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South Florida Divers, Inc.
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Fall into autumn diving ~ By Jeff Guzowski |
It’s hard to believe that October is already here and the year has gone by so fast. Mother Nature has not been good to us this year with flat seas. Let’s hope the water stays warm through fall and winter and we get some diving days in, even if it is at the end of the year.
If you didn’t get a chance to attend the Seafood Fest last month, you missed
a great time. Although the weather was a little warm, we lucked out
with a dry night. The food was prepared exquisitely. Thanks
goes to our head chef John Kansman, with his cooks, Gerry Cowen and Allen
Ryant, who did a great job with preparing the food. The lobsters
were all done to perfection, and the chicken, which was marinated in John’s
secret sauce (don’t ask what was in it), was real tasty. I want to
also thank Donna Eades, Eric Rohde, Marvin Meyers, Marc Cohen, and John
Kansman for setup and cleanup. And I don’t want to forget, of course,
all of you who came and brought some of the best covered dishes and desserts.
Leftovers were non-existent.
Our Key Largo August 2003 trip needs to be reserved now for next year. Since the Spiegel Grove sinking, rooms are already filling up for next August. Everything will be the same, but next year we will be offering an optional second trip for Sunday morning on the Spiegel or the Duane. If you are interested in going next year, you need to bring a $50 deposit to the October meeting. The total cost of the trip will be $220.
Mark your calendar for our Holiday Party on Saturday, December 7th, which is our finest bash of the year. Our annual Holiday Party will be held at the I T Parker Center in Dania Beach (next to the Harbour Grille). This is a good night of dinner with all the trimmings, and dancing with a DJ playing all your favorite songs, to celebrate the holiday season.
I would like to thank Marc Cohen and his Squid Heads for their live demonstration on hard hat diving suits.
That's it for now, see you at the club meeting. Dive Safely,
Click here for more Seafood Fest photos!
WELCOME NEW MEMBERS! We warmly welcome our newest dive buddies, Byford Lee and Patrick McMahon. Be sure to introduce yourself to them at the next meeting! |
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Phone 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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Join us October 2 for a presentation by Henrik of Wakatobi
Dive Resort in Sulawesi. Here's an excerpt from their beautiful
website: "Our intimate, eco-friendly resort is located in the Tukang Besi
archipelago in remote Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. Wakatobi is situated
beside Tomia Island, one of four major islands covering an area of 821
sq. km. The beautiful resort Longhouse and Grand Bungalows are built directly
at the seaside with an exquiste beach on a small island called Tolandono
(the natives call it Onemoba'a). Very experienced and well-traveled
divers, many who have visited all the other famous dive destinations, tell
us they have never seen such a vast, undeveloped, top-quality reef area.
There are literally hundreds of world class dive sites -- many still unexplored."
See you at the meeting...bring a friend! If you are not a member of SFDI and are just visiting our website, please join us on October 2...visitors are always welcome!
The International Coastal
Cleanup, organized by the Ocean Conservancy,took place on Saturday, September
21 from 9 AM until noon. Unfortunately, Hurricane Isidore influenced the
coastal waters, making them somewhat choppy with poor visibility. Nevertheless,
two hard-core clean-up divers, Wayne Pantke and Fred Miller, did their
share to make our waterways cleaner and safer. Barbara Rudzik and I took
part with many other volunteers from area schools and local residents in
getting rid of litter and garbage on Lauderdale-by-the-Sea's beach at Anglin's
Pier. For results on actual counts of garbage and debris collected, please
visit the Ocean Watch
website.
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First let’s do a math problem. (This one is not on the FCAT.)
After finding a parking place, Bob and Jon start out for an awesome day of lobster diving. How many quarters, at 15 minutes per quarter, will they need for the hungry parking meter? (It’s worse than a starving Great White.)
Suiting up takes 15 minutes, the swim to the second reef 40 minutes, 1 hour and 20 minutes of bottom time, 45 minutes to swim back to the beach (takes longer with all those lobsters), 10 minute hike back to the car (don’t you hate those ripping currents), catching your breath, washing your gear, showing all the Canadian tourists your langostino, loading up the car, another 30 minutes.
Answer… 220 min / 15 min per quarter equals 14.666666667 or 15 quarters ($3.75)
So, keep in mind a nice relaxing beach dive to the second reef is about 4 hours long.
In the not too distant past, you could grab your gear and hit any of the local beaches and be a stone's throw from the water, and best of all it was FREE. Diving off the “Green Condo” in the north part of Fort Lauderdale Beach was a great spot. You could park on the east side of A-1-A right on the beach. There were no time limits or parking meters. Then, the city erected no parking signs with time restrictions, but initially they weren’t a problem because it was 12 AM to 6 AM. You could leave work on a weekday, have dinner and get to the beach by 7-8 PM, do your night dive, and not have to worry about a ticket or, even worse, the "Lauderdale Vanishing Car Syndrome".
Think of this, NO CAR!!! You're wet, tired, lots of gear, Bag-O-Bugs, no cell phone, no money, no wallet, but you do have a dive light and a knife.
