Misconceptions

So, I have been teaching a rescue course today (and we taught the Emergency First Response course on Thursday ... basically PADI's first aid course). The student is an excellent student. She's already an accomplished diver and very good in the water, which makes it a hundred times easier for us, obviously. She's also advised us that she can have a tough time absorbing information and so she has made copious notes during her study for the course. I think she's a little harsh on herself, as she has been outstanding, even in the classroom portion. Anyway, enough of the praise, that wasn't the point I set out to make.

What I wanted to talk about what was the reluctance that many people have in taking the rescue diver course. I think it boils down to a fear that they will become responsible for other people and will have to be much more involved in the management and control of other divers.

Admittedly, there is an element of becoming a rescue diver that will make you more aware of other divers around you and of potential problems that may arise. And yes, admittedly, if an issue arises, you may be one of the more qualified people to step in to save the day, but these should be seen as positive things. The reality is that overall, being a rescue diver will not change your dive experiences in any dramatic way. And, God forbid, if something bad was to happen during a dive trip, you'd be able to step in and help instead of standing there like a lemon and watching a potential travesty unfold.

More importantly, the course is a huge step in the natural progression of a diver. It increases one's confidence immensely and also gives a diver an opportunity to work on known skills, as well as introduce a few new helpful ones. Learning to more effectively control your own buoyancy, in addition to that of another person means that you will generally be a more efficient diver regardless.

Personally, I find the rescue diver course to be one of the most rewarding, both from the perspective of the student and of the instructor. Not only that, but despite sounding cheesy and like a PADI advertisement, it really is a fun course. Even the victim DM's get to have a laugh on the course.

Let's face it too. If you weren't certified as a rescue diver and your dive buddy got into an emergency situation, you'd still try to help them out. You wouldn't stop and then take off from a fear of being responsible or possibly liable. At least, I think most people would try to do something rather than watching something horrible happen. And wouldn't it be a better situation if you stepped in and knew at least some rescue fundamentals than nothing at all?

Sadly, it's still a highly under-rated course and one I would love to see more people take.

Not only that, but we have just acquired some freaking awesome new CPR mannequins! They have lights!! It's so cool, the lights tell you if the rate and the pressure of the CPR is at the optimal rate.....slick, eh?

Have fun kids and don't kneel on the spiny sea urchins...they don't like it and neither will you!

Sorry for the Delay.....

So the weird thing that most of you likely missed is the big gorilla that walked through the middle of the screen!! Watch it again.....I know you don't believe me. The video illustrates the concept of "Inattentional Blindness". Basically, we focus so intently on something, we aren't able to see the most obvious and glaring issue directly in front of our eyes.

This came up recently in something totally unrelated to the Toronto Scuba Club or diving generally, but while I was dealing with it, it reminded me of something completely dive-focused.

Most of you who have dived are aware of the phenomena of Nitrogen Narcosis. The situation where the nitrogen build-up in our systems has a slightly narcotic effect at a certain depth which in turn makes us feels slightly tipsy. Well, it strikes me that the effects that nitrogen narcosis have on us can be the same as inattentional blindness. You see, one of the major concerns of nitrogen narcosis is that we can lose focus on the many things we need to pay attention to as we dive and become fixated on something inconsequential. Inattentional Blindness creates the same effect......

It's cool how issues interrelate and apply to diving nonetheless. Is it just me that thinks this.....

So? How many?

There were 13 direct passes between the players in white. But, did any of you notice anything unusual?

Still working on rant, but in the meantime...

I'm still working on a more substantial blog, but I thought I'd talk briefly about a very cool phenomena that I was made aware of today, that of Inattentional Blindness.

You see, I am preparing for a certain legal discussion and it was suggested to me that I should raise the issue of Inattentional Blindness. So, I decided to research this a little bit.

Here's a test that you can try and then tomorrow or so, I will explain further. For now, simply watch the video at the following link: http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php . Watch the video ONLY ONCE. Your task in watching the video is to pay close attention to the white team as they pass the basketball. Please count only direct passes between the players in white, DO NOT count bounce passes. Let me know if you like, but at least remember how many direct passes there were between the players in white only.

What has this got to do with diving? Something very critical actually. I will discuss the diving connection soon and come back to this video....

Time flies....

Ok, I've been a bit slack on the old blogging for a week or so. It's been a busy time, personally and from a business perspective, but still, there's no real excuse for not having posted anything since November.....especially as we're now in December!!

So, I will make amends over the next week....perhaps not tonight, Josephine, because I've had a physical weekend of work, but over the coming week. I actually feel a bit of a rant coming on about the use of English in today's pop culture and silly cheesy lines in incredibly weak songs, so perhaps that might make an appearance.

