The Snorkel Keeper

the official newsletter of the

Rochester Scuba & Snorkel Club

Rochester, Minnesota USA
RochesterScuba.org
President: David Merbach Treasurer: Dan Lovik
Vice President: Bob Silbaugh Editor: Roger Southwick
Volume 18 Issue 7 November - December 2007
This issue is best viewed on the web with Internet Explorer:
http://RochesterScuba.org/newsletters/200711
Next meeting:
Saturday January 12th 2008

Holiday Party!

RochesterScuba.org

Notes from the October meeting

We recognized some recent accomplishments within the club:

  • Ben Van Steinberg completed his nitrox certification.
  • Bou Gazley and Mark Ramler both completed their Advanced Open Water certifications.
Congratulations!

Amanda White from MDC Sports presented the club with a plaque from PADI for our participation in the park cleanup at Foster Arend.

Frank Evans is sponsoring another trip for "Project Cozumel" from 16-23 February 2008. You can volunteer to help put roofs on homes in Cozumel and get time to dive, too! Contact Frank if you're interested: frankevans AT charter DOT net.

Feature Presentation

The main speaker for the night was Dr Paul Claus, who along with Dr Rob Fuqua described Mayo Clinic's new hyperbaric chamber. It sounds like quite an impressive one: it's a multiplace chamber, and rather than being tube-shaped it's rectangular so it looks more like a hospital room -- this is reassuring to patients. It has large doors to accomodate equipment such as hospital beds. The chamber can even be operated as a hypobaric (low-pressure) chamber to assist with high-altitude studies.

The chamber is useful for many types of treatments. In addition to diving-related maladies such as decompression sickness and arterial gas embolism (for which the only effective treatment is recompression), problems with poor blood flow and carbon monoxide poisoning are treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

The chamber was installed starting in July 2007 and will go on-line in mid-December for hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) and in March 2008 for DCS treatments.

Dr Claus also mentioned their tympanometer, which can be used to simulate external pressure on the eardrum to assist people in learning how to equalize their ears. It can also measure how much you're over-doing it. He might bring it to a future scuba club meeting.

If you're interested in touring the chamber, see the notice (later in this issue) about the special meeting on Friday December 21st.

Notes from the November meeting

We held elections for our 2008 officers, and here are the results:
President: Bob Silbaugh
Vice-President: Amanda White
Treasurer: Dan Lovik
Editor: Roger Southwick

David Merbach described a fun time of underwater games in the pool: "Girls' Night Under".

Roger Southwick presented a brief slideshow on a tech-diving trip to Isle Royale.

We discussed possible activities for 2008; some of the ideas were Gilboa Quarry in Ohio, trip to Florida for cavern diving and some dives on the Oriskany, Bonne Terre Mine in Missouri, Thunder Bay Ontario, Pigeon Point Minnesota (tech dive for old whiskey bottles that were dumped by smugglers during prohibition), and local trips with our Zodiac boat. If you think of other possible activities, please let us know!

NO REGULAR MEETING IN DECEMBER

SPECIAL MEETING Friday December 21st

Doctors Stanimir Vuk-Pavlovic and Paul Claus (Vuk and Paul) are starting a clinical trial in the use of hyperbaric oxygen for mobilization of white blood cells for blood and marrow transplantation. They would like to recruit volunteers from the Rochester dive community.

There will be a special meeting on Friday, December 21st regarding this study.

This meeting will include a tour of the new Mayo Clinic Hyperbaric Chamber. This may be the only opportunity to tour this facility as a group, because public tours will not be possible after major operations begin in late December.

NOTE: Even if you are not interested in participating in the study, you can still come and tour the hyperbaric facility.

Location:

The meeting will start at the Mayo Clinic, Charlton Building North, Desk LP, Friday December 21st at 5:30PM, with a tour of the new Mayo Clinic Hyperbaric Chamber.

After the tour the club will move to the Holiday Inn South meeting room. There Vuk will give a presentation on the new study and Paul will go over the details of what will be required from the volunteers.

Please RSVP to rjsilbaugh AT charter DOT net if you plan on attending
OR
Email Vuk at vuk AT mayo DOT edu if you are interested in participating in the study but can't attend.

January Meeting Agenda

There is no regular 3rd Tuesday meeting in January. Instead it's the annual Holiday Party! Saturday January 12th 6:30pm at the Holiday Inn South, Rochester.

Call for Photos

If you have some photos of diving-related activities from this year, please consider including them in the slideshow at the year-end winter holiday party. Contact Roger Southwick by email (rsouthwick AT charter DOT net) for details.

