Even communist Cuba has the set-a-world-record fever. Communist country knows how to use World Record to gain media traction in the Free World

World's Biggest Cigar, story released by Reuters

With music, dancing and rum, Cubans celebrated on Friday the likely return of a record they consider rightfully theirs -- the world's longest cigar.
At just over 148 feet 9 inches, the thick stogie stretched like a long brown snake through a room and out its front and back windows at El Morro, the old Spanish fort overlooking Havana Bay.
British diplomat Chris Stimpson made the official measurement, which he said would be sent to the Guinness World Records in London for confirmation.
"The best in the world, no?" said the cigar's smiling, ash-stained roller, Jose Castelar Cairo, better known as Cueto.
His six-day-long project, completed with several assistants, eclipsed the previous record of 135 feet (41 meters), held by Patricio Pena of Puerto Rico.
Breaking the record was a point of pride for Cubans, whose cigars are considered among the world's best.

More World's Underwater Records
… no matter how silly

[As reported by Stephen Weir for Divermag.com:
Recording the records for readers]

As spring rolls into the Northern Hemisphere, divers likewise will be rolling into the water to set yet more underwater records, accomplish first-ever events and invent new things to do under the surface of the water.

Recent underwater firsts noted by divermag.com include:

ß Divermag.com has written about the sport of underwater ironing in past postings. It is fun sport invented for people who just leave their housework at home. Here is how it works, a diver takes an ironing board, an iron and a wrinkled article of clothing and goes underwater as deep as possible and irons. World records have been set for the deepest recorded ironing and the largest number of ironers underwater at one time.

Last month in Australia 72 scuba divers have underwater-ironed their way into the Guinness World Record. According to the Geelong Advertiser, the divers belonged to a local club and wanted to establish a new record for the largest mass-ironing underwater. They beat the old record of 70, set by the same club a number of years ago.

ß Mark it down. Spring 2008 is when divers began to find out about the world’s newest underwater sport. Due to popular demand, the Swiss Underwater Sports Union began in late March to teach men and women how to play the brand new full contact game of Underwater Rugby. Playing on the bottom of a swimming pool, two teams of six, compete to see who can put a 6-kilo ball (filled with salt water) through the opposing squad’s basket. Players wear only bathing suits, flippers and goggles. Apparently underwater rugby was first developed in Germany as a training exercise for new divers. Now it is the new hit sport on the European continent this spring.

ß A UK based swimmer plans to train all spring in preparation for her May 11th attempt to break her own British record for distance swum underwater without breathing. Liv Phillips broke the underwater swimming record last August having swum 104 metres -- four lengths of an indoor pool -- without breathing.

The 32-year old will also attempt to break the National Static Record, where she is required to hold her breath underwater for as long as possible. She already holds Britain’s National Static Record after holding her breath for five minutes 32 seconds, which she did underwater in Slovenia last year.

You have read about underwater records, now watch them!

If web counters are to be believed, there is growing worldwide interest in stories about dubious and quirky underwater records. You Tube has many videos posted “showing” people as they set new records – the problem is trying to find these videos (many of them aren’t in English) in You Tube’s massive, and growing inventory of postings. There is a new website that has taken the search out of locating You Tube underwater record setting videos.

The Scuba Channel posts underwater videos made for the most part by European divers. As well, Scuba Channel has linked with You Tube to show underwater video’s posted on that popular site. The Scuba channel [http://www.video.scubadata.com] has a growing list of underwater record videos including:

ß Nordic Night Dives on camera. A group of Nordic divers set what they call a new world record in simultaneous night diving. A total of 1,859 divers in six Nordic countries all went underwater at the same time at a total of 138 sites. The Nordic Night Dive of 2007 took place December 6, 2007 and involved divers in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Organizers said they would have had more people in the water if rough sea conditions in the Faroe Islands hadn’t force participants to abort their group night dive. The Nordic Night Divers are going to try and break their own record this December 4, 2008 and invite divers from around the world to join in.

ß According to a video posted on the site, Nuno Gomes – the diver not the soccer player - is the current (2008) deepest dive world record holder. He set a mark of 318.35 metres in 2005 and that dive is documented on the video.

ß There is a You Tube posting that shows snippets of a diver setting the record for the longest time spent under the water in the open ocean (24-hours and three minutes). This record was set on 20 July 2005 by Will Goodman off the coast of Gili Trawangan, Lombok Indonesia.

Blogs shaping how the public gather information and make opinions

A few months ago I posted a story about Diver Fatalities. I am an active diver and I write about scuba diving for Diver Magazine in Canada and a number of newspapers. Since that posting appeared on this site, I have received numerous emails from readers wanting to know about recent diver deaths. I have avoided responding because this web page is really about maximizing one's (be in personal or corporate) publicity potential. Despite the fact that I haven't posted about dive fatalities since then, A check of my web records show that googled: " cayman dive fatalities " is the number one reason that people find my site (followed closely by "hookers, Jane and Finch"). So, with that in mind the following has been posted about a May 13th dive fatality on Grand Cayman Island. I don't have much information, but, here is what I know.


