the past 20 years?

Why, yes, I've been to many places, probably a lot of places where
you've dived. Are you expecting me to try matching you site for site
now? Not gonna happen.


Myopic and prejudiced -- I think I sized you up pretty accurately, and
this post DOCUMENTED the reason why.

Whatever... think what you want. rolling eyes


--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

First of all, you are making the ERRONEOUS assumption that that the
few grains of cruise ship stirred up sand could even REACH the eagle
ray mating location.

Bob is correct. The fish poop sand in Coz will settle within seconds
(well under thirty). I know because I have tested it.

It's not about the damn sand Ding-a-ling - my point, which wooshed right
over your pointy little head, is about your crummy anchors. They have
no business in a wildlife protected area, aka national park. Next time
you and your scrummy captain do each other, tell him to get his ****ing
anchors out of the ****ing park, or Sundays won't be the only days he
and his ilk aren't invited.

I suspect that cruise ship are the main source of revenue in Cozumel.
Money talks as we saw when the new cruise ship pier (Puerto Maya?) was
built over strong diver concern for Paradise Reef.

If you have not seen the eagle rays in quantity north of town it is an
awesome sight.

Ron Lee

Jer wrote:
Reef Fish wrote:
Jer wrote:

Reef Fish wrote:

Jer wrote:


Reef Fish wrote:



For those divers who are concerned with the anchoring cruise ships
damaging the reefs of Cozumel dive sites, I can say positively and
unequivocally (based on my well over 1,200 dives in Cozumel) that there
is NO WAY in Hell (ooops, that's in the next stop at Grand Cayman) that
the anchoring at that distance from shore in the channel that it could
damage any coral (if there's any at that distance and depth) that is
ever
seen by any diver in Cozumel, nor could it possibly make any difference
to the reefs south of the Puerta Maya pier.

What about the reefs north of the damaged pier? We can't not consider
those - they're the mating areas of eagle rays. I realize not a lot of
divers go there, but that's beside my point. Everything matters, not
just the parts most divers see. Out of sight != out of mind.


First of all, you have to know a bit more about the geography and
current of the island.

The mating areas of eagle rays are in the upper NORTH (near the
East side) of the island. Even if there is constant excavation of sand

and silt at the spot the cruiseship was anchored, the direction of the
current will likely NEVER get there!

It takes MILES before it reaches the San Juan Reef north of the
Square. Then the 3-4 knot current of San Juan goes WEST when
it meets the current of the Barracuda Reef.

I know some things about the geography and currents of the island too,
but I'm not going to get into a ****ing contest about it.


So far, you're the only one ****ing in this subthread. I gave you some
straight and factual answers telling you that there is no way that the
Star Princess cruise ship anchored half a mile off Puenta Maya could
in any way affect the eagle ray mating site/season 15 miles NORTH
of the anchoring spot and OFF the path of the current.

I've already told you I'm not just interested in what I, or anyone else
sees when diving. My concern is also for all the other things we don't
see when diving. You either need to try harder to keep up or put your
dinner forks down and take notes.

Wasn't it YOU who said you were not interested in any ****ing contest
and proceeded to **** big time?

In keeping with what I said that at least you have something about
scuba
AND cruising to talk about, and I welcome any disagreement and I am
going to continue giving you factual rebuttal or substantiated opinion,
and
not sink to YOUR level of myopic view, prejudice, AND ****ing without
cause.

My breakfast forks are down, justing waiting for a little shopping in
Montego Bay a little later.

So, on with MY part of the discussion of the issue of eagle ray mating,
against your populist and prejudiced view against "pod people", without
any knowledge about marine biology, ecology, but only your own view
supported by some of your local pals.

So, how many DAYS have you been in Cozumel since 1987? How many
DIVES have you done there, to have acquired your vast amount of
MISINFORMATION and ignorance about Cozumel diving, marine
animals, and your unsubstantiated views about cruise ships?


Those are FACTS -- anyone familiar with the geography of the island
of Cozumel could have told you the same thing.

However, I welcome any disagreement from anyone, and I am glad
to respond to your post, point by point, since this a a RARE case in
the past two weeks (where the signal to noise ratio is at most 1 to 20,
no thanks to the idiots of rec.scuba.* and the one-and-only-idiot of
rec.travel.cruises in this thread) that you have at least some opinion
and facts about crusing/scuba relative to the eagle ray mating site
and season in Cozumel.