That discussion will likely be in contrast with PADI's materials, because I am constantly apologizing about the shockingly cheesy and oft-outdated materials that PADI uses. It's a fine line I am tempted to investigate...the use of user-friendly terms at the expense of grammar and perhaps at the risk of trivializing some very key concepts through the use of throw-away language.

Before we jump on this bandwagon, I acknowledge that a week or so ago I was questioning the use of Second Life as a medium for instructor updates, so my forthcoming rant may be a tad contradictory. It is, however, one I am commonly frustrated by.

In any event......I hope to post soon!

Second Life in Training??

Have any of you heard of Second Life? Some of you more game-geek enthusiasts out there (and I include myself in that number), will undoubtedly have heard of it. And some of you CSI afficionados may recall a few episodes of CSI: NY, which included a ridiculous story involving an assassin who also had an "avatar" in Second Life, an avatar through which the intrepid team of bad actors tried to corner and capture her with.

Anyway, Second Life is an online and free alternative reality. Free in the sense that it is "free" to join and generally "free" to continue to interact with, but which eventually you need to pay to use for various attributes and accessories that the game engenders.

Basically, the concept is that you create an "Avatar" (which is an interesting use of the word, as it actually means a manifestation or incarnation of a deity. I think, in fact, that it's origins are Hindu [someone can check this as I may be marginally off] and refers to the earthly embodiment of Vishnu, so its weird that you create a character to represent you in a virtual world and use a word meaning a godly incarnation in doing so....taking "for the love of God" to a whole new meaning). The avatar then gets to wander around and "live" in a virtual world. This virtual world is simply crazy to people who aren't into gaming worlds that much, but it is so popular that many institutions have created online presences in the Second Life world (including embassies, companies [BMW, Cisco, Caldwell Banker...etc etc.] and organizations).

PADI has decided to jump on board. In fact, they've even created a PADI centre on an island they've specifically created for people to go virtual diving from:

And you can indeed go virtual diving:

From what I have seen, the world that you can virtually explore is, however, a tad dull.....I know there's some crappy diving to be found, but that terrain above looks awfully boring. I think it is kind of creepily interesting though that someone feels the need to include a nitrox tank on a virtual dive....

What is even stranger is that I found out today that PADI is now using their Second Life presence as part of the continuing educational updates that all PADI instructors are expected to complete on an annual basis! I was completing one of the sections of the update online today. The updates used a few hypothetical scenarios wherein a hypothetical instructor took certain actions. The point was to highlight some of the do and do nots that instructors must be cognizant of from a risk management perspective. Well they used avatars in Second Life to demonstrate the scenarios!!

I'm of two minds....it was such a cool idea and a novel use of technology as a teaching aid. It was also sort of surreal, obviously artificial and easy to lose focus. So I don't know if I love it or hate it. Would you find it easier to learn when you are being taught by a virtual teacher? The voice overs were also incredibly lame and totally didn't fit the characters they used as the avatars...

The dive world is getting cooler and weirder.....

Keep it reel (spelt wrong on purpose, all you pedantically-minded vultures) ... or is that, "keep it virtually real"?

Carbon Footprint Diving?

Ok....I'll get to the subject of this posting in a minute....but before I do, I just wanted to get a shout-out to Will and George for storming through their Open Water class and pool two weekends ago; Chris for completing his e-Learning course this past Thursday; Lorne and Daniel for simply acing their class and pool this past weekend; and, Susan and Tom for showing me they already knew what they were doing! And on top of all, our Advanced weekends are filling up fast....six of the guys mentioned above are all in for the fun and games next summer!

Here's what we'll be having a look at!!

Ok.......so on to Helicopter Diving. I just read about this. Basically, you get to go diving like a navy SEAL would. You gear up (obviously not putting on your fins) and get in the chopper. Yup, fully geared, mask, snorkel, wetsuit, BCD, regs and air on. You clip your fins to your BCD and sit in the back of the helicopter. The chopper then ferries you out to a dive site, you hang of the step-rail on the bottom of the helicopter, held by a dude inside. On the opposite side your divebuddy is doing the same. Simultaneously, the guys in the chopper release you and your buddy about 7-10 feet from the water (it has to be simultaneously so that the chopper doesn't tip). You hit the water, fin up and off you go. When you finish your dive, a zodiak zips out and picks you up. I assume that either you are expected to be within a short distance of the dive site or they have some sort of GPS on you.

Sounds cool, right? Sounds very exciting. It also makes me shake my head in wonder and amazement, but from disgust, not from envy.

