It is important that you come to this meeting, or you may find yourself nominated beyond your desires!
We will be discussing the officer elections in March, and the St. Patrick's day party for Sat. March 16th, location to be determined
Greetings all, I have been a little out of the loop of late and keeping a low profile due to health issues which gratefully are on the mend,albeit slowly.I look forward to getting back out on and in the water.I have a fully completed boat just waiting for me to feel good enough to take her out!
By all reports there has been some dive activity with this fine weather we are having.Winter often has some excellent visibility due to the lack of plankton and if the rain let's up it can be outstanding.This months dive is at Fort Ross which is an excellent spot to hunt for lingcod and rockfish this time of year.Also of interest is the Shipwreck of the Pomona in Fort Ross Cove which is a fun and interesting dive for those not interested in hunting or for that afternoon dive once that urge has been satiated.
Thanks to the diligent efforts of Gary Baumoel we have been able to reserve the group site at Van Damme for the second weekend in August 9,10,11 instead of the 2,3,4.So if the majority is amenable we will switch to those dates.
Weather may hold and we hope some of you get out to enjoy it.See you out there!
--Jock Doss
The worst part of the club trip to Monterey was that it rained the whole time…back in Santa Rosa. The weather in Monterey was beautiful.
Members Lori and Jay, with their friend Vicky, set up a dive on the Monterey Express for Saturday morning. Bob, Rich, and Molly joined the boat and were able to squeeze their way on due to no-shows.
I can't imagine what the no-shows were thinking! It was a beautiful day. We saw lots of whales on the way out. And on the way back we were the minimum legal distance from a pod of 6 whales!
What a stunning day, and the diving wasn't bad either. The first dive was a tad dull, but then we dove Mono-Lobo wall for our second dive. This is the area between Monestery Beach and Point Lobos. We had a great dive. Bob chased Ling Cod around, and we enjoyed the great visibility.
That evening we had a magnificent feed at the Monterey Fish House, and made our plans for Sunday.
Potential member Chad, from Chico, joined us for a long dive Sunday at Lover's Cove. The highlight was the Harbor Seal who played like a puppy with us. First he 'hid' on the bottom, then when he knew we were watching him, he darted out and wrapped himself up in kelp.
This was Chad's first shore dive, after some 50 boat dives. He was excited that it was possible to have this much fun without dropping $75 on a boat dive. Chad was also appreciative of how supportive the club is to new divers, and divers trying new things.
Perhaps his appreciation got a little too great when the counter person at Subway asked him if he and Bob were together he threw his arm around Bob's shoulder's and said 'together? He's my Dad!'
It was the first time I've seen Bob 'Dad' Simpton blush.
We had some great diving in Costa Rica, once on a small dive boat out of Coco, down the coast about 30 km, to some small islands called Catalina, of all things.
The water was a bit rough there, but we got one tank in there. Then they took us to an off-shore reef in about 65' of calm water, where we were able to take in the sights. There were an abundance of large Angel Fish and many other varieties of familiar and some unfamiliar tropical fish and animals; including 6' tube fish, 2' Angels, several kinds of Trigger and Parrot fish, octopus, squid, eels, and sea snakes which I believed, and was informed are deadly, but non-aggressive.
We also observed Dolphins leaping high, after flying fish and just playing, Mantas clearing the surface near the boat, as well as several large sharks identified as hammerheads and reef sharks. There was an anchor and chain from a large ship to make the dive more interesting.
Fortunately we hauled our own gear and rented shorties for the dive. I was a lot more comfortable that way, as the rental stuff was definitely not as good as here, although serviceable.
We had a rented car which we drove north from San Jose.' North, to the coast, nearly into Nicaragua. After a couple of wrong turns because of poorly marked roads, and lessons in local driving technique, while making good use of our Spanish to ask for directions, we arrived at Playa del Coco, moving a couple of times till we found a nice one-bedroom condo with pool and beach. We got in a great afternoon of snorkelling, swimming about a mile out on a point in a large bay. Bonnie was able to get some nice underwater photos, which we will share at a meeting.
Air travel was no fun, due to security, but all in all we had a great trip, especially for sea food lovers.
Some months back, there was a post on ba_diving (and elsewhere) raising some surprising and (some thought) far-fetched complaints concerning shark research activities at the Farallon Islands. In light of recent revelations about how our marine "sanctuaries" operate and are managed (courtesy of Ed Cooper and David Clayton), those shark research complaints no longer sound far-fetched, nor are they surprising.