DIVE FATALITY 13 MAY 2008

I was monitoring Cayman radio stations this morning (14 May 2008) and noted that there was a dive fatality yesterday in Cayman. Vibe radio, in its 8am news broadcast was reporting a female tourist from Texas died while shore-diving near the Crack Conch cafe. A 911 call came into police from a citizen on shore who saw a diver waving for help. The diver was in the water, and beside him (her?) there was a female diver who was not moving. Police arrived quickly. The divers were brought to shore. The injured diver was given CPR and taken to hospital but could not be revived.

Since posting this item, the following news item appeared in the Cayman Compass:Diver dead in West Bay. Wednesday 14th May, 2008
A vacationer on a shore dive in West Bay died Monday afternoon.
The 45–year–old woman, who was from Texas, was spotted in the water just off Coconut Bay. A 911 caller reported seeing two divers who had surfaced near the shore; one was waving and the other was not moving.
The unresponsive diver was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead. A cause of death had not immediately been determined. A post mortem will be conducted, but police said no foul play was suspected in the woman’s death.

The incident in West Bay Monday was believed to be the fourth watersports–related fatality in Grand Cayman so far this year.

On 3 March, a 69–year–old English swimmer’s inert body was found by a snorkeller along Seven Mile Beach. There were also two diving deaths here in January, one off 12 Mile Bank and another that occurred near the West Bay dock.

UNDERWATER FATALITY 26 MAY 2008

It is May 29th and once again, while listening to Cayman radio on my computer, I heard a news story about a tourist dying underwater in Grand Cayman. I was able to find local newspaper coverage of the incident. It would be unfair to the local dive industry to call this a scuba death, rather it was a Sea-Tek helmet death .... the first I have ever heard about.

Sub-Sea Ltd, a California company manufactures Sea-Tek, a plastic helmet with a large space-suit like glass window. The weighted helmet has a tube that leads up to the surface. Air is pumped from the surface through this tube, into the helmet. Tourists simply put the helmet on and then enter the water. They are able to walk on the bottom of the ocean and look at coral reefs, fish and sometimes even shipwrecks, without ever having to swim. Helmet diving unlike scuba, lets tourists get underwater without any formal training.

The helmets are meant to be used in shallow water and the guests have to follow a predetrimned path along the ocean floor. Scuba diving guides and safety personnel are with the tourists at all times. Because of the shallow depths (10 ft) that the Sea-Tek divers walk in, most people could easily remove their helmets and swim to the surface if there were any problems with their air supply.

According to the Cayman newspapers "The tourist who died while helmet diving in the Caymans has been identified as Timothy Eugene Mowry of Traverse City, Michigan. Mowry, 62, died last Monday (May 26th) while participating in a helmet dive with his son near the Royal Watler Port in George Town. Witnesses said the victim lost consciousness and died while diving with a Sea Trek diving helmet. Crew members aboard the Sea Trek vessel said he was unconscious when he was pulled from the water and never revived despite CPR efforts by paramedics and Sea Trek staff.

The helmet diving accident, the fifth diving-related fatality this year, is under investigation by the Royal Cayman Islands Police.

IN OTHER CAYMAN NEWS: INQUEST RESULTS

Coroner’s verdicts on tourist deaths
By James Dimond, jdimond@cfp.ky
Sunday 11th May, 2008

The Coroner’s Court recently considered the deaths of four tourists that were pulled from Grand Cayman’s waters dead between June 2006 and April 2007.

RAPID ASCENT

Nebraska retiree Daniel Childs, 71, died while diving near the blowhole in East End. Mr. Childs and his son, Frederick, had been 15 minutes into a group dive with a tour operator in April 2007 when he was noticed missing.

In a statement, the dive–master with Mr. Childs’ group said she had ordered the other divers to ascend to the surface once Mr. Childs was noticed missing. He was later found floating on the surface of the water. CPR was performed on Mr. Childs for an extended period, but he was later pronounced dead at the Cayman Islands Hospital.

In a statement, Frederick Childs said his father was a very good swimmer, an experienced diver, and in perfect health, but an autopsy found that Mr. Childs had severe narrowing of his coronary artery, an enlarged heart and was diabetic.

The doctor performing the autopsy said it appeared Mr. Childs had made an uncontrolled assent to the surface that could have been the result of panic – possibly related to his heart condition. A Department of Environment inspection found that the diving equipment Mr. Childs used was functioning properly at the time of his death.

Queen’s Coroner Margaret Ramsay–Hale pointed out there were a number of possible explanations for Mr. Childs’ rapid ascent, but told the jury they did not have to decide why he rose so suddenly. If they accepted that he drowned it could only be because of accident or a third party, with all the evidence pointing to the former, she said.

