Newsletter

May 2016 Edition

In This Issue:

Kicking Off the New Dive Season
ADA Cayman Brac Trip Update
Scuba Skills Tune-Up Event
Dawning of the Age of Aquarius
Diving in Current
What the Heck is a Nudibranch?
Blue Heron Bridge's Diverse Marine Life
Second Annual Dive Cruise Update
Newsletter Delivery Options
Email or Address Change?
T-Shirts For Sale
ADA Guidelines and Policies

Kicking Off the New Dive Season

--by Jerry Kosakowski

The Active Divers Association Annual Dive Season Kickoff event was held on April 2, 2016 at the John U Lloyd Park Jetty Pavilion, with over 25 members in attendance.

2106 ADA Dive Season Kickoff The weather was a bit uncooperative for diving, to say the least. It was windy and the seas were rough, with visibility less than two feet. Needless to say, no one attempted to dive. However, the kids and some adult "kids" went in and enjoyed the surf. I noted a few adults sharing my granddaughter’s surfing equipment.

Roy Wasson did an exemplary job as the chief chef, barbecuing hot dogs and hamburgers for the hungry patrons. He also brought a potful of his special steak chili, which everyone sampled. He can be my chef any day. Additionally, some of the members brought some homemade dishes to augment the barbecue.

The annual scuba equipment swap/trade, always a hit, was no exception this year. Great bargains went went quickly and included masks, fins, snorkels, regulators, BCDs, regulators, gauges, and even tanks. Afterwards, the club held its annual free raffle. The free raffle included wet suits, air cards, T-shirts, as well as an assortment of smaller items. All who attended received prizes.

As much fun as eating, shopping, and winning raffle prizes, the best part of the day was meeting new members and catching up with old friends. Friendship is what it is all about and this certainly had that. Can’t wait for next year's picnic.

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ADA Cayman Brac Trip Update - Will YOU Be Taking the Last Available Spot???

July 9 - 16

--by Daryl Johnson

We still have one opening for a male diver to share a room on this fabulous trip to Cayman Brac. So, if you are interested in this trip, act quickly by emailing me (Daryl Johnson) at diverdaryl@bellsouth.net. Check out this great video on what you could be doing this July with fellow ADA divers. You will have to watch a short ad but it is worth it! Included in the ADA trip is:

7 nights Beach Room
Breakfast, lunch, dinner daily
Welcome Rum punch
Manager's cocktail reception
Hotel tax and service charges
Round trip airport transfers
6 days of 2-tank morning boat dive
Use of tanks, weights, belt and dive computer (no diving the afternoon prior to departure)

There is a non-stop flight from Miami with fares below $350 currently available (not included, you must book your own airfare) which makes this super easy to get to. You can join us for $1465 per person, double occupancy (single supplement is an additional charge) which will be required at the time of booking.

Are YOU going to be the lucky diver to go with us?

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Scuba Skills Tune-Up Event - May 14

--by Rachel Davis

Calling all ADA Members and Prospective Members! Join us on Saturday, May 14th for the ADA Scuba Skills Tune-up Event.

This exciting event generates awareness of ADA and encourages 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 also provides an opportunity for prospective ADA members to meet and get acquainted with the membership, learn about our dive trips, and join ADA!

Date: Saturday, May 14, 9am to 1pm

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 and you must attend the event to join. New membership is valid through December 31, 2016.

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 water 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.

Lunch: Poolside lunch served after the pool session, compliments of ADA.

Equipment Rental: Members and Non-Members may bring their own gear, or rent gear at the event for an additional $44 which includes tank, regulator, BCD, belt and weights. Members and non-members must provide personal mask, fins, snorkel. Click here to reserve and pay for rental gear in advance.

Volunteers Needed: If you would like to volunteer for the registration table, lunch setup, clean-up, or clinic instruction, please contact Rachel at rachelhancock7@gmail.com or call 786-316-9852.

Spread the Word and Bring Your Friends! We want to use this event to get in as many new members as possible so please spread the word and bring your friends. There will not be another opportunity to join ADA for just $25 for the rest of the year.

To RSVP for the eventClick here For more information contact Rachel Davis at rachelhancock7@gmail.com or call 786-316-9852.

