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

December greetings to all from the Punta Gorda Civic Association Dive Club!
We sincerely wish you a joyous holiday season, whether you are “up north” or
here in our little corner of paradise.

Hurricane Irma is but a distant memory for the most part (now that the debris
has been picked up around town), but the effects are still being felt by some
dive shops who are getting back up and running. We are doing our part by
offering repeat business with those shops that let us cancel during the storm. The hurricane affected our plans for
several local dives as did the cold snap we experienced in early November, but there are always warm places to head to
in search of the wonderful creatures we like to see below.

Last month’s article mentioned that club members have been diving for those
rare, large megalodon fossilized sharks’ teeth at Venice Beach. One such diver
was very successful as you can see in the photo depicting a good-sized
complete specimen along with some smaller teeth. You can imagine the thrill it is
to sift through the murky sand on the bottom out in the harbor and eventually feel
one of these ancient objects. Divers certainly need a lot of patience (and good
flashlights) as they develop strategies for kicking up the sand with fins or with
strainers to shake the teeth loose. Congratulations to Jeff and Cathy for their find!

Also on a somewhat “local” note, the very successful and completely sold out Fossil Shark’s Teeth
dive excursion to Epcot Aquarium was enjoyed by several of our members last
month. It is always a treat to be able to swim about the large tank among the sharks and large rays and see the smaller
critters from the “wet side” of the glass. Divers often station family members on the dry side of the aquarium so they can
wave to each other during the dive. Participants in the dive enjoyed a behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium before
donning the provided dive suits and equipment for the swim in the huge tank. The exhibition is now called The Seas with
Nemo and Friends, (formerly the Living Seas) and claims to be the second largest salt-water aquarium in the world. It
holds 5.7 million gallons of water and measures 203 feet in diameter and is 27 feet deep. The aquarium holds 70
varieties of fish and other marine mammals, totaling 80,000 inhabitants, according to their website.

Some members are planning to dive at Pompano Beach where there are wonderful opportunities to dive on shipwrecks.
With SW Dive Headquarters, it is possible to take on doing the “Wreck Trek” and dive on several ships in one day’s
venture. A cool feature of diving on the Okinawa is the mermaid with a gazing globe right on the ship. It’s a great site for
photography. There is also the “Aqua Zoo” site. It is nicknamed for piles of culverts next to the wreck of the Sea Emperor
which attract a lot of wildlife. Zoo is the right term to describe this site because of the diversity and size of marine life that
inhabit this wreck. Divers encounter large southern rays, Goliath Groupers (200-300 lbs.), nurse sharks, eels and
hundreds of other fish. A couple of members are planning a dive trip to Honduras in January. Others are looking forward
to the Caymans in February and maybe other slightly exotic locations as we head into the new year. We are fortunate to
live in a part of the world where we can readily get to world class diving sites.

Our Dive Club exists for the purpose of promoting the scuba diving interests of our members (and to support our parent
organization, the Civic Association), regardless of the diving skill or experience one may have. If you have an interest in
diving, please attend one of our monthly meetings, held on the fourth Thursday at 7 p.m. at the PGICA, except in
November and December. Our next meeting will be January 25,
2018.

For anyone interested in meeting divers or learning about our
Club in an informal setting, come to the Tiki Hut on Charlotte
Harbor behind the Sheraton Four Points Hotel. We congregate at
5:30 p.m. for a social-hour on the second Thursday of each
month. You’ll know who we are by our divers’ name tags as we
gather on the beach in the Adirondack chairs or at the picnic
tables. We are always happy to meet anyone who enjoys
conversations about diving (special equipment, far-flung or
worldly dive experiences, underwater photography, new
computer technology, and so on) and/or life in Punta Gorda in
general.

Upcoming events always include parties and get togethers for the
Members at the Sheraton Tiki Hut holidays, so the social committee is busy making arrangements
for December’s holiday gathering. We are fortunate that people
are willing to host these events and that we have a treasury to support such get togethers. This year we also plan to
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