Issue 11 Letters from the Archives of the Tanked Up Magazine

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25 April 2024

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ISSUE 11 ARCHIVE - LETTERS
I love free diving. No, not when you stick a fin the size of a city on your feet, hold your breath and get sledded down to two hundred metres. Then drown. I mean proper free diving, like when they don't charge you. So, a big thank you to a certain dive shop at an all inclusive resort in north west St Lucia. I walked in, said I wasn't staying, but they lent me all the kit, took me off on the guests only shore dive and refused to be paid. Can I just big up Melissa and the team from Le Sport dive shop? The first ever time in two hundred dives I've gotten a freebie. Rod, Gravesend I love Paul's column in your mag on technical diving. One hundred metres down is pretty deep and brave. I have one question for him though. What's the deepest he's ever seen a shopping trolley? JT. Northants Paul replies: "Thanks JT for your comments. A hundred metres is only the beginning really and not that brave, just stupid when you're hung over. To answer your question it was only sixty metres down. Off the Wirral coast, ASDA and still attached to two kids trying to lever the quid out." Calling all underwater videographers, I've just self-published my first book, 'The Little Fish Guide to DIY Marketing'. It's my tips for small businesses to learn how to do their own marketing. Ironically, although it's a marketing book, I haven't actually done much marketing for it. I would love to make a short video to show what happens when you take the book underwater and show it to some little fish. I'd do it myself, but: Problem 1: I haven't got any dive trips planned. Problem 2: I haven't got an underwater video camera. Problem 3: I haven't got a budget to pay anyone. Would you be willing to film it for me? I would edit your footage into a YouTube ad, splurge it all over my social media channels, and hope it goes viral (with a credit to you, of course). Please email me via Tanked Up if you are inspired to help, and I'll send you a free copy of the book. Jackie Barrie	Thanks for letting me grind my axe via your letters page. Here's my biggest diving holiday non-diving whinge. And the Hyatt hotel chain can suck on this. Honeymoon and a decent room at over $300 a night. Cheers for the free fruit in the room on arrival. I like apples. But I have to go online now and again and guess what? Twenty bucks extra a day for sodding WiFi. It's free, you just need an aerial on your router. So, why are you charging me that much for something that costs you nothing? Stop taking the pss you hotels and just include it in the room rate like Radisson do, except they are nowhere near a decent dive site. Got my own back in the end. I poisoned the minibar. Socrates the Diver Four years I waited for that bloody World Cup. Four hard years of saving and planning hotels, buying tickets and transport across the country. And the icing on the cake? To do the sardine run. The world's biggest biomass migration off the Durban coast and it didn't show up. Mind you nor did the England team, pathetic w*****. Fabs. Lancaster Gate Can you tell me what the dive conditions are like on the north coast of Cuba in January please? Karen Mayne Hi Karen, Cuba is generally good for diving all year round. January to May usually being the ideal time when it is warm, uncrowded and no risk of hurricanes (which can be problematic on the coast from June to November). July and August can be unpleasantly hot. There is some good diving on the north coast, even surprisingling around Havana, as reefs are pristine due to fishing restrictions. One dive centre on the north coast is Sharks Friends Diving Centre on Santa Lucia Beach, where the beach is protected by one of the largest and best preserved coral barriers in the tropics. You can find some helpful advice on diving in Cuba at ScubAdviser. Tanked Up
You will not believe who I saw on the Lusitania wreck the other day. None other than Shakin' Stevens. It could have been narcosis though as I am sure his buddy was Jockey Wilson and he wouldn't pass a dive medical in a month of darting Sundays. Have any other readers had a celebrity-wreck-encounter like that? F Bough	I don't know. I happened on tennis star Greg Rusedski on the Kyarra after Wimbledon once. However, as he has never won a Slam he doesn't really count as a celeb. How about Peter Andre on the M3 in Portland? - Ed
Feeling inspired? Why not write to us yourself? We'll put the best letters up here and in our next issue.
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