Patowmack Divers - Meetings and Trips

Meetings:

Meeting Location
The regular meetings of Patowmack Divers are at Traditions Restaurant at the Holiday Inn, 625 First Street, Alexandria on the first Wednesday of the month.
All meetings start at 7:30 pm unless otherwise specified.

Click here to get an excellent map of the meeting location

Click here to get a zoomable map from Yahoo (printable).

Upcoming Meetings

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 Dr. Zaid Fadul will be the guest speaker at April’s dive club meeting. Dr. Zaid has travelled around the world (Caribbean Islands, Red Sea countries, etc.) to practice medicine. While he was at many of those islands and countries, he had the opportunity to sneak some diving into his free time activities. He took some pictures, and he is also developing a Reef Fish & Creature ID system called SCUBA.dic to help divers identify fish and other creatures.

Coming Soon CURT NEWPORT: Deep Sea Salvage and Exploration
Curt Newport from the deep-sea salvage and exploration firm Phoenix International will talk to the club about his line of work. He has participated in numerous high-profile undersea operations such as the search for the Space Shuttle Challenger, TWA 800, the broadcast of live images from the sunken ocean liner RMS Titanic, as well as many other classified missions involving the loss of military aircraft and weaponry. In particular, he organized and led an expedition to locate and recover Virgil I. Gus Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7 Mercury spacecraft. He succeeded in finding the tiny capsule on May 1, 1999 and recovering the space-age artifact from waters 16,043 feet deep later that year. He also led an expedition to the Philippine Sea during a search for the Heavy Cruiser USS Indianapolis (covered by Discovery Channel in 2001). In addition, Newport found and documented the deepest wooden shipwreck ever discovered (a 19th century merchant ship lost in over 16,000 feet of water) in June of 2001.

Coming Soon KARRIE CARNES: The Patowmack Divers will welcome Karrie Carnes. Karrie will show a slide presentation and talk to the club about her recent trip to Antarctica where she conducted research and completed many ice dives to observe marine life in that corner of the world.

Recent Meetings

Wednesday, February 6, 2008 ESAT ATIKKAN and ZEKI FINDIKOGLU: Esat and Zeki will show pictures and discuss underwater ecology.
Esat is also teaching a course of Coral Reef Ecology for Divers at Montomgery College in the Spring 2008 semester.
Learn marine ecological principles and elements currently impacting the marine environment. Examples will be drawn from coral reefs, coastal ecosystems, and the open sea. The impact of development, fisheries, and other anthropogenic factors on those systems will be discussed. Tuition waiver applies; seniors pay fee only.
Course: BIT038 12.5 Hours
$122 + $30 fee = $152; Non-Md. residents: Add $120
Montgomery College Rockville, MD Campus
CRN#: 34693 T 1/29-2/26
207 HU 7-9 p.m. 5 sessions
Additional Information: This is a non-credit class designed for those interested in the marine environment, particularly coral reefs. Material is presented to make the topic ‘practical’ for hobbyists, scuba divers, snorkellers and all those interested in the marine environment. It concentrates on the reefs of the Caribbean and Florida, their formation, development, and unfortunate decline, the various relationships, interactions and behaviors among reef residents, reef builders and reef visitors, including humans. The approach is a systems one, where the relationships across the various zones of the reef are discussed in an attempt to bring out the unity. Part of the time will be devoted to the identification of common species of invertebrates and fishes, as well as to techniques of improving ability to approach and observe the reef.
Lecture 1: The coral reef, coral reefs of the Caribbean and Florida, Reef zones, physical factors and biological factors that define reef zones
Lecture 2: Adaptations, relationships: symbiosis, predator-prey,
Lecture 3: Invertebrates, plants and contribution to overall system
Lecture 4: Fishes: identification, guilds, behavior, ontogeny
Lecture 5: Human factors, field trip prep
For more information: http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/ or http://www.naui.com/events_more.php?ID=246