So, on with my rebuttal and question of the credibility of some of your
points.


Yes, I know
where eagle rays mate, we've been filming them off and on for 20 odd
years between the marsh and San Juan.


If you have been filming them for 20 odds years, then they are NOT
the recent phenomenon, of a much larger scale, discovered at a site
DIFFERENT from your site. This is not to question your statement
above, but to suggest that before 1998, you've been filming different
eagle rays at different locations.

Maybe, maybe not, I don't really care.

Why don't you care? I brought up the eagle ray mating phenomenon
which *I* was the first to post about in rec.scuba in 1998, the first
to
mention to dive shop owners like Darwin of Equalizer who couldn't
believe there could be as many as over a dozen eaglerays within one
screen of a video shot.

The YOU are the one who started ****ing about how YOU and Cousteau
had discovered it years earlier and tried to keep in under the lid, for

whatever silly reason you had even if you DID find some mating eagle
rays of much smaller proportions.

In terms of your allegation that Cousteau opened his mouth long before
1998, you'll have to find some FACTS to substantiate it, and not just
your faulty recollection. I do recall some article in Alert Diver
(DAN
publication) version of Scuba Diving Magazine, which mentioned the
eagle ray mating phenomenon -- but only YEARS after I had seen and
reported about it. Whether that article was by Cousteau of some other
writer I can't recall now. But you can't just claim Couteau found it
and
opened his mouth, long before 1998, WITHOUT any substantiation.



Besides, what make you think that the eagle rays would be affected
by a few drops of sand. They stir up more sand looking for food than
the cruise ships!

True, but they're just doing what comes natural to them - you're not.
Therefore, what they do is inconsequential to us and expected - the
reverse of that is inexcusable.


First of all, you are making the ERRONEOUS assumption that that the
few grains of cruise ship stirred up sand could even REACH the eagle
ray mating location.

It's not about the damn sand Ding-a-ling - my point, which wooshed right
over your pointy little head, is about your crummy anchors. They have
no business in a wildlife protected area, aka national park.

You called what you said a rational discussion of any issue? The
GOVERNMENT of Cozumel determined the boundary and scope of
the marine park and wildlife protected areas. Do you even KNOW what
those are?

I've DIVED plenty of times outside of the marine park (national park)
areass, such as Maracaibo, the East Side of Cozumel, and parts outside
of Punta Sur, where crabs, lobsters are regularly havested by LOCALS,
and served at the Prima restaurant every night when those are in
season.

You DON'T even know if the cruiseship was within the wildlife protected
area, but the ultimate absurdity of your statement is that the
REGULATION
agency that made up the definition and rules pertaining to the Cozumel
marine park is the same authority that gave permission for the
cruiseships
to DOCK or ANCHOR there! In that respect, they are re-defining the
rules of which you seem to be completely oblivious, blinded by your own
prejudices.


Next time
you and your scrummy captain do each other, tell him to get his ****ing
anchors out of the ****ing park, or Sundays won't be the only days he
and his ilk aren't invited.

See my paragraph above. If you have any complaint about the cruise
ships in Cozumel, start with you LOCAL government, and see yourself
laugh out of the court house there.


Next, you're talking about Man interfering with the natural environment
of marine animals as being "idiots", your ****ing, hypocrisy, and
shallowness of knowledge about marine animal showed. This is
the passage in our later exchange:


The marine animals are much smarter and can adapt to changing
environments (as "survival of the fittest") much better than homo
sapiens, or the myopic give them credit for.

You can try shopping that crap around with your pod friends, but for all
the areas of the world that have been adversely affected by coastal
development and the pollution from it, you're an idiot, and we know it.
Now you do too.


Have you ever been to Coco's Island? It's not a costal development,
but it's a marine park besieged with illegal shark poachers for sharks
fin. Hundreds and thousands of sharks were illegally killed by
Japanese
fisherman for fins, throwing the rest of the body back into the ocean.
This caused international outrage by the marine scientists, ecologists,
and scuba divers who take tortuous 36 boat rides (on 110 ft or smaller
liveaboard dive boats, the only way to get there) to dive with the
hammerhead and white tip sharks there.