Now scuba diving isn't a massively environmentally impactful sport (except when divers attempt to take bits of coral, or smash into corals or generally act inappropriately), but it does have some impact. At the same time, scuba divers who believe in green diving and trying to promote a healthy reef system usually do more than anyone else on that conservation front. I know that I highly encourage diving clean-ups, whereby we pick up trash from boaters, fishermen or whoever else thinks that our oceans and waterways are handy refuse tips. And if I see sea life being damaged or injured by a man-made material (i.e. fishnets), I usually try to alleviate it if I can.

So, when I hear of helicopter diving, I can only shake my head. One helicopter, burning how much fuel, to take two scuba divers out to a dive site? And then a zodiak being sent out to pick them up? I can't even fathom how much bigger a carbon footprint a person is making by engaging in such sport. Sure, I think it sounds cool, but I'll not do it because of its impact!

I seriously hope other people think of it in the same way, but I have a nasty feeling most people will simply not care enough.

Ah well, enough of a rant for today....

One quick note, we're running a Rescue Diver Course on Dec. 19/20...if you're interested in getting your Rescue Diver, let us know!

Last but not least, congratulations to my 10 year old niece, Sarah, who just finished her Junior Open Water Diver certification!!! I'll come dive with you soon, Sarah!

Death And Taxes

As the French would say, "Le Big Sigh" (shhhhhh all you French speakers out there....what they don't know won't hurt them). Although it is not tax season, the Toronto Scuba Club is deep in the midst of preparing its taxes. Our accountant, a lovely man, is heading off for the winter to the warmer climes of the southern U.S. Yes, he has become the quintessential snowbird (and no, not the daredevil flying kind). Accordingly, as he buggers off at the beginning of next month, the Toronto Scuba Club must have all of its paperwork and excel spreadsheet of tax pain in order prior to his departure.

Can we say procrastination? Well, to be fair, no, we can't. We can say working on some awesome ideas for our avid dive fans. We could also say working on some new plans for various educational institutions. Regardless of the various pots on the boil, the outcome, nonetheless is the same.....I haven't got our taxes finished and the clock is a-ticking down. Time to buckle down and get 'em done.

Thus.....

Le Sigh.

A few more people working their way through the scuba world in the last few days, congrats to Will, George and Chris. Also a big warm welcome to Danielle, our new DMT (Divemaster in Training, for those who were a tad confused there) and a congrats to surviving her first OW sit-in and assist. A few more congrats will be shortly forthcoming over the next few days.

And I have hit a conundrum....One half of the Toronto Scuba Club principals is off for some fun in the sun in January. The initial choice was Honduras, but then the Toronto Scuba Club's good friend, Scott (famed by Departures) suggested Brazil ... now I really want to go to Brazil! The diving there is simply fantastic:

.....except in January!!! Dammit.

Look like it is back to Roatan.....still not too shabby:

Bumbling Along

A new week, a new challenge.....

Second week of the e-Learning course and first week of a throat infection...yeah, H1N1 meets Toronto Scuba Club diving.....

Ok, ok, I don't have H1N1, but I do have a poorly throat.....breathing pressurized air still sucks (ha, sucks, get it...ok, I have to stop that) with a rough throat. Ah well.

And it looks like we'll be running a rescue diver course soon. If you have an interest in the course, let me know soon.....

As I mentioned yesterday, Peter and I have been working on updating the website, but we also have our eyes set on a few new projects....unfortunately, given the small size of the industry here in Toronto, we have to keep hush hush for now....

Of course, you all know about our Papua New Guinea proposed trip, so there is that I can mention.....please remember to let me know if you are interested...

Other than that, just a quick look-see posting today....will be back in a couple of days....

It's a gorgeous day today, so don't forget to try and pop outside to see that little stingRay of sunshine......

Happy Children and Online Learning

Hello, hello,


Sorry for the delay in posting....this past week was very very busy. First of all, we made some changes to the website over the first part of the week. Challenge of the new week for you: see if you can figure out the pages we made the changes to!


I also spent a fair bit of time making the presentation for the kids at Bloorview Kids Rehab as good as I could, but in the end a massive amount of props goes out to my two greatest heroes of the week (who saved my bacon).....Danielle Spenard and Christina Dabrowski!!


Christina not only helped me working on my presentation, but on top of that she made the most AWESOME boxfish you can imagine....well, why imagine? Here's the proof:


Seriously, COOL fish. Thank you sooooooo much, Christina!! You were awesome and thanks for all of the support in the last couple of weeks. And thank you for the little diver dude too, the kids loved it.


Danielle. Well, what can I say? She was a superstar. Danielle helped me co-present the whole thing. Not only that, but she met me on the Thursday for three hours to iron out some of the wrinkles; she made an octopus cake which her mum and dad decorated while she was at school all night; then she made more cake and decorated it at 1:00 a.m. when we found out we didn't have 6 kids to present to, but any where from 14 to 21; and, then we headed up to the school at 9 in the morning on Friday to set-up for the show.