Wednesday August 1, 2007 Trevor Corson -- Author of The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean and also The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket, will discuss two of his most recent book. Since, as divers, we come in direct contact with lobsters, Trevor’s presentation will focus mostly on all the interesting aspects of the life of the American Lobster. The presentation will include great underwater video footage and discussion on the lives of lobsters, lobstermen, lobster industry, lobster scientists, etc. As a spin on the scuba/underwater theme, Trevor will also include a discussion about his new book on sushi, which includes a mini-tour of a number of interesting sea creatures, as well.
More info about The Secret Life of Lobsters can be seen at http://www.secretlifeoflobsters.com/
Trevor’s website can be viewed at http://www.trevorcorson.com.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007 Mark K. Ragan, author of the books Hunley: Submarines, Sacrifice, and Success in the Civil War and Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, will visit the Patowmack Divers to discuss his research and work on these subjects. Mark spent years combing factory records, archives, and log books to help raise and restore the civil-war era experimental submarine CSS Hunley, which sank the USS Housatonic during a daring nighttime operation. Mark also owns his own 2-person model #K-250 dry submarine, which he offers lessons in how-to-use and operate in the area of Annapolis, MD (Chesapeake Submarine Services, Inc).

Wednesday, June 6, 2007 DR. DWAYNE MEADOWS: "Riding the World's Biggest Wave: Stories of the Survival and Recovery of People and the Marine Environment from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami" This is the story of how Dr. Meadows, a marine ecologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, ended up getting a 1 mile ride from the Indian Ocean tsunami. After a three day scuba diving vacation trip, he stayed the night in Khao Lak, Thailand; the worst hit part of Thailand where 80% of the 10,000 deaths in that country occurred. At the time of the tsunami he was in a bungalow 50 feet from the ocean. His group of 1,000 survivors was cut off from assistance for over one day. This presentation is the story of the survival and recovery of many people during those horrible days. Dr. Meadows' will also discuss how he used his experience in marine debris removal and coral reef ecosystem restoration to aid the recovery of the marine environment. Since the tsunami he has returned twice to Thailand to advise and assist in three projects throughout the country.
To help with the recovery in Thailand, look at 4Kali.org which is named after one of the victims of the tsunami.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007 GLORIA FREUND: Patowmack Diver and Photographer
Gloria will show her photographs from Lembeh and Gangga, Indonesia. Expect lots of little critters and stories about muck diving.
Also, we'll have a report on our recent Pasta Pigout coordinated by Bruce Baker and hosted by Steve Halbert.

Wednesday, November 1 at 7:30 pm The guest speaker at the Wednesday November 1 Patowmack Divers meeting was Kit Lueder, who showed the club a 35mm-slide photo show taken while diving in Bonaire in 1990. (Bonaire is by Curacao & Aruba, off Venezuela coast.) Kit stayed at his father's home there. Most of his dives were shore dives swimming out from the beach, not using a dive operator. Kit’s show includes wide-angle and macro shots of underwater sea-scapes and surface shots. Kit is organizing the trip to Cozumel for November 4-11 below. In September Kit gave a slide show of his Cozumel Dec 2004 dive trip.

Dive Trips:

We are currently planning dive trips to other destinations including: West Palm Beach, California, Florida, Caribbean, Lake Rawlings, Hatteras, Virginia Beach, and a possible live-aboard. Keep an eye on this site for updates or come to the next meeting and tell us where you want to go to get further details.

Recent Trips:

January 2007: La Parguera, Puerto Rico
For some us, this was our third dive trip to Puerto Rico in three years. La Parguera is on the southwest coast of Puerto Rico about as far from San Juan as you can get. The reefs are in beautiful condition and La Parguera Divers runs a great boat. We stayed at Posada Por La Mar, which is about 10 feet from the dive dock.

November 4-11 2006: Cozumel
Diving "Dive Paradise", where the dive master goes down with us (for safety and to point out interesting things). The week of November 4-11 includes Veterans Day holiday. I stayed in this Villa in December 2004; it is very nice, spacious, comfortable, and relaxing. Each villa has a large kitchen/dining/living area, in addition to the bedrooms.

Labor Day Weekend 2006 We dove with Olympus Diving in Moorehead City, Wreck Capital of North America. Tropical Storm Ernesto canceled diving in Saturday, but Sunday and Monday were fun. Water temps were in the 80s. The visability was only about 25 feet. We did all our dives on tha Papoose.

