Mea Culpa

We're not perfect, and thanks to some eagle-eyed readers, here's our chance to make amends and correct our errors.

In our latest mid-month Dive News e-mail, we wrote about the Coolpix, Nikon's new underwater camera, stating it was waterproof down to 130 feet. William Johnson (Los Angeles, CA) reminded us that the maximum depth for an openwater diver is not the same as for the Coolpix, which can only go down to 100 feet (but he said he has pre-ordered one anyway).

In the March issue article "Want to Put Your Name on a Reef," we must have been facing backwards when we said the artificial reef being built near the city of Naples was on Florida's Atlantic coast. David Findley (Des Moines, IA) caught that one: "I'm sure you realize that Gordon Pass, near Naples, is in the Gulf of Mexico, not the Atlantic as you stated."

And we were swimming backwards on our recent trip to the Grenadines. Says Marty Glesecke (Dallas, TX), "Thanks for the special report on Petit Mustique Dive Lodge. But weren't you 3,200 miles due west of Senegal, rather than Senegal being 3,200 miles due west of you? One could travel due west from the Grenadines to Senegal, but that trip is closer to 22,000 miles." Thanks, Marty, we corrected it on our website, but because nothing else in the story is true (remember, you read it on April 1), does it really matter?

John Bantin, one of our regular contributors, wrote to chastise me about my comments last month' about Aqua Lung's recall of its Sure Lock II weight pockets. Bantin expressed his preference for weight-integrated BCs, while I prefer the old-fashioned weight belt, and I wrote, "The crew on board hauling up my unweighted BC offered a big smile for me, not for Bantin." Not true, Bantin tells me. "Actually, Bantin passes up his weight pockets before passing up his tank! That's the point of the releases." Touché, John.

If you catch errors, please let us know, and we'll express our mea culpas and correct our mistakes.