Scuba Diving in Arizona's desert

On November 6, 2007 people from City of Mesa, Arizona by vast majority vote to approve Proposition 300, which basically is green light for the city's expenditure of public funds, tax concessions and grant of city-owned land to aid in the construction of the Waveyard Project. The Waveyard will be a huge water park that will offer surf-sized waves, snorkeling, scuba diving and kayaking.

The focus of this development project will be delivering sports options that are not typically available in an urban environment. The 125-acre park will feature a scuba lagoon and a snorkeling pond with reefs. Scuba diving in The Sunken City will be the main attraction in the scuba diving lagoon featuring ruins and ancient relics, encrusted stone walls, colonnades, stone arches, coral, and plants will highlight your diving experience. You won’t find any fish in The Sunken City so don’t bring you harpoon.

The diving facility will have a dive shop with the latest diving equipment, classroom training, open water dive courses, classes in underwater video and photography, dry suit training, rescue diver courses, and diver medical courses. One proposed service of this dive shop that I found unique is that they will offer you the opportunity to demo or rent the latest wetsuits and diving gear.

According to the developer “The Sunken City will also play host to fiber optic night dives, scuba parties, and corporate team building events”. I don’t know you but I am having a hard time trying to imagine a “scuba party”!

This place will open to the public in 2010.

LED lights are cool for scuba diving

I was doing some research about this new technology and I found a wide range of products. I remember long time ago when I bought my first scuba lights…night diving was not the best experience since the lights were not the best products at that time.

The LED lights, as most of the best technologies, were originally designed for military personal. But now, after some years the cost of producing the LEDs is going down as the demand for this type of product is growing.

LED lights allow scuba divers maximum visibility and truer colors, since this type of light travels farther underwater. Another cool feature is that these lights last more than 20,000 hours.

Some of the best models are:

• Underwater Kinetics Mini Q40 e LED Plus. Depth rating: 500 feet.
• TREK 400 EX40, featuring 40 LEDs and 4-5 hours at full power. Depth rating: 300 feet.
• OMS 3 Watt LED Ultra Bright Headlamp, hands free light.

With this technology available, my recommendation is don’t buy halogen, buy LED and enjoy the experience of deep or night diving.

Aquaculture: potential business opportunity for divers

Love underwater sports, constant contact with marine or fresh water environment? Maybe Aquaculture is your next big business.

The broad term "aquaculture" refers to the breeding, rearing, and harvesting of plants and animals in all types of water environments, including ponds, rivers, lakes, and the ocean. Similar to agriculture, aquaculture can take place in the natural environment or in a manmade environment. Using aquaculture techniques and technologies, researchers and the aquaculture industry are "growing," "producing," "culturing," and "farming" all types of freshwater and marine species.

More specifically, marine aquaculture refers to the culturing of marine species, while freshwater aquaculture focuses on the culturing of freshwater species. For example, marine aquaculture production includes oysters, clams, mussels, shrimp, and salmon, while freshwater aquaculture operations produce trout, catfish, and tilapia.

With respect to marine aquaculture, the major technological barriers are:

• Finding suitable sites in coastal areas, where aquaculture must compete with many other coastal uses;


• Clarifying the regulatory and environmental requirements for existing as well as new marine aquaculture operations, including offshore (federal waters); and


• Developing technologies and best management practices to ensure that various types of production systems are compatible with marine ecosystems.

It can be extremely expensive to start a business like this in the US, that’s why everyday global entrepreneurs evaluate also established markets like Peru or Ecuador. For example, Peru has a good variety of exportable offers in the Seafood and Aquaculture business: http://www.prompex.gob.pe/catalog/empresa1.asp?idsector=1 from scallops to tilapia.

Remember that always is a good idea to assess your ideas or business ventures with a complete business plan. It will cost you time, not money.