January 7-14 2006: Mona Island, Puerto Rico
Club members spent a week on the Nekton Rorqual diving around Mona Island, which some call the Galapogos of the Caribbean. Mona is located between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

August 13-14, 2005: Morehead City, NC
We made our annual dive trip to "Wreck City" also known as Moread City. Water temperatures were in the low 80s and visibility approaching 80-100 feet! We're planning our return for 2006.

March 19, 2005 - Pasta Pig Out
OK, it was not a dive trip, but it's almost as fun! The 2005 Annual Pasta Pig Out was hosted by the Gordons.

January 15-22, 2005 - La Parguera, Puerto Rico
On our trip to La Parguera, Puerto Rico where we dove with La Parguera Divers. Puerto Rico is an undiscovered dive destination. Diving around Puerto Rico is largely undiscovered. Diving on the north shore around San Juan is not exciting, but the other areas such as the southwest are great. Water temperature was around 80 degrees and the visibility was a little under 100 feet. We saw a variety of critters including the usual suspects such as angels and nurse sharks. There were also sitings of octopus, squid and shrimp. We did 12 dives during the days plus 2 night dives.
There was also some excellent snorkling around mangrove islands.

April 2003 - Cozumel
We did 15 dives (1 night dive) while in Cozumel. Our day off was spent in Tulum and Playa del Carmen. El Foco is now the official purveyor of Patowmack Divers. A good time was had by all!

June 22, 2003 - Virginia Beach
Although the seas were a tad rough and the boat ride long, Eric D., Eric S., Guilhem M., Bob B., and Dave O. made it out to the Eureka and had relatively warm waters and decent vis, albeit we were buffeted by a 1-1.5 kt current. Some of us need to get scooters :) !

October 11-12, 2003 - Morehead City, NC
Unfortunately, due to Hurricane Isabel, this trip was blown out :( . However, we have rescheduled and are headed back to Morehead City on Oct 11-12! We are diving with Olympus and hope to get in at least 2 good days of diving over the Columbus Day weekend.

October 4-6, 2003 - California Kelp Forest Dives
We went diving with Psalty Adventures, an outfitter out of San Pedro, CA. We flew out Friday Oct. 3, 2003, stayed on the boat that night and headed off for a three day cruise in the morning. The boat is a fast six-pack, and we visited some prime dive sites around Catalina Island. October is lobster season in California, so we might partake in that too. I've got a really good lobster recipes. Water temperatures were in the mid-60's.

Note: You must complete a Liability Releasefor all club-organized trips. Please submit the completed form to the person coordinating the trip.

