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GEELONG DIVE CLUB'S OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER

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ANNUAL DIVING SEASON LAUNCH

It's on again the annual Geelong Dive Club Summer Spectacular!

Get out your diaries and put this date in there now...

Friday 1st of November, 7:00 pm at Geelong Dive Centre.

The night represents an excellent opportunity for all members to come along and get back into it in time for the hot summer ahead! There will be a free sausage sizzle for all members and their families, BYO Drinks, as well as presentation of the annual Golden Fin Award and Perpetual Crayfish Competition Trophy. Throughout the night prizes will also be awarded for this years Scuba Trivial Pursuit.

The Regional Manager for Mares, Pat Dillion, will present an official release of the 2003 Mares Diving Collection with the full range on display in store. Patrick will then be available throughout the night to answer any questions you may have on the range and also share his knowledge of what is to come in the future for Mares.

Our second guest for the night will be Tom Wende from Oz Dive Charters. Tom operates Midnight Raider, the yellow Dive vessel now being used by Geelong Dive Centre. He has been driving boats for a number of years and has an enormous amount of local knowledge for the Port Phillip Heads area. He is also a mad keen diver himself. Tom will share with us some of the new, that's right new!, dive sites recently found in the area including the mysterious "New Cave"! David and Tom will also display a short presentation showing how club members can now book their dives on line through the Geelong Dive Centre website.

There will also be an official release of the new IQ Dive Clothing which will be available in store and looks very cool...perfectly suited to diving! On the night members will also receive an itinerary of the Club's planned Mid Week Dive Schedule for November and December and information about our up coming dive trips, both interstate and overseas, planned for 2003. Members in attendance will also have the opportunity to book in early on the night for all of the upcoming fun! The night has been planned as a social get together and presents an excellent opportunity for members to catch up with old friends as well as meet our new club members. So come along for some laughs, some sausages, some prizes and a lot of fun!

CLUB CHRISTMAS PARTY
Well it's that time of year again believe it or not and this years Club Christmas party will be bigger and better than last year! This time we will be meeting at Mexican Graffiti on Friday the 20th of December at 6:30pm for a scrumptious Mexican banquet dinner. The price for the 3 course meal will be under $20 per person which is really reasonable. We have reserved the upstairs section of the Restaurant and drinks will be available at the bar. From there we will move on to Timezone's Zone 3 for the ultimate laser hunt re-match! Last year saw a few shattered egos when the results of the shootout came in and I'm sure that there's still a few scores that need to be settled. . . Leigh!

SHARK DIVE AT MELBOURNE AQUARIUM

The club has planned a day diving at Melbourne Aquarium on Sunday 12th of January. The day provides a rare opportunity for members to experience the adrenaline rush of diving up close with Grey Nurse sharks, large Bull rays and more. Members are also welcome to bring their families who will receive a 10% discount on their admission and can view, photograph or videotape this dive whilst in the tunnels of the Aquarium. The operation is set up to allow 4 divers in the water plus a guide at any one time with a dive time of approximately 30 minutes. There is a maximum of 12 divers per day in the Aquarium and we will commence diving at 16:00 with the second group starting at 16:40 and the third group at 17:15. It is anticipated that we will meet at Geelong Dive Centre at approximately 12:00pm and travel up to Melbourne as a group. The cost for this once in a lifetime opportunity is only $90 per diver if you provide all of your own gear. Tanks and weight belts are included in this fee so please don't bring your own. If you wish to hire the Aquarium's gear total cost will be around $120 per diver. As you can see numbers are extremely limited so please book in early with Geelong Dive Centre to avoid disappointment. For more information please contact Geelong Dive Centre.

MT GAMBIER EWANS PONDS TRIP

The annual Australia Day Club Trip to Mt Gambier is on again over the Australia Day long weekend in January 2003. At this stage it is anticipated that we will meet on Thursday 23rd at 13:00 at Geelong Dive Centre before heading off. However, as there is still some time before the trip, please keep an eye on this page for more information as the trip draws nearer.

Accommodation is at the beautiful Blue Lake Caravan Park were members have the choice of on site cabins, camping or bringing their own caravan. The park has pool and spa facilities, tennis courts, BBQ's and an electronic games room. . .for the kids of course? The rates are extremely affordable with $21 per night for a powered site or $63 per night for a cabin. The diving will include Freshwater diving at the world renowned Ewans Ponds and Cray dives at our "secret spot" just beyond Port McDonald. For those who have not dived Ewans before the visibility of the three ponds is mind blowing and has to be seen to be believed! A few of the members have shown interest in towing their boats over so boat dives are also a possibility.

This will be the 5th annual trip to Mt Gambier and always proves to be a blast with lot's of fun had by all so contact Geelong Dive Centre for more information and to make your reservation. The trip is open to all members and their families are also most welcome!

