Volume 6, issue 9 September 1st, 2010 Bottom Bunch Dive Club Sea Tales Newsletter http://www.bottombunchdiveclub.com How to improve your air consumption By SCUBA Steve A question comes up all the time from students, new divers and experienced divers...how do I get the most out of a tank of air? What can I do to get better air consumption? Great question! We all want to maximize our air so we can get the most bottom time possible while staying within your NDL ( No Decompression limits). I am the same way. I want to get the most I can from a tank of air while staying safely in my dive profile decompression limits. So here are a few suggestions I often give divers and have personally experienced to provide better air consumption. 1. Your Health - If you exercise and do a good cardio vascular work out on a regular basis will help you with air consumption. If I am out riding my mountain bike, swimming laps, going for hikes my lungs and heart are in better shape. With this being the case when I dive I am in better physical conditioning and my air lasts longer. 2. Your Experience Like any sport, to get better at it you have to participate. If you want better air consumption go dive!!! The more you dive the more comfortable you will be. The more comfortable you are in the water the more relaxed and the longer a tank of air will last you. 3. Your Reg - Gear does have an impact too. How do you choose a regulator? By the color or the price or....no, by how easy it is to breathe from. There is a difference, check out the regulator's design. I have found some of the best are from ATOMIC and AQUALUNG. The Legend and all ATOMIC regs are to me one of the easiest breathing regs out there. The less resistance to breathing the easier and more relaxed you can be. Plus make sure to have your regs serviced per the manufacturers guidelines. Sea Tales Index 1 How to improve your air consumption 2 How to improve your air consumption 3 Reef.Org 4 California Halibut 5 Mark’s Photos Mark Pidcoe’s Rules of Diving 6 BB Info September 1st, 2010 Casa Machado Restaurant 3750 John J Montgomery, Montgomery Airport field. 6PM meet & greet, 7PM presentation begins. Marissa Trips • September 18th How to improve your air consumption By SCUBA Steve 4. Your Warmth - In diving 7. Your Depth - Remember San Diego's cold waters your Boyles Law? So the deeper warmth makes a big difference. you go the faster your air will If you are cold you will have a go. Plan your dive. Think tendency to use more air. about the area you are going When I started using a dry suit and how deep you wish to go. my comfort level went way up A 30 foot dive may be just as and therefore I relaxed more fun and you will see more and consumed less air. I love stuff then a dive to 60 feet. my DUI suit. It makes a huge For example if you are an Addifference and I can easily do vanced Diver diving the Yukon. Don't go to 100 feet multiple dives per day. at the sand bottom. Stay about mid way up on the ship, maybe about 70-80 feet. It 5. Your Fill - When you get will maximize your air and your tank filled get it at a bottom time, you will see just shop that will give you a as much, plus there is nothing full tank. I hate hot fills to see in the sand ;-) that when I get to the beach I have 2300 PSI for an 80 cubic ft tank. Shops should 8. Your Dive - Finally when you are underwater, relax, take slow, fill your tanks correctly. deep breaths. Visualize yourself For example, an 80 cubic relaxed. Swim at a rate that you foot Al tank is 80 cubic feet of air at 3000 PSI. So are comfortable with. Don't race underwater. Take your time and get as close as you can to relax. This will enable you to not 3000 PSI. only maximize your air but it will 6. Your Buoyancy - Yes slow you down to see all the little buoyancy. If you are not creatures hiding in the rocks. controlling your buoyancy You can spend your entire dive well you will be wasting on one small area. Explore it in air. If you are filling and detail, take a light, take a camera, empting your BCD conand look in the rocks. stantly then it will use air that could be in your lungs. So practice hovering. Learn how to set your buoyancy and then stay neutrally buoyant. This is another one of those skills you develop by going diving! Page 2 Bottom Bunch Dive Club Sea Tales Newsletter Not ReefCheck, this is Reef.org So many divers see something while underwater and ask each other "Did you see that?” or “What do you think that was?" To help educate divers about our local marine life, the San Diego Oceans Foundation has teamed up with REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation). By serving as a REEF Field Station, SDOF trains local divers and snorkelers in the identification of a variety of fish and invertebrate species that call Southern California ‘home’. The search begins as soon as the diver or snorkeler enters the water. And the goal? To find as many species as possible! At the end of each dive/snorkeling event, volunteers submit a survey with each species found, along with their relative abundance [Single (1), Few (2-10), Many (11-100), Abundant (>100) or ‘Present’]. Volume 6, issue 9 –Roving diver-Free Classes The information you gain is then entered into a publicly accessible database on www.reef.org. Here, data can be used by the general public, fisheries management agencies and may even help in maintaining Marine Protected Areas in Southern California. Information gathered through this program not only contributes to an