In fact, those complaints should never have surprised anyone who's watched how white shark regulations unfolded in the Monterey "sanctuary" years ago. At that time, the dive community enthusiastically and almost universally
(count me as one of two or three vocal and obstinate exceptions) supported restricting any, every and all forms of white shark observations by non-"research" divers. That support was well intentioned in the spirit of protecting white sharks (bad, dangerous divers) and the naive notion that marine "sanctuaries" really were sanctuaries in some form suggested by common-sense. To anyone who cares to pay attention, it's now abundantly clear that our national marine sanctuaries are little more than the personal fiefdoms of federal bureaucrats and a select group of "researchers" who, collectively, treat the diving public with dismissive disdain.
Getting back to the Farallon Island complaints, they were recently and convincingly reiterated by ABC news out of San Francisco:
- that white shark film footage (2nd only in value to war footage) was sold to Discovery, BBC, and the National Geographic in direct violation of the research permits used to gather that film footage.
- that the film footage sold was not a direct by-product of white shark research; rather, that it was collected to further the financial benefits to the researchers.
- that researchers at the Farallons entered into a financial agreement with a British eco-tourist company that involved selling week long stays on the Farallon Islands
- that world-class researchers have been blocked from getting research permits for the Farallon Islands as a by-product of a review process involving current Farallons researchers.
If you haven't seen the ABC new report and you're interested in what's going on, the complaints and their excuses are making regular appearances in the archive for the Shark email list 'shark-l.' (link to archives).
If you're interested in the complaints and accusations of being made against the researchers, a good summary can be found in the shark-l post (the post) of the shark diving operator. Yes he does have a vested interested. So, IMO, do the rest of us.
Stony Point Roundtable Pizza
2065 Occidental Road, Santa Rosa
Jed Douglas RED WEB: http://www.webperception.com/jdouglas
Rocky's Home Page: http://www.sonic.net/~rocky
(with great tips on Abalone!)
CA Dept of Fish & Game: http://www.dfg.ca.gov
California Coastal Buoy Map: http://www.oceanweather.com/~oceanwx/data/cal.html
Marine Radio - Michael Mendoza
O2 Kit - Jed Douglas
Fish & Ab Log - Jed Douglas
Picnic Supplies - Dave Batt
Contact these members for use of the equipment.
Michael Mendoza - Vice President
Jed Douglas - Secretary
Bob Simpton - Treasurer
Rich Gibson - Newsletter Editor
RED Events Calendar 2002 January 1/3 Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 1/5 Monterey 1/17 Business Meeting at the Powerhouse February 2/7 Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 2/9 - Fort Ross 2/21 - Business Meeting Location TBD March 3/7 General Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 3/9 Stillwater Sat 3/16 St Paddy's Day Blast! 3/21 Business Meeting Location TBD April - Abalone! 4/4 General Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 4/6 Salt Point/Kruse Ranch 4/18 Business Meeting Location TBD Date TBD Member Dive Timber Cove with Jon and Bon May 5/2 General Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 5/4 - Pt Arena/Arena Rock 5/16 - Business Meeting Location TBD Memorial Day - Charles' Big Weekend at Ocean Cove June 6/6 General Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 6/7-9 Campout Doran Beach. 6/20 - Business Meeting Location TBD July 7/11 General Meeting 7:00 pm Pot Luck at Findley Park! 7/12-7/14 - Monterey! 7/18 - Business Meeting Location TBD 7/20 or 7/27 - Member Dive Jock Split Rock/Tomales August 8/1 General Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 8/2-4 Doran Beach 8/15 - Business Meeting Location TBD Mike Mendoza in Catalina for a week. Looking for Sea Bass and Yellow Tail! Bob Simpton on a houseboat water skiing September 9/5 General Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 9/6-8 - Van Damme or Russian Gulch 9/19 - Business Meeting Location TBD Date TBD Member Dive: Jock, Halibut! October 10/3 General Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 10/5 Tomales, Halibut! 10/13-15 (or so) Member Dive: Gary: Peace lobster dive 10/17 - Subject to change Business Meeting Location TBD November 11/7 General Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 11/9 - Anchor Bay 11/21 - Business Meeting Location TBD December 12/5 General Meeting 7:00 pm Round Table 12/7 - Stillwater 12/14 Christmas Party!