Scuba in the Park - Official

[acoustic diver]

Yes it is all happening again with some additions and subtractions.
I will try to be as informative as I can, seeing that we did not manage time well enought to get the website updated for the event. (maybe tonight)

Saturday

9am - 12pm - Blockhouse Island - Brockville.
PADI Project Aware - Cleanup Dive - 4 prize categoriers
9am registration
10am dive
11am dive end
12pm off to St. Lawrence Park.
There are four prize categories associated with the cleanup dive - details will be annouced prior to the dive. Prize winners will be announced at St. Lawrence Park when Scuba in the Park officially gets started.

12pm - Scuba in the Park - St. Lawrence Park - Brockville
$5.00 admission fee - incl. door prize entry ticket.

Door prizes will be drawn every 1/2 hour and must be claimed by 6:45pm or will be redrawn and given away to the next person. Atleast one bag this year is worth $600.00CDN and there are 14 bags to give away - plus more at the end of the day.

1pm to 3pm - Dive the Lillie Parson - $10.00 - must sign up in the park. Bring to the boats only what you will take in the water with you.

12 to 2pm - Intro to scuba - for non divers

12 to 4pm - Intro to rebreathers - must be nitrox certified.
$20.00 see the Silent Diving Systems booth.

12 to 7pm - PADI Drift Diver Specialty Registration - $60.00
Dives happen on Sunday morning includes two wall dives and certification.

Other things going on are:

SOS silent auction for an O2 Kit (System)
Dive Fashion Show
Electric Lettuce Live!! - Now a canadian recording artist as predicted last year.
Beer Gardens
Food Areas
Kids Snorkel Hunt
Exhibitors.

8pm Post Party at the Keystorm Pub!!!

Sunday

9am - Drift diver specialty dives - Refugee Island Wall.

Hope to see you there - hope I answered any questions -

I will check back here later tonight and answer anything I left out.

See you Saturday -- Hopefully..

 

[Groundhog246]

Thats great. Thanks. If you copied and pasted that post into a new page (with a link) on your "offical" site as a schedule, it'd give people the main outline. Hoping I can make it down.

 

[acoustic diver]

would almost be too easy that way.
Hoping to have something done by 12am

 

[diverindeep]

I checked out the website and read about this all last night. The first I heard of it. It sounds great! Best of luck for a good event.I wish I was going. I did that Sparrow Island/Lilley Drift dive twice earlier this summer and had a great time. I'll definately be there next year.

I guess everyone who is going tomorrow is already getting some sleep, but have a great time everyone and let us poor slugs stuck doing yard chores tomorrow know how it went.

 

[acoustic diver]

Well despite 6 degree weather in the morning. a chilled wind blowing most of the day and a 401 closure - Scuba in the Park went off of and had a good day.
This year we experience a few problems that will be addressed for next year, those being:
1. The City of Brockville not doing as they said they would to shut down the marina while we did our clean up, in the spot they asked us too.
2. 401 Closure blocking 6 of our exhibitors and three west Toronto dive clubs from making it.
3. Cold morning on the back end of a bad summer.
4. Diver with minor problems taken by ambulance after losing weight belt on the Lille Dive and bolting to the surface from 44'. (later release from hospital - no injuries)

Unfortunately only one of the things listed above could have been changed, number 1, the city of Brockville still needs to learn about diving and what is required when we are diving and that certain things like boat traffic is very important in shallow waters. We will be requesting a letter of apology, which will be posted on the website for all of those whom were involved. Good note - no accident, just a couple *dirty* wetsuits.

The final counts are not in yet - but attendance looked down this year - of course with problems listed. However, it looks like we were able to raise somewhere around $1600 to 2000 for the kids again. We gave away again another $10000 in door prizes this year too.

Thank you to those who came out - hopefully we will see you next year...

Watch the website for updates and pictures.

 

[Groundhog246]

Thanks for the update, sorry I wasn't able to attend. Have you set a date for next years yet? Will mark my calendar as soon as I see one.

Will speak as a boat owner (devil's advocate) here. "Shutting down" a marina is not easy nor will it make the owners/management popular. If I was to head up to our boat/marina for the weekend and be told I couldn't exit from this time to that, I would not be very pleased. I guess it would depend how long a period you were talking. If it was say from 10:00am to 11:00 am, it wouldn't be too upsetting. If it was say 9:00am to noon, that would have a great number of people upset. We have a "poker run" with the big cigarette boats come through each year. It doesn't shut down the marina, just causes noise, confusion and crowding for a couple of hours (as well as a no go area around the starting line) and that causes enough upset. IF the city owns the marina, wants you to clean up an area in or around it, then yes they need to find a way to stop boating for a short period and it need to start being communicated to boat owners at least a month in advance. To enforce, you will need people on the docks and at least a couple of vessels to patrol the outside of the area (PWC's?). Best would be to get the OPP involved. As well as the CCG to broadcast a "notices to mariners". This may seem overkill, but closing a marina for a morning (or even an hour) is somewhat like shutting down the access to a city block for a similar period, so consider what that would entail.

 

[acoustic diver]

It takes a lot and was all promised, but they dropped the ball and put our guys at risk.
We have a meeting scheduled for Tomorrow morning to talk them about what happened.

Next years date is not set yet but if so it will be the second or third weeknd in September.

 

[artw]

I had a great time at Scuba in the Park and really enjoyed my dive on the Lillie Parsons. Acoustic diver did you make the viz over 100 feet just for us? (I've never seen it that good!)

...and glad to hear the injured diver is ok.

 

[FreeFloat]

Yeah, some of the boaters in the marina complained to by buddy and me that no one had notified them that the marina would be shut down between 10 and 11 that morning. There were boats running their engines while divers were in the water, and we saw at least one sailboat making way through the area :11:

However, the Lillie drift was just astounding. I agree I have never seen viz like that and the current was just a-rockin'. What a blast!!!! I could've stayed down a lot longer if I didn't have to make it back in time to do the Rebreather Experience.

Yes, I agree that attendance did look a bit down from last year. I didn't know about the 401 closure but I figured that having part of the #2 Hwy adjacent to the park closed and re-detoured probably didn't help, either.....

 

[CUunderH2O]

Why was the 401 closed? Was there an accident? I noticed the lack of exhibitors at the show, I figured the cold temperature kept them away. Due to the poor showing (of both exhibitors & attendees), I know several people likely won't be coming back next year. But I'll be back; I actually won one of the door prizes, go figure. I dove the Lillie 2x the next day, and yep, the current was really ripping.