HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN - There seems to be some good news in all of this, although it's hard to tell from 2,500 miles away. First of all, the forecasts a week ago were for 3" of rain on Sunday and 2" on Monday and that seems to have been toned down considerably. So that's likely good news. I did get a severe weather alert from the City of L.A. about the rain expected Monday so that could still be problematic. Weather Underground shows it picking up considerably Sunday evening. But it looks like it's all gone by Wednesday and nothing starts up again until next Sunday. And that's good news because . . .
CLEANUP SHOULD BE OK - The viz may not be terrific, but the topside weather should be tolerable for the annual Avalon U/W Cleanup which is taking place this coming Saturday. I'm told there are over 300 divers registered already and there's still time for you to sign up. Plus there's room on the 6AM boat out of Long Beach, which is pretty much the only way to get there on Saturday. I'll be there later in the morning and will MC the awards ceremony that starts at 1PM and then we have our annual Chamber Miniature Golf Championship at Golf Gardens in the middle of town. Long but generally fun day and half the monies raised go to the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber.
OCEAN CURRENT COLLAPSING? - This story isn't good news. Scientists are concerned that a key ocean current in the Atlantic, of which the Gulf Steam is part, may be in danger of collapsing due to climate change, although there's plenty of uncertainty as to how soon this might happen. You can read more about this here:
OCEAN CURRENT IN PERIL.
VISITING OTHER DIVE SHOPS - Any time I travel, I like to visit other dive shops. I got to see two on this trip, one in Chalottesville and one in Richmond. The Charlottesville one (Dive Connections) is where Laurie Powers is doing a refresher course. Some of you may remember her as one of our Reef Seekers instructors in the 1990s. She stopped diving in 2005 but is getting back into it again as well as will be joining us for our Roatan trip in May. Dive Connections was very modern and clean, well-organized, and you figure if that's the care they take with their store, that hopefully the attention they pay to detail in carries over to their teaching as well. The other shop was in NW Richmond, called The Dive Shop, and presented itself a bit differently. It's definitely well-stocked, a little disorganized and cluttered, and there are some discontinued items that they're still offering as new. This shop is owned by a guy I taught with back in 1980 when I first became an NAUI instructor in Richmond. Like I said, slightly different feel from the Charlottesville store which may or may not mean anything. But my takeaway overall is that, in my experience, there's probably a correlation between how professional divers (or anyone for that matter) offer themselves and how they'll deal directly with you.
CHAMBER DAY IS GETTING CLOSER - We're trying to nail down all the final details in the next two weeks as we go LIVE on the website (
www.chamberday.org) on March 1. One big thing we'll be emphasizing is that this year marks the 50th anniversary of our Chamber, and we've got a special 50th anniversary t-shirt available along with some other things to commemorate the years of service our Chamber has provided.
WHO IS THE FATHER??? - A public aquarium in Henderson, North Carolina, has a bit of a dilemma on their hands. One of their female stingrays is pregnant and bearing four pups. The mystery is that she hasn't encountered a male stingray in eight years. Now it's known that female octopuses can mate with a male and "save" the sperm for later. Could that be the case here? Once the pups are born, which could be as early as this week, they'll run DNA tests to determine who the father is. Their are rumors that Maury Povich will do a live show for the reveal. We'll keep you posted once we all know.
And that'll do it for now. I'm flying back through Chicago on Monday so hopefully will avoid any weather issues (until we get to L.A. and the rain) and will see you all Saturday in Avalon. Other than that, have a great week let's go diving soon!!!
- Ken
