FAIRFIELD COUNTY DIVING ASSOCIATION April 2014 Volume 21 Issue 4 Inside this Issue The Presidents Corner by Matt Rownin page 1 FCDA Donors I page 2 No Raffle Winners Last Month page 3 Events of Interest to FCDA Members page 3 FCDA Member Ads page 3 5 Tips to remember if you re left behind page 4 FCDA Donors II page 4 Breathing Underwater: 8 Tips to Save Air When Diving by Jim Bartlett page 5 What It s Like: to Get Bent by Jill Heinerth pages 5, 7 Shark of the Month: Thresher Shark page 6 Next FCDA Meeting page 8 The Presidents Corner by Matt Rownin Greetings FCDA Members; it has been a while since we all got together for a meeting but there still have been some diving related activities and many more to come. Beneath The Sea was a couple of weeks ago and I heard it was a great show. Unfortunately my Honey Do List has grown and I am trying to get it all done before the weekend dives pick up so I was not able to go. But I was thinking about it. Well this past winter continues to linger a bit longer. Dutch Springs had to delay their opening from April 5 to April 12 due to ice on the lake and then the need to fix some damage caused over the winter. I have had my first dive postponed as well because the boat is not ready to go due to the cold weather and repairs needed. I will have to be patient; the first dive is not April 26 to The Heroine. I can t wait for the season to officially start. For our April meeting we have Captain Bill Palmer doing a presentation on the Sinking of the SS Blackpoint. Which is the last ship torpedoed in WWII. She was attacked and sunk by the German Sub U-853 at 17:40 hours May 5, 1945. The United States retaliated and sunk the German Sub with depth charges...and so ended the Last Battle of the Atlantic. So come down early as there is usually standing room only when Capt. Palmer is in town. The April meeting on 25th and the Easter Egg Hunt/ Beach Clean-Up on April 27 th. Happily Blowing Bubbles.your entrusted, reluctant volunteer!!!! Matt waiting at Dutch Springs for the ice to melt!
Page 2 FCDA Donors The business listed on this page has donated dive gear and dive services to help support the Fairfield County Diving Association. New England's Tech Diving Center! New England Dive Center 476 North Colony Street Wallingford, CT 06492 203-284-1880 Fax 203-284-1355 Dealer for OMS, UWATEC, Oceanic, Mares, D a c or, C r e s s i - S u b, P o s e i d o n, Scubapro, Bare, O ' N e i l l a n d Henderson. P.O. Box 3005, Fairfield, CT 06824 Internet mail: fcda@aol.com http://www.fcda.us Presidents 2014 Board Matt Rownin & Mike Cassetta Vice-President Mark Shannon Secretary Treasurer Charles Blanchette Paul J. Gacek The region's foremost source for scuba and technical diving gear, t r a i n i n g a n d everything for the r e c r e a t i o n a l o r serious tech diver. Draeger Atlantis I Rebreather training, certification and rental. New England Dive Center offers complete training for all levels of diving, from Open Water through the most advanced technical courses. Our instruction provides certification through SSI, PDIC, TDI and IANTD. Visit us on the Web: http://www.nedive.com
Page 3 No Raffle Winners No Winners in March NO MEETING, but a big Thank You to New England Dive Center, Orbit Marine Dive Center and Rex Marine for donating to our monthly raffle prizes for our DAN raffle. So Please support our raffle prize donors. Remember, you can't win if you don't buy tickets and you can't buy tickets if you don't get up and come out to FCDA events and meetings! Events of Interest to FCDA Members April 27th, Annual Beach Cleanup and Egg Hunt (see page 6 for more info). June 7th Annual Kickoff the Season Clambake (see page 7 for more info). July 10 13, 2014 Cape Ann Sept. 18 21, 2014 Cape Ann FCDA Member Ads Hey - have you got a non retail-diving business that you d like to share with fellow members of FCDA? Get your business card size ad in the FCDA monthly newsletter Surface Interval for only $50.00 for one year. Give your business a boost and help support the production of our monthly newsletters. For more information, write to FCDA, P.O. Box 3005, Fairfield, CT 06824 or email to fcda@aol.com.
