Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

What to do while decompressing? Watch the Watch New watch mechanical watch from Japan arrives in North America The Japanese based Orient Watch company put a big push on this past Christmas season to introduce its mechanical saturation diver watch to the North American market. The watch, which retails for $1,300 US has, according to company spokeswoman Christina Koshzow “a special case design that prevents the penetration of helium gas (while diving at depth). This means that the internal pressure hardly rises at all, eliminating the need for an escape valve and a diver no longer has to use a valve to adjust the pressure inside the case when diving or surfacing. The watch is rated to a depth of 300 meters (900 feet), with a strong exterior that has excellent corrosion resistance. The self-winding watch has a large crown and rotating bezel, which makes it easy to operate even when wearing thick dive gloves. The watch company has teamed with North American broadcasters to sell their ful

. INTERNATIONAL USB TAVEL ADAPTER ALLOWS DIVERS TO RECHARGE IPOD, SMART PHONES AND SOME CAMERAS WHILE ON THE ROAD One of many product reviews written in December 2008 Cut line : The International USB Travel Adapter and its four interchangeable input plugs. Be it above or below the water, more and more divers are traveling with their IPods. And since most IPods are charged through an USB cord, there is now a new “must have” for divers on the road. The Amzer Power Adapter is a direct power source for iPods, mobile phones, Blackberrys, digital cameras and any other new electronic device that recharges its battery through a USB port. Away from home, this adapter can be plugged into any wall socket, be it 100 volt or 240 volt service, and then hooks up, through a USB cord, to your electronic device. This new USB power adapter comes with four plugs for use in North America, the UK, Europe and Australia Diver Magazine recently field-tested the Power Adapter in Havana, Cuba. An Ipod was repe

. Sculptures to make you think cutline - owl sculpture from Keene New Hampshire Auguste Rodin, that French fellow who sculpted "The Thinker" has nothing on the people of Jackson. For the past 8 years they have been carving Tiki Gods, cougars, chair lifts and yes, even a snowy version of The Thinker in the annual New Hampshire State Sanctioned & Jackson Invitational Snow Sculpting Competition! While Rodin carved in stone, in Jackson, hundreds of winter artists will be using snow to create their masterpieces. The outdoor art festival and competition begins at noon on Friday January 30th and runs through Sunday February 1st, 2009 in Jackson Village Park, Jackson Village, New Hampshire. This event attracts a wide variety of sculptors, both amateur and professional who are dedicated to putting a wow factor on piles of frozen snow! This event is sanctioned by the Association International de Sculpture sur Neige et Glace and WinterFun, Inc., which is the only sanctioning organi

. . Six Dive Wreck Shorts from the January issue of Diver Magazine cutline: the liveaboard diveboat the Spree watches as the Texas Clipper is scuttled off Padre Island to create an artifical reef and a new dive site. By Stephen Weir Deeper is not always better in Florida Dive chat boards around the world have been deep in discussion lately talking/typing about how a scuttled aircraft carrier has moved deeper into the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently this summer’s Hurricane Gustav not only battered the Gulf’s north coast, it actually shifted the Oriskany, the world’s largest artificial reef. In May 2006 when the aircraft carrier was towed out into the Gulf near Pensacola, Florida, and sunk, the flight deck of the Oriskany was 135 ft (45 m) below the surface. After Hurricane Gustav rumbled through the area, the sunken ship slipped 10 ft (3.3 m) deeper into the Gulf. While it is not unusual for sunken ships to shift and settle on the bottom of the ocean, what has attracted the attention of

. A DAY AT AN AUSTRALIAN BEACH HARD HAT ARTIST DRY DIVES THE TITANIC (an article written for www.divermag.com ... but to date has not been posted. sigh). Rob Jan is an Australian artist, journalist, radio host and photographer who posts offbeat popular pictures on Flickr. A set of strange hard hat diver pictures he has posted on the Internet photo sharing web service has begun to attractthe attention of divers from all around the world! Zero G (Jan’s nomme de plume) has been fascinated with hard hat dive suits long before he decided to stage a sea side photo shoot with members of the Australian chapter of the International Costumers Associations in 2006. Two and half years ago, Jan posted the pictures he and his friends took on Flickr and since then divers have been raving about and freely downloading the pictures. “It's amazing how popular that whole photo set has become,” Rob Jan told Diver Magazine. “If I'd known that real divers would be looking at it someday I recko

. STEALTH UNDERWATER ROBOT HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT Cutline: McGill University graduate student Olivia Chiu and York University’s Jim Zacher hold AQUA at the Adventure Show held in Mississauga earlier this year. AQUA, a new experimental underwater robot, can walk on the ocean floor, noiselessly swim amongst school fish unnoticed, and quietly crawl out the of the water and walk onto the beach when its mission is over. So stealthful is this 6-limbed robot that it almost went unnoticed when it made its Mississauga, Ontario debut at the February Adventure Show. Built over a period of four years, AQUA is described as “an amphibious walking and swimming robot”. However, for visitors to the Adventure Show, AQUA looked like a safety deposit box with three flippers sticking out of each side. “ This is the second generation of AQUA” said Jim Zacher, a York University graduate student. “ IT is the result of an on-going research study involving McGill, York University and Dalhousie universitie

St. Maarten’s 12 metre Challenge. It’s the 1987 America’s Cup over and over again… Tired old racehorses are put out to pasture. Over-the-hill greyhounds become family pets. And retired 12-metre racing yachts? For five veterans of the extended 1987 America’s Cup campaign, the Golden Years are spent forever rerunning that famous series of races in the warm waters off St Maartens in the Caribbean Sea. Now that America’s Cup has switched to the International America's Cup Class size, the 12-metre has begun to fall out of favour with competitive racers. Although not dead yet (there still a few key 12-metre races being held) in terms of the Big Show, the once mighty 12-metre class seems destined for marine museum collections. But wait, in St Maartens, Canadian businessman Colin Percy has rescued five of the greatest 12 metre yachts ever sailed and brought them to the Dutch/French island of St Maarten. Three to four times a day visitors can now participate in a mini-America's Cup r