THINGS WE NEVER KNEW

Written by Mark Young

It takes a drive through Kansas to really understand why it’s called the Sunflower State. In places, sunflower fields extend in every direction, and as far off as you can see. If you have never observed a large field of sunflowers, the sight is awesome beyond the expanse of yellow. You think at first that it’s because the plants are so much taller and larger than you imagined. Then it dawns on you. In stunning symmetry, they appear to be around the same height, and face in exactly the same direction. You may not even realize at first why they are aimed the same way, and that’s the next cool thing. Before they reach full flower, they face the sun as it comes up in the morning and the entire field rotates in grand unison as the sun moves across the sky, to the west by the end of the day. At the top of the Earth, where the sun never sets, scientists have observed sunflowers strangle themselves as they follow the sun circling the rim of the horizon. Any question where the plant got its name?

Even if you don’t know or care anything about sunflowers, this scant bit of information puts them in a whole new light (sorry). It can make you wonder about other things like, gee, what causes them to do that? Do they unwind at night? Do they follow the full moon, too? And even if these few facts don’t make you want to know more, it becomes great trivia for a dinner conversation.

This sidelong example shows that even seemingly simple things can become interesting with knowledge and a few basic facts. Now take something that actually interests us, like diving. As we become better informed the experience becomes more interesting and, in the process, in a way, so do we.

We have entered our 20th year publishing this magazine. There is so much about this activity and its environs to know, for anyone who wants to, and we felt that an educational publication that follows the light was more than needed. So we consider our tenure grateful confirmation that the interest in learning more about diving and what surrounds it is indeed pretty strong. People wondered early on if a magazine themed Dive Training would have enough to write about; there has certainly been enough content.

And it doesn’t run out. There is a long list of interesting dive-related topics that we would like to share with you in this edition, and in future editions. Take jellyfish, for example. We all know what they are but what really gives? This creature is complex in its simplicity. It turns out there is an awful lot to know about jellies, and author Greg Laslo takes us on another tour of a bizarre subject with the cover story that begins on Page 20.

We hope that after reading the article you will never look at jellyfish the same way again. Just like you may never look at sunflowers in quite the same way. So, do they unwind at night? When it comes to pondering what we know and what we don’t, perhaps the best questions revolve around the things that we are interested in and think we know, or never knew, but would like to learn much more about. To help make your diving experience complete, we will continue to keep you in the know about lots of different and interesting topics — lighting interest, we hope, for a few more decades.

EVERYBODY'S BACKYARD

By Mark Young 

European explorers led by Christopher Columbus were actually searching for a sea route to Asia when by luck they discovered the Caribbean and the Americas. This wasn’t so lucky for the various native populations, however; they couldn’t defend themselves against conquest, but the most devastating import was biological. Where the people of the three known continents had long been exposed to each other’s diseases and developed a strong immunity, the cultures that the “Columbuses” discovered were powerless against the import of smallpox, measles and influenza. Mere contact killed millions of indigenous people.

In a sense you could say that throughout history subsets of man have been an invasive species. And wherever we humans have gone, nature has been along for the ride. 

People tend to think of “invasive species” only in negative terms, but the phrase has several degrees of definition. Toward the “OK” scale it refers to “introduced species or nonindigenous species that are rapidly expanding outside of their native range.” A not-so-OK connotation is, “alien species whose introduction or spread threatens the environment, the economy, and/or society, including human health.”

Degrees of the definition are appropriate. For example, an argument can be made that the introduction of most exotic species has richly enhanced biodiversity. Consider traveling plants; more than 4,000 species introduced into North America during the past 400 years make up nearly 20 percent of our current plant biodiversity. And, with no evidence, according to some biologists, that a single resident species has been driven to extinction. In other words, with some pesky exceptions, plants that invade fit in. 

As divers we tend to think negatively about the arrival of nonindigenous marine life, yet the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 introduced 250 new fish species into the Mediterranean from the Red Sea, reportedly resulting in only a single extinction. So there’s that. 

On the other hand, who wants the Burmese python at the top of the Everglades food chain? (Have you seen the YouTube video of the snake that exploded while digesting an alligator?) Their numbers in the Glades are estimated at more than 100,000, growing fast, and pose a threat to natural balance in a truly spectacular ecosystem — all because a few pets outgrew their welcome. Perhaps the Nile monitor lizard, an African heavy that grows to 7 feet (2 m) in length can give the pythons a run for the top; they’ve also established Florida residency. Kind of makes the U.S. invasions of zebra mussels and Asian carp seem tame.

This month’s cover feature is an update on the Atlantic/Caribbean invasion of lionfish, another pet let loose. There’s no debate that this has the possibility of an environmental disaster. One hope against it is the commercial potential of lionfish as a culinary dish; that would at least put something above them in the food chain. Another possibility is whatever mechanism keeps them in check in their far-Pacific homeland, something that is being studied to determine. 

However this plays out, we’re about to see in the extreme how well natural balance can occur where it must, while we humans continue to move nature past the geographic boundaries that once contained the Earth’s biota, and into our own backyards.

TIES THAT BIND

By Mark Young

A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.
~Edward de Bono

During a business trip to Florida I wound up near where I used to live, and stopped into a small airport where I kept a plane for a quite a while. I’m not quite sure, after nearly 20 years, why I decided to visit the flight center where I was based, but it called me back.

I’m guessing that the flight instructor behind the counter was in diapers when I was a customer there. We had a great conversation and some laughs, me sharing stories about how the place was, she telling how it is, and the old wooden flight center felt like home. Just the smell of the place summoned fond memories, and the experience was nicely nostalgic.

It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time. What from today will cause you to look back tomorrow and smile? You might just be in that place; you were probably introduced to this magazine at your local dive center and someday that store, the people you meet there and the experiences that you collect might mark a considerable time of your life. Most store owners and dive instructors are in this business to pass on to you what has such importance to them, so connecting you to diving, and a lot of great things to remember, should be natural. But sometimes even important things need a solid introduction to help them stick.

I mention this because of how the initial introduction to diving has changed. Not many years ago, people who learned to dive went through about 40 hours of face-to-face instruction. That amount of classroom and pool time allowed instructors and students to get to know one another, and a provided good conduit for the passion of diving to transfer. At some point, the industry decided that so much of a commitment to scheduled time was limiting participation, so they set out to shorten it with home study options to attract more people. As a result, some of today’s students may not spend as much time with an instructor outside of the pool sessions. But are they missing an important connection? Did we abbreviate ourselves out of the bonding that comes with spending time?

I wondered about that as I read this issue’s Instructor Tips column about the positive learning effects of instructor storytelling. It’s a reminder that much of learning happens outside the lines of a book or the glare of a screen. Observing that young flight instructor, I imagined how well she must be bonding her students to the excitement and the possibilities of aviation. I thought of her importance as a mentor, and her ability to inspire her students through the emotional desert of dry textural material.

I remember that learning to dive was an escape from my cubicled world; not a drag at all. Learning doesn’t just involve what you know; it inspires what you do with what you know. It is the emotional, not textural information that forms the strongest attachment. There is terrific benefit to being surrounded early on by the diving environment, the enthusiasm of a good instructor and sharing the excitement, anticipation and even some of the apprehension with other people who are learning too.

We in the industry want to connect you. It is important for you to help establish the connection too, especially if you don’t feel that it exists for you as it should. You don’t want to let this experience unhappen. Stop by your dive center to linger a while, and you might just find yourself stopping back in 20 years, and finding memories.