Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

Storms impacted the reefs and wrecks of the Caribbean Grand Cayman's Kittiwake-smashed-by-tropical-storm photo by Jason Washington iDive Global Ltd and  Ambassador Divers https://www.idivecayman.com Hurricane Hell's Fury, Irma-geddon and the current nom d’jour, Hurricanes Apocalypse, are terms scuba divers use to describe what it looks like underwater in 2017’s Hurricane Alley.  This fall’s storms have devastated several states in the US and whole countries in the Caribbean. Unseen by most is the damage done underwater. The hurricanes carpet bombed coral reefs, dumped sand and debris on fish spawning grounds and pushed shipwrecks on their sides. According to the US   National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration   (NOAA) moderate hurricanes can help the underwater world, but Hurricanes Apocalypse have inflicted damage that could take a century  from which to recover. “Small hurricanes can provide fast relief during periods of thermal stress, whereas...

The Benwood - NOAA photograph Happy Birthday to the wreck of the Benwood It was 73-years ago Thursday that the Merchant Marine freighter Benwood collided with another freighter, the Robert C. Tuttle and sank off the shores of Key Largo, Florida.  Stephen Weir photographing the wreck of the Benwood It was an accident caused in no small part by World War 2 -- rumours of German U-boats in the area that night required both ships to travel completely blacked out, even though they were just 3-miles off-shore in the reef filled waters of Key Largo’s Atlantic coast.  The 360 ft. long Benwood was filled to the gunnels with phosphate rock and was armed with a deck gun, depth charges and bombs. When her bow was crushed in the collision, she took on water and 30-minutes laters the captain and crew abandoned ship as the Benwood sank. She now lies close to shore between French Reef and Dixie Shoals on a bottom of low profile reef and sand in depths ranging from 25 ...

. TEN THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT SCUBA DIVING IF YOU INTEND ON BECOMING AN UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHER More people have taken pictures from inside the International Space Station than have dove down and taken photographs of the wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald. Lake bottoms, rivers beds and the ocean floor are truly the final frontiers. If you use scuba gear to take pictures you must be a certified diver (there many levels and types of certification). It is estimated that there are about half a million people in this country who are active scuba divers … a growing number of them own cameras. So, what does one need to know to join the growing rank of Canadians who live to spend time breathing air from an aluminum cylinder? 1. Age. Some scuba training agencies begin teaching students at the age of 10. Last year, Bert Killade, the self-styled “Last Pirate of the Caribbean”, died at the age of 94. Killade claimed to have been the oldest active sport diver. 2. Ability. You should know how to swi...

. . 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...