Presidents’ Messages - April 2012

Well, what do you know, I feel like I blinked, and now it's April. It really is spring! Or so those so-called experts (i.e., meteorologists) say. There's meaningless baseball on TV, soon to be replaced with meaningful baseball. And playoff hockey. Can't forget the hockey.

But also, it's getting closer to dive season, for those that believe there is such a thing. While I believe it's always dive season, I understand that not everyone agrees with that idea. Diving in the middle of winter in a wetsuit is completely normal.. Really. Sure, a dry suit is better, but a wetsuit works just fine, too. It builds character...or at least that's what I've been told...

Another sign of the impending dive season is dive show season. I'd like to thank everyone that came out and helped out at both Sea Rovers and the Boston Scuba Show. Always great to see a good turnout at both events.

There is also the joy of celebrating the new season with the Easter Egg dive (and party) coming up on the 15th! If we're lucky the weather will cooperate. But, then again, it may not. It is New England, after all, so who knows what we'll get! No matter what, I'm sure it will be a good time anyway.

On that note, a thank you goes to both Member of the Month Bill Werner and Diver of the Month Jack Munro for helping out at both shows.

Yours in diving,

Meg!

Please Welcome our Newest Club Member

Chuck Keller

of Rangely, ME, accepted on March 15

Coming Club Events

April 5: Jerry Shine-Presentation on “small stuff”.

April 19: Fred Dion of Backscatter-Presentation on underwater cameras.

April 21: Float Cleaning at PCYC

May 3: Helmet Diving – Paul Harling and Jack Munro presenters.

May 31: Barbara Warren of SSCW-Presentation on marine invasives.

NOTICE

Dues for 2012 are now overDUE.

In this Issue:
President’s Message	pg. 1
Meeting Summaries	pg. 2-4
Sea Rovers Show	pg. 4
Coming Events & Calendar	pg. 5-7
Review: March 8 presentation	pg. 8

The North Shore Frogmen’s Club

PO Box 3604

Peabody, MA 01961

2011 OFFICERS

President: Meg Tennissen Tel: (781) 724-0071

Email: macduff18@yahoo.com

Vice President: Lauren Byrne Email: laurenb5635@hotmail.com

Treasurer: Vinny Egizi Tel: (858) 342-3365

Email: vinnymass@yahoo.com

Secretary: Ellen Garvey Tel: 781-595-4978

Email: elleng@alumni.duke.edu

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Membership: Dan Hering membership@northshorefrogmen.com

Newsletter: Mary Howard

Tel: (781) 944-1292

Email: m.m.howard@comcast.net

Webmaster: Markus Diersbock

*Deadline for submissions* for the May 2012 issue

of Air Bubbles is

Thursday, April 26

Air Bubbles – April 2012

Meeting Summaries

1-Mar-2012

Meeting called to order: 8:09PM

Attendance: 1 Officer, 8 Members, 0 guests (Snow-Not a quorum; no business conducted)

Secretary: Business portion of minutes read and accepted

Treasurer: Compared w/ last year we are doing well and have more members.

Committees:

-Program:

-3/3-Bottle Dive, 9:30 at PCYC; in water 10AM, lunch at 12

-3/8-Faith Ortins will give a presentation

-Vin Malkoski has offered to do a presentation on human powered submarine races – book it! (Mary)

-Air Bubbles: went out electronically Tuesday.

Old Business:

-Sign up for float cleaning.

-Sea Rovers is a week from Sat; please sign up to man the booth.

New Business:

-A survey was sent to all active members. Will report on it next week.

-Dive this week: Bottle dive – see above.

General Discussion:

-Mike’s Moments:

-Where lionfish have invaded

Atlantic, they’ve cut reef fish by 90%.

Scientists have determined they shoot water at prey to stun them.

-Dept of Marine Fisheries got Fed grant; some salt water permit holders will be given cash reward for giving up permit, or be asked to pay more.

-San Francisco Zoo will be putting sharks in penguin exhibit (penguins will stay).

-Sec of Navy has offered Dawn a significant bonus if she’ll sign up for the navy (medical and dental professionals are in short supply)

Raffles:

Dollars Box: John Marren

Bug Bag: Hold til next week Mystery Prize: Dawn Denneler

8-Mar-2012

Meeting called to order: 8:06PM

Attendance: 3 Officers, 18 Members, 0 guests

Abbreviated meeting for Presentation: Faith Ortins gave a very interesting talk about her dive trip to the Philippines

Secretary: Business portion of minutes read and accepted

Committees:

- Program: Sea Rovers this weekend.

Old Business:

-Signup for float cleaning.

-Sea Rovers this weekend. We filled the manning of the booth

Dive Talk:

-Amy went diving in the river in Portsmouth. Lots of interesting flora&fauna; 70’ wall

-Bottle dive on Saturday. Bill, Gary, Graham arrived but decided to call it off (low vis, rainy).