Time was precious too on Wednesday and Thursday....Wednesday I had meetings galore (oh yeah......we have new stickers for the tanks!! These ones look great and they actually look like they'll stand up to the wear and tear of training and diving)....


Thursday was also our inaugural week-night class and our first e-Learning course candidate! It went great. E-Learning is definitely the way of the future, but I have to admit, it's a little odd getting used to it. The student turns up and is ready to go....but it's hard to tell exactly where they are in their understanding of the materials that they have covered. It's almost like a leap of faith for the instructor....you have to hope that they know what you are talking about as you start their pool session. Or perhaps it is more like testing the waters (ha, get the pun?)? I felt like I had to frequently probe the student as I proceeded from skill to skill to make sure they understood the material that covered the various attributes that the skills related to.


Anyway, e-Learning is undoubtedly going to be the way that the sport progresses, but the transition from knowing the student's level of understanding through classroom interaction to hoping they get it from their online studying, is simply strange. Regardless, our first class went well.


Then I got to go home and work late into the night finishing off the presentation.


I think the kids loved it. If you haven't popped onto our facebook page, you won't have seen the pics, so here are a select few......we could only take pictures of a certain number of the kids due to privacy concerns, so unfortunately you won't get to see the whole class:




I think Danielle also had fun....but more than that, she covered my butt when I needed a segue. We made a great team and there was a ton of interaction with the kids. The teachers were overly grateful (I've always felt shy receiving thanks) and they told us that the presentation was one of the best they've seen. They encouraged us to take the presentation on the road!! Danielle....you know it was your participation that made the presentation work for me.....thank you again!!


The only problem with that is that we left "Benny" the Boxfish in the kids' make-believe underwater reef...

....so if we do it again, Christina get your model-making hands back at it!! Oh....and did I say thanks, Christina?


Ok, I'll leave it there for now, I may have lost some of you about five or so paragraphs back.....


Keep it Eel everyone....

Squares, tasters and Spooky times

What better time to post a blog entry than while I am waiting for the scuba-truck to have it's annual check-up so that it can carry your gear for another year?

A fun time was had at Club Night last night. My spanky new swim-through squares were inaugurated through the pool, we had a low-light session and Peter initiated a couple of fun and challenging games for those members who wanted to push themselves a little.

Let's start with the squares, because they were, well, really cool. Why? Because I made them. Ok, ok, they weren't so cool, but they were beautifully crafted and they did provide our newer divers with a good chance to work on their buoyancy skills to successfully float through the squares without getting entangled. And to make it a little more fun for our newer divers, we started with a fairly large square, which was then replaced twice with two smaller squares. Our divers still did great and made it through all of the squares easily.

To mix it up a little more, we even had everyone trying it backwards. Yes, predictably that was a little tougher.

One of our intrepid members also brought their u/w camera with them, so hopefully there were one or two shots that we can post when she shares them with us. Thanks, Christina, for bringing the funk!

Peter's games were a lot of fun for the participants, effectively a derivation of the stress tests used to push the skills of divemasters-in-training. For instance, our divers removed their gear, which was then strewn around the pool on the bottom. Without mask, fins, or weights, our divers then had to race to recover their gear and determine in which order that could best be accomplished. Mask first? Or fins? I think everyone went with mask first. Congratulations, Danielle on winning that race, I hope your half-pint of victory tasted sweet!

Peter and I raised the possibility of changing our Club Night venue to the Etobicoke Olypium swimming pool in the future. The pool there is 17 feet deep (instead of 10 feet deep) and would, accordingly, offer a better environment for our newer divers to really work on their buoyancy skills without popping to the surface. I'll ask on Facebook too, but similarly put the question to you here: would you travel to the Etobicoke Olypium for the Club Night once a month? It is approximately at Rutherford and the 427. Please let me know your thoughts by popping me an email on our website. Admittedly, it is a little more hassle to get to than downtown Toronto, but on the plus-side, the pool is deeper, the parking is free and ample and for those members who don't live on the transit system, it is more highway accessible. I look forward to your comments.

We are also now planning at least two Brockville trips next summer. Space will be limited (especially because our recent Open Water students will be taking advantage of their free Advanced Open Water diver instruction), so if you want to pop up to the 1000 Islands with us in July and August and toodle around some awesome wrecks, let us know as soon as possible.

Another topic that Peter and I have been mulling over is that of travel. We're keen to set-up the Papua New Guinea trip for 2011 (and we've taken preliminary steps in that regard), but we have a few more questions for our intrepid members....

1) would you want an exclusively dive-focused trip, or would you like a little culture and/or relaxation period at the end of the trip as well?

