The 2009 Season Beginning Soon!!

"Ron Ostrowski, Joe Zeisweis and myself after a day of diving on the Brian C wreck"


I learned to scuba dive in 1986 because it was a requirement for me to spend a semester at the West Indies Lab in St. Croix, U.S.V.I. While at the lab I worked on cutting edge research on White Bands Coral Disease which has now desimated large areas of coral in the carribean. I also worked on a project which created "manmade blenny condos". These "manmade blenny condos" were placed within a coral reef as habitat for blennies. This is just like sinking ships in the artificial reef to provide habitat for various marine life. Back in the 80's, artificial reefs did not exist as they do today and these projects were conducted to see if a manmade reef could be successful. I spent everyday diving collecting data and observing habitat. This sparked my love and passion for scuba diving.

Today I love to dive for various reasons. I am still an avid marine biologist and thoroughly enjoy watching fish, lobster, sea anenomes, luminescence and other marine life in their habitat. I find diving therapeutic because for whatever reason it completely relaxes me, the weightlessness and the constant sound of yourself breathing must have something to do with that. I really enjoy trying to take that perfect picture so that I can share my underwater world with my friends whom quite frankly think I am crazy for diving. Last but not least I really enjoy the friendships and camaraderie aboard the dive boats.

I recently heard about the passing of Chuck Wine and although I only met him a few times, I can remember the laughter that he brought to the dive boat. There are always pranks and joking around that comes along with being on the dive boat for an afternoon. At any given time you could come up from a dive to find that someone opened your cooler and ate your lunch or left you some strange smelly creature in one of your bags or drysuit for you to find later once you got home. These are the things that I will always remember and bring laughter to a day of diving. The loss of a diver always hits home for me, Franz Dietl, George Hoffman and now Chuck Wine. They all contributed greatly to the comeraderie on a dive boat and made myself and others laugh. All of them had passion for life and diving which I find to be a common thread among divers. Like Chuck Wine, I have struggled with my health. I have searched far and wide for treatments for my illness that will not prevent me from diving. I also had dive friends that gave up on me when they heard I was ill, that too has been a large hurdle for me to overcome but it made me try even harder not to give up this love of shipwrecks and the underwater world. I am an optimistic person and I hope those that gave up on me will reach out, wipe the slate clean and become dive friends again, there is an empty hole in my life without them.

As spring is approaching I am getting really excited for the upcoming dive season. I just got my feet wet so to speak when I went to a lecture presented by Gary Gentile. Looking at his photographs inspired me to become excited for the dives that I am planning on doing this year. There are some wrecks that I really wanted to get to such as the Offshore Paddlewheeler, Moonstone, N. Pacific and Varanger and no one has it on their schedule. I may have to actually charter a boat myself to get there so if anyone is interested in going to these wrecks let me know! I also have a few dives to do in order to complete my Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Techniques course. The dives last fall were blown out and I am looking foward to completing these dives.

I am planning on taking lots of photographs this season so that my friends and family can share in my experiences. Photos also are a great way to document your accomplishments over the years. I was neglectful in that I did not photograph much in my earlier diving years in the 80's and 90's but I hope to make up for it now. If anyone has any photos of me diving from the early days, I would greatly appreciate a copy.

I also advised Gary Gentile that I thoroughly enjoyed his book "Wilderness Canoeing". He told me that I should go on a canoe trip. I think I may just do that this summer, I am looking into a canoe & camping trip somewhere in Northern Maine. I spent sometime in the area around Baxter State Park and they have a lot of areas where you could canoe streams and camp along the way.

I looking foward to seeing everyone this summer out on the dive boat. Please try to keep me laughing afterall laughing heals everything!!!



Joe Bachofffer, John Moyer, Joe Kelly, Bill Dixon and other divers.






Capt. Bob Meimbrese of the Down Deep, Ken Mason (I think) and Bill Dixon
Typical productive days fo diving!