The jury ruled the death an accident, returning a verdict of death by misadventure.

HONEYMOON TRADEGY

A verdict of death by misadventure was also returned in the case of Michael Kuntz, who was honeymooning in Cayman with his wife, Patricia Kuntz, in January, 2007. The Nebraskan couple had been married for nine months when Mr. Kuntz’s body was pulled from the water in front of Sunset House following a shore dive.

He had been out diving with a friend, James Paben, also from Nebraska. In a statement, Mr. Paben said both were certified divers and Mr. Kuntz had done about 30 dives. He said the two had gone about 200 to 300 yards from shore and dived to a depth of about 60 feet. After about half an hour, they had decided to go back, and Mr. Kuntz ascended to the surface first.

When Mr. Paben surfaced, Mr. Kuntz was about 40 feet away. While swimming towards shore, Mr. Paben noticed his friend was not keeping up. “At this stage I waved to our wives to get help,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if Michael was having problems but I wanted to be on the safe side. Shortly after the dive instructor swam out to me. I pointed out to him the last place I saw Michael.”

In a statement, the instructor said he found Mr. Kuntz lying face down in the water. His face was blue, his eyes open and glazy and his mouth open with water in it. The instructor commenced rescue breathing and, when picked up by a boat a few minutes later, CPR, but Mr. Kuntz could not be revived.

A post mortem examination found foam drainage in Mr. Kuntz’s left ear – signalling he may have made a rapid ascent to the surface. It also found severe narrowing in one of the arteries leading to his heart.

Temporary Health Services Authority Pathologist, Jacqueline Torrell, who was in court to help explain the post mortem and autopsy report findings to the jury, was asked by the coroner whether it was possible Mr. Kuntz had a heart problem while underwater. “This evidence of heart disease could have caused a shortness of breath or some other episode, leading to panic,” she replied.

The coroner pointed out that 30 dives over a period of years did not amount to a lot of diving experience, and that could explain why he surfaced so quickly. But she said it was not for the jury to decide why Mr. Kuntz rose so rapidly – they had to decide whether he drowned, and if he did, whether it was an accident – a view they accepted, returning a verdict of death by misadventure.

SMITH COVE DROWNING

Jurors examining the death of Charles Simpson, 57, from Texas, heard Mr. Simpson had gone to Smith Cove Beach to dive with his wife and two other couples on 11 March, 2007.

His wife, Carol, said in a statement the couple had been the last into the water, with her about 10 yards behind Mr. Simpson.

After making it about 20 yards into the water, Mrs. Smith said she became uncomfortable with her gear and decided to return to shore.

Carl Simpson – a relative and friend of the deceased – was about 75 yards ahead at the time. He said Mr. Simpson – known as Chuck – continued to come towards the other divers initially, but then waved his hand at them to indicate he was returning to shore. Another member of the group said Mr. Simpson had only been about 30 yards into the water when he indicated he was turning back.

When she got back on shore, Mrs. Simpson looked for her husband but didn’t see him, so assumed he had caught up with the others.

When the group returned without him about 30 minutes later, Mrs. Simpson asked where her husband was. “They told me that he turned, said that he was going back to shore, but that they had not seen him since.”

Police later found Mr. Simpson’s lifeless body face down in the water. A post mortem examination listed drowning as the cause of death, but noted that Mr. Simpson was moderately obese, diabetic and had severe narrowing of his coronary artery. The jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure.

Snorkelling death at BT

The jury were also asked to consider the death of Thomas DeMarco, 49, from Georgia, who was found unconscious on Bodden Town Public Beach after snorkelling and later pronounced dead.

Mr. DeMarco went snorkelling with his son and wife on 20 June, 2006 by the reef in front of Turtle Nest Inn. In a statement, his wife, Martha, said she had stayed in shallow water and returned to shore first.

When son, Ben, returned to the shore alone, she asked where his father was. Ben said he didn’t know. She returned to their hotel room to see if Mr. DeMarco was there, but he wasn’t. Back on the beach, Mrs. DeMarco saw a group of people gathered, including two paramedics. “I looked and saw a body lying on the beach ... I then knew it was him,” she said. “I then saw them several times doing CPR and leaning the body to let the water out, but when I saw this, in my mind, I knew he was dead.”

The coroner pointed out that an autopsy had concluded the death was caused by drowning. It noted Mr. DeMarco had a history of high blood pressure and diabetes.

The report also noted there was narrowing in one of the arteries leading to Mr. DeMarco’s heart, but the coroner pointed out Mr. Demarco had no known history of heart problems.

She said it could have been that high blood pressure or a heart complaint caused Mr. DeMarco to panic, leading to his drowning. But she emphasised it was not for the jury to determine how the man drowned, but if he drowned and whether it was an accident. After a brief deliberation, the jury concluded it was, returning a verdict of death by misadventure.