You wave down a taxi, and still dripping with seawater, explain your predicament… the cabbie laughs and says “You’ve got to be kidding!” and takes off in a cloud of dust. Now in sheer desperation (you're delirious from swallowing salt water and the constant grunting noises coming from your Bag-O-Bugs is driving you crazy), the thought of robbing a tourist pops briefly into your head. But common sense takes over… the getaway would be hard with a tank, weight belt and Bag-O-Bugs. You could jettison your tank and weight belt, but this is the first time this year you got your limit. Got to keep those BUGS. Anyway, a bad idea… your name is on everything you have and you’d be easy to pick out in a crowd. Not many people walking around in dive gear at 1 in the morning.
In order to prevent this, here is some information…
Hollywood Beach - no longer has any free parking, someone has been fertilizing those meters and they are popping up everywhere. Be careful of business parking lots. I’ve had friends towed at night, long after the business was closed. It cost them $106. The tow companies are on the prowl. Meters (4 hours max) are 15 minutes/quarter and enforced until midnight. Midnight to 6AM – NO PARKING!
Dania Beach Pier – Here they use a master meter that prints a ticket you display in your window. Planning that early morning dive? The meters don’t work until after 7 AM and there is a designated diving area.
Fort Lauderdale Beach – Parking at the South Beach lot should be OK, but be careful, they now have areas that are posted “NO DIVING”. The areas north, where parking is on A-1-A, the meters are 2 hours max so unless you have a landlubber to feed the meter, you will not get your 4 hour dive in.
Lauderdale by the Sea – Most meters are 2 hours max, and there are now many “NO DIVING” areas.
Commercial Pier and the northern parking lot – Still a great diving spot, especially for beginners, since the first reef starts before the end of the pier. Not spectacular, but lots of fish. The second reef is nice with a 3-5 foot ledge at some spots. The northern parking lot has meters with 4-hour limits at 15 minutes per quarter. The city hall is available for metered parking (Master Meter) on Saturday and Sunday only. Some streets are 2 hours max.
I hope there will always be access to the beaches for those of us who like to beach dive, but over the years, our available and useable for diving areas have dramatically decreased. Let’s keep our beaches.
See ya below,
Jon E. Black
Rick Rocco will be teaching an Advanced Open Water course for club members
on October 12-13. The cost for SFDI members is $175 and includes
the manual, instruction, boat fees, and certification card upon successful
completion. Divers must provide their own equipment. Dives will include
one shore and five boat over the two days. The objectives cover Navigation,
Search & Recovery, Night Dive, Drift Dive, Deep Dive, Wreck Dive.
Rick will also be teaching a Rescue Diver course this month, with the course meeting on October 16 at his house and the dives on October 26.
Rick was certified in 1991 and began his diving adventures in Cleveland, Ohio where he enjoyed brisk Lake Erie and local quarry diving. Rick earned his Master Scuba Diver rating in 1993 and in 1994 he became a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor. When ice diving in low visibility lost its allure, Rick moved to the Fort Lauderdale area and began work with the Lauderhill Police Department. Rick and his wife Lori joined SFDI in 1997 and have hosted trips to Ginnie Springs for cavern diving and camping.
Rick is a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer and a Police Diver Instructor for the National Academy of Police Diving. In addition he started the Lauderhill Police Department’s Underwater Recovery Team. Currently holding the rank of Sergeant, Rick is assigned to the Broward Police Academy as a Training Advisor and Dive Team Supervisor. He can be reached at (954) 553-2447.
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Curacao, Netherland Antilles
~ By Jeff Guzowski, SFDI President
The club is running a trip to Curacao, located 35 miles off Venezuela’s
north coast, June 7– 14, 2003 (Saturday to Saturday). The trip will
cost $1,150 plus airfare. The lodging will be at the Sunset
Waters Beach Resort. According to their website, "Picturesque
mountains, bays, cliffs and quiet waters surround Sunset Waters Beach Resort
on Curacao's Gold Coast. Renowned for its beautiful crescent shaped
beach and accessibility to the islands premier dive locations makes this
small boutique hotel the perfect island retreat."
I have information sheets and a payment schedule made up, and if you are interested, see me at the September meeting. I will be collecting first payment of $150 at the September 4 club meeting. (Note: Joe Smariga and Julie Taylor are arranging the identical trip from June 28-July 5, 2003. All of the same information applies.) |
Congratulations to SFDI member Cheryl Bartek! At the September meeting,
Cheryl won the Spiegel Grove medallion #547 of only 1,000 cast. Not
only does Cheryl have a limited edition collector's item, but she also
received a gold plastic lifetime diving medallion.
To defray the costs of cleanup, preparation, and towing of the Spiegel Grove, the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce Artificial Reef Committee is selling medallions which will be a prerequisite for divers wishing to visit the artificial reefs off the Upper Keys. Divers may choose between a $250 gold finish lifetime medallion, or a $10/year plastic version. To show our support for the years of effort by the Key Largo diving community, your dive club purchased the Medallion to be raffled. For purchasing the $250 Lifetime Medallion, our club's name will be placed on a permanent plaque that will be attached to the wheel house of the Spiegel Grove. For more information about purchasing a medallion to help the Artificial Reef Committee, click here.
