- Going, Going, Gone....
- Time for the annual Volunteer Appreciation Day
- Scuba Skills Tune-up
- Heated Wet Suits
- Meet the First Warm-Blooded Fish
- My Favorite Dive
- Get the ADA Calendar
- The Importance of Bouyancy
- Real Men...
- Thank-You, Carol
- Newsletter Delivery Options
- Email or Address Change?
- T-Shirts For Sale
- 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, 2016 and your membership fee is only $35 for a calendar 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 online (preferred) or by check.
Most memberships expired at the end of 2015. However, if you purchased an extended membership, or applied a credit from a cancelled dive, you may have time left on your membership. If you are unsure as to when your membership expires, send an email to the Membership Chair at ActiveDiversInfo@gmail.com with "When Does My Membership Expire" in the subject line.
To renew your membership online, go to http://activedivers.org/Membership-Renewal.html and click on the appropriate button. To pay by check, mail a check made out to "Active Divers Association" with the appropriate amount to: Dr. Dan Baeza, Membership Chairman, Active Divers Association, 7592 Parkview Way, Coral Springs, FL 33065
Be sure to include your snail-mail and email addresses.
Time for the annual Volunteer Appreciation Day and Diver of the Year Award
Saturday, April 2
--by Jerry Kosakowski
Active Divers
Association (ADA) will be kicking off the 2016 dive season
with a barbeque and equipment swap and shop at the Jetty
Pavillion at John U Lloyd State Park in Dania Beach on
April 2, 2016. This is our annual VOLUNTEER
APPRECIATION DAY for those who have given their time and
talent to make all this work.
The Diver of the Year Award for 2015 will be presented. Don’t miss the excitement. The BBQ starts at 12 p.m and the raffle will follow the BBQ. Come early (the park opens at 8 a.m. and you can dive anytime) and 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. For those who join ADA that day (at a discounted rate of $35 for the early season signup) the barbeque will be free! Current ADA members pay only $10 per person and includes the lunch, raffle, and optional beach diving. Please RSVP to Lon at 305-2514975 before March 30. In addition, if a member brings a guest who joins that day, the member will get a free dive when the guest completes his or her first dive with the club. The Kickoff event will conclude with a raffle of fabulous dive-related prizes!
Saturday, May 14
Calling all ADA Members and Prospective Members! Save the date for Saturday, May 14th for the ADA Scuba Skills Tune-up Event. This exciting event will generate awareness of ADA and encourage new members to join. ADA will reach out to the community and provide an opportunity for lapsed scuba divers to brush up on their skills in a relaxed, friendly environment. It will also provide an opportunity for prospective ADA members to meet and get acquainted with the membership, learn about our dive trips and join ADA!
Location: A.D. Barnes Park Park Pool, 3401 SW 72 Avenue, Miami, FL 33155 (305) 666-5883
Cost: Free to current paid-up ADA members! $25.00 one-day only membership promotion for certified divers wishing to join ADA at the event – offer available to new members only.
Events and Activities: The day consists of two hours of scuba tune-up clinics taught by ADA Safety Officers, followed by two hours in the pool in small groups working on scuba skills with a Safety Officer. Clinic topics include buoyancy, pressure, breathing, the Buddy System, communication, hand signals, the underwater environment, dive planning and safety. The pool session with full scuba gear will cover the typical pool skills taught in the Open Water course. Note: This is not the official PADI scuba refresher course and participants do not receive any certification for this event.
Occasionlly a product comes along that captures my attention because the design or invention substantially improves the equipment used by divers. In this case I ran into a product on-line that caught my interest. Being an individual that does not enjoy cold water (Achilles heel) my dive season usually begins sometime in May when the water temperature reaches 80 degrees, and ends mid-November, when the water temperature drops below that magic 80 degree mark, all depending on El Nino or La Nina’s behavior.
While searching on-line for new dive gear I found a self-heated wetsuit produced by Thermalution (www.thermalution.com). The company sells different styles of the wet suit including full suits, heated dive shirt, heated belt, and pads for specific body parts (ie: shoulders knee, wrist, back, etc.). The scuba diving shirts are worn underneath your wetsuit and heated by a waterproof temperature controller, which can be attached to your BCD for easy access. The controller has three temperature levels that can substantially keep the core and extremities warm by warming the water trapped within your wetsuit providing the diver comfort.