Publicity Successes of a Titanic proportion

USING THE POWER OF THE TITANIC TO DRAW INK. CAMERAS AND KOOKS.:

Almost a century after the "Great Ship" went down, people continue to cash in on the mystic and the draw of the Titanic. Pictured above are two pictures I took at a Titanic / Minister of Culture press conference held at the Toronto Science Centre today - Feburary 12.08. The third from the top photo shows Aileen Carroll, Ontario's new Miinister of Culture talking about the new Family Day holiday that was created by the Liberal government late last year. What does Family Day have to do with the wreck of the Titanic? The Ontario Science Centre is owned by her Ministry and is currently staging a travelling Titanic exhibition. The Minister suggested families might consider seeing the show on Family Day!

The bottom picture, taken at the same event, shows Hugh Brewster a Titanic children's book author telling the story of the shipwreck to a class of Grade 5 students. Dressed in Edwardian clothes, the Canadian author has made a career out of explaining the tradegy of the Titanic to school age kids!

The two smaller images at the top of the page are frame grabs from the 2007 BBC / CBC production of Dr. Who. The popular Time Lord somehow managed to land his Tardus inside a Titanic space liner, and, like its Earthbound namesake is about to crash! How in all the gin joints across the galaxy Dr Who could wander into, I can' t imagine the odds of landing in a futuristic flying Titanic spaceship!

Being at the press conference made me reflect on the drawing power of the world's most famous shipwreck and how over the last 20 years I have managed to get millions of dollars worth of publicity for half a dozen projects cashing in on the Titanic brand. Explorers. Underwater Researchers. Escape Artists. Authors. Film Makers. Phantom SOS signals. Nutbars. All of the projects were different -- the only two common threads were the wreck itself and the nutty people the almost mythical Titanic attracts. [ I am busy working on a number of projects and will continue this thread later today or tomorrow or ....]

Sub-Title: Later that same month ... It was early in life I learned that blood and guts and accidental death sells. Monster Miller would give anything to see the Titanic.

Back in the 60's living in Renfrew, Ontario, I noted that for many teenagers entertainment on a hot summer night was visiting the downtown parking lot of the local GM dealership. Given that the Trans Canada Highway ran right down mainstreet (A new by-pass has now pushed Renfrew out of the motoring limelight) wreckage from nearby highway accidents were routinely towed to the lot and left on display until the police and insurance agents had a chance to document the twisted bits of metal. The more blood, the more deaths, the larger the crowd. I remember one student, Ralph Miller (dubbed Monster Miller) would crawl inside those cars that had been involved in fatal accidents and retrieve bits of bloody metal for his trophy case. No one in town thought it weird or macbre (except when the accident involved a local), in fact the two town papers, the Mercury and the Advance raced to see who could get to the lot first and get the best pictures for the next edition! They rarely beat Monster Miller to the scene. He was a local hero.

Renfrew is a backwater community and its communal taste for disaster is much baser than society's fascination with shipwrecks. But, that same raw passion that transformed Monster Miller when he recovered bits of bone from the front seat of a crushed Pinto, is probably that same primitive rush - albeit draped under a mantle of science and history - that shipwreck hunters feel when they find a ship underwater. The bigger the casuality list the more press, and cash you will garner. Guaranteed.

My first encounter with the Titanic was while I was giving publicity assistance to Underwater Canada. Stephen Low, a Canadian film director was onboard a Russian research vessel (with its two deepwater minisubs) and produced an amazing IMAX large format film of the recently rediscovered passenger ship. Footage from that film was shown at Underwater Canada's annual film festival and team members took turns talking about the adventure. I got a lot of press for the project. Involved in the project were two Canadian researchers; Stephen Blasco and Dr. Joe MacInnis. Both men added an element of science to the filming and both came to annual dive show to talk about the film and their experiences underwater. Stephen, a government researcher based out of Halifax, made some startling discoveries about deepwater ocean currents and about how water pressure was crushing the hull of the Titanic and overtime creating huge metal rusticals to form on Her.

I am not sure or I have forgotten what Dr. Joe's role in the project. However, he did often give moving public talks about the filming expedition and somehow got the 3-D rights to portions of the footage shot on the wreck. He went on to write a book about the Titanic. And, a few years after the movie came out I tried, on behalf of the late great Toronto Maritime Museum (the Harbourfront Pier), to set up a small theatre to show Joe's movie to visitors! We never did get the movie up and running, lighting concerns and costs scuttled the project. I am not sure how Joe's book did, he has since gone on to write a book about the Edmund Fitzgerald and another about Canada's most northerly wreck, the Breadalbine. Joe, a medical doctor by training, frequently writes for Diver Magazine, however he doesn't talk to me unless he really has to, he has a hate-on over a Globe and Mail review I wrote about one of his books. Sigh - not an uncommon occurrence in the dive industry, where bragging rights are more important than commerce.

