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South Florida Divers, Inc.
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Get into some hot water! ~ By Jeff Guzowski
Ah yes, the warm water is back. We got to go diving on Sunday and the water was 81 degrees at 70 feet and the visibility was 100 feet. How we love summer. Ocean Festival was held last weekend (May 16-18). If you didn’t get a chance to go, you can read all about it in John Kansman’s article below. Well, next stop is Curacao. We have two trips in June to the Sunset Waters Resort, all inclusive 8 days 7 nights, 6 days of diving and rooms still available. So far there are 19 club members on the June 7-14 trip and 9 club members on the June 28-July 5 trip. Our pre-Curacao barbeque party was held on May 10th at our house, where everybody got to meet their trip dive buddies and watch the same video we showed at the club meeting on Curacao for those who missed it that night. June is a full calendar month, with a lot of events scheduled. We have 3 charter dives, on June 7 and 28, and a 2-tank night dive on June 21 held on the new American Dream II. All these dives need full payment at the meeting. Also planned is a Deep Sea fishing charter, beach dives, and a day at Brewmasters, where you can brew your own beer. There is also an Uncle Funny’s outing and an IMAX with dinner night. See Don at the sign up desk to make sure you sign up for some of these great events happening this month. See ya at the June meeting. Dive safe,
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WELCOME TO OUR NEWEST DIVE BUDDY! We are delighted to welcome new member Roger Ramos! We look forward to diving with you! |
 June
2003 Calendar and beyondPhone numbers of trip coordinators are not posted here to ensure privacy. If you are a club member, consult your Buddy List for numbers; if not, and you wish to contact a trip coordinator, e-mail the web divemaster.
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Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center's Coral Nursery Project
Jamie is using the data from the Coral Nursery Project to partially fulfill the requirements for her Masters degree. Jamie will compare the survivability and growth of different transplanted coral species and colony sizes. She will also compare the transplanted coral growth to growth of control corals which are growing naturally on the reef. SFDI meetings start at 7:30 at the Ramada Fort Lauderdale Airport. If you are not a member, and you are reading this on the Internet, please join us because visitors are ALWAYS WELCOME! Remember to bring your wallet or checkbook ... we have some great raffle prizes, and you'll be wanting more SFDI T-shirts or hats for your surface interval on hot, sunny days! For those of us who have been
missing the turn to get into the Ramada (yes, I'm guilty), Ski was kind
enough to write explicit, detailed directions to our meeting place from
the North, South, East and West. You may view his driving directions
here
on our About Us page.
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~ Story and
photography by Dave Kaplan,
South Florida Reef Research Team
SFDI divers brought in one cast net and marked a tire with a buoy that was brought back later along with another cast nets. These two discarded cast nets alone represented miles of monofilament line with 20 lbs. of lead weights attached. When left on the bottom, these marooned nets keep killing for years. Way to go, volunteers! |
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By John Kansman, SFDI Past President
Our voluteers at the booth were busy promoting our club and selling the club t-shirts and raffle tickets for the scuba tank. They sold just over 400 dollars worth and when you think that most people buy "just a dollar", that's a lot of talking. The tank was won by Jonathan Didner. Jonathan is new to this area coming from Oregon and he is looking forward to meeting new dive buddies in this area. He said he was starting to buy new dive gear and this was the perfect start. I think we will see him as a new member soon. Thanks go out to Donna Eades and Joe Smariga for running this event. Donna worked hard on the scheduling of volunteers and also there. And Joe? He was sweating his tail off at the security gate for three days. Also thanks to all of the members who helped out at the booth and for Ocean Fest. You are the ones who make our club successful and great. |
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Help wanted: Seaside Trash Collectors No experience needed ~ By Sandra
Soler
~ Photography by JulieTaylor  Coral
reefs are some of the most valuable and spectacular places on earth, and
they are in crisis. Too often the beautiful, ecologically sensitive reefs
off the south Florida's east coast are the victim of careless boating and
recreational use as well as on-going pollution. These delicate reefs benefit
from the clean-up efforts of the Annual Reef Sweep and Beach Clean-Up sponsored
by the Ocean
Watch Foundation, scheduled this year for Saturday, June 14. This daylong
event includes removal of debris from the ocean environment by both scuba
divers and beach walkers.
