Steve Trek, a divemaster aboard the dive boat Under the Sea, is twenty-eight years old with twelve years of diving experience. He has diving credentials as long as any diver in the Dive Traveler Company, including full instructor certification. Steve is a natural leader, the kind of person people gravitate to, confide in and just trust implicitly. He has the typical ocean buff look: the sun-bleached hair, the deep tan, the very fit muscular body. His presence simply instills safety and comfort to all those around him. His charm and good looks lead to all the ladies that dive from the Under the Sea to love him and dream of rubbing his washboard stomach between dives and during the romantic nights that happen at sea. Steve has been diving on the Under the Sea since he joined the Dive Traveler Company in 1999 after graduating from Pro Dive Instructor School. He has become the top divemaster in the company and is well respected in all levels of Dive Traveler. The Under the Sea’s current assignment has it sailing and diving the beautiful and sometime treacherous waters around the Galapagos Islands. The waters there have unbelievable diversity. On any one dive the tourist diver can see the surreal sights of marine iguanas scavenging algae from the ocean floor, to schooling hammerhead and Galapagos reef sharks numbering in the hundreds, to the enormous sight of a fifty-foot whale shark cruising by chugging the plankton-rich waters like a sailor on leave at the local bar. That’s why the divers pay in excess of $5,000 for the weeklong trip. These pristine waters can also be as dangerous as any in the open ocean. Raging currents can come up at a moment’s notice, switch direction, and, before you know it, you’ve been swept miles away from the dive boat. The water here is also cold to the average tropical diver. The water typically runs around sixty-eight degrees, which is quite cold compared to the eighty plus degree water of the Caribbean. Galapagos is located along the equator, where the warm water currents from the Pacific join and merge with the cold-water currents from the Arctic creating the swirling currents and upwelling of plankton-rich water that draws in all the amazing animal life that divers have come to expect in Galapagos.
The Under the Sea is a 110 foot swath design luxury dive boat. This particular design helps minimize the wave effects on passengers, so very few ever get seasick aboard the Under the Sea. The swath design sets the main deck thirty feet above the water’s surface. The boat has a dive deck that is designed to raise and lower from the main deck to the water’s surface so the divers may enter easily. The boat features luxury cabins for twenty-four passengers. Each cabin has hot showers, king beds, and window views that rival any beach resort in the world. The boat is truly a luxury hotel on the water. Other amenities that the passengers enjoy during their week stay include the ten-person hot tub on the top deck, the exquisite galley with meals that would rival any top restaurant, and full photo studio. The main deck is beautiful, with the teak railing that glistens in the warm sun. There are eight other cabins for the crew. As you might guess, the crew consist of the captain, first mate, galley crew, chef, two waitresses and the divemasters-Steve, Doc, and Jeff. The divemasters also act as bartenders and photo developers in the full photo lab that is aboard.
For Steve and the other divemasters, life is good. They met back at Pro Dive instructor school. After graduation each went different ways. Jeff went to the Florida panhandle to explore the caves that have always fascinated him. Doc, on the other hand, went off to Cozumel and worked as a divemaster for three years at Paradise Divers. In 2002, Dive Traveler needed additional divemasters, as the operation was expanding into new waters. Steve called his buddies from dive school and they reunited as the top divemaster team aboard the Under the Sea. In the four years since they have had wonderful times diving together, seeing things they only dreamed of as little boys, but what they prided themselves most for was that they had never lost a diver and have had no serious injuries to divers in their charge. Today is June 2, 2006, and they are returning to port with another happy group of divers that just finished a week of successful diving in the great Galapagos Islands.
The book is now available via the link here on the blog and will be released nationally on May 5th.
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