Page 4 5 Tips to remember if you re left behind 1.Do a 360. If you come up and the boat is gone, turn a full circle, scanning the horizon for land, other boats or anything you could cling to. If safety is close, drop your weights to swim on the surface, but keep your mask and regulator/ snorkel intact. FCDA Donors The business listed on this page has donated dive gear and dive services to help support the Fairfield County Diving Association. 2. Send up a signal. Every diver should have a surface- marker buoy, a signal mirror and an audible signal that connects to your low -pressure inflator. Use the mirror and au- dible alert if you see someone. A better solution is to carry a GPS beacon like the Nautilus Lifeline. 3. Conserve energy. If you have to swim for shore against the current, don t swim directly into it. Fighting a current is a fast way to burn energy. If you must swim against the flow, go diagonally or perpendicular. 4. Stay warm. Even with a wetsuit, extended time in the water can sap your body of heat. You can conserve body heat by hugging your knees to your chest. 5. Keep calm, but prepare to fight. Not only can thrashing lead to drowning, it also alerts sharks. Take deep breaths, and make intentional movements and decisions. If the sharks show up, be prepared to defend yourself by punching. By Travis Marshall Reprint from Scuba Diving 3/31/2014
Page 5 Breathing Underwater: 8 Tips to Save Air When Diving by Jim Bartlett What It s like to Get Bent by Jill Heinerth 1. Stay Warm If you dive uninsulated, you re heating the ocean with your body, which increases your metabolism and oxygen-burn rates. Experiment with different amounts of protection. 2. Go Slowly Rapid, jerky movements burn more air due to increased resistance underwater. 3. Look, Ma, No Arms! Imagine you re a Tyrannosaurus rex, with huge legs and tiny little arms. Waving your arms and hands around burns incremental air, with little or no impact on your position. 4. Trim Up Poor weight distribution created increased drag and burns more air. (Ditto for gear that drags.) Try varying weight positions. 5. How Slow is Slow? Try using time as a guide. Inhale over a five- to seven-second period, and exhale over a six- to eight-second period. As a slower rate becomes more natural, you ll no longer need to count. 6. Reverse the Pause Pausing at the top of our inhalation cycle instead of at the bottom, as we do on land allows our bodies to extract a bit more oxygen from the air in our lungs. Practice in a swimming pool. 7. Restrict the Flow Try this: Hold your tongue against the roof of your mouth and breathe around the sides of your tongue. This artificially created restriction will force you to breathe in more slowly. 8. Practice As with any sport, performance improvements come with practice. Reprinted from Scuba Diving Good judgment comes from experience. Yet experience often arises as a result of bad judgment. More than a decade ago, I earned a lot of experience when Paul Heinerth and I eagerly hiked into the Yucatan to explore the Pit, a cave system we had uncovered three years earlier. Armed with newly developed rebreathers and precious helium mixes, we would be diving nearly 400 feet deep. Today, the Pit is easily accessible by jungle road, but in the earliest exploration of the Sistema Dos Ojos, getting gear to the site required exhausting hikes, makeshift donkey carts, robust Maya sherpas, and a lot of determination and sweat. Paul and I had anticipated the help of a local support team, but on arrival, we discovered that they had been dispatched to assist the thriving recreational tourism business. I was a little perturbed but resolved that we could do it on our own. We had plenty of equipment, supplies and a trusty Comex In- Water Recompression Table. Our logbooks were fat with many thousands of dives, and perhaps I was feeling a little invincible. Some combination of passion and spirit led me to dive to almost 400 feet two days in a row, something I had not done before and have not done since that punishing day. Feeling marching ants crawling under the skin of my thighs at 60 feet during decompression, it was clear to me that I was bent. It (Continued on page 7)