Oz Tek 2002 by Paul Hantz

Australian Technology Park, Sydney, 14-15 September 2002

Well it’s blowing a gale outside today with intermittent rain squalls, and it looks like it’ll be that way for the next few days. Hardly great weather for diving. Pity really - having just spent the weekend in Sydney (sunny, calm, perfect) in a darkened lecture hall, getting all pumped up and enthusiastic to go deeper, further, with more equipment……

OZTeK 3 was on last weekend. This is the third diving technologies conference held in Australia, the last being in Melbourne a couple of years ago.

If you’ve ever done any reading about diving – particularly about those individuals who push the limits and pave the way for the rest of us, then certain names will be familiar. Those names might include Gary Gentile – veteran diver of the Andrea Doria, and the Lusitania; Bill Stone – a frustrated astronaut on a quest to explore and map the deepest underground caving systems in the world; Michael Aw – underwater photographer; and Simon Mitchell – dive medic and recently one of a team to set the world deepest wreck dive record. They might also include Mike Hatcher – treasure hunter and finder of the wreck of the Tek Sing carrying half a million pieces of Ming porcelain; Stephanie Schwabe - wife of the late pioneer Rob Palmer and explorer of Blue Holes in the Bahamas; and John Bennett – who recently set the world record deepest dive on SCUBA (>1000ft).

Imagine listening to them tell their stories, show slides and video footage of the kinds of things that they do, what it was really like, the things that went wrong and the lessons they learned. Imagine hearing the passion in their voices, and the excitement as they consider what might be next, which limits can be pushed further. Imagine also, hearing the sobering voice of Stephanie Schwabe, when she speaks of the difficulty coming to terms with the diving death of her husband, arguably one of the world’s most experienced and skilful technical divers. Imagine suppressing symptoms of panic as you watch film of divers squeezing past narrow cave restrictions, and descending through thick, hot, acidic slime to explore the unknown.

This was what OZTeK was like. Two full days of hearing the most amazing stories, and rubbing shoulders with the world’s most exciting divers. Add that to displays of the latest gear, including rebreather systems, and you start to get some sense of the experience.

For me, it was hard to pick out a highlight, though John Bennett’s account of his dive to 1010ft was terrific stuff. A former British Army paratrooper, he is based in the Philippines. He wanted to dive some of the WWII wrecks, which are all deep (200m +). He progressively extended his depth range, using trimix, until the world record seemed to be the next step. His dive to 1010ft was in the open ocean, and required an enormous support team. He took over 12 minutes to descend – finding it difficult to stop at the bottom of the shot line. His ascent took over 9 1/2 hours, using around 15 separate bottles of gas. The last half of the ascent was complicated by ear barotrauma, which resulted in severe rotational vertigo, and prolonged bouts of nausea and vomiting. He required IV rehydration on the surface and had dizziness for the next 36 hours. Despite all that he was back to diving >100m depths within two weeks and has his eyes set on a wreck at 230m+, which will then become the world’s deepest wreck dive.

Mike Hatcher’s tales of salvage in international waters was the stuff of “Boy’s Own” stories. Sunken treasure, fabulous wealth, fighting off pirates, it had all the ingredients. He even had some of the porcelain pieces there for display. He’s looking for backers for his next venture, arguably the richest prize ever known. If you’ve got spare cash and fancy being part of a big adventure, then….

Closer to home, it was great to hear of the progress of Melbourne’s “Red October Project”. This is a group of Victorian divers who have, for the last two years, been exploring the Ship’s Graveyard in Bass Strait, in order to locate and identify the many scuttled ships out there. They have been successful in finding a number of previously lost wrecks, through painstaking research and systematic trawling of the area using sonar. They recently found the “Bayonet”, an Australian Navy vessel scuttled in about 90m of water, and have been able to dive the site.

Lyn Taylor, of NZ, spoke of women in diving, dispelling myths associated with menstruation and shark attacks, and debunking the idea that women might be more prone to DCI than men because of a greater proportion of body fat. She paid tribute to prominent women divers and promoted the idea that women were just as cut out for technical diving as men. Her comments on the buoyancy properties of silicone v saline breast implants were well received.

I could go on, but you probably get the drift. I’ve been to a few conferences in my time, mostly fairly turgid and tedious. You’d have to say this was anything but. The only problem is that you have to come back to the real world: work, a mortgage, limited time, crappy weather…. Still, it does you good to be inspired.

DEEP/WRECK SPECIALTY COURSE PHOTO'S

WHAT DO MEAN JASON'S MY BUDDY? Time to gear up!

Lookout! The Awesome Foursome! Hamish practicing his penetration skills

The Eliza Ramsden's Anchor on display Two of the three screws used to
opposite Q'Cliff Maritime Museum propel the J5 Submarine

Hamish Inspecting the "Linear Range" of the J-Class Submarine Propellers

Happy Gilmore. . . sorry I Mean. . . Jason "Researching" the wreck of the Eliza Ramsden

Don't forget Crayfish Season re-opens 16th November for males and females ! ! ! !