Rochester Scuba & Snorkel Club

August Meeting Notes

September Meeting Agenda

We'll do another cleanup of our adopted park, Foster Arend. We'll also talk of upcoming activities and tell stories of our summer diving adventures.

Channel One Food Shelf Volunteer Night

Who: Rochester Scuba & Snorkel Club
What: Volunteer at Channel One, the southeast Minnesota food bank
Where: Channel One, 131 35th Street SE -- see directions below
When: Tuesday September 13 from 6-8pm
Why: It's fun! You can help out the food shelf and compete with our arch-nemesis, the Traverski Ski & Sports Club.

No preparation is needed. We will be doing whatever volunteer jobs they have available, usually packing up boxes of food into pallets. No special skills are required and you can slack off at any time.

Directions from downtown Rochester: Take South Broadway (Highway 63) past the Highway 52 interchange. At the first stoplight, take a left on Wood Lake Drive SE. Go approximately one tenth of a mile, then turn right onto 35th Street SE. Channel One is on the left.

Directions from highway 52: Take the Highway 63 South (Broadway) exit. At the stoplight, take a left on Wood Lake Drive SE. Go approximately one tenth of a mile, then turn right on 35th Street SE. Channel One is on the left.

Come out and have a good time volunteering!

Canister Light Project, Part 3

photos by Dave Owen and Roger Southwick

We're done with 2 lights! See the last throes of our project below.
Turning an acrylic switch guard on the lathe.	Milling a switch recess into the lid.
Drilling into the lid for the latch screws.	Completed light head with clip and Goodman handle. By placing the clip on the cord, rather than on the handle, the light naturally points down when clipped to the right shoulder D-ring. Your buddy will appreciate this feature.
Rich's completed light. The canister is worn on the right hip, attached to the harness belt by the loop of webbing under hose clamps. The entire light weighs about 13 pounds and is about 4 pounds negatively buoyant, so it's considered part of the weighting system.	Detail of Goodman handle machined from aluminum stock. The handle permits wearing the light head on the back of the hand. The white nylon setscrew allows the beam to be focused by sliding the slug within the reflector assembly.
Rich's canister in action. Worn in this position, it's barely noticed while diving, and it's easily accessible and can be ditched if needed.	Is 50 watts really necessary? If you want your buddy to see you in the pea soup of Wazee during the daytime: yes.

This Month at Lake Wazee

Dave Merbach	Kate squeezes into a culvert.
	The visibility wasn't so good.
Warning: These guys can bite. (Ask John Martin about his eyelid.)	The fish cribs are populated with fearsome bluegills and friendly rebreather divers.
The new underwater park is now open!	Rich Good inspects some bluegills.

Tec Diving Trip to Two Rivers, Wisconsin

photos by John Preston and Roger Southwick

John P and Roger (subbing for John Martin) joined some guys from Going Under Dive Center for a technical diving trip to some shipwrecks in Lake Michigan. Three of the guys were on rebreathers and the other three were on open-circuit; everyone used trimix. We chartered a boat through Greg Such's Shipwreck Adventures. See more of the pictures in the Blackdive Gallery.
Mark readies his Inspiration rebreather for a dive.	Paul is ready to go with his KISS rebreather.
John P used 3 stages for one of the dives: 18/45 trimix, 50% O2, and 100% O2. He came back to the boat with 2 of CornDogg's stages as well, just for practice.	Chuck boards the boat after a dive. He was also using a KISS rebreather.
CornDogg splashes in.	The last dive of the trip involved a 2-knot surface current. Check out the wake around the divers as they hang on the tag line.
Back row, L-R: Cap'n Greg, Paul, Mark, John P Front row: Roger, CornDogg, Chuck	Here's how many tanks we brought for two open-circuit divers. The rebreather guys teased us for needing so much gas; each of them brought 2 20cf rebreather tanks and 2 40cf bailout tanks for the entire weekend.

In The News

• Shark bites teen's hand in Florida (these shark "attacks" are as bad as a minor dog bite)
• Scientists to breed test-tube sharks
• Stories from the Graveyard of the Atlantic
• Mini-sub sailors recall nightmare
• Utah Cave Tragedy
• Red Tide Bloom Strikes Off Florida Coast
• Arctic ocean depths teeming with life

Upcoming Events

September 13 (Tue) -- Channel One Food Shelf volunteer night - 6-8pm

September 20 (Tue) -- Club meeting, grill-out, & park cleanup at Foster Arend - 6pm

September 23 - 25 (Fri - Sun) -- postponed from July -- DIR Fundamentals class. This is an excellent way to improve your diving skills. Check with MDC Sports for details.

See the calendar for other activities.