Page 46 - Commentator_Sep2017

DIVE CLUB Judy Minier, 941-979-7316, judyminier@earthlink.net, www.pgidiveclub.com

We are headed into fall in lovely
Punta Gorda fashion and relish the
return of our Dive Club members
who have been away for a few
months. Our thanks to Tom and
Vicki Britton who hosted a wonderful
Fourth of July party at their home
featuring all the trimmings with a
great turnout of members. As is
always the case with these social
gatherings, a lot of dive trip
adventures were shared among the
attendees along with the good food
and camaraderie. We love talking
about exciting and memorable dive
escapades!

At our June and July meetings
several divers who had been out on
recent dive trips in Florida waters
related their summer dive experiences which had the rest of us green with envy. A boat ride out from Venice Beach
allowed several divers to hang out with wonderful sea turtles, big groupers, and dolphins around the reefs which have
grown up from sunken barges, old military tanks, and concrete culverts. The visibility was pretty good which always
makes the diving more enjoyable. On a related topic, it was reported that a group of divers from Sarasota are starting a
dive club. We wish them well on
their new endeavor and hope to
perhaps join up with them for diving
sometime at Venice or Englewood.

Our Club President, Jon Kline, took
a group of students to Stump Pass
for training. While visibility wasn’t
the best until you got close to the
bottom, they managed to see some
eagle rays, lots of barracudas, huge
sand dollars littering the sea floor,
crabs, and starfish everywhere. The
dives were in mostly rubble but the
area had lots of life. Speaking of
rubble, the ship called the Mohawk
positioned out from Bokeelia is
definitely breaking up, which is
surprising after such a short time
underwater, so we need to go see it
soon. It would be best to have a
fairly quick dive boat to get there,
since it is about 30 miles out and it
is a bit of a slog to endure an eight-
hour trip for two 50-minute dives.
We are checking on faster travel
arrangements.

On the technology front, one of our
members has been able to securely place our certification dive cards in the cloud, which means they can be accessed
with a smart phone anywhere or anytime that one of our divers wants to present evidence of his or her dive
documentation. Since most of us don’t travel with our C-cards, this provides a handy back up and is useful if you’ve
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