Mark Danks » Outside

Scuba in Roatan

mdanks — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 05:34:48 +0000

Last week I was in Roatan scuba diving.

Short form:

18 dives
6 days
1 shark dive
1 dolphin dive
2 night dives
nitrox certification

While the diving was not as good as Curacao, it was a great vacation and a break from the game industry. I had no cell nor email access all week.

We stayed at Anthony’s Key Resort, which is a really nice location. My girls spent the week at Kids Sea Camp, which means that the adults could dive guilt free. The coral reef was not the best that I have seen…it was often very bleached out. Also, there was not as much sea life as I would have hoped. But of course, 85 degree water and 80 foot viz is still a great vacation.

Roatan

mdanks — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:59:15 +0000

Heading off for vacation in Roatan. Scuba diving for 7 days without cell phone nor email.

Bliss.

New Year’s Eve Sunset

mdanks — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 19:35:39 +0000

There was a beautiful sunset last night on New Year’s Eve. The picture from my porch says it all.

Travel and diving

mdanks — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 05:03:27 +0000

Once again, I have skipped a couple of months. I managed to do another dive trip in June, this time to Curacao in the Caribbean, where we went diving with Ocean Encounters. I did about 15 dives there, including a night dive. One of the dives was down to 110 feet to visit the Superior Producer boat wreck. At that depth, you can only stay down for 20 minutes before you have to come up. The eerie thing is that there is nothing to indicate how far down you are. The water is crystal clear and there is still a lot of light. I saw a school of barracuda near the boat and it seemed like any normal dive. Of course, if something were to go wrong, then you can have serious problems, so the dive masters bring extra air and we all take extra precautions. Thankfully, nothing went wrong and it was a wonderful dive.

The week before Curacao, I was back in Tokyo for work. SCE is constantly improving the PlayStation 3 and it is always good to get many of the different groups of people together to work on the platform. Consumers are seeing the improvements with every firmware release and developers are beginning to understand how to deal with the PS3. With the holidays coming up, developers are trying to finish their titles. I have been on the road about every week for the past month. One of the trips was to Epic as part of the “SWAT team.” Every time I visit a developer, I remember how much I like actual production and the messiness which is game production. I am sure that some year I will return, but not yet.

Scuba Diving in Mexico

mdanks — Thu, 03 May 2007 05:21:18 +0000

I managed to get away for a week to do some scuba diving down in Mexico. My entire family heads down south of Cancun, Mexico once a year to dive, sit on the beach, and drink margaritas. We rent a condo in Puerto Aventuras and just do ocean things. Even though this was our third year doing the trip, we do not try to do any sightseeing. It is all about diving, relaxing, and spending time with the family. My parents initially started the trip so that they could spend time with the grandkids.

I was able to do 8 dives during the week. Going 80 feet under the water for an hour is an incredible experience. The dives out of Puerto Aventures are very easy, both to do and to get to. Most of them are a 5-10 minute boat ride out of the harbor. Do a back roll out of the boar and you are diving in 80 degree water. I wear a full 3mill wetsuit, but I have done some dives in a 3mill shorty and never felt cold. This trip, I picked up a Henderson wetsuit and loved it. It is extremely flexible and comfortable and I would recommend them to anyone who is looking for a good diving wetsuit.

The dives had lots of marine life. The most cool things I saw this trip were a school of barracuda (about 20 of them), a sea turtle eating coral for breakfast, and a nurse shark. The nurse shark was hanging out under a rock and did not swim away. Normally, they are extremely shy and do not like to be bothered, but this one let us stare at it and take pictures. Last year, the weather was really windy, so I did all of my dives in cenotes (underwater caves). While the cenotes are interesting, they are pratically devoid of life. The ocean is much more interesting, fun, and warmer. It was also great to be able to diving with my brother. I do not see him that much because he lives across the country and our travel schedules rarely line up. We discovered that we each dive pretty much the same way so it is really easy for us to be dive buddies. Having a good understanding and rapport with your dive buddy is pretty important when you are 60 feet underwater with no way to talk.

Here is a picture of me underwater. Still need to work on my form and my breathing, but I get better with each dive.