Is there a point here? or are you trying to remind me there's still a
few poachers out there that deserve to be finned?

The points we marine animals are surprising adaptive to changes,
in line with the "survival of the fittest" law that lasted millions of
years.
The corollary point is that you seem to have very limited experience
about such phenomena that are clearly visible OUTSIDE the little
pond of Cozumel in which do a few video, and you made up your own
"theory for the myopic and prejudiced" base on your own LACK of
scientific as well as observational experience.

Those are the points what whooooshed over your head, jer!


The shark population was not affected in the slightest by the shark
poachers in the past 15 years since I first dived there in 1992.
That's
part of the big picture of the "survival of the fittest".

So, your saying that abusing the little animals is okay until they show
up on the endangered species list? Or does your Abuse Acceptibility
Quotient go beyond that? I'm just curious how far your pod ass is
willing to go.

You reading comprehension is severely lacking. You can search over
100,000 posts I've made in USENET and you won't find a SINGLE one
in which I am not as strongly against the illegal shark fish, as well
as
the legal dragnet of shrimp-fishing.

But the point you missed and misdirected your pointless and irrelevant
issue of "endangered species" to the present discussion of eagle
ray mating site in Cozumel, is not only a clear sign of your inability
to
focus on ANY issue, but your failure to observe that neither the white
tip sharks or shrimps are ever among the endangered species, and
even the Alaskan King Crabs, which were endangered in some areas
of Alaska in the 1980s, made such a comeback (in according with the
law of "survival of the fittest") that it's now found in nearly EVERY
grocery store, served in resturants and on cruiseships. It's one of
my FAVORITE seafood! I even drive 150 miles to the New Orleans
Manor in Nashville which serves a seafood buffet with UNLIMITED
Alaskan King Crab in the menu.

The point is, jer, you're so fixated with your unsupported theory about
marine life that you are stone BLIND to all of the related FACTS that
are known and scientifically studied every day!


According to your natural environment theory, nobody should be even
DIVING with those sharks in their natural environment, or in all those
natural environments in French Polynesia where I've dived with
armies of sharks that make the squadrons of eagle rays pale in number
by comparison. Were those sharks adversely affected by admiring
scuba divers diving in their natural environment?

Not so far as I know. I certainly didn't notice any fins missing, and I
didn't notice any floaters either. So I suppose everybody behaved
themselves.

So far, all you've seen was your own mouth dancing the tune of a local
Cozumeleno who has no vision, no scientific knowledge, and not even
knowledge about the LOCAL and NATIONAL government of Mexico,
regarding the Cozumel marine park!


Only the myopic and prejudiced would think so.

But the biggest hypocrisy of all is that you think it's perfectly fine
for
YOURSELF to dive and film those eagle rays for decades, while it's
NOT okay for divers like myself to be diving in their natural
environment and SHARE my experience with them?

You're welcome to dive and share whatever you want so long as you're not
****ing with anything that don't belong to you.

And those privileges belong only to jer who owns a boat in Cozumel --
is that what you are trying to say?


Just THINK about your own faulty logic and hypocrisy.


Eagle mating season in Cozumel (Dec - Mar) was a relatively new
phenomenon discovered by some locals where dive shops DON'T
go. I was diving with those eagle rays in 1998 before any dive shop
even knew about the eagle ray mating in the North. I posted this
in March 2000, when someone reported that Blue Angel was taking
divers to the spot between downtown and San Juan reef where
eagle rays visit regularly from the North:

I don't need no stinking dive shop to take me anywhere I want to go - I
use my own boat any time I want.


Did I say I dived with the eagle rays with any dive shop (stinking or
not)?
You are NOT the only local who has boats you know?

I'm not a local, my boat is.

Then your experience about Cozumel is ever that much WORSE than if
you had been a local with your own boat in Coz for over 20 years.

For the record, my dives with the eagle rays in 1998 and subsequent
years (with only ONE exception when many dive shops started diving
the site south of San Juan Reef) were entirely made with a friend who
is a RESIDENT of Cozumel, in HIS private boat. That should have
been obvious to any thinking person because NO DIVE SHOP in
Cozumel even knew about the eagle ray site when I started diving
there!