Meeting Location	The regular meetings of Patowmack Divers are at Traditions Restaurant at the Holiday Inn, 625 First Street, Alexandria on the first Wednesday of the month. All meetings start at 7:30 pm unless otherwise specified.
	Click here to get an excellent map of the meeting location Click here to get a zoomable map from Yahoo (printable).
	Upcoming Meetings
Wednesday, April 2, 2008	Dr. Zaid Fadul will be the guest speaker at April’s dive club meeting. Dr. Zaid has travelled around the world (Caribbean Islands, Red Sea countries, etc.) to practice medicine. While he was at many of those islands and countries, he had the opportunity to sneak some diving into his free time activities. He took some pictures, and he is also developing a Reef Fish & Creature ID system called SCUBA.dic to help divers identify fish and other creatures.
Coming Soon	CURT NEWPORT: Deep Sea Salvage and Exploration Curt Newport from the deep-sea salvage and exploration firm Phoenix International will talk to the club about his line of work. He has participated in numerous high-profile undersea operations such as the search for the Space Shuttle Challenger, TWA 800, the broadcast of live images from the sunken ocean liner RMS Titanic, as well as many other classified missions involving the loss of military aircraft and weaponry. In particular, he organized and led an expedition to locate and recover Virgil I. Gus Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7 Mercury spacecraft. He succeeded in finding the tiny capsule on May 1, 1999 and recovering the space-age artifact from waters 16,043 feet deep later that year. He also led an expedition to the Philippine Sea during a search for the Heavy Cruiser USS Indianapolis (covered by Discovery Channel in 2001). In addition, Newport found and documented the deepest wooden shipwreck ever discovered (a 19th century merchant ship lost in over 16,000 feet of water) in June of 2001.
Coming Soon	KARRIE CARNES: The Patowmack Divers will welcome Karrie Carnes. Karrie will show a slide presentation and talk to the club about her recent trip to Antarctica where she conducted research and completed many ice dives to observe marine life in that corner of the world.
	Recent Meetings
Wednesday, February 6, 2008	ESAT ATIKKAN and ZEKI FINDIKOGLU: Esat and Zeki will show pictures and discuss underwater ecology. Esat is also teaching a course of Coral Reef Ecology for Divers at Montomgery College in the Spring 2008 semester. Learn marine ecological principles and elements currently impacting the marine environment. Examples will be drawn from coral reefs, coastal ecosystems, and the open sea. The impact of development, fisheries, and other anthropogenic factors on those systems will be discussed. Tuition waiver applies; seniors pay fee only. Course: BIT038 12.5 Hours $122 + $30 fee = $152; Non-Md. residents: Add $120 Montgomery College Rockville, MD Campus CRN#: 34693 T 1/29-2/26 207 HU 7-9 p.m. 5 sessions Additional Information: This is a non-credit class designed for those interested in the marine environment, particularly coral reefs. Material is presented to make the topic ‘practical’ for hobbyists, scuba divers, snorkellers and all those interested in the marine environment. It concentrates on the reefs of the Caribbean and Florida, their formation, development, and unfortunate decline, the various relationships, interactions and behaviors among reef residents, reef builders and reef visitors, including humans. The approach is a systems one, where the relationships across the various zones of the reef are discussed in an attempt to bring out the unity. Part of the time will be devoted to the identification of common species of invertebrates and fishes, as well as to techniques of improving ability to approach and observe the reef. Lecture 1: The coral reef, coral reefs of the Caribbean and Florida, Reef zones, physical factors and biological factors that define reef zones Lecture 2: Adaptations, relationships: symbiosis, predator-prey, Lecture 3: Invertebrates, plants and contribution to overall system Lecture 4: Fishes: identification, guilds, behavior, ontogeny Lecture 5: Human factors, field trip prep For more information: http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/ or http://www.naui.com/events_more.php?ID=246
Wednesday August 1, 2007	Trevor Corson -- Author of The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean and also The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket, will discuss two of his most recent book. Since, as divers, we come in direct contact with lobsters, Trevor’s presentation will focus mostly on all the interesting aspects of the life of the American Lobster. The presentation will include great underwater video footage and discussion on the lives of lobsters, lobstermen, lobster industry, lobster scientists, etc. As a spin on the scuba/underwater theme, Trevor will also include a discussion about his new book on sushi, which includes a mini-tour of a number of interesting sea creatures, as well. More info about The Secret Life of Lobsters can be seen at http://www.secretlifeoflobsters.com/ Trevor’s website can be viewed at http://www.trevorcorson.com.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007	Mark K. Ragan, author of the books Hunley: Submarines, Sacrifice, and Success in the Civil War and Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, will visit the Patowmack Divers to discuss his research and work on these subjects. Mark spent years combing factory records, archives, and log books to help raise and restore the civil-war era experimental submarine CSS Hunley, which sank the USS Housatonic during a daring nighttime operation. Mark also owns his own 2-person model #K-250 dry submarine, which he offers lessons in how-to-use and operate in the area of Annapolis, MD (Chesapeake Submarine Services, Inc).
Wednesday, June 6, 2007	DR. DWAYNE MEADOWS: "Riding the World's Biggest Wave: Stories of the Survival and Recovery of People and the Marine Environment from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami" This is the story of how Dr. Meadows, a marine ecologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, ended up getting a 1 mile ride from the Indian Ocean tsunami. After a three day scuba diving vacation trip, he stayed the night in Khao Lak, Thailand; the worst hit part of Thailand where 80% of the 10,000 deaths in that country occurred. At the time of the tsunami he was in a bungalow 50 feet from the ocean. His group of 1,000 survivors was cut off from assistance for over one day. This presentation is the story of the survival and recovery of many people during those horrible days. Dr. Meadows' will also discuss how he used his experience in marine debris removal and coral reef ecosystem restoration to aid the recovery of the marine environment. Since the tsunami he has returned twice to Thailand to advise and assist in three projects throughout the country. To help with the recovery in Thailand, look at 4Kali.org which is named after one of the victims of the tsunami.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007	GLORIA FREUND: Patowmack Diver and Photographer Gloria will show her photographs from Lembeh and Gangga, Indonesia. Expect lots of little critters and stories about muck diving. Also, we'll have a report on our recent Pasta Pigout coordinated by Bruce Baker and hosted by Steve Halbert.
Wednesday, November 1 at 7:30 pm	The guest speaker at the Wednesday November 1 Patowmack Divers meeting was Kit Lueder, who showed the club a 35mm-slide photo show taken while diving in Bonaire in 1990. (Bonaire is by Curacao & Aruba, off Venezuela coast.) Kit stayed at his father's home there. Most of his dives were shore dives swimming out from the beach, not using a dive operator. Kit’s show includes wide-angle and macro shots of underwater sea-scapes and surface shots. Kit is organizing the trip to Cozumel for November 4-11 below. In September Kit gave a slide show of his Cozumel Dec 2004 dive trip.

