65. Wet Notes updates Dutch Springs developments, Shearwater SWIFT and more plus Sea Hunt It’s Still Alive – Proof of Guilt

The owner and operator of Dutch Springs since 1980, Stuart Schooley has decided to retire and I congratulate him on this well deserved milestone. Stu is selling Dutch Springs to a Texas developer who plans to create a 300,000 square foot warehouse facility on the property. This development will restrict access to the quarry and with that it looks like Dutch Springs will close at the end of the 2021 season. This is extremely sad news for the northeast diving community. So many dive shops like Scuba Shack have made Dutch Springs an integral part of their diving culture. Very sad and disappointing news. Shearwater just announced a new wireless pressure transmitter. It is called SWIFT. The SWIFT is said to maintain a highly reliable connection to the dive computer and it apparently listens for other transmitters and only communicates when the channel is clear. The SWIFT is backward compatible with all existing Shearwater air integrated enabled computers. You just have to do a firmware upgrade. With this firmware upgrade you will be able to monitor up to 4 SWIFT transmitters on your Shearwater. It looks like it will retail for $395 US. On this installment of Sea Hunt It's Still Alive, we go back to season 2 episode 33 - Proof of Guilt. This episode premiered 62 years ago on August 16, 1959. In this episode Mike is in the Hawaiian Islands testing underwater film and television cameras. His underwater cameras are needed by the owner of a private island, Sandy who grows cultured pearls. It seems that thieves are stealing the pearls but Sandy needs proof. That is where Mike's cameras come in. Mike agrees to help Sandy and as you can guess there's trouble ahead. It's three against one during these underwater fight scenes. Mike and the Honolulu police prevail and Mike gets a well deserved vacation with Sandy on this mythical Hawaiian Island.