Hello Aqua Tutus,
Thanks to Vincent Christian for presenting his work as founder and laboratory manager for Sunflower Star Laboratory in Moss Landing. Vincent gave an excellent presentation on the life cycle of sunflower stars, their functional extinction along the Washington, Oregon, and California coasts in 2018, and his and others' work to grow and restore sunflower stars along the eastern Pacific coast. The demise of the sunflower star, one of the purple sea urchins' main predators, is a key reason our coast's lush giant kelp forests became sea urchin barrens. Those present in person and on Zoom asked Vincent a lot of questions and heard his thoughtful, balanced answers about the (no pun intended) thorny and contentious issues of whether and how to humanly restore the kelp forests. I hope the efforts of Vincent and other volunteers will restore the sunflower stars and facilitate the kelp forests return.
The next general meeting is August 1st, and our guest speaker is
Mark Strickland. Mark is an underwater photographer and author whose images and articles have appeared in dozens of magazines and books. I saw his presentation for NCUPS several months, and I'm excited and grateful he will share his tips to enable divers to get closer to animals that tend to duck and cover or flee as soon as they see something big, like humans, approaching them. If you'd like to get up close to animals underwater, do attend this presentation, so you can learn from a master.
This coming August 9-11 is the club's annual weekend
Salt Point Campout at Salt Point State Park. The park is just north of Jenner and provides incredible views of the beautiful Sonoma coast. There are several dive sites in this area that provide a change of pace from the club's normal dives in the Monterey Bay. There will be a potluck feast on Saturday evening at Jim and Debbie's campsite in the Woodside Campground. Please register for this event in the Aqua Tutus website's calendar and use the
forums to offer and ask for campsite space. According to the
Reservecalifornia website, there are no campsites left to reserve for that weekend. There may be rooms available at nearby motels. For those who haven't been to Salt Point, this a great place to spend a weekend even if you don't dive.
As always, hope to see everyone in next month's meeting and at Salt Point.
Warmly,
Jim Driggers
Club president