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Dawning of the Age of Aquarius
(Aquarius Underwater Laboratory, That Is)

--by Roy D. Wasson

For those ADA members who never seem to get enough time under water, spending a week to ten days more than fifty feet below aboard the Aquarius Underwater Laboratory may be what we need to quench that saltwater thirst. Now part of the Florida International University (FIU) Marine Education and Research Initiative, the Aquarius Program operates the world’s only fulltime undersea research laboratory, dedicated to the study and preservation of marine ecosystems worldwide.

Aquarius is a complex diving system that consists of the lab below the ocean. It has a life support buoy on the surface that houses power generators, air compressors and data connections, and a mission control center in Islamorada. Using a technique known as saturation diving, Aquarius residents can spend days to weeks under water conducting research that cannot be accomplished anywhere else on the planet.

Aquarius was built in Victoria, Texas in 1986. Underwater operations first began in the United States Virgin Islands, in St. Croix’s Salt River Canyon (now a national park and previously home to Hydrolab, the predecessor to Aquarius) in 1988. After 13 missions (and Hurricane Hugo), Aquarius was relocated to Wilmington, North Carolina where it was refurbished over an 18-month period by the National Undersea Research Center at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). Aquarius remained in Wilmington until 1992 when it was deployed in to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary four miles off Key Largo.

Aquarius in drydock After conducting 20 missions, Aquarius was retrieved in 1996 due to funding constraints. New operating protocols were then developed, funding was restored, and Aquarius was refurbished at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Florida, during 1997. In 1998, it was redeployed to Conch Reef.

In 2012, NOAA began the process of defunding Aquarius and UNCW relinquished its role as the program’s host academic institution. FIU seized the opportunity to take control of a national asset and in 2013 became the operator of Aquarius. FIU has a long history of research in the coastal marine environment in south Florida, and it counts former Aquarius aquanauts on its faculty. Aquarius serves as the cornerstone of the university’s Marine Education and Research Initiative for the Florida Keys and a generous philanthropic investment secured the purchase of its current shore base in Islamorada.

Deployed 63 feet beneath the surface, Aquarius is a globally significant asset that provides unparalleled means to study the ocean, test and develop state-of-the-art undersea technology, train specialized divers and astronauts, and engage the world's imagination. At Aquarius, scientists are at the cutting edge of research on coral reefs, ocean acidification, climate change, fisheries and the overall health of the oceans.

Fisheye View of Aquarius Interior Since its deployment to the Florida Keys in 1993, aquanauts and their support teams have used Aquarius to answer critical challenges facing scientists and policy makers. Universities, government agencies and private industry have conducted more than 120 missions to discover, preserve, train and innovate. More than 600 scientific research papers have been published based on Aquarius science.

Aquarius Entry Hatch Aquarius supports one of the longest running and detailed coral reef monitoring programs in the world, an ocean observing platform, and surface-based research in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Its research resulted in the first descriptions and identification of a disease pathogen that devastated large hard corals in the Florida Keys, including important information about the distribution, abundance and potential causes of black-band disease. In another study, a conclusive link to terrestrial runoff was discovered in a disease that killed large numbers of an ecologically important coral species throughout the Keys and Caribbean.

The laboratory is attached to a baseplate that positions the underwater habitat about 13 feet off the bottom. This means that the working depth of those inside the laboratory is about 50 feet deep. Located inside the 81 ton, 43 by 20 by 16.5–foot underwater laboratory are all the comforts of home: six bunks, a shower and toilet, instant hot water, a microwave, trash compactor, a refrigerator, and even air conditioning and computers linked back to shore by wireless telemetry.

Missions in Aquarius typically last ten days and aquanaut trainees undergo five days of specialized training before each mission starts. Missions are conducted on a monthly basis from April through November. From 1993 to 1996, Aquarius was operated from a large (100 feet long by 50 feet wide) manned barge, known as the MSB (Mobile Support Base), which was located immediately above the underwater laboratory. Offshore operations were supported during missions by staff working on 12 hour rotating shifts. As part of the refurbishment in 1997, the barge was replaced by a semi–autonomous (unmanned) Life Support Buoy (LSB) provided by NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center. The LSB is a large discus buoy, 30 feet in diameter, and hosts generators for power, compressors for air, and a telemetry communications system.

