Bonne Terre Mine Trip January 2010

Dan’s pictures:

Anne and Jason’s pictures:

Diving With Legends Book Published

From Bottom Breathers Member Peter Millar:

The book will be unveiled and presented to 10 of the legends on Sat 20th at 4PM at the Our World Underwater show.

I have Stan Waterman, Richie Kohler, Howard Hall, David Trotter, Jarrod Jablonski, Leigh Bishop, Tony Groom, Ralph Wilbanks, Martha Watkins Gilkes, Paul Oberle and Dan Crowell coming. The presentation will be held in one of the seminar room and will be free to get into. If anyone is going to the show come and see the presentation. I’ll do my powerpoint presentation on the legends, the book and Doxa. Doxa and I will then present the book and watch and throw the floor open for a Q&A with Stan and the guys. Should be a pretty cool gathering. The room seats 150 people.

Doxa will be giving the DWL watch to them also. If you go here you can see the watch and the final contents and cover for the book.

www.divingwithlegends.com

Peter has offered special pricing to the dive club members (sent to members via email), but others can buy the book via the website.

January meeting

Hello everyone,
We had our January meeting last night. Was good to see all of you who were there. The topic of discussion was things to do in the off season to prepare for the upcoming dive season. We also talked about save a dive kits.

In this off season we need to do some preparations for the upcoming dive season. I am sure most of you immediately started thinking of your next dive destination. But what I would like to add is other things we need to do in order to ensure a safe and fun diving experience. This is the time to get ourselves and our gear in shape for the summer. Use this down time to get your gear serviced. Don’t forget to take care of yourself also.

Gear:
1. Tanks good time to have the V.I.P done
2. BCD Annual service
3.Regulators Annual service
4. Log books Make sure they are up to date
5.Accessories Check O-rings, batteries, housings, etc

You:
1. Cardio Walking,swimming,running,biking,etc…30min/day. Prepares you for long swims or current changes
2. Stretching This will help when it comes to gearing up and getting back on the boat.
3. Strength Prepares you for entering and exiting the water when geared up, transporting gear, and rescue.
4. Mind Practice dive planning

There are great articles in several of the common dive periodicals as well as books on fitness and diving. They will help you come up with a plan that works.

Save a dive kits are just what they say. You can make one or buy one. What you want in them are extra mask straps,fin straps and buckles that work for your fins. O-rings, extra mouth piece, computer battery, zip ties,silicone grease, and maybe some tools(wrenches)

Please send in your club dues to me. I’m collecting till February and then anyone who doesn’t want to renew for club I will take off email list. Shirts will be ordered the end of February. Some people are requesting hooded sweatshirts. I will price them out and let you know what the difference is. Anything over what t-shirts cost you will have to pay. Club dues also pay for BBQ’s, party, prizes, etc.

So if you are interested in sweatshirt instead of t-shirt let me know.

Club dues are once again $25 send me your shirt size with you check. Make checks out to me with dive club written on memo line

Anne Poirier
6304 Carmel Dr
Plainfield, 60586

Next meeting will be Feb 5th 6:30pm at the Below H20 store.

Our World Underwater in Feb 19-21. We will meeting in the parking lot at Below H20 store on that Sat the 20th to carpool up there for anyone who is interested. I will send out more details as it gets closer.

If you know of anyone who might be interested in joining club have them contact me at info@bottombreathers.org . You can also give them our website to check it out. www.bottombreathers.org

We also have one of our members who is also one of the instructors at the store Jeff Wolschag. He is going to send out a email for anyone who is interested in networking your trade. What he is going to do is compile a list of anyone in club who wants to participate of services they provide (example chimney cleaner, real estate agent, auto mechanic , etc). He will send the list out to club members so if you are ever in need of something you can look at list to see if anyone on list could help. Good way to network in this day and age when the economy is hurting. We can help each other out.

Everyone have a safe and healthy New year

Anne & Jason

Best job in the world

Last winter, there was a contest put together by the government in Australia. They wanted to hire (partially as a publicity stunt) a “Reef Caretaker” to monitor the reef’s health and blog about it. They had over 30,000 applicants who made videos and took tests to compete for the job. Well, they hired someone and he’s been on the job since July. It was a 6-month appointment that paid well and they provided a nice beach house for you to live in for the 6 months too. Unfortunately, all the fun ended last week when the contest winner Ben Southall got stung by a lethal jellyfish. He’s okay and recovering, but it’s a reminder to know your local waters and wear appropriate exposure protection whenever you enter the water. I seriously considered entering the competition as I was between jobs back when the applications were open. My wife even said to go for it (yes, really). I’d like to think that I wouldn’t have had this problem if I were in the job, but you never know. Glad Ben is going to be okay. Ben has been blogging about this job since July or so.

See you all on January 8th at 6:30p for our next dive club meeting!

January meeting

Next meeting will be January 8th at Below H2O store at 6:30pm. Everyone welcome.

