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#11
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Eagle Rays in Cozumel
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. |
#12
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Eagle Rays in Cozumel
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' |
#13
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Eagle Rays in Cozumel
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 |
#14
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Eagle Rays in Cozumel
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. |
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"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? |
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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' |
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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. |
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Eagle Rays in Cozumel
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. |
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Eagle Rays in Cozumel
"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. |
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Eagle Rays in Cozumel
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. |
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