In fact, because of my visibility in Cozumel, some whiny dive shops
even reported to the toothless Dive Association of Cozumel (whose
membership is required only by extortion of the smaller shops, but
never managed to twist Apple's arms of Dive Paradise and several
other major operator of shops to join) that the local who took me on
his boat to dive with the eagle rays were taking away their tourist
business! That resulted in a reprimand of my local friend.


For you to be a local, you certainly have posted very little facts
about
diving in Cozumel during the past 15 years or rec.scuba, have you?
I wonder why?

Because I've already told you I don't share the good **** - I keep my
yap shut because I don't want the pod people ****ing it up.

I did not start cruising to Cozumel until a YEAR AGO. I've made
thousands
of dives in Cozumel since 1987. Instead of stereotyping me into YOUR
"pod people" snide remark, you need to show us some diving and
marine life experience YOU have, IN Cozumel, as well as in other parts
of the world.

You have NONE to show except your own ****ing.


And some locals have known about the
eagle rays for a lot longer you - some tried to keep a lid on it until
Cousteau opened his mouth long before you did.


Your credibility is sinking to a nadir right THERE! The Cousteaus
are not exactly ones shy of publicity of their own discovery. Jacque
discovered the sleeping sharks in Isla Mujeres, and within days, the
entire world (those tuned to marine biology and scuba) knew about
it. Why on earth should Cousteau NOT open his mouth and share
his experience -- except *I* have not heard anything about Cousteau's
discovery of those mating eagle rays in Cozumel.

Cousteau was paid to share, I'm not.


Why should ANYONE try to keep a lid on the discovery?

That's you supreme selfishness and hypocrisy!

Selfishness? Yup. hypocrisy? Not even.

What is it then that could explain away your CONTRADICTION of
what you abhore and what you do yourself? "Do as I say, and not
as I do"?

You're certainly not very eloquent as a DISCUSSANT of any issue,
are you?


Finally, it is IMPOSSIBLE for the small island of Cozumel, where I
know the most-informed locals about diving, as well as the DMs who
often dived or fished near the eagle ray mating areas on the North
East side of the island NOT to have known about it for 15 years
after you claim you knew. Paul Padilla, Charos, and a few other
Cozumel DMs who know the divable locations throughout the
island like the palms of their hands would have known about it.

I've met most DMs there at one time or another, sometimes just across
the gunnels for a brief chat. Since I don't need one, I really don't
see much else from them.

That means I've DIVED with many times more of them (since I've dived
with at least 20 different dive shops in Coz) than you, and I can
safely
say I know much more about diving in Cozumel, not only because
I've DIVED every divable site in Cozumel, but have gained a vast
amount of knowledge from THOSE locals (DMs, boat captains,
and shop owners) about diving and marine life in Coz than you'll
EVER have.


Are you affiliated with ANY dive shop? What did you do with the
filming of the eagle rays you did for 20 year?

No, no shop affiliation here, don't need that either. The shutterbugs
are students from the B I G school in Mexico City, they don't have their
own boat and not much money to hire one, so I loan them mine. Sometimes
they let me tag along as a volunteer handler. They get to go places rec
divers aren't allowed to go. Ever been in the navy training area?
Didn't think so.

Why should I be in the navy "training area" for newbies? So, you're
just
one of those Mexico City visitors conning a few clueless newbies with
your video -- isn't it? You sound almost like that Forest Aten! You
are HIM or not? Is that why you changed your posting name to "jer"?
You two sound almost like twins, and equally uninformed about Cozumel!


In what you posted above, I simply question your credibility SERIOUSLY,
on factual as well as circumstantial evidence (that you have offered
NO knowledge about the eagle ray mating season/location BEFORE
or AFTER I made them public by posting in rec.scuba; and that you
have offered NO knowledge about various other dive sites in Cozumel
where the shop I dived with found the sleeping nurse sharks at the
palancar site now known as Palancar Bricks; or all those sites where
I wrote about the abundance of LARGE (six-inch or more) sea horses
of black, brown, striped, orange, and yellow.

I supposed you've filmed all of those 30 years ago, and was trying to
keep the lid from anyone else knowing about it, right?

Like you, I've seen many wonderful things while diving. Unlike you, I
don't make a point of coming in here to brag to the world about it.

It was hardly bragging. It was SHARING the experience with OTHER
scuba divers. That's what rec.scuba and rec.scuba.locations were for,
until they have recently be thoroughly polluted by some long time
IDIOTS.


