In This Issue:

• Going, Going, Gone...
• ADA Season Kickoff and BBQ
• ADA’s First Annual Dive Gear Swap 'n' Shop
• Dive Barbados
• My Favorite Seafood Recipe - Smoked Salmon
• Photography, Part 2 - The Mechanics
• Conservation Project Contest - Derelict Trap Retrieval
• If the Weather Outside is Frightful, Try Cavern Diving
• The Final Frontier - Bouyancy Control
• 2015 Dive Almanac
• Fish Identification Series - Tarpon
• Diving Tips and Tricks - Diving With a Fog-Free Mask
• Shore Diving in South Florida - Dania Beach
• 2nd Most Sharks Seen in a Single Dive
• ADA T-Shirts For Sale
• New Lionfish Program
• Crabby Corn Chowder
• Basket Star vs Starfish
• Have You Moved or Changed Email Addresses Lately?
• Newsletter Delivery
• ADA Guidelines and Policies

It won't be long now before your chance to renew at a reduced rate is gone! Renew before March 31, 2015 and your membership fee is only $35 for a year of discounts and diving news. After March 31, your annual membership renewal fee is $45.

Your membership includes periodic eNews emails about club activities as well as electronic access to The Mouthpiece monthly newsletter. You may pay by check or online. Go to http://activedivers.org/Membership-Renewal.html to renew your membership online. To pay by check, mail a check made out to "Active Divers Association"  with the appropriate amount to:

ADA Season Kickoff and BBQ Party Event: Saturday, March 21^st

Be There or Be Square

--by Rachel Davis

Join your ADA buddies on Saturday, March 21st at John U Lloyd State Park Jetty Pavilion, located at 6503 North Ocean Drive, Dania Beach, FL 33004. The fun starts at 11 a.m., but come early (the park opens at 8 a.m.) enjoy a free beach dive or swim/snorkel before the food is served. Our own resident beach diver Jerry Kosakowski will be on hand to point out the best spots.

New this year ADA will host its first annual Dive Gear Swap 'n' Shop (See next article for details). Bring all your gently used dive gear including wet suits, accessories, and scuba-related paraphernalia to sell and swap amongst your buddies. It’s like a great garage sale just for divers!

At 12:00 noon we’ll fire up the grill for hamburgers, hot dogs, salads, and all the fixin’s. BBQ is $10 for members who RSVP, free barbecue for new members that join that day at the $35 early booking rate.

Also new this year is our dive Buddy Special: Bring a new member who joins ADA at the event and you dive free with your buddy on his/herfirst ADA dive!

At 1:00 we will have our guest speaker from Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative. Amanda R. Costaregni is a Graduate Research Assistant from the GIS and Spatial Ecology Lab of Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center. Her graduate thesis project is based on an online socioeconomic survey looking at how local residents and guests use the reefs in the southeast Florida region. The survey is being conducted as part of a local initiative for our area, known as Our Florida Reefs. Hosted by the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative (SEFCRI), this planning process brings together the community of local residents, reef users, business owners, visitors and the broader public in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin counties to develop management recommendations that can become part of a comprehensive management strategy to ensure healthy coral reefs in the future. Click here to take the survey: http://ofr-coastal-use.point97.io/respond/register/ofr-mapping

The Kickoff event will conclude with a raffle of fabulous dive-related prizes. The deadline to RSVP for the event is March 18. Please RSVP to Lon at 305-251-4975. Make plans now to join us on March 21^st.

ADA members frequently enjoy an optional beach dive during the kickoff event, so feel free to bring your dive gear and buddy-up if you feel like diving. This dive is not an official ADA event and no safety officer will be provided. All divers assume full responsibility their decisions whether to dive and for their own safety during the dive.

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ADA’s First Annual Dive Gear Swap 'n' Shop

--By Rachel Davis

Some serious fun will be exchanged at the Jetty Pavilion during our annual ADA Kickoff event for all you bargain hunters out there. Forget about Black Friday and Cyber Monday – get ready for ADA’s First Annual Dive Gear Swap 'n' Shop!!! How do you participate? First of all, check all your closets, dive gear bags, your garage and any other nooks and crannies where dive gear may be hiding in your home and give yourself the gift of decluttering! In the spirit that one diver’s trash is another’s treasure, bring all your gently used gear to the Kickoff event on March 21st and proudly display it in all its glory for your fellow dive buddies to view and ogle. You can buy, sell, swap or give away at this event. All negotiations are between the seller and the buyer. Any and all dive gear is eligible for this event including regulators, BC’s, tanks, wet suits, gloves, masks, fins, snorkels, accessories, dive flags, computers, etc. It’s like a great big garage sale just for divers!