2) As 2011 is a way away, would any of you be interested in a Caribbean trip for a week in the earlier part of next year....

Oh......gotta run, the scuba-truck is coming out of the doctor's office....

and remember, although spiny black sea urchin spines hurt like bugger when they are in your skin, if you remove them very carefully, they probably make great writing quills.....

Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

Sorry for the absence, I had a busy few days with a number of new avenues arising for the Scuba Club, which kept me off the computer more often than not. And then I had a man-cold that kept me out of action for a couple of days.

Since then, I have been preparing a couple of presentations for some initiatives that Peter and I are hoping to kick-start over the winter.

In preparing one of the presentations (a 15 minute show designed for in-school presentations to junior and high school students), I've come across some awesome imagery. I know that it's not my photo, but I just had to share this image of a great shot of a giant grouper:

I love the way the grouper is emerging from the shoal of smaller fish. Of course, I should also admit to you all that this is therapy for me. While I have never really had any serious fears of swimming with bull sharks or reef sharks, for some reason, grouper have always sort of given me the willies. I distinctly remember being petrified when a giant grouper slid past a hole in the interior of a wreck I was swimming around in Thailand. It was so ghostly (and we were pretty deep) and so just seeing a giant eye and then a massive grey slimy thing slide past my eyes almost made me drop my regs. So posting this goliath is a small step towards getting over my fear of these guys. They're just so big!

If you have some great underwater photos that you've taken, please feel free to pop them over to me and we'll try and post some of them on our website. We're in the midst of getting a "news" section added to our site, so that's where we will likely put them up for now.

In case you haven't received and email from me or checked our facebook updates in the last week or so, don't forget that this Thursday is our monthly Club Night at Ryerson. We hope to see some of you there. We'll be bringing some new tools to help you improve your buoyancy skills. Email me if you are interested in popping down.

That's it for today, but remember .... don't sit on the scorpionfish!

Absent? Guilty. Busy on your behalf? Guilty

Hey, hey,

So, it's been a couple of weeks since I last blogged on, but hey, the Toronto Scuba Club has to work too, you know!! So many pokers in the fire right now.

I'm not going to spill all the beans in one blog, there's many a pearl to be polished yet. But let's talk about our new e-Learning capability....

So, PADI has been offering e-Learning as a teaching mechanism for a year or so now, but it's only been available to resorts and stores. It has not been available to individual instructors. Starting this month, PADI has now made e-Learning an option for individual instructors.....meaning that through our principal instructors (myself and Peter), we can now offer that flexibility to our students as well.

We're still working on the minutiae of getting the product smoothly running. As the programme itself is run by PADI, it's more the pricing and interaction between the programme and our website/database system that is being refined.

In case you're wondering, the e-Learning option effectively removes the classroom portion of the Open Water course. It can also be used for the Advanced Open Water course, as well as the Enriched Air (Nitrox) course.

A student simply purchases the e-Learning option from us, then we provide them with a pin number. The student then logs onto PADI's e-Learning website, puts in their email address and the pin and off they go. The e-Learning pass that they have now gained access too lasts for a year.

In the e-Learning programme, the student basically does exactly coursework as a student would be completing in a regular Open Water course. Instead of using the book, completing the Knowledge Reviews and then attending classes with yours truly, the e-Learning student completes the Knowledge Reviews online and doesn't have to attend any classes at all.

Even the final exam is completed online. When the student has completed the e-Learning course, they simply do a further 20 questions (which are based on the materials they have already completed anyway) and they're done.

So what is the advantage? Well, our regular courses usually take place over two days on a weekend. Students need to arrive and sit in class for about two to three hours each day and complete their final exam on the Sunday. This normally means a 9 to 4 day for both days.

The e-Learning student, however, turns up at noon on the Saturday and completes a 20 question quiz. They then get changed and jump in the water for the pool session. Similarly, on the Sunday, they again turn up at noon and spend another couple of hours in the pool and they've completed their Class and Pool course. Why do they get to turn up late? Because they have already completed the classroom portion, in advance, at their own pace and in their own time. It saves so much time!!

We're about to start up a three-week, one night per week course for the Open Water. I'll talk more about that in a day or two, but the most exciting part is that we are only going to offer this course to e-Learning students!! They get to complete their class and pool course with only a few hours of attendance. It rocks....

Anyway, some more news soon.....

In the meantime, don't sit on the spiny sea urchin!!

Poor Pufferfish or are they?

Not much to report today, mostly taking care of administrative business (cue BTO musak), but I did come across an interesting marine biology issue, well.....at least it was interesting to me, but probably not so much to you....

I always thought a porcupine fish was a species of puffer fish. Turns out that it isn't and that it is its own species in and of itself. If you want to see what a porcupine fish looks like, scroll down a blog or two.