-Faith went diving – full blown squid run in San Diego. Dolphins, birds, sea lions, seals. 400 pictures in 1 dive! Unbelievable mad orgies, non-stop sex.

General Discussion:

-Great write up on diving in New England in Salem News

-Fred Calhoun has donated 1 dive per week on Sunday from May through Nov

Raffles:

Dollars Box: Mary Howard

Bug Bag: Michael Donovan

Mystery Prize: Ray Porter

15-Mar-2012

Meeting called to order: 8:05PM

Attendance: 3 Officers, 15 Members, 0 guests

Secretary: Business portion of minutes read and accepted

Treasurer: Did well with the raffle at Sea Rovers booth.

Committees:

- Program:

-4/5-Jerry Shine presentation

-4/19-Fred Dion presentation

-4/15-Easter Egg Dive

-Sunday at Winter Island. Arrive at 9. In the water by 10.

-Mary’s cooking the eggs, Vinny’s laying them.

-Party will be at Meg’s – Maple Stout will be on tap. Warning – 8%.

-Other organizations’ events:

-Apr 1 - East Coast Divers (Shop) will be hosting an April Fool’s Day dive at White’s beach starting about

9:30AM. There will be a grill manned by EC Divers.

-Apr 17 – South Shore Neptunes Skindivers Club meeting at 7PM at their clubhouse in Quincy. They will have a presentation from folks from the Divers Down TV Show.

-Apr 25 – Bay State Council of Divers meeting at 7:30 PM at the Neptunes’ clubhouse in Quincy. There will be a presentation by June Stahl from Diveheart at this meeting. Diveheart is a non-profit organization that works with handicapped divers. We would like someone to represent NSF as Mary will be unable to attend. More information is available from their website at www.diveheart.org.

-Membership:

-3 renewals,1 new member at Sea Rovers

-Updated buddy list today

New Business:

-We accepted Chuck Keller as our newest member; he’s a PADI Rescue

Diver living in Rangely, Maine. Tony knows him.

-Video nite next week.

-There’s an excellent “frog” card for

Lauren to sign

General Discussion:

-Sea Rovers:

-Sea Hunt episodes were good, but technically problematic – need to work on it for next time

-Our booth pales in comparison to other clubs. Vinny will look into getting a used booth. We may want to take up collections to fund it.

Air Bubbles – April 2012

We’ll also bring all the stuff we already have and see what it looks like.

-Thanks to the people who manned and supported the booth:

Vinny Egizi

Steve Morse

Mary Howard

Tony Viera

Bill Werner

Adam Harnett

Jack Munro

John Marren

Ellen Garvey

Claus Schmidt

Mike Donovan

-NSF Raffle Prizes were awarded to:

-Mike MacDonal - the wheeled bag donated by Bob Boyle – he took it to Cozumel Tuesday!

-Larry Dufour - Sunday Dive with Fred Calhoun. Ellen’s in contact w/ him by email; he’ll choose his date

-Rich Bowers - Glass jellyfish. He's a Neptune.

-Roslyn won the DUI underwear! Entered raffle by wearing DUI gear to Sea Rovers.

-Dive this week: meet at BK at 9 on Sunday

-Mike’s Moments:

-A Polish man likes to wind surf. Last year he went across Baltic Sea. Tried to cross Red Sea this year – 200 miles offshore there was no wind. He was rescued by Egyptian coast guard

-There was a supermoon a month before before the titanic went down; there’s a theory that it dislodged icebergs

-Amityville horrors revolver was found 4’ down under muck

-There’s a new species of spotted bottom dwelling shark found at

Galapagos. About 2’ long.

-A jet went off the end of a runway in Atlanta this week. Mike talked to Darryl Rawley who works at Logan; he thinks they were doing engine parameter tests and forgot to set the brakes.

-There was a new species of frog found near Yankee stadium. Concerning because the first thing

that mutates around nuclear power plants are frogs.

-The bell for the Costa Concordia was stolen. It’s believed to have been stolen by divers since it is guarded

by several organizations.

Raffles:

Dollars Box: John Marren

Bug Bag: Roslyn Smith (Sunday dive on Easy Diver – you pick the Sunday – early dates please!)

Mystery Prize: Jack Munro

22-Mar-2012

Meeting called to order: 8:06PM

Attendance: 3 Officers, 13 Members

Secretary: Business portion of minutes read and accepted

Treasurer:

- 92 members

Committees:

- Program: – see website for details

New Business:

-Soon we’ll be collecting info on who’s going to be in Vermont so we can give Pat and Annette a rough count.