Here are the ground rules: ·

• Bring only your gently-used dive gear in good working condition. If an item is in need of repairs, it should be clearly marked or discussed with the buyer.
• All gear is sold/exchanged AS-IS, with no warranties written, expressed or implied.
• ADA does not endorse any product or equipment exchanged or sold.
• Bring (lots of) cash for shopping or a check. The seller chooses the form of payment.
• The buyer of any piece of equipment at the event expressly assumes the risks from the use thereof.

So get on with your decluttering and bring us lots of treasures to choose from. And for all you bargain hunters out there, bring your wads of cash and best negotiation skills and let’s all have some fun at our first annual ADA Dive Gear Swap ‘n’ Shop!

Event Details: ADA 2015 Annual Season Kick-Off Event on Saturday, March 21st at John U Lloyd State Park Jetty Pavilion - 6503 North Ocean Drive, Dania Beach, FL 33004. The Dive Gear Swap ‘n’ Shop starts at 11:00 a.m. and continues throughout the day. BBQ at 12:00 noon. Expert speaker from Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative at 1:00 p.m. Optional free beach dive and snorkeling throughout the day. Event concludes at 3:00 p.m.

Dive Barbados July 19 -25th: 4 spots left!!!

The Active Divers Association is diving Barbados this year, and it's not too late to reserve your spot. Besides the diving, there is a wealth of eco tours and adventures to take in while in Barbados. As the eastern most Island in the Caribbean, it is much more natural than the heavily visited western islands. Take a look at all the activities and sites to visit during this trip at http://barbados.org/index.html for that spare time after a morning of diving with Hightide Watersports. Speaking of diving, here is a list of the dive sites that we may visit: Maycocks Bay, S.S. Stavronikita, Pamir, Silver Bank, Dottin, Carlisle Bay, Bell Buoy, and Cement Factory (Click here for a map and a description of each site).

If you simply want to relax by the pool at the Sugar Cane Club Resort and Spa you can do that too! (Photo from trip advisor, see the rest of the resort at Trip Advisor. )

All this for $989 per diver, double occupancy (plus your airfare). To make a deposit to hold you spot simply go to http://activedivers.org/Barbados2015.html and scroll to the bottom and buy now!

My Favorite Seafood Recipe - Smoked Salmon 
--by Roy D. Wasson

Here is one of my all-time favorite seafood recipes, created by Alton Brown.  The recipe calls for two large salmon filets. Although it takes longer to prepare the fish for cooking than any recipe I have ever seen, the end result is superb and worth the wait.  The secrets are 1) pressing the seasoning rub into the fish with heavy objects for twenty-four hours, and 2) slow-smoking the seasoned filets in a smoker using real wood chunks or chips.  I prefer Mesquite wood.

First we mix the seasonings of one cup kosher salt, one-half cup sugar, another half cup of dark brown sugar, and one or two tablespoons full of crushed black peppercorns, depending on your pepper preference. Spread extra-wide aluminum foil a little longer than the length of the fish and top with an equally long layer of plastic wrap. Sprinkle one third of the rub onto the plastic. Press one side of the fish skin down onto the rub. Sprinkle one-third of the rub onto the flesh of the salmon. Place second side of salmon, flesh down onto the first side. Use the remaining rub to cover the skin on the top piece. Fold plastic over to cover then close edges of foil together and crimp tightly around the fish.

Place wrapped fish onto a plank or sheet pan and top with another plank or pan. Weigh with a heavy phone book (does anyone still have one of those?) or a brick or two and refrigerate for twelve hours. Flip the fish over, weight it down again, and refrigerate another twelve hours. Some juice will leak out during the process so make sure there's a place for the runoff to gather.

After twenty-four hours of pressing in the rub, unwrap the fish and rinse off the cure with cold water. Pat salmon with paper towels then place in a cool, dry place (not the refrigerator) until the surface of the fish is dry and matte-like, from one to three hours depending on humidity. A fan may be used to speed the process.

Smoke fish over smoldering hardwood chunks or chips, keeping the temperature inside the smoker between 150 degrees F and 160 degrees F until the thickest part of the fish registers 150 degrees. Serve immediately or cool to room temperature, wrap tightly and refrigerate for continued enjoyment for up to three days.  It tastes great cooled on a cracker or toasted pita slice, or just by itself.