Still damn cute.

Another marine issue I have been reading about (with increasingly disturbed horror) is the Pacific Garbage Vortex (also known as the Pacific Garbage Patch). This is an area roughly the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where trash and rubbish from the Pacific's coastlines and from sea-traffic accumulates and swirls in a mass at the surface of the ocean. Historically, such detritus would degrade and then sink to the ocean floor to be further broken down by marine life and the effects of salt water. When this consisted of bits of wood, fibres, wool, animals, etc. (i.e. prior to the last century and a half or so), this was not really a problem. In fact, it possibly helped create an ecosystem in an area of the ocean probably otherwise inhospitable to most forms of aquatic life.

The problem is that we (man) invented plastics, rubber and other materials that won't break down. So now we have a swirling vortex of garbage that simply won't disappear. Ok, ok, for the geeks out there, the plastics actually will break down through weathering, but not into anything that will naturally degrade into the environment safely. When the plastics do break down, they simply break down into smaller pieces of plastic, still at odds with a natural environment.

You can watch a wee video on the issue too here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-CVRFzLoEY

There is a similar issue in the Atlantic, although from what I have been reading, it is much broader in the Pacific. It is estimated that 10% of all annual plastic waste (again, estimated at about 200 billion pounds of trash) ends up in the oceans and a significant portion of that ends up in the Pacific Garbage Vortex.

The full effects of the Garbage Patch are not known at this time and scientists have only recently started to seriously examine its impact. It seems pretty obvious, however, that it simply isn't good.

So what can we do to help reduce this issue? Well, hopefully, many of you are already doing a little bit and recycling efficiently every day at home and at work. If you live in Toronto, you know that we have an excellent recycling system and if you look at the free recycling calendar's the City dispenses, you'll be amazed at what you can recycle. So doing your part every day certainly helps.

If you come diving with the Toronto Scuba Club as well (ok, not at Gulliver's Lake, but in any open water environment), you will also know that we like to do a clean-up each and every time we hit the water. If we see garbage, we pick it up. And every few dives, we are even committed to making the object of the dive itself a garbage clean-up dive. But you can do that even when you are not diving with the Toronto Scuba Club. If you see garbage, pick it up (providing that it doesn't further harm the environment to do so...i.e. by breaking coral, etc., and as long as it doesn't put you at risk....i.e. contaminated material or over-exerting yourself carrying excessive weight).

Another way we can help is by further educating ourselves to the issue and its causes. A friend of the Toronto Scuba Club, Jeff Shaw, has in fact created an Oceanic Defense Organization. You can join his group if you are on facebook. Each time you learn a little more and each time you hear of an organization that is trying to do a little to help, join in, get involved. Even if it is only a small contribution, every little helps.

Ok, enough ranting....

Thoughts in motion

I have been working on my presentation for the 4/5 year olds again and think it might be time to start contacting media types. As such, I have thrown out an email to a number of people that I am hoping might have some "in" on a journo.

If any of you out there know a journalist or someone otherwise connected to the media industry, please, feel free to let me know who they are. I'd like to try and get some positive publicity for the kindergarten, for the sport of scuba diving and, sure, for the Toronto Scuba Club.

In the meantime, I continue to work on a number of other ideas that we're currently thinking of. All of them would be awesome for the Toronto Scuba Club and perhaps hopefully propel the sport a little further forward, at least in the educational side of things.

Refreshers and Open Water class and pool sessions continue to be attracting a lot of attention. Perhaps it is because we are offering the Advanced course for free as part of the special for people taking their OW. On the Refresher side though, it's a little odd.....we're planning on making a Refresher special, but we're not there yet!! Lots of Refresher interest!!

Oy.

Don't forget to grab your ears when you see a sea snake!

Busy end of Week

Phew. Lots going on over the last five days.......

We had the first Club Night last Thursday and also ran a refresher course the same evening. Congratulations, Virginia on smacking that refresher course out of the ballpark. And have an awesome time on your Cyprus hols!

And thanks to our members for coming out. We hope you had fun in the pool and got a good chance to practice your skills. Although the lights out portion of the session was a little short, we'll be working on how to make it as calming and relaxing as possible.

After the Club Night, a few drinks were had as well, a perfect ending to a fun night.

Keep your eyes on future Club Nights, for next month's sessions, I am looking into finding a few "toys" to throw in the pool that will also help you improve your skills. For instance, we'll be making a hoop for you to practice your buoyancy and swim-through skills.

So that was Thursday. Friday, I received a very cool request. The Toronto Scuba Club has been asked to give a presentation to a group of four and five year olds with physical challenges. I'll be talking to them about scuba divers, coral reef conservation and what scuba divers can do to help. Of course, they want to hear all about clownfish and stingrays, so I of course will oblige, but I am also definitely going to be throwing in some boxfish and puffer fish references....at the very least!!

