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Posted by Ken Kurtis on November 13, 2009 at 12:06:50:

One thing getting lost in this whole discussion is whether or not there's a really a purple coral problem at Farnsworth.

While no one, including me, will dispute that anchors can damage the hydrocoral, saying there's anchor damage at the spots where we anchor is a far cry from saying anchoring is destroying the purple coral at Farnsworth. And don't lose sight of the fact that the spots where we and the fishing guys anchor are a small percentage of the overall reef.

(I'll also point out that most of the anchoring is done by small private fishing boats, not dive boats, and that my previously-mentioned "no fishing from an anchored vessel" if adopted eliminates all of that.)

But when thinking of all of this I'm reminded of a well-known story from the space race, and it's the inspiration for the subject line of this post.

When the first astronauts and cosmonauts blasted into space, they discovered that they're couldn't write with a ballpoint pen in zero-gravity conditions because the ink wouldn't flow.

The Americans spent a couple of years and millions and millions of dollars to develop a pen that would work in a zero-g envrionment.

The Russians switched to pencils.

Food for thought.

- Ken
------------------------------
Ken Kurtis
Owner, Reef Seekers Dive Co.
Beverly Hills, CA



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