international database used by scientists and government agencies, but also helps divers better understand their underwater world as well as find great dive spots with lots of life! The Reef Monitoring Project gives you a chance to get involved in local conservation efforts by studying and reporting marine life off San Diego's coast! By taking our training courses and becoming a ‘citizen scientist’, you will be contributing to the data collection required for fisheries management, the implementation of Marine Protected Areas and much more! Just imagine YOUR survey helping to protect the ocean you love!!! • Surveys are completed on YOUR schedule. We reward our top surveyors with prizes like free boat dives and air fills each quarter…so get out there and get started! Training The first step in becoming a ‘Reefer’ is to complete our Volunteer Application. Then, sign up to attend one of our fish or invertebrate training courses, where we will show you how to conduct an underwater survey as well as identify many of the marine species commonly seen in Southern California. Come, check out the marine diversity that the tourists travel from miles around to see! Page 3 California Halibut Text by Milton Love, Images by Herb Gruenhagen The California Halibut is one of the several species of left-eyed sand flounders found here locally on soft bottoms and near sanddollar beds for some reason. These large sand flounders live between the shore to 600ft. They move around with the schools of anchovies and white croakers. Sea lions, angel sharks, and torpedo rays will go after the halibut for food. This is a major sport fish from as far north as Bodega Bay. Trolling at the 100-150ft depth will produce the best sized catch. Halibut tend to make seasonal inshore-offshore movements, moving inshore and aggregating in late winter and early spring to spawn and feed, staying through the summer and fall then dispersing offshore in the late fall and winter. Californian halibut reach 5 feet in length and about 72lbs in weight. Females live as long as 30 years and grow faster and much larger than males. Halibut have been seen leaping out of the water while dashing after anchovies and during grunion runs have beached themselves chasing after the spawning fish. This is one of the few fishes on the West coast that can be active during both day and night. Page 4 Bottom Bunch Dive Club Sea Tales Mark Pidcoe U/W Photography Album Mark Pidcoe Rules of 1. No alcohol before or between dives. Drinking and Diving do not mix. 2. Safety stops for dives past 30' are mandatory. 3. I am a photographer, and that is why I dive! Understand that I will not be ignoring you, rather I focus on my photography first. I will show the subject to you after I get my photo. 4. Because of 2 above, any one of you may end up being the subject of my pictures, and they may end up in the newsletter. This can be negotiated at any time before or after the dive. Volume 6, issue 9 Diving 5. I prefer to spend my air at the target location, not on getting there. As a result, surface swims of 1/4 mile or more are common for me. I am not in a hurry to get to the destination, or back to the beach. 6. Surface intervals are determined by max depth, not tank change time. For every foot we descend, I will spend 1 min on the beach! This means for a 90' dive, I will not gear back up for the 2nd dive till I have been gear off in the parking lot for 90 minutes. 7. 1st diver to reach one-half tank pressure determines dive duration. This is the turn around point, when we will head back towards the beach. Do not worry about cutting the dive short because you go thru air at a different rate. I have never dropped a dive buddy from my list due to high air consumption. I have removed them for repeatedly misreporting remaining air pressure. All divers are welcome, dry, wet, photographer, collector, high or low air consumption, experienced or beginner. Page 5 2010 Officers: President: Mark Pidcoe Vice Pres: Karin Filijan Treasurer: Jamie Morales Secretary: Sharon Brooks Dive Coord: Shanda Magill Committee Members: Dive Boats: Steve Preddy Blackbeards: Jessica Busk AV/Sales: Al Barnes Speaker Coord: Greg Morris Club Greeter: Shanda Magill Entertainment: Jessica Busk & Sharon Brooks BB Editor: Herb Gruenhagen The Club motto is safety first then fun. The club loves to dive and loves to be safe too. Weekly dives are planned as well as monthly local boat trips, beach picnics, yearly Holiday party and many other activities. Please come and join the Bottom Bunch Dive Club. We meet the 1st Wednesday of each month at the Casa Machado on the Montgomery Airfield in Kearny Mesa. Bottom Bunch Dive Club yearly dues are only $24 per person. Bottom Bunch Membership www.bottombunchdiveclub.com Dues are payable at the time of application. Make checks payable to: THE BOTTOM BUNCH DIVE CLUB. Checks can be mailed to: 1050 E. Ohio Avenue Escondido, CA 92025-4615 INDIVIDUAL $24.00 membership fee. Dues are due each year in the month of June for the following year for $24. GENERAL MEMBERSHIP If a member joins during the year the dues are pro-rated for the year so that their annual membership dues will be due in the month of June. FAMILY Annual dues are $24 for the first member and $12 for each additional family member. Dues will be due each year in the month June. Please bring both the membership and liability form all filled out to the June meeting. Please RENEW and enjoy diving another year with all your Bottom Bunch friends.