A few years after the Imax movie I was once again schilling for the wreck. James Cameron, a Canadian diver turned Hollywood movie maker, was filming Titanic. The project was behind schedule and way way over budget. Cameron, worried that the film might be sunk by the studio before it was even finished, actually gave up his share of the film to help finance its completion and began a global PR campaign to show investors and journalists images from the sunken ship.

Cameron had leased that same Russian research vessel and its deepwater wide -windowed submarines that were used in the filming of the Imax movie. Shooting for Hollywood rather than for Science Centre audiences, Cameron took amazing images of the downed ship. He sent his submarine pilot to Toronto with a tray full of slides to show auidences at Underwater Canada and to an eager press what would be in his movie. We were front-page across the country.

The dive show was held in late winter, early spring. A few months after the Titanic slide presentation had sailed through town I got a call from a location manager working for Cameron in California. She wanted to know if I knew of any ships that had steam driven boilers - Cameron was thinking of filming a sequence showing Arnold Schwartznegger madly shoveling coal to power the Titanic as she tried to full-steam ahead past the iceberg. I told them of an abandoned ship my wife and I had seen in Palau, but, the Arnie idea was dropped and I never heard from them again.

I was also hired to briefly help with the Toronto launch of the Titanic Exhibition by Premier Entertainment. It was held in the Better Living Building on the Grounds of the CNE. It was the first of what is now 7 travelling exhibitions showcasing artifacts removed from the wrecksite of the Titanic. Many say it is grave robbing. Premier Entertainment say that they are protecting artifacts that would soon be crushed by a crumbling mass of untempered steel.

The Toronto show was not very successful even though the set-up was spectacular and the media to-die-for. The whole front of the Better Living Building had a massive mural of the Titanic. On opening night there were various food stations serving dishes from the various classes of passengers and crew. (They served a boiled cabbage and corned beef to show what people in steerage ate). The downfall of the show was the location. The CNE grounds are not known for museum exhibits and in winter it is a blistering cold and windy half-mile unprotected walk from the streetcar station to the Better Living Building ... and when you got there? Well the building wasn't heated.

Premier got their act together and now have a very slick, albeit expensive, presentation that is drawing spectators in across North America. I've caught the show in San Francisco and my wife saw it in Vegas. It now finishing an extended run at the Toronto Ontario Science Centre - hence the need for a media boosting press event in February.

Not to be outdone by the Better Living Building show the Toronto International Boat Show, put on a display which I helped promote. They worked with a Nova Scotia magician, the Great Santini, who also owned a private collection of real artifacts from the Titanic. Steve Santini's holdings were not plunder from the wrecksite but were floatsom that was collected by East Coasters following the accident. Including in the exhibition he installed at the Boat Show was a deck chair and a life presever.

Steve Santini would dress up like Captain Smith (in a real White Star Line uniform) and yell at visitors as though they were panicky steerage passengers wanting to be allowed on the upper decks so that they could get on life boats. And, if you tried to rearrange the deck chair on the Titanic deck, he would almost foam at the mouth. He scared children, deafened adults who wandered into hearing range and titilated the media! During breaks he would perform card tricks and bemoan the fact that he didn't have chains or a straight jacket to break out of.

Santini was a hard working man, he got just one day off from the ten day show. He was orginally from Toronto but had moved to Halifax to look after his Titanic Collection. Rather than visit his family on his one free day he had me drive him around the countryside tracking down Ontario graves from Titanic victims. Although he does have a career as a magican and escape artist all he could talk about was the Titanic.

As I remember it, we got as far as Stroud. If we had have travelled farther north we could have stopped at the Lands Inn Bed and Breakfast in Tobermory. The hotel is owned by a dive historian who annually hosts a meeting of wreck experts, a group which includes Steve Blasco and Dr. Joe MacInnis. [Art Amos, the owner of the Inn accompanied me once inside a Canadian Navy mini-sub as we looked for shipwrecks in Lake Erie]. Legend has it that due to freak atmospheric conditions, the Titanic SOS was heard at Lands End in Tobermory!

Experience has taught me if you need press find a Titanic angle. I was working with a PR company - Crane Communications - and we were trying to get attention for the Gourmet Food and Wine Expo. As part of the Expo the organizers were putting together a wine auction with the proceeds going to Sick Kids. Believe me, there is nothing more difficult to push than charity wine auction. Calling newsrooms and assignment desks got the response all PR people hate - Been There, Done That, Excuse me while I Yawn. The Titanic changed all that. Through dive contacts I was able to acquire a bottle of French champagne recovered by divers from a shipwreck in the Baltic. The boat, filled with chamgagne for Russian troops fighting in Sweden, was sunk by German torpedoes in 1911. The Baltic is so cold that the wine was perfectly preserved (and the wave action kept the contents in constant motion). We brought a bottle over, found out it was the same brand and vintage as was served on the Titanic, and suddenly we had our hook. I took the bottle, along with a bulked out security guard to a number of TV shows and we pumped up the interest in the charity auction.