Thunder Bay, Ontario

photos by Roger Southwick

Well, you can't say we didn't try. Bad weather and boat problems conspired to keep us out of the water and in the pub at Boston Pizza, but it was still great fun.

Dan, Joseph, and Sam don't realize it yet, but this first dive will be the only dive of the trip!

We dealt with a dead boat battery (have you ever jump-started a boat?) and launched into rain and wind, then we crossed over to Victoria Island to dive on the Howard. The waves were about 5-6 feet and pretty scary, but things calmed down behind the island at the wreck site. We decided to dive in 2 teams instead of all at once, in case the anchor got dislodged -- at least someone could operate the boat. Dives were limited to 30 minutes so we didn't need to worry so much about worsening conditions. After all, this was just the first dive of many planned over the next five days, so a short checkout dive would be fine.

The dock seemed especially high this year, since the lake level is down about 2 feet.
Setting out on the ill-fated trip to Silver Islet.
Our engines were possessed by demons! First they ran very rough, then one of them quit, then the hydraulic lift for the running engine malfunctioned and pulled the prop up, spraying water high into the air. Eventually we got the other engine started and limped back to the dock.
Relieved at finally gliding up to the dock, we gasped with disbelief at the sound of the tube being punctured by a small nail.
We got the motors fixed (turns out: not really) and the tube repaired, so we headed up to Terrace Bay. We got skunked there too -- bad weather, high winds at 7am, big waves, no diving.
On the last day, we decided to take the boat out for a checkout run. Look at that nice patch on the tube! It's hardly noticeable. But it did hold air.
We tooled around Thunder Bay, south of the harbors and into the Kaministiquia River. It's apparently the soft industrial underbelly of the city. We got to see some big freight ships up close.
"Let's impress them with our tight turning radiuuuus!"
Perfect weather for the drive home -- of course. We toured the ship William A Irvin in Duluth, which was pretty interesting, especially with several rooms like the dining room and galley set up for a spook house, with fake carcasses and blood everywhere.
Fun quiz! Q: How many octopi does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: 1/8

Turkey Dive 2007

photos by Roger and Kate Southwick

There were only four of us this year, but 75% went diving! We spent a weekend in Bayfield Wisconsin the last weekend in October, and it was beautiful. The weather was cool, clear, and sunny the whole time -- just perfect for drysuit diving. Tim even managed to stay warm in a wetsuit. We hiked around town and rode the ferry over to Madeline Island, where the big pub on the island was almost the only thing open, and it was full of locals. The Goose Island Ale was awesome too.

We didn't actually make a turkey dinner. We tried to get into Maggie's but they had already closed, so we just went to Morty's Pub for some great bar burgers and fish sammitches.

On our last day we lazed around on the shore, watching a pair of AT-6 Texans (WWII-era trainer aircraft) fly over the islands. We also checked out some nice new condos (only $360K!) and stopped in Duluth to eat way too much food at Little Angie's Cantina.

We geared up behind the Bodin Fishery building.
There's a nice little public beach and pier.
Beautiful day for diving!
They really shouldn't leave fire axes on unattended car ferries.
Soaking up some rays on a beautiful late-October day.
Traditional Turkey Dive Rock Towers.

Day-Before-Thanskgiving Dive at Wazee

photos by Roger Southwick

Who says that local diving stops after Labor Day? Dave Owen, Rich Good, and Lonnie Tucker drove from Rochester to meet me at Wazee on a cold Wednesday morning. The only other people near the lake wore orange clothing and carried guns, but we had the lake to ourselves.

The water was 46F, which was nice & warm compared to the cold breeze above the surface.

Dave refuses to play "Show us Your Socks".
Rich and Dave
Dave
Lonnie
Rich sneaks up on some silt.
Dave hovers near some shrubbery on the west wall.
Lonnie
Dave

In the News

Upcoming Events

Dec 21 (Fri)
SPECIAL MEETING: Mayo Hyperbaric Chamber Tour and medical study info
-- contact Bob Silbaugh for details
Jan 12 (Sat)
Holiday Party!

See the calendar for other activities.

Club Information

Meetings are on the third Tuesday evening of each month at Holiday Inn South, 1630 South Broadway, Rochester MN.

Annual dues are due each January. Annual memberships are $25 for individuals or $50 for a family. Follow the directions on this form to renew.

Have you been on any dive trips lately? We'd love to publish your stories and photos! (Seriously.) Contact the editor if you'd like to contribute: Roger Southwick rsouthwick AT charter.net

Get your $75 annual Lake Wazee pass for $50 - fill out this form.

More info is available:
http://RochesterScuba.org