The Aqua Tooter
August 2024
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Announcements and Club News
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Greetings from the President
Jim Driggers monthly newsletter is here. | | | | Approaching timid sealife
August 1 General Meeting
Mark Strickland, a well published underwater photographer, will provide some tips for approaching timid sealife (a topic useful to all divers). Details here.
| | | | Kelp Ecosystem Collapse Update
September 5 General Meeting
| | | | "Members Night"
October 3 General Meeting
Members night is where club members show their water themed photos or videos. We're encouraging all members to participate - you don't have to be an expert or have dove "amazing" locations. UW snaps from your gopro or topside pictures of club dives are fine - anything water themed.
Please tell the organizer, David Chervin, if you were bumped last June. He will ensure you show this time.
Everyone, contact David ahead of time - the longer the better and read the news article for instructions.
| | | | Please fill out this 5 minute
Member Survey
To better serve your needs as a club member, your ATDC board of directors asks that you complete the following short survey (only 5 minutes). Thank you! The survey is here. | | | | Vince Christian's Sunflower Star Lab
talk well received
Vince Christian's presentation to Aqua Tutus at the July 2024 general meeting was met with an extremely receptive audience. As divers we are all invested in the health of the California coast ecosystem, and the disappearance of sunflower starfish has had a major impact on ecosystem biodiversity. ATDC members bombarded Vince with questions.
| | | | Ad-Hoc dives or How to dive
with club members
Planning to go diving outside the sponsored club dive? Want to schedule your own dive? Create an "Ad-Hoc" dive on our website. Sharing your dive on our website benefits everyone. Read the news article for details.
| | | | Club dive and Campout Salt Point
August 9-11
Camp with Aqua Tutus at Salt Point! Most folks will arrive on Friday evening. We plan on diving Saturday, then enjoy a potluck cookout and campfire that night. Bonus diving on Sunday morning.
Camping reservations appear to be full. However, if you want to attend contact Debbie about sharing a site, or, if your footprint is small (say a car and a tent), just show up. We can make room.
Reach out to POC Debbie or Derek (510-863-1162) with questions. Details in the event (please register) and upcoming forum.
| | | | Navigation dive at San Carlos
September 14
Alan Stanek is POC for a dive to challenge and hone your navigation skills at Breakwater. I believe instructions will be provided to follow an underwater navigation course.
Reach out to POC Alan with questions. Details in the event (please register) and upcoming forum.
| | | | Ten tooters at
Breakwater night dive
July's club dives at Breakwater were well attended including several members who hadn't dove at night before. Despite searching in crevices, octopus sightings eluded us. Story here. | | | | Breakwater photo dive
David Chervin and Oliver Edwards dove Breakwater wall Wednesday July 17, doing photography. Conditions were decent - fairly calm and ok vis. Oliver captured a number of nice images - stay tuned for some in a photo album and members night.
| | | | Good diving at South Monastery
Five tooters gathered for a day of diving at South Monastery. The waves were small, vis was decent and the water cold (52 deg). Sightings included a wolf eel in the open, sea salps, a large sea hare, and egg yolk jellies. Article here.
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Comic Relief
Remember - practice good ergonomics
| | | | Important!
State Kelp loss working group survey
Mark Shargel, an active underwater photographer, ocean ecologist, and member of the California Kelp Forest Working group has written a survey to address the drastic loss of kelp forests along our coast. The survey will provide advice to the state's regulatory apparatus and takes only 5 minutes. Marc's email soliciting input is here. If you care to see some beautiful underwater images his site is here.
| | | | Divers Alert Network
Flying after Diving recommendations
If you do dive travel and haven't seen these, I highly recommend you read the article.
| | | | Two interesting looking dive books
by Undercurrent editor
"Amazing diving stories", and "Shark Bytes" (editor - what a name!), both by John Bantin, 25 years as technical editor of UK's Diver Magazine and current senior editor of Undercurrent, are available on amazon. Summaries and links here.
| | | | "Don't hide your mistakes"
Aqua Tutus' "bone" award, given at meetings by popular vote, is used to learn from others dive experiences. A recent article by Undercurrent requests divers contribute stories of their mistakes to share more widely. Their short article is worth a quick read, if only to reinforce the though that we need so share what we've learned, even when it might feel embarrassing.
| | | | Growing coral faster on land
Coral reefs are dying off at an alarming rate. Coral Vita, a coral restoration company in Freeport, Grand Bahama, is innovating ways to grow coral faster. This short video shows their "factory".
| | | | Giant squids are very big!
Don't think I want to meet one underwater...More info here.
| | | | Shark Stewards celebrates
Shark awareness day
| | | The General Meeting minutes are here.
The Board of Directors Meeting minutes are here.
Aqua Tutus' minutes are stored as news articles (under the category "officer reports") on our website, aquatutus.org.
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