As a footnote, the bottle was bought by a relative of Lord Thomson of Fleet. He paid a couple thousand dollars for the bottle. He opened it right after buying it. He took a drink and gave the bottle to Linda Crane and myself to finish off. How did it taste? The bubbles were light on my tongue, the taste was sweet and then it sank to my stomach like the ship we named it after. It was a Titanic moment in wine drinking.

I don't seek out Titanic work, yet, every two or three years I find myself writing about Titanic topics or doing PR for projects that have a Titanic connection. Younger audiences may yawn at the topic, however, the media will almost always come out and cover a Titanic story, even if it is a Nova Scotia escape artist dressed like Captain Smith yelling at kids trying to touch his deck chair.

Talking to empty seats. Sneaking out on a blind speaker. Disaster Czar's talk was just that

It is probably a myth, but, I believe there was an age when people had time to be polite. Snoozin' with eyes wide open through a bum numbing lecture in a hot sticky classroom. A neighbour with out-of-focus vacation pictures from Disney World. A door-to-door salesman pitching crap. When there is nothing better to do, and you believe that life is endless, then why not do the right thing and listen to the babble of people you don't know, talking about things you don't care about. In the old days politeness ruled. Not any more.

Take two breakfast events that I attended in the past two weeks. First there was inspirational talk given by a blind boat salesman (and award-winning yachtsman) at the Toronto International Boat Show. And then there was a very embarrassing breakfast lecture given by Ontario's Emergency Response Czar (Jay Hope, Ontario Deputy Minister of Emergency Planning & Management).

Vince Morvillo, is an unsighted entrepreneur who came to the Toronto International Boat Show in early January to speak to boating business leaders at an industry breakfast. In my opinion the Canadian boating industry is in serious decline. Rising fuel costs, shocking sticker prices for new motors and boats, a wonky currency market, environmental concerns about the sport, Canadian branch plants being downsized or closed and a growing public resentment towards personal watercraft, has the industry nervously looking over its shoulder.

The breakfast was staged, in part, to release a document optomistically titled "The Big Splash" -- The Economic Impact of Recreational Boating in Canada: 2006 Summary Report. Over 200 people (and that included the dreaded media) were there to hear the state of boating in Canada.

The report was commissioned by Sandy Currie, the former head of the Canadian Marine Manufacturing Association. Currie, it seemed to me, had been at the head of the association since before the advent of the outboard motor. He was dumped from his job in late October '07 by the industry heads who sit on the CMMA. It appears as though the CMMA is being wound down in favour of the NMMA -- the American parent association -- yet another Canadian institution lost to American financial interests.

The report was delivered by Rick Layzell the CMMA Chairman and a top official with Yamaha Motor Canada Ltd. It was a cut and dry power point reading of the high points of the highly edited slick 16-page financial summary. The news was almost all good. So positive was the news that it just wasn't believable. You can't fudge the facts, but, there was little comparsion with data from previous years and with other well known studies. What information that was released that morning was in stark contrast to very gloomy reports conducted by other private Canadian firms.

Layzell was loud and brief. Neither the industry leaders nor the press were given a chance to ask questions. After 10-minutes on stage, Layzell disappeared and a blind Vince Morvillo took to the podium. Morvillo is an accomplished motivational speaker. He is currently making the rounds at boatshows across North America. It is a positive message that he delivers .... if I can sell boats, so can you! If you are honest, know your product and are engaged with your customers, business can only get better.

Morvillo has obviously given his talk a lot of times to a lot of breakfasts across the continent. Trouble is, he has given them in communities where people have more time to listen to amusing stories about the tribulations of being a sightless salesman. In a 24-hour city like Toronto, the auidence was not prepared to sit through a 30-minute sales talk, no matter how amusing the speaker was. Given that the state of the union for the industry was delivered in 10-minutes, the inspirational lecture lost its oomph somewhere around the 3-minute mile marker.

I was taking pictures of the speaker when he told a story about how it was very important for a salesman to connect with a potential customer. " I kept talking and talking to a man and woman who were intertested in buying a boat. After a few minutes I noticed it was very quiet, I realized that the couple had snuck quietly away." he recalled. "I was pitching to thin air!" The story got a big laugh, but, suddenly a row of light bulb went off in a lot of peoples' brains. The picture above shows a woman shushing her daughter as they tip toed out of Morvillo's talk. He never heard them leave. Dozen followed. I should have done the same. By the time it was over, the CMMA spokespeople I wanted to quiz had magically vanished too. It was just me, the blind man and his long suffering wife. We clapped for 200.

Second breakfast? The Canadian News Wire Group held its first breakfast talk of the new year in late January. The CNW breakfasts are usually great events -- you learn a lot, its quick, interesting and if you feel like it, offords an opportunity to network, network, network. For the most part the events are attend by PR types - overpaid corporate communicators - people who use CNW to send out media releases to the media.