Dive Talk:

-Graham, Vinny, Jeff Lynch, and Gary Michaud went to Winter Island. It was awful. 2-4’ vis. All 4 lost their buddies – some in 1’ of water. Lots of starfish – they were eating sea clams and other things. This is where we’re proposing to go for Easter dive – perhaps need to reconsider. Photos of

Jeff’s hair and Graham’s non-hair were shared.

-Claus did free dive clinic at Sea Rovers. Very interesting. 1 hour classroom – that was worth it along. Then pool. Before the class he could hold his breath 45 seconds. After the class he did 3.5 minutes.

-Dive this week: no takers

General Discussion:

-Reminder - be sure to have your numbers on your tank. Vinny was snagged last year. I fyou have multiple takns, you may want to use magnetic numbers.

-A dead porpoise washed ashore outside the House of Seven Gables in Salem on Sunday. Ellen was the NEAq volunteer called to take data. It

was a young (3.5’) female Harbor

Porpoise.

-Mike’s Moments:

-4K pound Minke whale washed up on Crane’s beach.

-Exxon Valdez has been sold for scrap

-$16M!

-Jeff had his picture in Salem paper Raffles

Dollars Box: Vinny

Bug Bag: Gary Michaud (Reflector Kit)

Mystery Prize: Jeff Lynch (wine)

Movie/Online video night tonight

Diver of the Month

for April 2012

Jack Munro

.

Member of the Month

for April 2012

Bill Werner

.

Air Bubbles – April 2012

Boston Sea Rovers

The Boston Sea Rovers “Clinic” was again a great show, with interesting talks from people who really know and love their stuff. How about a trip on a refurbished tugboat diving the inland passage from Vancouver to Alaska? Or diving in Raja Ampat in the Coral Triangle? It was all there!

And so were the NSF booth and Club members!

Photos are courtesy of Vinny Egizi and his “smart” phone.

Coming Events:

April Fools’ Day Dive

East Coast Divers will be holding an April Fools’ Day Dive on April Fools’ Day (4/1/12) at White’s

Beach in Manchester. Start at about 9:30. All are welcome to attend. There will be a grill going to warm you up afterwards.

Divers Down at Neptunes

The South Shore Neptunes will have a presentation at their April 17 meeting by folks from the Divers Down TV show. You are invited to attend this meeting.

Their meetings are held on the 3rd Tuesday of the month at their clubhouse in Quincy, corner of Quarry Street and Joyce Road.

Bay State Council of Divers

The next meeting of the Bay State Council of Divers is scheduled for Wednesday April 25, 2012 at the South

Shore Neptunes’ Clubhouse in Quincy at 7:30PM.

There will be a presentation by June Stahl of Diveheart, a non-profit organization that teaches handicapped divers and their companions.

All are invited to attend these meetings

See http://www.baystatecouncil.org for more information on the Bay State Council.

Northeastern University

Marine Science Center Lecture Series

All lectures take place in the Murphy Bunker at the Marine Science Center. Light refreshments will be served half an hour before the start of the program, and most lectures last for 1-1.5 hours. The MSC is ADA-accessible, and no reservations are required.

ANNUAL RISER LECTURE

Friday, April 27, 2012 at 4:00pm

Dr. Nancy Knowlton, Sant Chair for Marine Biology Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History

http://www.northeastern.edu/marinescience

Sharks of

Massachusetts Lecture

On Monday, April 23, 2012, at 7 pm in Slater Lecture Hall (Meier Hall 444), the Salem State University Scuba Club will host Sharks of Massachusetts, a presentation by John Chisholm, Shark Biologist, MA Division of Marine Fisheries. Light refreshments will be served.

This event is free and open to the public


Slater Lecture Hall is located on the 4th Floor of Meier Hall (Room 444) on the North Campus of Salem State University. Meier Hall is on Lafayette Street next to the SSU Theatre.

From Ted Maney

Upcoming Club Presentations

April 5: Who says size matters? In a seemingly infinite ocean world, a lot of the most interesting stuff is less than an inch in length. Jerry Shine will take a look at some of it in a talk on macro New England. He also told me he will be bringing copies of his amazing new book, Nudibranchs of the Northeast.

April 19: Fred Dion of Backscatter will give us a presentation on underwater photographic equipment and techniques.

May 3: Paul Harling of the Dive Locker and our own Jack Munro will give a presentation on Helmet Diving.

May 31: Barbara Warren of Salem Sound Coastwatch will come and speak to us about marine invasive species in our area. These are animals and plants we can expect to see diving here in New England.

June ??: Vin Malkoski of the MA Devision of Marine Fisheries will talk to us about the Human Powered Submarine Races held in Maryland every other year.

More to come!!