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When George Eastman first presented his camera for the masses back in 1900, the world was astounded by the technology. Indeed, some primitive people would not allow themselves to be photographed, reasoning that the camera somehow was capturing their souls. Even today, there are people that have a phobia, or perhaps a need (think: witness protection program) to avoid the camera's lens. After all, not withstanding Photoshop and its numerous clones, the camera is unforgiving and doesn't lie about what it sees.

Some of you are old enough to remember the fixed focus Brownie camera. A true point-and-shoot camera, you shot the roll of twelve black and white photos, and then sent the film off to be processed. A week or so later, you got your photos back: three overexposed, three underexposed, two with the top of the subject's head cut off, three so-so blurry photos, and one beauty. That one special photo is what kept you going.

Photography has come a long way. We still have point-and-shoot cameras, but now sophisticated electronics and sensors make thousands of decisions per second to obtain the right aperture size, shutter speed, focal length, color and tone saturation, and flash duration. Yet, all cameras still have much in common with that simple Brownie.

Let's define the salient parts of a camera. Whether it's a $3,000 Canon EOS, or a $6 throwaway Fuji disposable, all cameras share a few basic requirements. They need a subject, a source of illumination, a mechanism for collecting the light reflected off the subject, a mechanism for limiting the amount of light received, and some kind of recording medium.

The need for a subject is self-evident and will be the topic of a future article on composition. Suffice for now that a subject has presented itself for you to photograph. Illumination is extremely important in photography, and more so in underwater photography. Illumination may be provided by ambient (surrounding) natural light, artificial light, or as is usually the case, some combination of the two. A flash or a strobe is typically used for still photography, while a constant source of white light, a movie light, is used for video. A flash has a fixed duration and intensity, like the old-fashioned flash bulbs. A strobe has more active electronics in that the camera communicates with the strobe to match the duration and light intensity of the illumination with the camera's shutter speed and aperture setting.

Because color tends to be absorbed the deeper you descend, all underwater photography requires the use of a strobe and/or a color-correcting filter to restore the vibrant colors the water's depth takes away. As you descend, first the reds and oranges disappear, then the yellows, blues, indigos, and violets fade away, until you're left with, wait for it, fifty shades of gray. The color-correcting filter complements the ambient colors, albeit at a reduced brightness level.  A strobe or a flash restores those lost colors.

The light reflected off a subject must be collected in order to create a useful image. That task belongs to the camera lens. Built into the lens is a mechanical iris that can be adjusted manually or electronically to vary the amount of light that the lens focuses on the recording medium. Today, even the simplest point-and-shoot camera can vary the lens settings to guarantee perfect exposure every time.

The recording medium consists of two parts, the sensor to detect the light reflected off the subject, and the media for capturing the reflected light, a.k.a., the photograph. The sensor is usually a CCD or Charged Coupled Device, an integrated circuit consisting of a photonic collector, a photon to electrical converter, and a serial output link. The media is a collection of transistors arranged in a matrix. The most popular of these is the SD (Secure Digital) or SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) memory card. To correctly record the image, a class 4 or higher SDHC card is required. The class designation refers to the rate at which the CCD circuitry can record to the SDHC card. A bigger number, class 10 for example, is better.

You've probably heard the term f-stop. F-stop is a dimensionless number and is defined as the ratio of the lens focal length to the aperture diameter. The full range of f-stop values are f-22, f-16, f-8, f-5.6, f-4, f-2.8, f-2.0, and f-1.4, although other values are possible. Each of the f-stops are a rounded power of the square root of two. Squaring 1.4 (actually 1.414235) yields 2. Squaring 2.0 yields 4, or 2 raised to the power of 2. Squaring 2.8 (actually 2.84272) yields 8, and so on. There is an inverse relationship between the f-stop and the aperture size. The larger the f-stop number, the smaller the aperture. So for example, an aperture setting of f-4 is larger and hence, lets in more light, than an f-stop of f-8. How much light? Every doubling of the f-stop reduces the light to one half of the previous setting. Conversely, dividing each f-stop by 2 reduces the light falling on the CCD by half.