Book
Review
This month, I can't say "check out a copy
@your
library" because this fascinating book is not in the Broward catalog;
however, it is available from the library through Interlibrary Loan or
from any Internet booksellers specializing in out-of-print books.
Written by Eric Hanauer, who barely missed out on being a diving pioneer himself by learning to dive "late" in 1959, this book is the culmination of interviews of the people who pioneered our favorite sport. The photographs alone are worth getting a copy for, as you will enjoy looking at some of the old gear (and at least one club member still has some of this equipment!) Local pioneers profiled include Noreen Rouse and Tom Mount, and the index, including Mike Kevorkian, another local pioneer, reads like the "Who's Who of Diving."
Despite the fact that their waters are cold and ours are warm, diving became popular in California much more rapidly than Florida. The San Diego Bottom Scratchers were the first dive club, organized in 1933. In the "old days" of diving, spearfishing was a huge sport, and the old timers are posed for photos with fish that we can only imagine seeing today. New member Marc would enjoy the chapters on E.R. Cross and Dick Anderson, who went from hard hat to SCUBA.
Of course, I found the chapters on our early "frogwomen" to be fascinating: Dottie Frazier, the first woman certified to be a SCUBA instructor; Zale Parry, underwater stuntwoman and Lloyd Bridges' sidekick in Sea Hunt; and Norine Rouse, who as a 40-something divorced housewife learned to dive in 1965 and later founded the Scuba Club of the Palm Beaches. I met Norine during my own ITC back in 1983, and her tales of being one of the first women certified as a NAUI instructor were riveting.
Anyone with a collection of diving books owes it to themselves to find a copy for their personal library. My copy, purchased from half.com, was personally signed by Dr. Andy Rechnitzer, chief scientist on the Trieste project that sent man to the deepest spot in the ocean!
Click here for more book reviews!
NOAA,
our National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admistration, has a great variety
of interesting and useful websites (click
here for just a few). This month, we will examine their Internet
Weather Source and IWIN,
the Interactive Weather Information Network.
The
Internet
Weather Source includes United States Weather, weather conditions
for the past 24 hours, forecasts, watches, and warnings for the United
States; Marine Weather, marine forecasts and outlooks for U.S. Coastal
areas and Great Lakes, and offshore and high seas forecasts for the Atlantic,
Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico; Radar Graphics, local and national
radar products from the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS), including
the latest images and animations for your area; Weather Maps fax
charts produced by the NWS; International Weather Conditions , current
weather and weather conditions for the past 24 hours for international
countries, and Aviation Weather.
IWIN,
the Interactive Weather Information Network, has interactive graphics and
active warnings including coastal flood, flash flood, flood, hurricane/tropical
storm, special marine, and non precipitation. This interactive graphics
page has several active maps open on one screen, and you can click on whichever
one you would like to expand. There are two graphic products available,
for high- and medium-speed connections, and a text version for slow connections.
There is a link to EMWIN, the Emergency Managers Weather Information Network,
providing the emergency management community with access to a set of NWS
warnings, watches, forecasts, and other products at no recurring cost.
IWIN also has a link to ALL National Weather Service homepages, you may
wish to bookmark this link.
Click here for more Websites of the Month!
Members of South Florida Divers, Inc. are entitled to place free Classified Ads here! However, you must agree to have either your e-mail address, telephone number, or both published so that people can contact you. Members, to place your free ad, simply e-mail me with the details. Non-members, come to our next general meeting and join us!  Buy
a GREAT dive boat! Sit
down...Debby and Rick Auchter are selling the Rapture. How
can we do that after spending so much time and money customizing this beautiful
Grady-White Sailfish into a great dive boat? Because we want to buy
a vacation home in the Keys, and get a smaller boat. Visit rapturedivers.com
for detailed information or call 954-926-8084 or e-mail Debby
@ Rapturedivers dot com.
COMPUTER NEEDED: Do you have an unused Windows 98 desktop or notebook computer that you would donate to the club? Your web divemaster needs a second unit. It would remain the property of SFDI; if someone else becomes the dive webmaster it goes to them or back to you. Contact Debby Auchter. |
"I don't know whether to call AAA or Sea Tow!" This month's Wacky Foto courtesy of Joke-A-Day Forums |
This is an all-inclusive trip and the price includes hotel and service
tax, round trip airport transfers, two restaurants which include ALL meals
(breakfast, lunch, & dinner), all beverages (premium, top shelf are
extra), two boat dives a day, unlimited shore diving, tanks, weights, and
air fills, complimentary shuttle to Willemstad (the capital), use of all
hotel facilities (pool, Jacuzzi, beach lounges, towels, fitness rooms),
tennis courts, 18 hole mini golf, and motorized water sports. Not
to mention a casino on the premises!
