Brisk winds, choppy waters, and wetsuit temperatures make for less than ideal diving conditions in Miami's Biscayne Bay National Park in the winter (living in paradise can spoil you).  However, the cool nights of December through February make it the best time to break out the camping gear, gas up the boat, and head out to spectacular keys along the southeastern edge of the park.

There are two campsites in the park from which to choose: Boca Chita (25 31.503, -80 10.431) and Elliott Key (25 27.166, -080 11.779).  Both offer beautiful views of both the bay and ocean, and both have designated campgrounds, a place to dock your boat, and working restrooms.  Elliott Key is a few miles further south and also offers freshwater showers and sinks, and a nice marked nature trail around the island.  Boca Chita, in my opinion, is more scenic -- the harbor and lighthouse are amazing -- but has fewer amenities (a saltwater restroom is available but there are no sinks or showers). 

This past weekend, we piled four families and gear into two boats and headed out to Boca Chita for three days of R&R. Boca Chita is only 10 miles (by boat) southeast of Matheson Marina, which is where we keep our vessel, and perhaps 5-6 miles east from Blackpoint marina.  The island has a beautiful harbor and an ornamental 65-foot lighthouse constructed in the 1930s.  There are picnic tables and grills available on a first-come-first-served basis, and dock space for both large and small boats (there were a few 40-50 foot boats there this weekend).

One of the great things about camping on the island is that there are many interesting dive spots nearby.  They're close enough that you can dive several spots in the morning, sprint back for lunch, then hit several more spots in the afternoon.  Bache Shoal, a very beautiful shallow-water reef is only 2.5 nautical miles away.  Long Reef and the wreck of the Mandalay are also very nearby.  The wreck of the Lugano, a 1913 British steamer is only 5 miles from the island.  The list goes on!

	View from our campsite looking east back towards Miami
	Boats moored in the harbor.
	Lighthouse at sunset.

You may have noticed the peculiar XML icons and RSS links sprinkled about our site. You may ask yourself (Did you catch that reference to a Talking Heads song?), "well, what's that all about?" The short answer is this: We publish all of our dive spot and dive shop listings in RSS format. RSS (an acronym for "Rich Site Summary" and later coined "Really Simple Syndication") is a way for web sites to summarize their content, such as news articles, to make it available for other Web sites, news readers, and specialized browsers.

RSS makes it possible to easily share data because it uses a common file format understood by most modern Web sites. CNN publishes stories in RSS format. Yahoo! publishes stories in RSS format. Divester.com publishes stories in RSS format. Everyone publishes stories in RSS format, including of course, DiveSpots.com!

So what does that mean to you? What can you do with these RSS files? Many things, I say. Many things! For example, you can setup your My Yahoo! page to read these RSS files and update your page, bringing you these headlines in one central location. Or use any of the popular news aggregators to subscribe to multiple news feeds and get all your favorites in one location.

If you use Firefox, one really convenient and simple thing you can do with RSS feeds is to create Live Bookmarks. Firefox added Live Bookmarks with version 0.10 of their outstanding browser. As the name implies, these bookmarks dynamically update themselves whenever the RSS publisher updates the feed. For example, on DiveSpots.com, you could have Firefox create a bookmark for "Key Largo Dive Spots". Firefox will automatically read the Key Largo RSS file and create bookmarks for each dive spot in Key Largo (organized under a Key Largo folder within your browser). When new Key Largo dive spots are added to our site, your bookmarks will automatically update!

Here's how to easily add DiveSpots.com Live Bookmarks to Firefox. These steps, by the way, work with most any site that publishes RSS feeds (correctly).

Using Key Largo as an example, open your Firefox browser and go to the Key Largo Dive Spots Page. At the bottom right of your browser window, in the status bar, you'll see the Live Bookmarks icon (which looks like this ) indicating that an RSS feed is available on this page.

Click once on the icon to see the "subscribe" option. When you select the option, the "Add Bookmark" window will appear. Click OK and you're done!

Now look under the Firefox Bookmarks menu. Here you'll see the newly added Key Largo bookmarks, which will automatically refresh as we add new dive spots!

That's me giving a demonstration of DiveSpots.com

From left to right, Tony Langenberg of Aquavita Dive Stop, Robert Quintana of Ocean Safari, and Henry Del Campo of H2O Scuba

Congratulations to our first-ever DiveSpots.com Raffle Winners! As you may recall, we announced a raffle last quarter just before the Florida Dive Show in December. Anyone that registered as a new member of DiveSpots.com during the show, or that posted a photo or review for any dive spot, was eligible to win an iPod, a dive trip with Ocean Safari, or an official DiveSpots.com T-shirt or beer stein! Thanks to everyone that turned out for the show -- we had a great turnout and widely successful membership drive.

And now, the winners are...

• First Prize - Apple iPod:
  Bill Mar!
   
• Second Prize - Dive Trip with Ocean Safari:
  Steve Moseley!
   
• Third Prize - DiveSpots.com T-Shirt:
  Todd Graham!
   
• Third Prize - DiveSpots.com Beer Stein:
  Lisa Deese!
   

Congratulations to our winners, and thank you all for supporting DiveSpots!

A fire destroyed the Ernest Hemingway museum and The Compleat Angler bar Friday (13-Jan-06) on the Bahamian island of Bimini. The Compleat Angler was the island hotspot on Saturday nights where a Calypso band played and the rum punch flowed freely.

Hemingway drank at The Compleat Angler between fishing trips in his vessel Pilar in search of marlin, wahoo and sailfish in the pristine waters around Bimini. The bar was a favorite with both tourists and locals ever since.