Edible Mushrooms of Boston’s North Shore

April 10, 2012, 6:30pm North Parish Church

3 Great Pond Rd, North Andover Donation: $10

A talk by Dugie Russell, veteran professional wild mushroom forager

Dugie Russell of Beverly provided wild edible mushrooms for numerous local restaurants for many years. Now retired, Dugie is an engaging speaker. He will share some of his adventures foraging mushrooms, and talk about how to identify and collect wild mushrooms safely. Check out his web page at www.creationsbydugie.com.

We hope Dugie’s talk is the first of many.

Best mushroom collecting is in late summer and fall.

We’ll be organizing forays later this year to collect and identify choice edible mushrooms, and the first foray will be led by Dugie.

Join us for this talk and sign up for our email list!

Questions? Contact Liz Anderson at 978-474-9283 herblizard@comcast.net

WHITE MOUNTAIN EXPRESS

Ride with us to your favorite ski/ride area. $80 includes round trip bus ride (Haverhill exit 49), coffee and doughnuts (up), movie (both ways), après ski party and a good time by all! Jan & Feb schedule:

Apr 4 - Sunday River-cookout Atomic/Volkl/Nordica/

Salomon/Fischer/Rossignol/Blizzard *

* Ski brand name indicates free demo days sponsored by Buchika’s

Ski shop

Reservations are required and are secured with a deposit; call 978-346-8667. (John Ferrier regularly goes on these trips; contact him with your questions.)

Presentation March 8:

(Review by Dodie Carvalho)

Faith Ortins on diving in the Philippines

Faith gave us a fantastic presentation on March 8 about her dive trip to the Philippines. Her husband’s pictures were wonderful. Jeff used a digital camera for the first time, a Nikon D200 in a small housing.

They flew from LA to Hong Kong to Manila for a cost of about $900 on Cathay Pacific; a 15 ½ hour flight. And then went on to Puerto Galera and the Atlantis Dive Resort where they spent 9 days, and where the street is the beach. The cost for the 9 days at the all- inclusive resort was $1650/person.

Most dives were only a 5 minute boat ride from the hotel; the longest boat ride was 15 minutes. Faith mentioned that they used a poker to hold their place for pictures, as they had current on about half of their dives. When doing the local dives, you were taken out in a small boat (there were many anchored right off shore) and there was a dinghy driver and divemaster on the boat. The deepest dive Faith and Jeff did was 110 feet, but that was the exception.

They also took two side trips to Verde Island (a one hour boat ride) with diver to staff ratio of one to one. These were wall dives, and they did three dives each day, with a barbecue on land between dives.

The waters are full of life, the variety and number of species is phenomenal. This location in the coral triangle has the highest density of species in the world and they continually discover new species. I list some of Faith’s descriptions of the diving:

nudibranch heaven

incredible colors

colorful hermit crabs

gobi/shrimp relationship

anemone shrimp at 40 - 140 feet

electric clam

nasty clown/anemone fish (tried to bite divers)

lots of puffer fish - porcupine puffers

morays

ribbon eels

many varieties of lion fish

flying fish

poisonous cat fish

nose-standing sea snakes (poisonous)

4’ sponges (deep)

huge sea fans

massive schools of tropical fish

frog fish, dinner plate sized

leaf scorpion fish

crabs with incredible camouflage

seahorses

ghost pipe fish

crocodile fish

flamboyant cuttle fish (2 - 5” long, one 3 feet long!)

mimic octopus (changes both color and shape to camouflage itself)

The staff was great, the food was excellent, and there is a great spa with inexpensive massages ($25 per hour)! The rooms are fantastic, with private decks and sauna. You do have to climb stairs for the rooms with the best views.

Faith and Jeff took a Jeepney tour in Manila, and said it was beautiful – the parks, the people, and the city itself. They went to a WWII cemetery and the Walled City. On a side trip in Puerto Galera area they saw ox carts in the streets and a long, beautiful suspension bridge.

Faith said that if we’d like to make a club trip, she would hook us up with Ernie who could make the arrangements for our group.

Can you identify this Froggy?

The Bay State Council of Divers

Supporting and promoting the recreational diving community in Massachusetts.

The Bay State Council of Divers (BSC) is a diver’s advocacy group. The BSC monitors local, state and federal regulations that may affect the recreational diving community in Massachusetts. When required, the BSC represents the interests of the diving community in these matters.

The BSC serves as a liaison between dive clubs and dive stores to promote recreational diving activity in Massachusetts. All divers are encouraged to support the BSC with an annual contribution of $5. Your contribution will allow the BSC to continue to be a strong advocate for the recreational diving community in Massachusetts.

For more information see the new BSC website at

http://www.baystatecouncil.org

Your NSF Club Dues are now

DUE!!

Consider yourself notified.

42 Water St.

Beverly MA

978-927-9551

DIVE@underseadivers.com

2012 Hours:

Tue-Fri 10-6, Sat 9-5, Sun 9-3

Sales  Service  Rentals

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