I mean, how can you not find these guys cute????

Saturday....well, another two refresher courses and our first quick-stop session at the Bishop Strachan School. Very cool of the school to let us use the facilities in this fashion. We are so damn lucky to have found the school and it's been such a positive relationship.

And congrats to both Robert and DJ on also easily waltzing through the refresher course. You both recalled your skills very well....sure, a little nudging in the right direction ;) but then why would else would you be thinking of the refresher course is you didn't need the nudges?

And so on to this week already....lots of behind the scenes stuff today, but what was very cool was the effects of the rain storm this morning down at the Lake. I was out walking my puppy and letting her play in the surge and I couldn't help but have an unbelievable urge to go diving. When the waves are that high at the shore and the wind is howling, it always makes me think of how calm it might be 30 feet down below.....I need a warm water dive soon!

Don't kneel on the spiny urchins.......

Club Night is here....

My, oh my, how the days fly by.....I swear that the Autumn Equinox started earlier than yesterday afternoon at 5:18 p.m.

I've just now had a chance to sit down to write the blog for today and I have to rush off already....tonight is our inauguaral Club Night at Ryerson, so lots to get sorted before I head down to the pool. Must try and remember the camera to get some shots of the pool for posting tomorrow.

Thought for today: If a Fry is a baby fish, I am left thinking it's a tad ghoulish that when you enter "Haddock Fry" in a search engine all you get is recipes!

Week Long Absence

My apologies for the absence of a blog for the last week, your writer was in Scotland and unable to get a decent wireless signal except twice. And, unfortunately, I was in a bit of a rush those two times. Scotland may be stunningly beautiful, full of friendly people and some great dive spots, but it still seems a wee bit behind on the old technological front!

Not that I actually got to dive, I was driving around all over the place for the full week. If you are heading to Scotland, however, and you have a little more time, I'd recommend looking into St. Abbs for easily accessible dive sites, but also Skye and the Scapa Flow if you want some seriously cool dive spots .... both literally and figuratively. The water is likely to be a bit nippy around the top of the Scottish mainland and decidedly more so around Orkney, but some of the images that have been snapped up in those parts promises some exceptional diving. If you are looking for a little more info, a good resource can be found at http://www.divesitedirectory.co.uk/uk.html

During my brief period of silence (yes, it was Golden wasn't it?), another batch of our Open Water Divers completed their Open Water training. Congratulations go out to Andrew, Amparo, Armando, Lewis and Jeff. Well done all!! Unfortunately, the camera was left behind, so no photos this time.

Coming up this week, we have our inaugural Club Night at Ryerson University, it should be fun. On top of one person completing a scuba review, a few of our new Open Water Divers will be buffing up their skills and for the first half an hour, there will be a lights out session in the pool to chill everyone out. I've been advised that the interior pool lights must remain on by provincial requirement, but we'll still create a cool and relaxing start to our dive time. If you haven't let us know you want to go to the Club Night and you do, email me as soon as possible.

Keep smiling at the boxfish, they like it......

Pray for sunshine!

The Toronto Scuba Club is gearing up for another weekend of course and we're seriously praying for some nice weather for our students. Come rain or shine though, Peter will be out there helping our fledgling divers earn their wings. Maybe it is better to think of it this way.....if you're wearing a wetsuit and you know you are going to get wet, it won't make much difference if you get a little rain on you anyway, right?

I, on the other hand, will be heading off to far-flung fields....well, Scotland to be precise. Unfortunately for me I won't have a chance to get any diving in this time, but c'est la vie. I would, however, love to have a chance to dive St. Abbs, off the east coast of Scotland...apparently there is some awesome marine life there. Ah well, perhaps that'll have to be a dedicated Toronto Scuba Club trip...hmmmm, diving, rugged beautiful country, stodgy good old fashioned British food, Cadburys and decent beer!! Sounds good.

Anyway, here's to our open water students for this weekend and hoping they have a blast. Peter, keep it real....

Ever wonder who'd win if a tiger and a lion went at it?

Well, in the aquatic version, I know who my money is on:

Tiger Shark:

Lion Fish:

A tired post

It's been a busy week for the Toronto Scuba Club, with a lot of behind-the-scenes work going on (can't wait to see our final tank stickers!!) and a potpourri of courses smattered in-between.

Yesterday was an all-day event for myself, simply due to traffic, timing and the difficulty in locating and securing a drysuit for our student. Despite the long day and difficulties we faced before we even reached the water, Scott successfully completed both his dry suit and nitrox (well, technically his Enriched Air Diver) certifications. Well done, Scott. You certainly earned it!! Now just remember 75 and 38 is 113, not 103 and you'll do fine calculating your new bottom times, oxygen exposure, etc., etc.