Pictures from BBQ this summer

This was our first club bbq

December club meeting

Hello everyone,
We had our December meeting last night. Very nice seeing everyone that was there. We discussed our trip to Bonne Terre mines Jan 22-24. Total cost is $400 per person which covers 2 nights lodging and 5 dives. Anyone that is coming on trip needs to get their payment into me in next few days. I cannot book trip without payment. If you want to put on credit card you can either call Below H2O or go into store. There will be a 3% charge for credit card payments because that is what Dave gets charged. If you pay store please let me know so I can go get check from Dave.

We are driving down on Friday Jan 22nd leaving around noon. So far we have Dan and I driving. It is about a 5-6 hour drive. We will have orientation at the mines Sat morning then 2 dives in the morning and I in the afternoon. Sunday it will be 2 dives in the morning and then head home.

Last year we went out Saturday night after diving to a local establishment and played pool, chatted and had a great time.
The mines water temperature is about 58degrees
Here is a little something Jason wrote up about the mine

Let me start by addressing the first thing that your mind probably jumped to, is this specialty diving? The answer is no. The diving that we will be participating in is all open water diver level. In fact I have done open water diver certification dives at the mine. There is no point in the trails we will be visiting that obstruct us from surfacing in the event of a problem. Furthermore the mine staff takes safety very seriously. We will attend a safety briefing and watch a video prior to suiting up. Once in the mine we will be accompanied by several safety divers on staff at the mine. The number of safety divers is determined by the size of the group. All the dives have a tour guide. Prior to starting our first trail the staff will run us through a basic underwater skill assessment. Once we complete the skill assessment we will start our first trail. Let me go back a minute to explain the trails. They start at one and work up. The trails each have different items to look at. We will be completing trails one through five. The next time you visit the mine, within the same year, you may start at trail six and work up. You do not have to repeat the first trails. The mine is also completely lit up. You do not need a light. All the trails have above and underwater lighting. On top of that the vis is one hundred plus feet. The trails contain many cool sights. Old mining equipment, different rock formations, and well placed lighting that adds a cool affect.

Lodging is handled in one of two manners. There is an old train depot that has been converted into a bed a breakfast and a bunk house. We prefer the train depot. It provided a great place to gather an enjoy the company of our fellow divers. It is a short ride by car to the mine. A matter of a few blocks. The bunk house is just that, a set of bunks in several rooms. We usually leave on Friday night. We stay Friday night and Saturday night. We will complete three dives on Saturday and two dives on Sunday. Sunday afternoon we will head back. It is roughly a six hour ride. This is a weekend trip. There our several local restaurants but we also bring food to make our own lunches and snacks. At the depot there is a fridge as well a a microwave. Our club had a great time on our last trip. As there will be instructors on this trip if you would like to complete any training we will be able to accommodate that. Hopefully I have answered your questions. If not please let me know any further questions you might have.
We also discussed upcoming plans for club this coming year.
Jan 22-24 Bonne Terre mines
Feb 6-7 Ice diving at Haigh Quarry(weather and ice permitting)
Feb 19-21 Our World Underwater scuba show at Rosemont
April 3 Opening Day at Haigh Quarry
May 1-6 Florida keys trip including for those that want wreck diving Spiegel Grove and a day trip down to Key West to dive the Vandenburg.
June 19 Bottom Breather BBQ at Haigh Quarry
Sept Burnham Harbor clean-up. Date to be announced later
Oct 9 or 10 Underwater pumpkin carving contest
Nov 13th End of year party
During summer we will also be doing Lake Michigan dives. Dates will be posted closer to summer.
If anyone who is interested in Bonne Terre mine trip and hasn’t let me know yet shoot me an email
Anyone who is going and wants to do any classes we will have 2-3 instructors on trip. We have one newly certified diver doing his advance class while there if anyone would like to join him.
Club dues of $25 are due next month. Please mail to me or bring to next meeting. Next meeting will be Jan 8th
Dues cover t-shirt, will be doing a new one this year. Different color from last one. Dues also cover BBQ’s, prizes, end of year party.

Anyone who doesn’t want to re-join just shoot me an email and I will take you off list.

Big thank you out to Dan for getting new website out. Check it out
www.bottombreathers.org
We are still updating it so there is some old info on it.
Any ideas for topic of discussion for meetings please let me know.
Well I think that’s it for now. I’m looking forward to Bonne terre mine trip should be a lot of fun. So far we have about 8-10 people going hope more of you can go.

Have a wonderful Christmas
Anne & Jason

Cay Sal live aboard on Nekton Pilot

For anyone interested we still have spots available for the August trip to Cay Sal. Dates are August 22-29, 2009. We will be leaving from Ft Lauderdale. Several members from the club are signed up already. If interested contact Dave Rautio at Below H2O # 630-820-2531. This is a live aboard trip on the Nekton Pilot.

North Carolina wreck and shark diving

We are planning a trip to Morehead City, North Carolina. Dates are May 13-17, 2009. We would be diving with Olympus Dive Center. The dates we picked are when we were told that members from the shark research institute will be on the boats. We will be diving on U-boat wrecks with sand tiger sharks. Cost for diving is $125 per two tank boat ride. We go out once a day for 2 dives. Nitrox $19 and air $11. Please contact us via email if you are interested in going. Lodging has not been decided yet untill we know if we have members wanting to go. Email me at apoirier@bottombreaters.org