Menu
Log in


Dive Lines header

Facebook Link


Vol. 51 No. 06

From Reefs to Open Waters: The Life of a White Shark - Zoom Speaker

Now an Education Ambassador, Tim Barker spent four expeditions aboard the Ocearch M/V Ocearch alongside a diverse international team of scientists in the pursuit of studying North Atlantic Great White Sharks. While traveling the eastern seaboard and visiting varying ocean habitats Tim assisted with a continuing study of 20 sharks ranging from juveniles of five feet in length to adults stretching beyond fifteen feet. As an organization Ocearch has tagged 92 White Sharks in the North Atlantic and provides data for Ocearch over 400 animals around the world.

Overseas Diving Update

Active and Upcoming trips 2023:

  • Damai 1, liveaboards - 2 trips - back to back - All our travelers are home. The trip report will be built gradually, see the trip report section and also later see the photo gallery - expect 1000+ pictures
  • Little Cayman Beach Resort May 20-27, 2023 - trip completed successfully
  • Bonaire, Divi Flamingo Resort, 17 boat dives and free beach diving - June 24-July 1, 2023 - one spot for a single male available - contact Nils or Nancy 

Upcoming trips 2024:

  • BVI (British Virgin Islands): Aggressor liveaboard - May 11-18, 2024 - A single male spot remains open - first come basis
  • Solomon Islands: Bilikiki live aboard, New dates: July 24 - Aug 3, 2024
    • The trip was just moved one day later to fit the Fiji Air - 3 times a week, only schedule - into Solomon Islands
    • The cost has gone up $500 - compared to the original Covid-19 delayed trip from 3 years ago. Fiji Air cost are expected to stay close to the original quote
    • We will start to look at land based extensions before Bilikiki - as a group or individually - say Fiji...
    • We have found two good land based extensions in PNG - for a week after Bilikiki...
    • This trip will be advertised - at the June meeting - if ready
    • PS: priority will be given to divers signed up for any of the Covid-19 cancelled dates (2021-2022) 
    • At this time Nils wants to hear from everybody interested...
    • You can read the original paperwork - everything but the dates and prices remains accurate
 
Nils Jacobsen
VP Overseas Diving


    Presidents Waves

    Welcome to Summer

    The group from Little Cayman just returned, I am looking forward to great stories of the diving forthcoming.

    Local diving is in full swing with many options available, please sign up and join the club out diving.

    Local Diving has started with the first dive scheduled for April 1. Please keep an eye on upcoming dives and join in if you are inclined. It is always a lot of fun catching up on the boat and lunch afterwards.

    Just a reminder that our June meeting is virtual, the hotel had a conflict. Another reminder we do not have a July membership meeting.

    Please consider joining the Board of Directors and filling the following open positions. Joining the BoD helps to get to better know our membership even better. Several of our board members have filled these positions in the past and would be glad to help with the positions.

    • VP of Social Events – Open
    • Audio Visual – Open
    • Promotions Coordinator – Open

    Reminder: The BoD has voted to rescind the requirement to have a valid COVID-19 vaccination in order to attend a USA function. We hope this allows some members to come and join us at our meetings. The only exception is overseas travel, trips will comply with the local requirements.

    Happy diving,
    Chris Hardham
    President

     

    Hospitality Hut

    Greetings From The Hospitality Hut,

    Greetings From The Hospitality Hut,

    It was such a pleasure to see 32 members and guests attend the May general meeting.

    Our VP of Programs, Rick, treated us to a delightful speaker and we all learned a great deal about the octopus.

    I am happy to report 2 first-time guests attended the May general meeting.

    First Tom Di Vincent, guest of Barbara G. was introduced. Tom stated he has been diving since 1974 but has been out of the water for the last 10 years. He likes to hunt for lobster, sightsee and drift dive on walls.  Thank you Tom for your interest in our club.

    Gino Redfield joined us during the presentation and I was unable to introduce him to the group.  Gino, friend of Lureen F. was certified in 1990 and has had 1 dive.  I think we can change that!  Hope to see Gino at future meetings.

    I encourage you to visit our site usadiveclub.org.  Please click on the calendar and keep up to date on all the diving and non-diving scheduled activities. You may also take a look at the photo gallery and take a peek at past events.

    I wish you all Happy Diving

    Clare Anthon
    Hospitality Coordinator
     

    Overseas Dive Trips

    Local Diving

    Mini-Trips

    Educational Blog

    CAN WE CREATE A SAFETY CULTURE IN DIVING? PROBABLY NOT, HERE’S WHY.

    by Gareth Lock

    This article represents the views of the author.  The article has not been fact checked by myself, the Board of Directors or any member of the USA Dive Club.

    Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

    How do we improve our safety culture in diving? Is it indeed something that we as a community of divers can affect? Human factors coach Gareth Lock argues that there is no magic bullet and, in fact, that the sports diving industry needs to make a fundamental shift in how it manages diver safety, if we are to improve safety. In other words, we still have a ways to go. The retired British Royal Air Force officer explains why.

