By Ashley A. Andrews, Esq.

Rick and Toni Hulbert joined us this past Friday for a beautiful presentation on scuba diving. This husband and wife team have journeyed throughout the Pacific and Indian oceans and the Caribbean and Red Seas. In fact, they have led scuba diving expeditions in over 80 countries in the world! I am sure Toni was tempted to leave her husband in one of these countries on more than one occasion for failing to take out the trash when she asked or failing to put his dirty laundry in the laundry basket, but, I digress.

The pair got their start when they turned a hobby into a business. Rick and their then 12 year- old son started taking diving lessons together and Rick has yet to stop. Their first scuba diving shop was located in Redlands from 1990 to 2005. This shop sold typical retail type dive equipment, but, and what seems to be their passion, also arranged adventure travel. Rick and Toni are now honing their skills in tour planning. No matter who wants to go and where, they are available to plan and conduct a tour.

In fact, Rick and Toni have over 23 years of experience diving and have taken at least 50 trips. Being the good husband, Rick pointed out that Toni is the “travel guru” and puts together the tours, which consist of small groups of about 8-10 people and large groups of up to 65 people. They try to diversify these groups to make them interesting.

The top locations for tours, although they are open to plan a trip anywhere, include the Galapagos Islands, Caribbean, Philippines and the South Pacific. The Galapagos, of course, is known for its land animals such as Blue-Footed Boobies, penguins, iguanas, hammerhead sharks, whale sharks and sea turtles. Strangely, I think I have seen some of these Blue-Footed Boobies in the court system. The Caribbean is great for viewing hard corals and the Philippines and South Pacific are known for viewing soft corals. If you are interested in viewing shipwrecks, then you might want to plan a trip to a small island in the South Pacific called “Chuuk,” also known as Truk. For those war buffs out there, the ocean floor near the island is home to over 50 Japanese ships resulting from what Rick described as a second “Pearl Harbor,” again, between the United States and the Japanese during World War II. For more information on this very interesting battle, which apparently lasted over three days, Google it; you will not be let down.

After providing us with background information, Rick and Toni then launched their slide show. We began our “tour,” so to speak, in Cozumel, Mexico. Slides of gorgeous, tropical fish were shown and Toni explained to us that some of these fish are so bright and vivid that their color overpowered the camera and distorted the picture. We then moved to Fiji, which is known for its soft, brilliant corals in various colors, including pink and orange. There are giant clams in Fiji that grow to 3-4 feet across and, for your information (this is for you, Chris Haddow and Jim Rider), do not stick your hand into a clam’s hole – wherever that is –because you will not get it back. The most fascinating thing displayed from a Fiji trip were Christmas tree worms, which look like actual, mini Christmas trees. We next “visited” Tonga, which is where humpback whales give birth. You can swim and interact with the whales, which sounds amazing. Finally, the Maldives – a destination I have on my list – where one can swim with moray eels, sharks, butterflyfish, manta rays and whale sharks.

A few last minute facts. Butterflyfish (one word) swim in pairs – sweet. Nocturnal fish have big eyes – makes sense. We are not in a shark’s food chain, so we are not that appealing to them – nice theory, I think we should test this out on Aaron Rose.

Please direct any questions to Brian Cogbill or anyone else sitting at his table in the back of the room. I am certain they were paying very close attention. And, no, Jim Helms was not napping – he just closed his eyes so he could listen better. If you have any complaints about this article, tell Jeff Johnson – he made me sign up. Great job, Rick and Toni and thank you so much for visiting our Club and sharing your passion – any time you want to donate a tour to our annual Casino night would be great!