Page 6 Shark of the Month: Thresher Sharks by David Shiffman It s easy to identify thresher sharks by their extremely long tail, which can be as long as the rest of their body. Despite their relatively large size, thresher sharks eat mostly small fish, but have also been known to eat squid and other invertebrates. Divers rarely see the common thresher, but those who have encountered them report that they are harmless, shy and hard to approach. A few species of threshers are some of the few sharks that are endothermic, meaning that they can regulate their body temperature using modified muscles and blood vessels along their flanks and near their eyes. Threshers are also sometimes referred to as fox sharks." Interesting Facts:» Threshers have been measured whipping their tails at almost 80 miles per hour.» There are two other species of thresher shark, the bigeye thresher (Alopias superciliosus) and the pelagic thresher (Alopias pelagicus). The IUCN Red List considers all Vulnerable to Extinction. They are one of the few species of sharks targeted for their meat, and they are also commonly caught as bycatch. The U.S. thresher fishery is generally considered to be well managed, but many international fisheries for thresher sharks are not.» Despite their large size, thresher sharks have relatively small litters of two to seven pups. They are viviparous, which means they give live birth, and thresher pups can be more than 3 feet long when born. Reprinted from SportsDiver 4/2/2014 FCDA Annual Underwater Easter Egg Hunt/Beach Cleanup Coast Guard Cottage South Benson Marina, Fairfield, CT Sunday, April 27, 2014 Registration - 10:00 AM Dive/Cleanup - 11:00 AM Cookout - 12:00 Noon Cost: Divers $10.00 (non-members) $8.00 (members) Non-divers $8.00 (non-members) $5.00 (members) Kids under 10 $3.00 Check out your gear for the year in a controlled situation - maximum depth 15 feet. Prizes, Raffle, Cookout with Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Beer, Wine, Soda - Donations of Salads and Desserts welcome - e-mail FCDA@aol.com
Page 7 What It s like to Get Bent by Jill Heinerth (continued) (Continued from page 5) came on slowly at first, but soon I had the urge to scratch through all the layers of trilaminate and undergarments that were keeping me warm and dry. I had never felt a sensation like that. A growing ache in my shoulder made my situation even harder to ignore. I lengthened my decompression profile and gingerly climbed out of the water, but my profound exhaustion told me I still had a problem. Too tired to do anything other than breathe oxygen and drink water, I collapsed on my sleeping mat and hoped everything would go away. My resolve was eroded. I had lost the ability to help myself. I was scared. Improvised in-water recompression at the dive site, an arduous hike out of the jungle, and three follow-up chamber runs resulted in a full but painful recovery. Looking back, I learned many things: The frequently reported symptom of denial extends far beyond embarrassment I m convinced that a bent, sick person knows they need help but simply can t ask for it. (It makes sense that if your body chemistry is that screwed up, it might affect your ability to speak up.) It is critical that somebody else on the team takes charge and makes decisions for a DCS victim. Second, oxygen is a powerful ally. Having plenty of rich gas on site saved me from grave injuries. Last, the long-term psychological effects of a DCS incident should be more widely discussed. Our community has correctly discarded terminology that divides decompression illness into deserved and undeserved hits DCS, like a football player s concussion or a runner s pulled hamstring, is a sports injury. When we share our experiences, all divers are better informed. And DAN insurance should be mandatory: I have watched DAN help countless colleagues through the incident and aftermath of diving injuries. Am I ever going to get bent again? I can t say, but I do everything I can to minimize the risk. Reprinted from Scuba Diving 3/31/2014. Annual Kickoff the Season Clambake Saturday, June 7, 2014-7:00 pm Coast Guard Cottage South Benson Marina, Fairfield, CT catered by Swanson s Fish Market Shrimp Steamers Lobster Red Potato Corn on the cob Cole slaw Dinner Roll Watermelon Beer Wine Soda (Special Orders - Chicken, Swordfish or Ribeye Steak - prepayment required!) Early Bird Special by Mail - Pay by May 31st (Postmark on envelope) - $37.00 each After May 31st - e-mail fcda@aol.com for reservations - $42.00 each Name(s) No. x $ = $ Special Order(s): Mail to: FCDA, P.O. Box 3005, Fairfield, CT 06824
Page 8 Next FCDA Meeting Friday, April 25, 2014-8:00 PM Coast Guard Cottage, South Benson Marina, Fairfield, CT "Sinking of the SS Blackpoint" a video presentation by Captain William "Bill" Palmer Unlock the story of the S.S.Blackpoint. Here lies the tale of the last ship torpedoed in WWII She was attacked and sunk by the German Sub U- 853 at 17:40 hours May 5, 1945. The United States retaliated and sunk the German Sub with depth charges...and so ended the Last Battle of the Atlantic. Fairfield County Diving Association P.O. Box 3005 Fairfield, CT 06824 Address Service Requested