Sole Searchers Newsletters

Please join us April 13 for an evening with Marla Daily. Marla is a long time researcher & historian of the local Channel Islands, and currently serves as president of the Santa Cruz Island Foundation. She has published numerous books on the eight California Channel Islands, including California’s Channel Islands: 1001 Questions Answered, which went out of print after 3 editions and numerous printings.

In 1994 she founded the All Eight Club. Membership is limited to those who have set foot on all eight California Channel Islands. There are currently 106 members. It is thought to be the most exclusive geographic club in the world—with fewer members than the Seven Summits Club! In 2008 she was honored by being inducted as a Fellow into the Explorers Club (founded 1904), for her research and explorations of the California Channel Islands.

She believes they may have found wreckage of the long lost ship, San José, lost during the Portola Expedition of 1769. She’s been doing a presentation on this, and has a wealth of knowledge regarding our local waters. We’ve been trying to get her down here for the better part of a year, so this is very exciting!

http://www.marladaily.com

http://www.scifoundation.org

http://www.mchsmuseum.com/portola1769.html

We really appreciate Sport Chalet for the ongoing contributions of raffle prizes to our club.  In addition, this month we received over $350. worth of dive goodies to raffle off from Hollywood Divers.   Great thanks goes out to Hollywood Divers.

Here are this month’s winners, Its a long one.  Jack

micro case:  Andrea Casanova
coil lanyard:   Andreas
accessory hanger:  Brad
snorkel system strap:  Jack Leeflang
fin strap kit:  Andrea Casanova
ankle weight set:  Barbara Potter
backpack style mesh bag:  Kaz
T shirt:  Kaz
T shirt:  Jack Leeflang
10 fill air card:  Barbara Potter
10 fill air card:  Robert Krinke
10 fill nitrox card:  Dave Gaines
10 fill nitrox card:  Gary Tollack
10 fill nitrox card:  Lisa Queen
camera case donated by Lars Dennert: Barbara Potter

Alberto Mantovani will be speaking to us on his Diving simulator. Practice diving. Plan dive sites. Dive with multi-players. Share images and data. Explore underwater mapping technology and more.

The SCUBA Show, the largest dive expo in the U.S. will take place May 30-31 (the weekend after Memorial Day) at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, California. This is the 22^nd year of this popular event. The show will consist of 76,000 square feet of diving related exhibits including new and revolutionary dive gear, travel pros (many offering show discounts), and diving experts. Several exhibitors also offer free drawings for valuable prizes.

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Highlighting the exhibit hall will be a personal appearance by world famous artist Wyland. He will be doing a live painting during the show and exhibiting some of his finest artwork.

<!–[if !supportEmptyParas]–> <!–[endif]–>A continuous underwater film festival will be running in the exhibit hall on a three-story high screen and will feature films from around the world by over a dozen underwater imaging experts. <!–[if !supportEmptyParas]–> <!–[endif]–>A full schedule of 33 seminars will garnish the weekend given by top diving experts Marty Snyderman, Dr. Milton Love, Bruce Watkins, Dale Sheckler, Tabby Stone MD, Ken Knezick, Ken Kurtis, Bonnie Cardone, and many more. Subjects covered include underwater photography and video, marine life, dive travel, and more. <!–[if !supportEmptyParas]–> <!–[endif]–>Saturday night will feature a Casino party benefiting California Ships to Reefs, a non-profit organization sinking ships along the California coastline as artificial reefs. Highlight of the party will be the awarding of the California Scuba Service Award. Honoree for this year is Sal Zammitti, a fixture in California diving for over 40 years with his Central and Northern California “Bamboo Reef” dive stores.

<!–[if !supportEmptyParas]–> <!–[endif]–>Exhibit hall hours are Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is $12 and includes admission to exhibit hall and film festival (seminars are an additional charge). Discount coupons are available at California dive stores, on dive California dive charter boats and through California dive clubs. Age 10 and under are admitted free with paying adult. For information on SCUBA Show 2009 call (310) 792-2333 or visit the web site www.scubashow.com.

On Saturday a few of us headed out with Hollywood Divers to the oil rig Eureka for a fun day of diving.  Deep, dark, and cold… just how we all like it, right? 

 First dive was the deepest… I won’t say how deep, but we did have one techie on board that went down to 300′ and was under for about two hours!  For us ‘regular divers’, it was business as usual.  This was my first time diving an oil rig, so being dropped off and picked up was very different.  Vis varied by the dive and depth, but averaged 20-30′, I would guess.  Water temps were mid 50’s… just a bit too cold for Kaz.  I think he has the Caribbean on his mind!

 After the first dive some folks on the boat were talking about a Mola Mola.  When I realized they were talking about one currently near our boat, I joined another diver on a photo mission to visit this rare creature.  I started snapping away, thinking it would flee, but it just floated there, and almost seemed pleased to have some company.  What a great experience! 

We stayed there for all three dives.  We saw lots of sea lions, sheephead, and all the incredible growth that has taken over the base structure of the platform.  Got back in plenty of time for a good debriefing at Acapulco restaurant

Staying with the Sole, from our previous logo.  We dropped the diver, and the Sole now is breathing from a scuba tank.  No mask since it would hide the funny set of eyes that gives character to this special flat fish.  We’re planning to make  stickers and patches first.  Then move onto banner.  I’m hoping to find an inexpensive T-shirt printer, but we may have to go the route of Zazzle since we won’t have to pay upfront to print hundreds of T-shirts.   Just think how good this logo will look on the upper left hand side of either white or black T-shirt.  Also, add the proposed slogan on the back saying…

I’m sure you’ve seen those images of shark feeding in the Bahamas.  Well, we’ve got a special guest speaker for our club meeting this coming Monday 3/9/09.  It’s Woody!  Yea, I’m sure some of you will recognize him from the La Canada Sport Chalet dive shop.  Well, Woody used to hand feed sharks in the Bahamas.  He’s agreed to come show some photos he has, and talk about his experience.  Also Woody has been pretty busy doing other things.  Check out his website at the link below.

Ian has been diving for over 30 years and hails from Warwickshire, UK. He holds numerous diving Instructor ratings through BSAC and PADI. He retired from the RAF after 23 years and moved to Grand Bahama Island to run diving operations for UNEXSO. His expertise in leading and organizing expeditions includes the remote areas of Belize, Maldives, Malta and Yanbu, on the Saudi side of the Red Sea.  Woody has spent the last 15 years filming large predatory animals in the wild and his knowledge and experience has made him a key man in major film and TV productions. He has pioneered hand feeding sharks using state of the art Neptunic chain mail suits and since 2006 worked on Pirates of the Caribbean II and III as Johnny Depp’s double.  He now splits his time between the Bahamas and Los Angeles California with his wife Corinna were he runs his business Bulldog Diving.

http://www.rvtiburon.com/BDBullDogDivingServices.htm

Hope to see you there!