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While rummaging through some old papers, I came across a certificate issued to me by my first dive instructor at the University of Florida. Yes, that's right – I actually received college credit for SCUBA diving! In fact, I'm almost embarrassed to say that I received both my Open Water I and Open Water II certifications through UF (I really did study Dad, I promise!).

The certificate got me thinking about what is probably one of the most commonly asked questions by those considering diving. That is, "what is the best SCUBA certification agency?" The program at the University of Florida offers certifications through both NAUI and CMAS (I have both). By far, the most common agency in the US, based on the number of divers certified, is PADI. The "Big Three" agencies are PADI, NAUI, and SSI. At DiveSpots.com, 62% of our members are certified through PADI, 21% through NAUI, and 17% are certified through SSI or another agency.

So which one is best? And, "will a certification with one agency limit me in any way?"

Most people seem to feel and believe that it's not so much the agency that's important -- it's the instructor that makes the difference. The general consensus is that all of the major organizations are qualified to provide the materials and certifications. But keep in mind that the organization does not teach you to dive -- the instructor does. Thus, it's important to find an instructor that is truly qualified, that presents the material thoroughly, and that makes you feel safe in the water.

There's a good post on Scuba Board on the topic of which certification agency is best. I particularly like comments of "Walter". He posts some good questions to ask when selecting an education center and instructor.

What are your thoughts?

I came across a pretty good set of SCUBA diving jokes, posted by the Salty Dog Dive Center. I particularly like the shark jokes.  Here's my favorite:

Two divers were checking a new reef when they saw a shark. The shark circled them, menacingly. One diver took off his fins and reached inside his BC and pulled out a pair of super-power fins. His buddy signaled: What? You can't out swim a shark! The diver signaled back: I don't have to out swim the shark - I only have to out swim you!

More SCUBA jokes

First, Happy New Year and best wishes to everyone for a safe and wet 2006! We here at DiveSpots.com took some time off over the last few weeks to enjoy our end-of-year vacation.  We did a little maintenance on the boat and spent some time researching new dive spots.  We'll be posting them shortly -- stay tuned! 

One of our devoted engineers, who apparently does not understand the meaning of vacation, spent part of his time-off adding some cool new features to the site.  Enhancements include:

• Redesigned Destination Pages -- The destination pages have been reorganized and restructured by splitting each destination page into four new pages.  Each destination now includes a Destination Overview page, a Dive Spots page, a Dive Shops page, and a Dive Clubs page. You'll find current weather information, new interactive maps, and local dive shops and clubs.  Of course, all the great dive spot content is also there!
• More Maps -- We've added more online maps with more great new features.  Now you can see all dive spots on one map for any given destination.  Click on any dive spot to pinpoint the dive spot on the map and see details.  We've also added maps showing dive shops and marinas in the local area!  Zoom in and switch to satellite mode to see driving directions for your local dive shop!
• Print This Spot -- We've added a convenient "Print this Dive Spot" link which formats the page for easy printing.  When you print a dive spot, you'll get a complete spot description, GPS waypoint information, average depth, and other great details.
• Redesigned Dive This Spot page --  We've redesigned the "Dive This Spot" page to include more features (such as the Print this Dive Spot feature), spots nearby, dive shops, and dive clubs.
• More RSS and GPX Feeds -- Now you can download local dive shops in either RSS or GPX format.  Get automatic updates to your favorite RSS reader, or download dive shop information directly to your GPS device.
• Larger Images -- We've redesigned the dive spot search results pages and dive spot listings to show larger photos for each dive spot. 
  

Dive in and check it out!

Stop by Thursday evening for the second meeting of the Night of the Ocean Realm.  The evening will promote the concept of Ocean ART in Artificial Reefs.  The agenda for the meeting will include:

• An update from Ken English on first Conference on Underwater ART, planned for May 5th, 2006 on the 6th Anniversary of the Jose Cuervo Artificial Reef. 
• Mr. Gary Levine, CEO of the Atlantis Project, has been invited to provide an update.
• A presentation from me!, Raf Fiol, on DiveSpots.com.

The meeting will begin at 7:30 PM at Cafe Mystique, which is located at 7250 NW 11 Street, adjacent to the Days Inn hotel. Exit 836 at 72nd Avenue. Stop by and show your support.

I received a very happy e-mail today from Gary Levine, CEO and Founder of the Atlantis Reef Project.  Gary reports that the Army Corps of Engineers has issued final approval for the project, and that the permits are in the mail.  Construction of Atlantis will begin in January of 2006!

For those of you that are not familiar with the project, Atlantis will be the largest man-made reef ever constructed, covering more than 600,000 square feet of ocean floor and using 10,000 cubic yards of cement.  The site is being billed as the first underwater theme park in the world, designed as an artificial reef with concrete statues, columns, domes and arches.

I'm personally very excited about the project and will be covering it as it develops.  And while technically it does not yet exist, I've posted Atlantis as a dive spot in order to provide GPS coordinates, maps, and news updates for the project.  This will be a great diving attraction and it will be right in my backyard!  The site is sure to attract and nurture pelagic life of all kinds. The site will be a no-take zone and will have mooring buoys making it a boat-friendly destination.

On a somewhat different, yet related topic, Willy Volk of Divester will be reporting tomorrow on another Atlantis project (not in any way connected to the Miami Atlantis Project) underway in Cayman Brac.  Check out his Friday is Foots-Day post on Divester.