Here's Scott hard at work with his new Nitrox RDP tables:

And I finally managed to secure a photo of Christina, who completed her certification dives last week to achieve her Open Water Diver certification. Congratulations, Christina!! Here's Christina excited about going underwater exploring:

My apologies for a short blog tonight, but it's been a long day today too with a lot of activity pouring through our website. Not only are we receiving a lot of emails, but stay tuned for some website changes to occur in the next few weeks.....

Two brand new divers and a Rescue diver to boot!

Well, a lot of fun was had this weekend, as two of our Open Water students completed their certification dives and became fully certified Open Water divers!! Unfortunately for us, the photo's taken of us in the water were a little blurry (our camera-lady needs to work a little on her focusing skills). Here's a blurry photo of me and our new Open Water Divers, Joe and Mitalie completing a dive:
And here's Joe happy to be a newly certified diver:


Mitalie, my apologies, but your solo-portrait was blurry beyond belief!

Regardless of the photo-clarity, CONGRATULATIONS Joe and Mitalie!!!

And on top of helping these two complete their certification dives, we also had a boat-load of fun completing the certification dives for Donna, our most recent Rescue Diver candidate, now a fully certified Rescue Diver!! Thanks also to Danielle for helping out and playing victim during the rescue scenarios. A great victim and an awesome display of in-water rescue breaths and equipment removal by Donna. Again, CONGRATULATIONS Donna on becoming an exceptional Rescue Diver!!

Here's Donna absolutely tuckered out from a long time in the water:



This week, well, we have a dive fanatic taking his Enriched Air specialty diver course, as well as his Drysuit Diver specialty certification. Oodles of fun. This weekend coming up, we have more students completing their Open Water certification dives and I am off to Scotland. Don't worry, things will be left in the safe hands of Peter.

Dive safe, mi amigos and don't try kissing the Harlequin Sweetlips!

Congratulations!!

Congratulations to Ms. Dabrowski, our first student to successfully complete the Open Water Diver certification through the Toronto Scuba Club. While Peter and I have certified lots and lots of divers in our time, Christina is TSC's first certified Open Water Diver.

Whoo-hoo to us and double-whoo-hoo to you Christina!! You did excellent on your open water certification dives, so stop worrying about it.

And getting in the water with Christina gave me a chance to re-introduce myself to Scott, her boyfriend, who I had previously taught open water to at another institution. I see a great and promising dive future for Scott and look forward to seeing him next week to help him obtain his nitrox and drysuit specialties. I also have a sneaking suspicion that Peter and I will see Scott for rescue purposes later this year.

That's all for now and if you haven't seen a boxfish before, go google it.....they are undeniably cute and probably one of my most favourite fish!!

New Blog, Same Me, Different Reasons.....

Hello All:

Well, this is my first post on my new blog that is solely dedicated to my new business (well and Peter's!!), the Toronto Scuba Club!!

I am 99% sure that anyone who is getting notified of this blog will have already visited the business' website, but if you haven't , get over there now!!! Here's a link to make it even easier: http://www.torontoscubaclub.com/

Feel free to let me know if you have any comments on the website or spot any bugs!! I can pretty much guarantee that there will be a few gremlins at the moment, because our web techie (Lewis Robinovitch, a crazy young Ryerson grad who has an excellent artistic eye) is making some sweet and awesome changes for us.

I'm not going to fill this particular blog posting with how cool and different the Toronto Scuba Club is, first, I could go on for page after page after page and secondly, you can read all about our philosophy and principles on our website!!

The point of this blog generally will be to bring you up to date with what's going on at Toronto Scuba Club, to give shout-outs to people and organizations that have achieved something we consider noteworthy, to share some interesting anecdotes and tidbits and anything else I think is appropriate ;)

We're very happy to announce that interest in the Club started cascading last week, we have now started open water courses in earnest, as well as some rescue divers, drysuit lovers and nitrox addicts. Good times are a' rolling....

.....And hopefully this means that our web presence is hopefully starting to pick up speed!!

By the way, if you haven't made friends with us on facebook (love it or hate it, it's there and thus so are we), we also have the Toronto Scuba Club page, which can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Toronto-ON/Toronto-Scuba-Club/101942724255

Now listen ... I am not making a promise to blog daily, I am also not making a promise that every blog entry will split your sides with mirth, totally capture your attention or make you a scrumalicious dinner. But I will make every effort to give you a chuckle, occasionally teach you something you didn't know and let you know what's going on....regardless, every post will be one that I pour a little of our Toronto Scuba Club energy into, so read on, read on....

Peace out and don't excite the sea cucumbers....