..... as announced in Science Journal, May 2015. The Opah, sometimes called moonfish (Lampris guttatus) has small fins relative to its large body. This deep-sea round fish has lots of surface area for heat loss, but the Opah generates heat by flapping its tiny fins continuously.
Nick Wegner a biologist at NOAA , La Jolla reports that fatty connective tissue around the Opah’s muscles and fat layers around its organs help retain heat. Veins carry warm blood from the heart to the gills connecting to arteries carrying oxygen-rich cold blood. This makes it technically a warm blooded fish.
The Opah’s ability to maintain its body temperature above ambient temperature gives it advantages over slower, colder prey it stalks. The warm blood allows it to swim faster and with more power.
Scientists have known that tuna, marlin and great white sharks have the ability to heat certain organs when diving deep, but they must surface to warmer waters unlike the Opah. No other known fish has such adaptation.
--Adapted from an article in Discover Magazine, by James McCommons, January 2016.
Maria and I made a two week dive trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea a few years ago. We dove with whale sharks, did wrecks, and a live-aboard in Papua New Guinea.
One of my favorite dives was on the live-aboard. It is called Deacon's Wall. This spot has it all: a vertical wall, a shallow shelf, caves, warm water, no current, tropical vistas, protection from waves, exotic fish and corals, and 100 foot visability. Where is it? That's the catch. It is located among the far off-shore islands of Papua New Guinea, on the other side of the world. Allow me to describe it to you. A small mountain island with steep slopes meets the sea and at water level, there are caves eroded deep into the interior of the mountain. How deep? I don't know, we were not equipped with lights and lines, (required with proper training to penetrate over-head environments) and could only look from the entrance. That type of diving would be a whole expedition unto its self. At the cave entrances the shallow shelf began. It extended about 200 feet out to the edge of the wall, which dropped off at about 40 feet.
Want to add the ADA calendar (featured at the top of the dive schedule page) to your list of Google calendars? Instructions for doing so can be found by clicking here.
In my opinion after 44 years of scuba diving, buoyancy is one of the most important skills of an accomplished and efficient diver. Buoyancy is what gives the diver control. Let me briefly compare and contrast scuba with another sport, which might place more clarity into what I am trying to express. Skiing and scuba diving have a similar relationship regarding the importance of proficient control.
Many years ago I made my first attempt at snow skiing. The first three days were the most miserable times of my life. I could not gain control as I skied down the green slopes. In a word, skiing was equivalent to “panic”. The attempts to avoid other skiers or stop prior to striking an object were frustrating. Somehow, after the third day of half-day instructions and practice my mind and body began to work together and understand how to control my direction and velocity. I began to enjoy skiing, and as I improved, the more enjoyable it became, eventually moving into more challenging runs with comfort and confidence. The same process will occur as a diver obtains better control of his buoyancy. As the diver’s buoyancy improved so will his diving enjoyment, confidence, and experiences.
Solid buoyancy control will create a smooth flow of movement and a floating feeling within the water column. There is nothing that I have found that can be comparable to achieving that effortless floating sensation when scuba diving. The only way I can describe that sensation is what I call the “the out of body experience”.
If so, please email or call us with your current information. you may send an email to: Dr. Dan Baeza, Membership Chair at dmbaeza@bellsouth.net. You can also call Dan at 954-260-8225 and leave a message with your new contact information.
Show your pride in the best dive club anywhere! Sizes small, medium, large, xlarge, xxlarge. Some tank tops available also. All shirts are $10 each. CALL LON AT 305-251-4975 AND PLACE YOUR ORDER TODAY!. Lon will deliver it to you on your next dive
Thank-You,
Carol
--by
Jerry Kosakowski
Each year, we have a few dives cancelled due to inclement weather. As is our policy, we apply the monies collected first to membership renewal, and then refund the remainder to our members. While writng out refund letters for the 2015 cancelled dives, I had to call Carol Cox for an address update. She asked why and I told her I was sending her money. She again inquired, "Why?" I told her about the refund. Carol being the person she is, asked us to buy the provisions for this year's season opener and BBQ the money So this year when you enjoy our day at the beach, thank Carol for the food.
Please Note: The annual ADA Dive Season Kick-off Event and BBQ will be held on April 2nd from 9 am to 2:30 pm at John U Lloyd Park in Dania Beach.
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