Since its inception in 1988, this ocean cleanup has hauled in more than 15 tons of harmful garbage, collected by more than 4,700 volunteers. To participate as a group from SFDI, please meet at Anglin’s Pier [Map here] at Commercial Boulevard (event starts at 9:00 AM, parking passes will be provided at the SFDI meeting and at location upon arrival) on Saturday, June 14th. Bring all your dive gear including gloves, Sea Snips (wire cutters) and catch bag. Non-diving volunteers are needed to collect trash on the beach and help the divers to bring the trash on land with surface floats, canoes, buckets, etc. This is a great way to do something for the environment and future health of our oceans, so that we and our children may continue to enjoy it. The annual fundraising Reef Sweep party for the volunteers follows later in the day at the Harbor Grill (old Tugboat Annie’s), beginning at 7 PM [Map here]. For further information, please contact Sandra Soler. Click here to read about last year's Reef Sweep and click here to see more of Julie Taylor's Reef Sweep 2002 photos. |
There are 14 annotated charts of seven areas starting at the northern end of Broward County near Boca Inlet and ending at the southern end of the county near Sunny Isles. Another 14 page, non-annotated set is included at the end of the publication for those desiring a clean image. There are 100 exploded AM and PM images, each with a detailed description of depth and features, with a total of 156 sites. DGPS numbers appear in minute detail right down to DD MM.MMMM. The CD contains good descriptions of each dive site and how to find it. Know the name of a reef but don't know where in the County it is located? An alphabetical index gives you the depth, the DGPS coordinates and the page it appears on in the CD. Kendrigan's CD retails for only $19.95 and is available through his website. It also includes a download of the latest Adobe Acrobat reader in the event that you don't already have it. Detailed yet easy instructions for navigating the CD and printing charts are included. I highly recommend this very worthwhile addition to your dive resource library. By the way, even if you live elsewhere and are visiting our beautiful Broward waters, I recommend you avail yourself of this tool so that you will know where you would like to dive or fish before you make your charter boat reservations. |
~ Review by
Debby Bradford Auchter, Web Divemaster
During the two-year trip he found a startling array of intriguing characters and parts of America that few of us will ever see. Stopping in the Keys and The Ten Thousand Islands, discovering the Big Bend of Florida, moving deep into slow changing Alabama and on and on, Peter found people and places as potent and powerful as the places they call home. The book is filled with photographs of the many lifelong friends Peter made along his journey. You'll find yourself reluctant to put it down ... and remember, you can check it out @your library! |
ReefBase: A Global Information System on Coral Reefs
ReefBase includes descriptions of coral reef areas throughout the world, information about coral reef fish populations and fisheries, biodiversity data, and monitoring activities. Features include interactive maps, a photo gallery, and a searchable database of publications. There is a wealth of information on coastal and marine resources, coral reef threats, resource management practices, maps and photos, references, and more. Users can quickly search for information organized by country or territory using a convenient dropdown menu. ReefBase is frequently updated; one recent addition is a status report for coral reefs of the southwestern Indian Ocean. |
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Life's Significant Events |
Congratulations! to newlyweds Cheryl Bartek and Lou Teugels, married on May 2!
Wow! Sandra Soler took Second Place
in the 5th Annual Ocean-Festival Photo Contest!
Click
here or on the photo to see a larger view. Last year she took
Third Place with this
photo...we expect FIRST PLACE next year, Sandra!