January 2007: La Parguera, Puerto Rico	For some us, this was our third dive trip to Puerto Rico in three years. La Parguera is on the southwest coast of Puerto Rico about as far from San Juan as you can get. The reefs are in beautiful condition and La Parguera Divers runs a great boat. We stayed at Posada Por La Mar, which is about 10 feet from the dive dock.
November 4-11 2006: Cozumel	Diving "Dive Paradise", where the dive master goes down with us (for safety and to point out interesting things). The week of November 4-11 includes Veterans Day holiday. I stayed in this Villa in December 2004; it is very nice, spacious, comfortable, and relaxing. Each villa has a large kitchen/dining/living area, in addition to the bedrooms.
Labor Day Weekend 2006	We dove with Olympus Diving in Moorehead City, Wreck Capital of North America. Tropical Storm Ernesto canceled diving in Saturday, but Sunday and Monday were fun. Water temps were in the 80s. The visability was only about 25 feet. We did all our dives on tha Papoose.
January 7-14 2006: Mona Island, Puerto Rico	Club members spent a week on the Nekton Rorqual diving around Mona Island, which some call the Galapogos of the Caribbean. Mona is located between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
August 13-14, 2005: Morehead City, NC	We made our annual dive trip to "Wreck City" also known as Moread City. Water temperatures were in the low 80s and visibility approaching 80-100 feet! We're planning our return for 2006.
March 19, 2005 - Pasta Pig Out	OK, it was not a dive trip, but it's almost as fun! The 2005 Annual Pasta Pig Out was hosted by the Gordons.
January 15-22, 2005 - La Parguera, Puerto Rico	On our trip to La Parguera, Puerto Rico where we dove with La Parguera Divers. Puerto Rico is an undiscovered dive destination. Diving around Puerto Rico is largely undiscovered. Diving on the north shore around San Juan is not exciting, but the other areas such as the southwest are great. Water temperature was around 80 degrees and the visibility was a little under 100 feet. We saw a variety of critters including the usual suspects such as angels and nurse sharks. There were also sitings of octopus, squid and shrimp. We did 12 dives during the days plus 2 night dives. There was also some excellent snorkling around mangrove islands.
April 2003 - Cozumel	We did 15 dives (1 night dive) while in Cozumel. Our day off was spent in Tulum and Playa del Carmen. El Foco is now the official purveyor of Patowmack Divers. A good time was had by all!
June 22, 2003 - Virginia Beach	Although the seas were a tad rough and the boat ride long, Eric D., Eric S., Guilhem M., Bob B., and Dave O. made it out to the Eureka and had relatively warm waters and decent vis, albeit we were buffeted by a 1-1.5 kt current. Some of us need to get scooters :) !
October 11-12, 2003 - Morehead City, NC	Unfortunately, due to Hurricane Isabel, this trip was blown out :( . However, we have rescheduled and are headed back to Morehead City on Oct 11-12! We are diving with Olympus and hope to get in at least 2 good days of diving over the Columbus Day weekend.
October 4-6, 2003 - California Kelp Forest Dives	We went diving with Psalty Adventures, an outfitter out of San Pedro, CA. We flew out Friday Oct. 3, 2003, stayed on the boat that night and headed off for a three day cruise in the morning. The boat is a fast six-pack, and we visited some prime dive sites around Catalina Island. October is lobster season in California, so we might partake in that too. I've got a really good lobster recipes. Water temperatures were in the mid-60's.