Shutter speed is the length of time the aperture is open, letting in light. Shutter speed and f-stop are inversely related. For example, a shutter speed of one five-hundredth of a second, with an aperture set to f-16, lets in the same amount of light as a shutter speed of one one-thousandth of a second and an aperture setting of f-8. So why have multiple shutter speeds and aperture settings? In a word, flexibility. A narrow aperture setting, say f-16, has a longer depth of field, meaning more stuff behind and in front of your subject will be in focus. At f-16, a subject two feet away will sharply focus everything about 52 percent behind the subject and 48 percent in front of the subject. Put another way, everything between 22.4 inches and 25.8 inches will be in focus, and everything outside that range will be out of focus. This is helpful to know if your subject is a head-on shot of a three foot long eel and you want to get the sea fan behind it in sharp focus. Change your aperture setting to f-5.6 to allow more light and your depth of field reduces to a range of 23.4 to 24.6 inches. However, ambient lighting conditions may require the shutter speed to be slowed down to say, one-sixtieth of a second. While that sounds pretty fast, about the blink of an eye, it is slow enough to cause blurring of the image if your hand is not rock steady. So, if you are not employing a strobe, compromises between depth of field, aperture size, and shutter speed will have to be made.

Macro photography, a subject for a future article, has its own challenges. The distances and subject sizes involved are measured in inches and fractions of inches. Therefore, the depth of field of a macro subject could be less than an inch. Not much room for error.

Artificial lighting can reduce much of the uncertainty associated with underwater photography by enabling a more consistent shutter speed/aperture setting. The smart strobe, so-called because it uses a fixed shutter speed and detects the camera's aperture setting, can meter out the appropriate amount of light and shut the strobe off before too much light reaches the subject.

We've only scratched the surface of camera mechanics, but suffice to say, there are only a handful of mechanics that are important to the typical student of photography. Over the next several Newsletter articles, we will introduce more of the mechanics as we build toward the ultimate goal of taking pleasing photos.

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Conservation Project Contest - Derelict Trap Retrieval

--by Roy Wasson

One entry in our Conservation Project Contest is the suggestion that the ADA organize a “Derelict Trap Retrieval” project. Mason Smith, a Biological Scientist with the Division of Marine Fisheries Management of Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (“FWC”) has provided the information contained in this brief article.

Lost and abandoned spiny lobster, stone crab and blue crab traps have been identified as a problem in Florida's marine environment by various stakeholders, including the commercial fishing industry. Once traps become lost or abandoned, they may spark user conflicts, "ghost fish" (continue to trap marine organisms until traps degrade enough to allow escape), visually pollute, cause damage to sensitive habitats, and also become hazards to navigation.  Traps may remain in the water during a closed season for many reasons. They can move during storms, making them difficult to locate; they may be snagged by passing vessels and dragged to another area, or they are illegally abandoned by their owners for various reasons.

Volunteer groups may remove derelict traps and trap debris from state waters when they organize a cleanup event and obtain authorization from the FWC. These volunteer cleanup events may take place during the open or closed seasons, and must adhere to guidelines established in Rule 68B-55, Florida Administrative Code (F.A.C.).

Individuals are not permitted to remove derelict traps without a permit from FWC.  Anyone touching a trap that does not belong to him or her must be participating in an organized group event that has authorization from the FWC to remove derelict traps. Tampering with a trap, trap contents, line or buoy without a permit or written permission from the trap owner is a felony and may result in fines and the revocation of fishing privileges.

A trap is considered to be derelict if: 1.)  It is in the water during the closed season for that fishery; 2)  It is a “fishable trap” in the water during the open season for that fishery that lacks more than two of the following: Buoy, Line, Current Trap Tag, Current License.

Derelict traps and trap debris must be disposed of on the same day they are collected, or stored securely until they can be taken to the nearest landfill or waste transfer station. Traps may not be left unattended or in an unsecure area overnight.

It is the responsibility of the event coordinator to train volunteers on how to identify and remove derelict traps and trap debris during an event. It is important that volunteers understand the difference between types of traps (blue crab, stone crab, spiny lobster, etc.), what is considered to be a derelict trap by law, and what they are allowed to remove during the event.

The first step in deciding whether to apply for the necessary FWC permit to set up such a Derelict Trap Retrieval program is to identify potential locations where such traps are known to be located.  If you know of such a site where abandoned traps are present, contact me at roy@wassonandassociates.com with the best possible description of the location and conditions, such as number of traps.  The ADA board will then decide whether to sponsor such a program and start the decision-making process on where and how to implement the project as part of our Underwater Conservation Program.

For more information visit: http://www.myfwc.com/fishing/saltwater/trap-debris/volunteer-program/

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