E-mail your "Mile Markers" to Debby @ Rapturedivers dot com
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~ By Brad
Bertelli, Tavernier
~ Photography by Rebecca Gaines ~ Reprinted with permission from Florida Scuba News
A couple of times each year the South Florida Treasure Coast WEG’s get together, strap on their gear and walk around beneath the water. Of course, getting together isn¹t just about experiencing underwater exploration the way it was done 100 years ago. It is also about getting together to tell hard hat adventures and check out the other guy¹s gear. The traditional gear often proves hard to come by, as a great deal of it has long since disappeared from commercial production lines and retail shelves. For the WEG’s, these get-togethers are like trips to the candy store and Cohen, for instance, his sweet tooth unchecked, comes to buy, sell, and trade. The Third Annual Rally was held at Jules’ Undersea Lodge, with the underwater festivities being held in Jules’ private lagoon. The lodge, the world¹s only underwater hotel, can be found at the end of Transylvania Boulevard that, oddly enough, isn¹t in Romania, but in Key Largo. Being helped into his diving suit, Cohen freely admitted he¹s yet to enter the computer age, though adds quickly, “I plan to, shortly.” Ask him what he does for a living and he'll tell you, “I work for the United States government, and I work with dogs.” When he tells you he’s a postman, you get the feeling that delivering mail is not what gets his passion flowing. Ask him about hard hat diving and you will come to understand what keeps his furnace warm. Of course, he is not the only one interested in the underwater exploration from a more cumbersome age. The Historical Diving Society has an international following whose members include Jean-Michel Cousteau. Formed in 1992, the society gives its members a chance to meet others, like Cohen, who have a fondness for hard hat diving. The society¹s motto is “Education Through Preservation”. They put out a quarterly magazine, Historical Diver, that not only gives its members access to the rich history of hard hat diving, but also includes book reviews, auction reports, and news from societies and affiliates from around the world. Watching the half dozen or so participants attending the rally get into their gear and climb down into Jules¹ private lagoon, it was not hard to make the connection between underwater and space exploration. It isn¹t just coincidence that fully dressed, hard hat divers bear a striking resemblance to astronauts. When aerospace engineers first designed suits for space, they took inspiration from the nineteenth century suit design of Augustus Siebe, considered by most to be the “Father of Deep Sea Diving.” This is, however, not the only time space exploration and undersea exploration have been linked together. When Sir Arthur C. Clark wrote his book 2001: A Space Odyssey, the author, an avid diver himself, imagined the atmospheres in both elements would be similar‹the idea helped create his fiction. The conclusion is drawn by another member of the South Florida Treasure Coast WEGs, Mark Tohulka, a hard hat diver and Marine Science teacher at Miami¹s Maritime Science and Technology Academy. “It must be as close as you can get to walking on the Moon - surrounded completely by a bulky protective suit, tethered to a life support system and walking under less than normal gravity,” Mark freely admits. A devoted enthusiast, Tohulka is not shy about bringing his hard hat experiences into the classroom; or his photographs, or his video. “The operation of a hard hat diving system is a great way to teach students about the behavior of gases under pressure, about the importance of teamwork in discovery, and about the advances that have gone before us to bring us our current technology,” he explained. “I feel this connection with the past helps gives students an important perspective, and do it in a dramatic way.” Just how bulky is the equipment? According to Cohen, suiting up means putting on 200 pounds of equipment. The boots alone can weigh 40 pounds. With that information in mind, tip your hat to a British fellow by the name of Lloyd Scott. A leukemia survivor dedicated to raise money for the charity, Cancer and Leukemia in Childhood, Scott ran the 2002 Flora London Marathon fully dressed in hard hat gear. The Herculean feat took him 5 days, 8 hours, 29 minutes, and 46 seconds. Known as the “Heavy Gear Marathon Man”, Scott is currently making plans to run the 2003 New York Marathon, where he will once again be in full hard hat gear. A former fireman, Scott will be raising money for the September 11th Firefighters. As for Marc and Mark, they’re waiting for the chance to put their suits through more practical paces. For more information on the Historical Diving Society and a full account, with photos, of Lloyd Scott¹s marathon accomplishments, visit the website: www.hds.org. This article originally
appeared in the February 2003 issue of Florida
Scuba News and appears here with permission from the Publisher.
Special thanks goes to Managing Editor Heidi "Go Diving" Devlin for e-mailing
an electronic copy.
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The
OCEAN FESTIVAL 2003 weekend turned out to be a great weather weekend after
all. No monsoon rains, no floods, plenty of sunshine, and lots of
great people. Some of whom we should see at our upcoming meetings.
We had a lot of comments on our booth, with all the pictures and even a
Sponge Bob sighting. Julie Taylor brought him to help out.
You would be surprised at the number of people who have seen him in Julie's
pictures 
Marc
Cohen is the unofficial voluntary leader of the South Florida Treasure
Coast Working Equipment Group, who refer to themselves as WEG’s…shorthand
for Working Equipment Group. What brings these people together is a common
love for both vintage and new copper and brass diving suits, and a taste
for nostalgia. That Cohen showed up at the Third Annual South Florida Treasure
Coast Working Equipment Group Rally wearing a Union soldier¹s jacket
from the Civil War is only the first indication that at least some of his
interests might be considered, by some, antiquated. He says that the jacket,
a replica, came from a Halloween costume. I’m not so sure; in fact, I wouldn’t
be surprised to find an 8-track tape player connected to his home stereo.
In his thirties, Cohen reminds me of Matthew Broderick…not from his “Ferris
Bueller” days, but the matured, filled-in version of the actor.