Sleeping Quarters on Aquarius Aquarius is normally an ambient pressure habitat, which means that the interior atmospheric pressure is equal to the surrounding water pressure. The entryway within the Wet Porch, called the moon pool, remains open as the equal air pressure inside prevents the water from flowing in. At this depth and pressure, non-saturated visitors to Aquarius have less than about 80 minutes to visit and return to the surface before they risk experiencing decompression illness. However, the mission aquanauts living in Aquarius can stay indefinitely and have 6 to 9 hours of diving outside of the lab down to about 95 feet each day, with unlimited time at storage depth. At the end of a mission, aquanauts undergo 15 hours and 45 minutes of decompression that is conducted within Aquarius itself, while on the bottom. At the end of decompression, Aquanauts exit Aquarius and ascend with scuba gear back to the surface.

The Aquarius website (https://aquarius.fiu.edu/), which is the source of most of the information used in this article, contains detailed information about current science projects and mission schedules. A virtual tour, lesson plans, archives, and press room are also included. Web cameras operate during missions with cameras inside and outside Aquarius. Live broadcasts (webcasts and special videoconferencing opportunities) are frequently conducted that involve schools, museums, and aquariums across the country. Scientific missions in Aquarius are typically awarded through a peer review process when funding becomes available ,or through partnership and other funding mechanisms. As ADA’s conservation projects director, this author plans on contacting Thomas Potts, FIU’s Aquarius Program Director, to discuss the possibility of a program to visit Aquarius and see the underwater laboratory for ourselves. Stay tuned for more information.

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Second Annual Dive Cruise Update -

Book Soon To Avoid Dive Excursion Price Hikes!!!

--by Daryl Johnson

One of the things we discovered last year is that if you don’t book your dive excursions early you may encounter some price hikes if you book them later in the season. So how do you avoid this? Book now!! Our Princess Cruise planner will book the dives for you as soon as they become available to guarantee the lowest price. Dives will become available to book in the next 30 days, so if you are thinking about doing this trip I strongly recommend that you do it now rather than later. Ask anyone that went on last year’s cruise, and they will tell you it was fantastic!

The trip departs on November 13, 2016 on the Caribbean Princess for seven days and six nights, and goes to Roatan, Belize, and Cozumel, all of which are world class dive locations. Princess is now offering a special where fares start from as low as $599 per person for an interior cabin, to $849 for a balcony (on sale as of this writing), not including the dive excursions, which range from $119 to $200 (for a very special dive out of Belize to Turneffe Atoll) per diver, per day, including all equipment rentals. And right now, they are offering $150 per interior cabin and $300 per balcony cabin in onboard credits, almost enough to pay for your dives!!

An additional benefit of booking the ADA Group trip is the extra onboard credit that each cabin will receive, depending on how many cabins are booked within the group. So, how simple is it to book this trip? All you have to do is call our Cruise Planner, Karen Bradder at 1-800-901-1172 extension 41643 and tell her that you want to book the "Active Divers Group" cruise and make a deposit. That’s it, no muss, no fuss, and you will be ready for an outstanding trip with ADA!! I will coordinate with our cruise planner to get the dive excursions arranged for all ADA divers but be sure and go online and verify that the dives you want are booked on your reservation.

This is a fantastic way to cap off the dive season so don’t miss out!

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Diving in Current

--by John Davis

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One of the most challenging and exciting, I might add, adventures is diving in current. As divers, we know that when we jump into the ocean there is no guarantee of calm water with little current. So, we must be prepared to handle it when it does occur.

There is, of course, drift diving where you intentionally are placed in current along the reef or wall. The boat operator will drop off the divers, and pick them up downstream sometime later. In this article I am NOT speaking to drift diving, but rather to the conditions that can occur when diving from a stationary anchored boat.