Jay Hope, Ontario's new Deputy Minister of Emergency Planning & Management was there to speak about "Crisis Communications Planning". Hope is the most senior black officer in the Ontario Provincial Police. In my Caribana world he is a God. His halo slipped a bit at the CNW breakfast.

Hope got up, told a few jokes about his wife and then started to criticize the media. You get things wrong, You slow down disaster response by getting in the way blah, blah, blah. This went on, with pictures of Katrina and SARS for 30-minutes.

For the 250 people in attendance, it became evident -- really quickly -- that Hope didn't know who he was talking to. He probably thought that since CNW stood for Canadian News Wire, we must all be journalists. It was deer-in-headlight embarassing. I felt sorry for the guy and I didn't want to be there when someone finally got around to telling him he had brought the wrong speech.
People soon took to checking their email on blackberries, firing off text messages and, at the table next to me, doing the Globe and Mail crossword.

A woman in the audience kicked off the question period. She politely told him she was a communications specialist, not a journalist, and then asked what advice he could give her about handling a disaster from the corporate side. Hope didn't listen. His answer was again, all about what a reporter should or shouldn't ask. She tried one final time, telling him he obviously didn't understand the question. He said he would try again to answer her question. For the second time he talked about her role as a journalist in covering a disaster. People had been trickling out before the dialogue between the two began. After that answer it became a pinstripe parade. At the door I was almost knee capped by a glazed eye communicator wielding an overactive briefcase and talking on his phone. All I heard was "I'm outta here" as he blew by me out the door.

I felt sorry for both speakers. At the boat show, the blind motivator was being used as cannon fodder for an industry that didn't want attendees to ask questions in a public forum. They were happy that he took time to same the same thing over and over and over again. It gave their executive time to disappear without having to answer questions. For Hope, it was probably a sloppy staffer who didn't take time to figure out who their boss was going to be talking to, or was looking for an opportunity to make him look bad in front of corporate Canada.

The biggest loser? Politeness. People tried ( well, a little bit), to be polite and listen. But, in both cases, given the time management pressures that all of us feel working here in the "Big Smoke, we all realised that time was better spent elsewhere even if it meant walking out on a sightless speaker and a clueless policeman.

Entry Update -- Cayman Islands, Death By Scuba - the 20 minutes of fame travel destinations don't want. Updated 2008

Wearing my Diver Magazine hat I attended a number of travel events this past month as warm weather destinations came to Toronto to roll out their winter campaigns to attract travellers. Typically a country will send its marketing team, its PR firm and its minister of tourism. There are steel drums, lotsa great food, drinks, good times and mountains of press kits.

It can be a difficult task to interview a tourism minister in his/her own country - 15 years ago - almost a lifetime it seems - in St Kitts I sat on a chair in their downtown government house waiting to meet the vice premier. After six hours his assistant acknowledged that in fact the minister was off-island. So, I find these events useful because you actually talk to the decision makers. Most tourism ministers walk to pump hands and pump sunshine, however,if you try real hard, they will answer the tough questions.

Last week I went to the Cayman Island tourism launch and talked to the Minister of Tourism about diver fatality stats from the most popular dive destination in the Caribbean. His answers were refreshingly frank. I will report on my brief interview in this Blog later today .... don't touch that dial.

Hey. Hey. I write these words on January 10th, 2008. I never did fill in the blanks did I? My excuse? I got busy after the post and didn't got around it doing it (until today). And, to be honest, I actually sent a job application into the Cayman Government. Didn't think it would help the cause if I waxed on about diver deaths and a cabinet on these pages while I was trying to sell my services as a pr type rather than a nosy journalist (I do both). As it was I never did hear back from the Government. Sigh - The Cayman Islands Government has learned Toronto rude.

As far as the interview went with the minister, he and his associates were very blunt. It was refreashing. They see the sport of diving as being in decline - which impacts negatively on their visitor numbers. Oh there are still people joining the sport each year but at most (and they quoted PADI figures) there are only 2 million active divers on the planet. On any given year two million divers will never go to one destination to dive - like Cayman - however, in a calender year over a million people will visit the Cayman Islands on cruise ships.

So, according to the minister, the three-island British colony will continue to court the cruise ship trade with vigor and passion (hence their arrival in YYZ). Diving will not be ignored, but, the future of the island's tourism industry no longer rests on a pair of flippers.

A large percentage of the cruise ship visitors want to take part in water activities when they arrive in Georgetown. Most want to lie on the Seven Mile Beach. Others want to snorkel and visit Sting Ray City. A small number want to scuba dive.

It is the people in the second and third categories who are dying. A very small percentage of visitors arrive on the island standing up and leave in a box.

