July, 2005

Message from the President…..(I mean Premier)

Greetings everybody!

Happy Fourth of July!  I hope everybody had a chance to get out and BBQ some meat and cause a little neighborhood mayhem by exploding various types of fireworks.  Ah nothing says "Happy Birthday, America " like a plate of charred animal flesh and running little Jimmy to the ER to have a couple of fingers reattached.  Boy, I sure miss the days of M-80's and M-100's.  Now those were some fireworks...they had some power baby!  However, I don't imagine I'd be anymore responsible today with the aforementioned pyrotechnic devices than when I was a kid.  I wasn't always the level headed and safety oriented President you’ve come to know.  If you want to hear about how I and a buddy caught a toilet on fire and nearly burned down a bathroom...just drop me a note and I'll fill you in.  One of my more proud moments to be sure.

July promises to bring a few other events as well.  We have the DAN BBQ coming up shortly at Portage Quarry on 17 July. I'm currently planning on attending Sat and possible Sunday by staying overnight...anybody else?  There is a chance that a few fellas I know may wish to venture out to the St Lawrence River for some wreck diving that same weekend.  Plans are tentative but check out some of the cool wrecks in that area by visiting this link.  If that trip pans out, I may opt for that one instead.  There is an open invitation for the rest of the club as well.  The plan is to conduct a very budget minded trip..You know the old one room - six keys affair or finding a campground.  Dining shall equally be lowbrow by stacking a cooler full of goodies.  Hmm, reminds me of my young bachelor days....living on 25 cents a day by eating Ramon and realizing that hot dog water makes an excellent soup stock.  Anyway, I'll be sure to drop a separate note when I find out what's happening in the coming weeks.

I had the opportunity to hook up with another group of divers from the Dayton based, Rec2Tec, dive club for some wreck diving at Pelee Passage the last weekend of Jun.  Needless to say, I shall not be recommending Lake Erie diving unless you enjoy diving in limited visibility and wreck diving by brail.  If you'd like to try an equitable simulation just turn on an old monochrome computer screen, plant you nose upon the glass and stare blankly into the dark green glow for 30 minutes and you're there.  The trip was not without adventure though.  We hit our Canadian lodge in full swing of the Mayfly season.  There is little exaggeration by stating that Kingsville and Leamington , Canada where virtually covered in Mayflies..  The lodging and dining was pretty good although our lodge did not have air conditioning and it got a little hot. The company was certainly entertaining...we're a definite bunch of dive geeks.  Case in point, when a very attractive and shapely waitress walked past our table while we were out at dinner, one of our divers took a nice long look and quietly muttered….man…she’d look good in a dive skin. 

The most difficult attribute of this trip was definitely dealing with the poor visibility and maintaining buddy discipline.  We had a few instances of buddies getting separated in the murky gloom.  One of them hooked up with another buddy team and completed the dive.  The fella leading our foursome was much distressed until the individual finally surfaced 15 minutes later.  Diving in groups larger than a duo proved to be a fruitless exercise.  We dove in pairs the following day and were able to log some decent dives on an old schooner…could have been the lost continent of Atlantis for all I could see.

All the problems with the buddy teams getting separated let to an epiphany.  It came to me on the boat when the dive master alerted us that one of our buddies yet again, went MIA.  I take great pleasure to announce a new product line.  Conceived on a Rec2Tec dive trip and brought to market by the KSC, The Buddy Binder is here to save the day.  All we have to do now is sit back and count our millions.  Take a look!

Well folks, that’s all that is fit to report for now.  We’ll see you at the meeting.  Let me know if you have the slightest interest in St Lawrence diving…there is still one slot open for NC diving in Sep.  

C YA

JC     

 

 

 

Barb