IMNSHO about diving in Cozumel, you have an abundance of lack of
credibility, and plenty of prejudices.

I guess we are alike in this regard.

Your statement speaks of YOUR lack of credibility.


From your description, I think you were at the site where I dived, a
ledge
at 75 to 90 fsw of very swift current. I am curious as to what profile
you
did with Blue Angle (depth/time). When I did it privately, we were
always
small groups of air-misers and we dived with EAN36 and were able to
stay
at 80 fsw for nearly an hour, hanging near the ledge while watching the

squadrons of rays pass by over and over again. That was a couple of
years
ago, before any dive shop took divers out there.

That put my first encounter with those squadrons of eagle rays back
to 1998, before the new cruise ship piers were built. The arrival of
the cruise ships, as much as 10 on some days, did not affect the
annual mating of those eagle rays one whit.

That's an opinion which some locals don't share. When we were filming
up there, we routinely ran the magazines dry. Now? what's the point?
There's not enough to bother with. Don't presume to tell me the eagle
ray population is the same today as it was in '98, or long before that.
That's an opinion that is shared by some locals, and me.


We weren't even talking about the same LOCATION of eagle ray mating
in the latest (circa 1998) discovery. Marine animals are known to
migrate to other locations at will. That's how they came to Cozumel
(from nowhere so to speak), and they could decide to go elsewhere
for plenty of reasons other than what YOU (an obvious non scientist
and non marine-biologist and non echthyologist) speculated.

If you want to be constructive about your KNOWLEDGE of marine
life in Cozumel, why don't you tell us some of YOUR discoveries or
experiences -- which had been more or less vacuous until the not
credible claim of your in this thread.

It's only an opinion, Ding-a-Ling, get over it. You're welcome to
construct whatever you want from it.

Of course SOME of them are opinion, but you missed many FACTS.
And opinions are worthless unless you can give some credible
substantiation of those opinion. I've given MINE. You have given
NOTHING other than your chant of "pod people" and your own
myopic and prejudices views.

You present post made a good documentation of your LACK of
experience about Cozumel. You're just sitting at your Mexico City
office thinking up ways to con more clueless clients to go with you
on your next trip to Cozumel, just like Forest Aten, aren't you?



The marine animals are much smarter and can adapt to changing
environments (as "survival of the fittest") much better than homo
sapiens, or the myopic give them credit for.

You can try shopping that crap around with your pod friends, but for all
the areas of the world that have been adversely affected by coastal
development and the pollution from it, you're an idiot, and we know it.
Now you do too.


Now you're just ****ing rather than dispensing any KNOWLEDGE, or
even trying to substantiate your OPINION.

Oh, okay, the lack of a thriving reef structure in S. Florida is just a
bad dream. You've been so helpful.



So, that's good news.

Cruise ships are always bad news.


Only to the myotic and prejudiced.

-- Bob.


Imagine that... a pod person calling me myotic and prejudiced. How
quaint.


You can call me a "pod person" after you've dived in Easter Island, AND
after you have been the ONLY passenger on the entire cruise ship who
chose scuba diving in Easter Island over gawking at the world-famous
giant statues, the moai.

Half you dived anywhere in the world other than in your own boat
filming
eagle rays the past 20 years?

Why, yes, I've been to many places, probably a lot of places where
you've dived. Are you expecting me to try matching you site for site
now? Not gonna happen.

There's no way you can come CLOSE to the cites around the world I've
dived, but I was challenging you statements (you used it again in the
present post) of calling me a "pod person".

And I told you, not until you've been the ONLY passenger on a cruise
ship
to dive Easter Island, when no diving was scheduled and everyone else
was seeing the moai statues, and not even then, are you qualified to
call
ANYONE, let alone me, a "pod person".

You lack of diving and marine life experience around the world was only
the obvious corollary of your uninformed view.


Myopic and prejudiced -- I think I sized you up pretty accurately, and
this post DOCUMENTED the reason why.

Whatever... think what you want. rolling eyes

Imitating chilly will not make you any more credible than what you have

proven to be completely LACKING.
--
jer

-- Reef Fish Bob.

In Montego Bay. Dived there in 1998 to know that it's a waste of time
to dive there again.

"Reef Fish" wrote in message
ups.com...