Why, I asked the minister are people dying in the water? His take on the figures are that with such large numbers of visitors, stats wise people are going to die. Many of the deceased were overweight, old, out-of-shape and already suffering from severe medical problems -- the snorkeling or diving speeded up a process that was probably well underway before that person arrived on the island.

The island feels its dive and snorkel standards are stricter then any other Caribbean island. But, the problem facing operators is that cruise ship passengers have a tight time-line on the island, and there is little opportunity to evaluate people's diving skills, experience levels and health, before putting them in the water.

There have been deaths on Little Cayman island - where no cruise ship visitor ever treads. The minister noted that these deaths involved experience divers and the government was at a loss to figure out was caused those accidents. (Not all of the bodies have yet been recovered from the base of Bloody Bay Wall. One incident is being classed as dbs - death by scuba - the body of diver was never found but a sucide note was recovered.

The day after I met with the minister that was another scuba/snorkel fatality on the island. I plan to visit the island have a more detailed interview with the Minister.

One more Cayman Diving Death

Just after posting the above blog entry about dive accidents in Cayman, the following appeared in the Cayman Net News.

Woman dies while scuba diving
Published on Wednesday, January 23, 2008


The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) have begun an investigation after the death of a 47-year-old female scuba diver on Saturday, 19 January.

At around 10:40 am, the 911 Emergency Communications Centre received a call from a member of the public reporting that a woman aboard a dive boat was unconscious and being brought back to shore at West Bay public beach.

Medics and police were deployed to the scene while CPR was administered aboard the boat. The woman was taken to hospital but unfortunately passed away. It would appear she had been diving with a group of others when she passed out returning to the surface.

The woman had been vacationing in Cayman and was from England.

A police investigation is underway and a post mortem will be carried out.

This the first diving death reported in 2008.

In 2007, five divers died during the first four months of the year.

The first fatality occurred on 24 January 2007 and involved a 54-year-old man scuba diving near Sunset House.

On 11 February, a 43-year-old woman disappeared while diving on Bloody Bay Wall during a trip from Little Cayman Beach Resort.

On 4 March 2007, a 71-year-old man died while scuba diving off East End and just a week later, on 11 March, a 57-year-old man from Texas died while on a dive off Smith’s Cove on South Church Street.

Then, on Sunday, 15 April, another visitor to Little Cayman, this time a 59-year-old man who was an experienced diver, failed to return from a dive on Bloody Bay Wall.

At the time, Hon Charles Clifford, Minister for Tourism, said the Cayman Islands had a much better safety record than other destinations in the region. His comments were backed up by the fact that there were no further serious incidents reported during the rest of 2007.

A source within the dive industry said they felt that it was unfair to single out specific activities. “We should be looking at the overall picture and the causes of these deaths,” they said, adding that the majority of the deaths seemed to be due to pre-existing conditions rather than the activity itself.

However, it may be some time before an official verdict is given on any of these incidents. All the deaths must be the subject of an inquest but, as there is no on-island Coroner, delays of up to two years can occur before the cause of death is finally decided.

In 2007, concern was expressed that this delay makes it very difficult to implement measures, which might prevent future fatal incidents involving divers.

Second Death for Cayman Islands. Shore diver gone missing.

hore Diver lost near Turtle Farm

My two sons learned to dive off Cracked Conch a few years. It is a safe, fun and enjoyable dive site. By my tally this is the second diver death on Cayman this year. This gentleman was 64, last week's was 49. Used to be that most fatalities were young newcomers to the sport, nowadays, it isn't that way at all.

Diver missing off Grand Cayman

Wednesday 30th January, 2008 Posted: 15:33 CIT (20:33 GMT) - Cayman Compass Newspaper


A search for a missing scuba diver continued Wednesday morning after he failed to make it back to shore on Tuesday afternoon.

The 64–year–old man went out for a shore dive off Cracked Conch in West Bay.

At around 3pm, staff from Sun Divers notified police that the man had failed to return. The man, who is an American citizen, has been a regular visitor to Cayman over the past 15 years and was staying at Morritts Tortuga, where he owned a time share.

When he went out for the dive, he left the shoreline with five other people and, according to members of his group, he was experiencing buoyancy problems and indicated that he was returning to the shore. They told officers that they then saw the man surface and begin swimming back toward the coast, but when they returned he had not made it back.

A sea, air and land search was immediately launched by the Royal Cayman Islands Police and several other agencies joined the search, including the Department of Environment, Port Authority, and a number of local boats, including Cayman Aggressor. The helicopter was also brought in to assist, but the man was not located.

The search was called off after the sun went down and commenced again at first light on Wednesday, but as of 10am, he had still not been found.

Ronnie Dougal of the Department of Environment said “the water conditions were pretty good off Cracked Conch that day and there appeared to be very little current. The missing man was a farmer and he had been informed he was in good physical health.”

Editor's Note: Since posting this article, the body of the 64-year old diver was recovered by Cayman officials.