    Use the link below for the complete GUE article

    Can We Create A Safety Culture In Diving? Probably Not, Here’s Why. - InDepth (gue.com)

    Membership



    George Cathcart is a returning USA Dive Club member.  Originally, he heard about us from long-time USA Hall of Fame member, Marie York.  George holds Rescue Diver, NITROX and Solo Diver certifications.  He has accumulated more than 1,000 dives by traveling around the world with camera in hand.  George enjoys topside and underwater photography.  His main interest in diving is using his camera to capture creatures and landscapes below the surface.

    His most memorable dive was with whale sharks in the Galapagos, and he would like to witness the sardine run in the Indian Ocean in the near future.  

    Wanda Frazier was invited to join the USA Dive Club by George Cathcart. They are a couple and frequent dive buddies.  Wanda is certified as a Rescue and NITROX diver with over 300 dives.  

    Wanda's most memorable dive was her first open water dive experience.  Her dream dive would be on Mars and when not diving, Wanda enjoys poetry, music and opera.

    Melissa Hanono was certified for the first time before 2015 and made about 20 dives.  She is currently taking advanced classes from SDI and has made an additional two dives.  Melissa heard about us from Divebuddy.com.  Bavaro Beach in the Dominican Republic ranks high on her list of memorable dives, and she hopes to explore the Great Barrier Reef someday.

    Other interests include Star Wars, and geeky things like movies and comic books.  She is a cat-loving newlywed teacher from Brooklyn and wants to dive as much as possible.

    The USA Dive Club welcomes George, Wanda and Melissa and hope they enjoy their time with our scuba diving family.

    As always, we invite you to browse through our extensive Photo Gallery to take a look at our social and diving activities.

    Trip Report

    Indonesia: Raja Ampat to Triton Bay &

    Triton Bay - Forgotten Islands – Banda Sea

     Damai I, Live aboard – 2 trips Mar 13-24; Mar 26-Apr 06

    We were on two back-2-back liveaboards – 13 people each trip. 6 people started in Lembeh straits (Sands Resort). 4 people went home via Borneo for an Orangutan river cruise. 3 people stayed behind in Ambon for diving. Several people went to Bali for either land based touring and/or diving the East side Tulamben/Liberty Wreck. There should be several photo gallery folders coming.

    We by and large saw all the stuff we came to see: Plenty of soft corals and hard corals; plenty of small schooling fish; all the big animals: Mantas (Ocean, Reef, Mobius), Sharks, even a hammerhead, snorkeled and dove with Whale sharks; Wobbegongs, Napoleons, Turtles, Cuddle Fish; There were also plenty of small stuff: (Ghost) Pipefish, Nudibranchs, Pygmy Seahorses and of course several species of “Nemo.”

    Local Diving Signup Instructions

    Hi Divers,

    I'm looking forward to a great new year of diving with all of you, and I'm excited to have a bunch of new members to introduce to our wonderful Florida reefs!  I also wanted to do a quick review of the signup process to make sure everybody gets to go diving when you want to.  Our signup process has two main parts, you can do them in any order but please make sure you do both, as both are equally important!  

    Part A:  Sign up for the dive.

    There are two ways to do this.  You can either click ‘Yes’ on one of our event announcement emails and then click on ‘Register’, or you can go to usadiveclub.org, and click on 'Local Dives.'


    From there, scroll down to the local dives listed, find one that works for you, and click ‘Register’


    Once there, you will be prompted to login, if you have already logged in, you will get the following screen:


    Simply click ‘Complete Registration’ and you’re done! 

    Part B: Payment, we have multiple options here.

    1) If your financial institution allows you to send money using Zelle, you can send your payment to Treasurer@usadiveclub.org. Please just be sure to say what the date of the dive and boat name is in the payment memo.

    2) You could set up USA Dive Club as a payee in your bank's payment system and have your bank send payments. Then you don't have to keep writing and mailing checks.

    3) Or, if you are still writing checks, you can make out a personal check to "USA Dive Club" and mail it to Ronnie Farr, our club Treasurer. Or you can bring your check to a meeting and hand it to the event organizer. 

    Pretty simple and straight-forward, and I’ll do a quick demo of this in the next online meeting at the end when we do announcements.  Looking forward to diving with everybody this year, and I’ll see you on the boat!

    Your V.P. of Local Diving,
    Ryan Goheen


    LOBSTER POT

    USA's Lobster Pot drawings Include CASH prizes, and a variety of PRIZES donated by Sponsors or Club Members.

    Funds from ticket donations help to support our many club activities. Congratulations to all our Lobster Pot participants. Be sure to visit our Local dive shops who support us and say 'Thanks'.


    © Copyright Under Sea Adventurers Dive Club 2023

    Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software