When our daughter was eight, we flew from cold, foggy California to the hot, sunny, Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba for a vacation. This was her first underwater experience.
Aqua Tutus Presentation on 5/1/25
AquaTutus Dive Club, Wednesday, May 1, 2025 via Zoom. Title: “Blogging About Bubbles” Subtitle: “How to Get Published or Document Your Trips –– A 13-Step, Real-Time Workshop” by Gil Zeimer Read my Aqua Tutus Presentation (PDF) To put your name on the list to buy my upcoming book of short scuba stories, email gil@zeimer.com with […]
Celebrity Jeopardy – Working With Big-Name Talent
I enjoyed a charmed advertising career and was lucky enough to work with many celebrities along the way. They include Joan Baez and then San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein; ventriloquist Paul Winchell; Pernell Roberts from Bonanza and Trapper John, M.D. fame; Country Joe MacDonald; Henny Youngman; Sally Kellerman; Don Pardo from Saturday Night Live; and […]
A Couple of Cold Ones: London and Paris for The Holidays and Birthday: Part II
After a few delays at the train station, we left London and arrived at our Paris hotel by early afternoon. The Hotel Pas de Calais is just off Boulevard Saint Germaine, around the corner from Ralph Lauren and Yves Saint Laurant, in the 6th Arrondissement. It was a week c’est magnifique!
A Couple of Cold Ones: London and Paris for The Holidays and Birthday — Part I
Revenge, gazpacho, and beef tartare are best served cold. A holiday visit to London and Paris should not be, but an Arctic blast has sent Western Europe temperatures dipping to its lowest temperatures in a decade as we arrived about Noon on December 9. Thanks to our phones’ weather apps, we came dressed for 30s […]
The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park, England
The Nerds Who Brought The Nazis to Their Knees More than 80 years ago, the world was at war. On the ground in Europe, the Nazis’ Third Reich had invaded and controlled most of the continent, while unmercifully bombing London during “The Blitz” in the hopes of surrender. On the seas, Nazi U-2 submarines were […]
32 Minutes Later
I have the good fortune of being born 32 minutes after my twin brother, David, at Mt. Zion Hospital. We’re third-generation San Franciscans. The funny thing is, our Mom didn’t even know she was having two babies because she’d only gained 18 pounds. Her obstetrician kept telling her, “Small baby, lot of water.” But when […]
Palau Dive Trip April 2025
I’m leaving next April 10th for a trip that’s been on my bucket list for decades –– to the pristine Western Pacific paradise known as Palau. We have four spots left as of today. Contact me if you’re interested.
Scuba Show 2024 – 12 Injuries
At Scuba Show 2024 in the Los Angeles Convention Center, I presented this seminar: “The 12 Most Common Diving Injuries –– And How to Prevent Them”. I’ve actucally experienced 11 of these, but that’s not unusual for any diver. After all, one of my dive buddies once explained, “Once you’ve done about 100 dives, anything […]
Midwinter’s Daydreams: 7 Nights on a Princess Cruise
This is our blog about a seven-day cruise on the Sky Princess through the Western Caribbean and Mexico. We hope you enjoy our stories of shipboard life, shore excursions, scuba diving, snorkeling, and generally overindulging…
Diving From a Cruise Ship in Roatan
It’s extremely easy for cruise ship passengers like me to arrange a two-tank dive while visiting Caribbean Islands like Roatan in the Honduras Bay Islands. I did it on in mid-February when I was there aboard the Sky Princess with Sun Divers Roatan. So can you. Here’s how…
Desert Dolphins Presentation: 3/20/24
Desert Dolphins Presentation, Wednesday, March 20, 2024 @ 6pm PT via Zoom Title: “Blogging About Bubbles” Subtitle: “How to Get Published in 13 Steps” Summary: Whether you’re a snorkeler, diver, or photographer, blogging preserves your underwater experiences while humor lets your story stand out from others. This presentation will take you through 13 easy-to-follow tips […]
Guest Lecturer Credentials
I’m an internationally known travel writer and entertaining speaker who enjoys making presentations about my craft. As a travel writer and “Scuba Storyteller”, I’ve discovered ways to turn my side hustle into a lucrative business by writing hundreds of articles, blogs, and newsletters. Recently, I’ve made these travel-writing presentations as a guest lecturer…
Featured Speaker at Scuba Show 2023
I was so pleased to be one of about two dozen featured speakers at ScubaShow.com in the Long Beach Convention Center during the weekend of June 4 and 5, 2023. It drew over 10,000 scuba diving, snorkeling, and travel enthusiasts. This is the largest consumer convention in America and my topic was entitled “Blogging About […]
Warm Memories of Hypothermia
Three tanks. One boat. One day. 11 Celsius. These were the last dives I ever took in cold Northern California waters. Mark Twain once said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” The same might be said about a three-tank, one-day boat dive in Monterey, California, about 90 miles south […]
Blue Friday: A Healthy Alternative to Black Friday Shopping Insanity
Do you wait all year for Black Friday? It only seems natural, if not compulsory, to drive to a mall to pick up a few items the day after Thanksgiving –– at greatly reduced prices. But you end up sharpening your elbows and fighting the crowds to have a tug-of-war with fellow shoppers over gifts […]
Our Roamin’ Holiday 2.0 – Eating Our Way Across Italy
This is my fifth trip to Italy. The first was literally on $10 a day back in 1970 with my brother, from Florence to Rome to Brindisi, mostly by trains, as part of a nine-week Eurail Pass trip from England to Greece. The second was to Rome and London with my wife and daughter when […]
Maui March Madness: Humpback Whale Tales
I’m not stupid (though some might argue that fact). I know that a whale’s “tale” is called a “fluke”, but this is a story about humpback whales in the Maui Channel in March – during the tail end of their annual 6,000-mile, round-trip trek from Alaska. Because I was traveling with my wife and another […]
Drift Diving Away in Cozumel
When you dive in Cozumel, Mexico, encountering currents is pretty much a given and virtually all dives here are drift dives. Located about 12 miles east of Playa del Carmen, Cancun, currents around this popular Mexican resort island can run from mild to moderate (1-6 knots) on most reefs , so it can be a […]
A Mid-Century Modern Trip Down Memory Lane: Orbit In, Palm Springs
I’ve been vacationing in Palm Springs since 1958. The first three years, my family drove from San Francisco to this desert resort area during our school’s winter vacations between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Initially, we stayed in small 1950s-era hotels that only had a handful of rooms in U-shaped buildings surrounding a pool. The […]
Heavy Breathing on Half Dome
Heavy Breathing on Half Dome And Other Ways To Stay In Shape For Diving By Gil Zeimer This article originally appeared in the December 2008/January 2009 issue of Dive Pacific Magazine. Why did I trek 18.2 miles (29 kilometers) round-trip to one of California’s most celebrated mountains with five of my besties? Why did I […]
Another “Only In San Francisco” Treat: Kung Pao Kosher Comedy
From its TV jingles, we all know that Rice-A-Roni is “The San Francisco Treat”. As a native, I’ve also enjoyed Dungeness Crab, Sourdough French Bread, It’s It Ice Cream Sandwiches, Anchor Steam Beer, Ghirardelli Chocolate, and Irish Coffee from the Buena Vista Café. However, there’s one “Only in San Francisco” thing that you may not […]