Jer wrote:
Reef Fish wrote:
Jer wrote:

Reef Fish wrote:

Jer wrote

26 kb of stuff removed...
Translation:

Bob : "My dick is bigger than yours."

Jer : So?

Jack Sloan wrote:
"Reef Fish" wrote in message
ups.com...

Jer wrote:

Reef Fish wrote:

Jer wrote:


Reef Fish wrote:


Jer wrote


26 kb of stuff removed...
Translation:

Bob : "My dick is bigger than yours."

Jer : So?




yup, his prolly is and I still don't care.

--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

Jer wrote:
Jack Sloan wrote:
"Reef Fish" wrote in message
ups.com...

Jer wrote:

Reef Fish wrote:

Jer wrote:


Reef Fish wrote:


Jer wrote


26 kb of stuff removed...
Translation:

Bob : "My dick is bigger than yours."

Jer : So?




yup, his prolly is and I still don't care.

Jack wouldn't know, cuz I never said it or showed it, and
Jack is too drunk to tell even if I showed it.

But YOU (jer) was doing all the ****in' though, regardless
of the size of your dick. So, even if your dick is micro sized,
I concede the "****ing context" which you said you weren't
going to do, but proceeded to do so solo.

-- Bob.

Grumman-581 wrote:
"Reef Fish" wrote in message
oups.com...
Cruise ships sometimes do that even after docked at pier or anchored,
when there is current, to lessen the stress on the lines, I supposed.

But the point is moot. Whatever little sand that might have been
stirred up is not going to reach a point 15 miles away, in the wrong
direction of the current.

I wasn't commenting on whether it stirred up any sand... I was just curious
from a technical point of view...

But that was the major complaint of "jer" and others, about how the
anchoring of cruise ships would damage the corals, and then when I
saw how far the ship was from shore, "jer" brought up the issue that
it would affect the mating eagle rays -- when he didn't realize how far
the eagle ray mating site was OR the current direction.

But the answer to your question of how DEEP was the spot at which
the ship anchored, I asked one of the three ship Captains at the
luncheon today, and he said it was anchored, but he didn't know how
deep.

But THE answer came from THE Chief Captain that the spot was
200 meters (I estimated over 400 feet) from the bottom of the channel
at that spot, which made it too deep to drop anchor, so that ship was
held in position by running on the surface, as you suspected it might
do, as the cruise ship you were on did it in Alaska.

So, there goes one more of the popular complains of how cruise
ships damage the corals by dropping anchor.

The ship patter ALWAYS calls it "drop anchor" when it's not docked,
perhaps for the reason of not having to explain how the ship can be
held in position without any anchor.

End of that story.

-- Bob.

"Reef Fish" wrote in message
ups.com...

But the answer to your question of how DEEP was the spot at which
the ship anchored, I asked one of the three ship Captains at the
luncheon today, and he said it was anchored, but he didn't know how
deep.

But THE answer came from THE Chief Captain that the spot was
200 meters (I estimated over 400 feet) from the bottom of the channel
at that spot, which made it too deep to drop anchor, so that ship was
held in position by running on the surface, as you suspected it might
do, as the cruise ship you were on did it in Alaska.

Does that make you feel safer knowing that one of three captains couldn't
even tell correctly whether the boat was anchored or not? Thank god for
autopilots.

Greg Mossman wrote:
"Reef Fish" wrote in message
ups.com...

But the answer to your question of how DEEP was the spot at which
the ship anchored, I asked one of the three ship Captains at the
luncheon today, and he said it was anchored, but he didn't know how
deep.

But THE answer came from THE Chief Captain that the spot was
200 meters (I estimated over 400 feet) from the bottom of the channel
at that spot, which made it too deep to drop anchor, so that ship was
held in position by running on the surface, as you suspected it might
do, as the cruise ship you were on did it in Alaska.

Does that make you feel safer knowing that one of three captains couldn't
even tell correctly whether the boat was anchored or not? Thank god for
autopilots.

The Star Princess has 4 Captains. The one I happened to ask first
obviously did not have any duty with the anchoring or positioning of
the cruise ship IN COZUMEL pn that particular day, Nov. 15, 2005.

You think Captain/Prez George Bush would know how deep a hole
he has dug at various places in Iraq and the rest of the world? ;-)

-- Bob.