A very basic rule of thumb about diving in current is to always begin your dive swimming into the current. This is so that if you get tired you can simply relax and let the current take you back to the boat. As on all dives we should be aware of our compass heading, and simply reverse that heading to get back to the boat. Another very important thing to remember is that (especially in shallow diving) there is no shame in holding on to a rock to rest for a while.

When diving on wrecks, dive operators will construct what is called a tag line. This tag line is exactly what it sounds like. It "tags" the back of the boat to the line going down to the wreck. That way are you always connected, and never free swimming on the descent or ascent. The ocean can be deceiving. At 10 feet from surface there may be no current. At 60 or 90 feet down there may be heavy current. A good rule of thumb is to never let go of the tag line or down line, even if you think there is no current, as it can change at any moment. While on the wreck, pull yourself along the ship whenever possible, and try to not let go. You will conserve your air much better, and not get as tired. If by some chance you drift away from a wreck, you should NEVER attempt to swim back against the current. This exhaustion can be fatal to a diver, and should never be attempted. It is always better to simply let go, go with the current, float to the surface (after doing your safety stop, if at depth), put air in your BC, signal to the boat crew and float on the surface until picked up by boat. This is why we have a safety sausage.

One other thing to remember about drift diving on shallow reefs: Always keep a buddy with you at all times. If one member of the team goes to the surface to do a boat check to determine location of the boat do not leave the member on the bottom holding on. Normally in shallow water this is ok, but in drift diving it can be very dangerous for the obvious reason that the surface diver will never get back to the same place the diver on the bottom of reef is. Always stay with your buddy. Especially in drift diving.

When your dive is over and it's time to get back to the boat always begin your ascent near the bow of the boat, so that you are surfacing near the stern where you can grab the line floating behind the boat. If for some reason you cannot grab the rope never try to swim back against the current again. If you have enough air simply go down to the bottom and pull yourself along until near bow of boat again, and make another attempt to surface and grab the rope. If you do not have enough air to go down simply put up your safety sausage, signal the crew on the boat, and wait to be picked up.

Bottom line with diving in current is that the ocean is more powerful than we are, and that letting go and floating on surface is always the best policy. We absolutely can remain safe in current as long as we remain calm, and remember the tools that we have been taught along the way.

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What the Heck is a Nudibranch?

--by Dr. Dan Baeza

Nudibranchs (pronounced noody-brank, whereby brank rhymes with “crank”) are invertebrates and belong to the phylum Mollusca, the same group that clams. Squid, octopus, snails, and sea slugs belong. The word “nudibranch” means “naked gills”, a good descriptor for the nudibranch. A nudibranch looks most like a snail without a shell, but infinitely more colorful. While snails tend to be drab dark browns or blackish, nudibranch are vividly colored, often with striking splashes of red, blue, yellow, green and/or orange. Most tend to be on the small side, ranging from less than a quarter of an inch, to two inches. However, there are some species that grow as large as 24 inches! There are over 3,000 known species of nudibranch, with more being discovered every day.

One of the more well-known is the Spanish Dancer, so named because of the way it undulates in the water resembles a Spanish Flamenco Dancer. View this YouTube video to see a Spanish Dancer in action: Spanish Dancer video.

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Blue Heron Bridge's Diverse Marine Life

-- by Juliana Bach
(Photos and captions by Mark Silverman, ADA Member)

Blue Heron Bridge (BHB) at Phil Foster Park in Riviera Beach, FL is well known for its diversity of unique marine life. ADA is planning a night dive on October 15, 2016 to this exciting and diverse area. Mark your calendars now and plan to attend.

Blue Heron is famous for its macro-photography and especially for it’s night dives. ADA club member Mark Silverman took the photographs included in this article last year.

Part of the bridge’s allure is the ease of diving. Blue Heron is easily accessible from the shore. The beach entry is smooth and gently sloping. Visibility can range to 60 feet. The best time to dive is during slack tide.

Night time brings out all kinds of sea creatures, including mantis shrimp, starfish, and numerous types of crabs.

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Newsletter Delivery Options

Want your newsletter delivered via snail-mail? Contact the webmaster and request a printed copy. Be sure to put "ADA Newsletter" in the subject.

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ADA T-Shirts For Sale

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

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Have You Moved or Changed Email Addresses Lately?

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.

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