I try and stay politically neutral here, after all this is a diving blog, not a political blog; however, it was pointed out to me that if Obamacare passes, I might not have anything to blog about in a few years.

As seemingly ridiculous as the headline states, there may be more truth to it than you think.

So many laws have been passed in the name of “public safety.”

Seat belt, helmet, smoking, drinking, jay walking, and other “nanny state laws” were not passed because the government cares about your well being.

The real “reason” is to lower the supposed costs to society when you are hurt – and according to most politicians, everyone will eventually get hurt.

So what will happen to sports like SCUBA diving, hang gliding, rock climbing and bungee jumping that are considered “dangerous” pastimes if national healthcare passes?

Randy Shaw,* the training manager at the National Association of Underwater Instructors, which organizes scuba diving teachers, said he wouldn’t put it past Congress to at least inadvertently include his members in a higher-risk pool, but that he hadn’t seen anything that would lead him to be concerned.

“Right now people are more worried about how they’re going to keep their dive shops open,” he said. “But if the health care bill were to include diving as a hazardous risk, and increase premiums, we’d try and fight that any way we could… you can pretty much statistically validate that diving is less risky to your health than walking in a major city.”

Shaw had strong feelings about the bill overall.

“The whole thing is just an excuse for them to be able to control your life a little more,” he said.

The health care bill is more than 1,400 pages of government entitlements, taxes and special interest provisions – nobody really knows what this monstrosity will do, because nobody has read the whole thing.

Look at countries that have, or have had, national healthcare – The Soviet Union (USSR) and East Germany (GDR) extended “free” health care to all, but outlawed hang gliding, hot air ballooning and private aircraft for “public safety” reasons.

Greece, which has national healthcare, severely restricts recreational SCUBA diving off of their shores.

Maybe outlawing SCUBA diving altogether will never materialize, but how will they offset the imaginary increased “risk to society” unless they impose some kind of additional tax?

*Randy Shaw was quoted from an article published at www.freerepublic.com.

After several days of bad conditions, we’re finally back in the water to rescue more lobsters from their watery hell that they call life.

Instructor John and I loaded the Red October and made a ride out to one of our secret deep lobster spots – about a quarter acre of man made reefs, i.e. dumped heavy construction material.

The wind was barely blowing, but the surface chop was in excess of five feet and steadily rolling; if I wasn’t so macho, I would have gotten sea sick.

We anchored perfectly on target, after trolling with a GPS for ten minutes.

Logged SCUBA Dive #364

SECRET LOCATION: 4a 75 73 74 20 6c 69 6b 65 20 74 68 65 20 6c 61 73 74 2c 20 6f 66 66 20 74 68 65 20 53 70 61 6e 69 73 68 20 52 65 64 20 42 65 61 63 68 2c 20 74 68 65 72 65 20 69 73 20 61 20 66 61 72 6d 20 74 68 61 74 20 67 72 6f 77 73 20 6f 6e 6c 79 20 70 69 70 65 73 2e, Redondo Beach (I think), CA

Solo Diving, SoCal Buddy Diving

In With: 2800 psi
Out With: 500 psi
Max depth: 80 feet
Waves: Nauseating surface chop with light wind
Visibility: 10-15 feet
Water Temperature: About 58 degrees, slightly colder at depth
Total Bottom Time: About 22 minutes

The water seemed cold, especially after discovering a new ass rip in my wet suit – the consequences of too much underwater peeing.

For the first five minutes, I didn’t see one bug, but as I found structure, I spotted lots of shorts.

I pinned a legal looking bug on the gravel but it turned out to be short – it was released unharmed, along with an apology.

There was a big reef structure in 75 feet of water, lined with monster bugs inside – the big ones are still staying home?

I guess that’s how they got so big.

I could not reach them.

Along the side of a pipe, I spotted a large bug, pinned it and put it in the lobster liberation bag.

Now the anxiety of getting skunked was over.

I came across another large pipe – like a six foot diameter drainage pipe – with bugs underneath the hollows.

One large lobster caught my eye; I shoved my lights at him and he shot back.

I swam over the pipe; he was right there in the open, standing on the gravel.

I moved my light to the side and pinned his silhouette.

Yet another lobster who will soon no longer wallow in misery!

I was down to 1000 psi and decided to troll around until I got to 800 psi.

That last lobster that I liberated was flapping around in my bag really hard and then it went calm.

I checked my bag and only felt one bug.

Where was the second one?

Did he crawl out of my escape-proof, spring-loaded bag?

I felt again; the second bug was right at the top, waiting for me to open it once I rescued another lobster.

I shook him down to the bottom of the bag and started my ascent to the surface.

I came up slowly, but did not do a safety stop in the open water – I didn’t want a potential current to sweep me away from the boat.

I hit the surface and looked for the boat.

Where’s the boat?

I did several 360s in the rolling swells trying to spot the boat – a 14 foot rubber zodiac has a low profile.

Luckily, Instructor John has an extremely bright LED light mounted on board when we’re in the water, and as soon as I was in the right direction and as soon as a swell passed, I got a heading for the boat.

I submerged to 15 feet and swam in that direction.

John came back with one five pound bug – three lobsters total for the night.

We literally surfed back to King Harbor, riding the incoming waves.

No pictures tonight; my batteries died and besides, people tell me that one picture of me holding lobsters looks like all the rest after a while.

Now, remember when I mentioned in my last post that we called the lobster dive Friday night due to high swells and wind?

I found out that a friend of a friend actually went out that night because, “We needed lobsters for a barbecue on Saturday.”

Apparently, visibility sucked, and someone ended up dislocating their shoulder climbing back into the boat.

I hope those were some tasty lobsters, if they caught any at all!

Speaking of bad conditions from last weekend, here again is another lesson on how not to exit Terranea Resort, presented by the famous Max Bottomtime.

To view this video on YouTube, click here.

We may go out Thursday night, conditions permitting.