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February 2005
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Scuba Plates Close to a Reality by Chip Earle
Why a license plates? Well it is a great way to honor our sport and the avocation that for many of us is a lifetime passion. We all know the many benefits of diving and that diving is a cooperative and sharing sport. It's adventurous, exciting, educational and a socially wonderful way to spend time with friends. What better way to make that statement to all your neighbors than to display a scuba license plate and welcome them to come join our band. I am always amazed after being a diver since 1987 and a dive professional since 1995 when I hear people say, "SCUBA Diving? You dive in Virginia!?" or "A SCUBA shop? Wow! How long have you been here?" . Or, when I'm talking to a customer and the name of a mutual acquaintance comes up, I say that he is a diver and my customers say's, "No Way! Really? I had no idea!" People just don't seem to get the message that there is a very active diving community here in Virginia or that no matter what their particular interest is in diving there are a lot of other people who share that interest. I seems to me that the reason for these statements is that diving is basically invisible within the community. It doesn't happen on the street corner or at the mall. It's not apparent in the media. Diving is logistically intense and generally involves travel if only a few miles out to some quarry, river or lake, not around town. Try as we might, our diving community is small and the community as a whole doesn't see diving going on and thinks therefore that diving doesn't exist here. What is worse to me is that young people that have an interest in the ocean, don't realize that there is the capacity right in our community to help them develop their interest and even career paths in aquatic conservation, marine biology and ocean sciences, not to mention archeology and art, photography and a host of other interests. Scuba plates can help us provide day-to-day visibility for diving and help keep in front of the community the opportunities that they have to play, work, learn about and conserve a most valuable global resource. Ann McGrath saw this need and that these plate were a way to economically promote our cause. With no small effort, she and a number of other faithful, went about to research the way plates got approved. They got the plate designed and got the design approved by the Department of Motor Vehicles. They had the bill introduced in the General Assembly explaining their cause to her delegate and won approval of the legislature. Ann worked long and hard to gather the completed applications and checks, but was never quite able to muster the commitment and enthusiasm of the greater dive community. The authorization for the plates expired before she could actually capture the needed applications and financial resources. Today we have re-introduced the bill, HB 2272, patroned by Del Rob Bell of Albemarle County. The bill has passed the House and is now in Transportation Committee of the Senate. Assuming that it passes the Senate, we will be able to get the plate issued, if we have the needed signatures and the cash to give to the Department of Transportation. We have nearly enough applications, but many of them are old. People have moved, cars have been sold, checks and credit cards authorizations have expired. So, we need your help. Join with us to promote a love of the aquatic realm, the many things yous can learn and do there as a scuba diver. Help us raise the visibility of our sport and our passion. Please register your intent to support the Scuba plate. Whether you have turned in an application in the past or not, please register and give us you email address so that we can quickly notify you when the time comes as to how we finish what Ann McGrath and others started. You can register either on the SeaDevil Divers site or the Dive Connections site. Tell your fellow divers to register. Tell the owner and staff of your dive shop to register and support our cause. If we work together, we can get the plates issued and help raise the visibility of diving in the Commonwealth of Virginia. If I can help you in any way, please contact me.
Note: All proceeds raised by these plates stay with the Virginia Department of Transportation and no money is paid to any other party.
Becoming a Scuba Diver (part one)
The second day dawned colder than the first, yet we continued on, undaunted by the chilly air. The first of these two dives was to go to a minimum of forty feet, although we could go as deep as sixty if we wanted. Somehow I doubted I would. After watching my friend and instructor slip under the surface, and watching them re-surface later into a halo of bubbles, I finished tugging on my hood and gloves, strapped on my compass and computer, and prepared myself to face the icy depths of the quarry. My first task was to use my compass to find my way to the buoy which marked the descent line. I was not supposed to look up. As I kicked my way towards my marker, thoughts and images of evil sea-monsters that lurked in deep, cold waters suddenly surfaced, unbidden, in my head. I guess that was why I kicked faster. I didn’t hear my instructor telling me to stop until I had almost reached the other side of the quarry, realizing that I had gone an arm’s length to the left of the buoy, missing my mark entirely. I swam back (this time not bothering with the compass) to Sea Hag, who jokingly chided me for swimming too fast. She warned me of the thermocline we would hit, and how the temperature would drop ten degrees. She hinted that, if we decided to continue past forty feet, we might hit another. We adjusted our buoyancy as we descended, the line stretching endlessly downward, our bodies suspended in nothing but greenish water. There were no landmarks other than the line that I could see to gauge how fast we were sinking, so I was forced to rely on the computer, which kept turning on my wrist so I couldn’t see it. My ears refused to equalize, which tested my patience even more than the freezing cold. And then we hit the thermocline! I had thought it was cold before, but the temperature had plummeted into the low forties. I was ready to go, but forty was still six feet away. Finally, at forty-two feet my instructor signaled “down?” at which I shook my head furiously and pointed up. Sea Hag smiled and we began to ascend. At fifteen feet we stopped for decompression purposes, and after three minutes began procedures for an air sharing ascent. Now back to shore, at the picnic table I stuffed my face with sandwiches and then back out again for our final dive, the same dive as the last one on the first day. All three of us descended to the fifteen foot platform and continued on to the two boats, through the diamond-shaped rings and back to the platform, where I lay down on my back and made a desperate attempt to blow a bubble-ring but failed. We ascended and rushed back to land, to the warm comfort of our beach towels and more sandwiches. It was finally over. All those long hours of slide shows and gas laws and whatnot had finally paid off in the form of a little plastic card and a sheet of fancy paper, and as an added bonus we got sandwiches. Although it was fun, I couldn’t wait to dive in the tropics…at least there you could get away with MUCH less wetsuit!
We'd love to talk with your teacher about coming to visit your class to talk about the ocean and the creatures in it. We'll bring scuba equipment and would like you to help us show it to your classmates. We'll talk about the animals in the ocean, the things that are happening to the ocean to hurt the fish and the things that you and your classmates can do to help protect the ocean.
Fishersville, VA Dive Site Needs Your Support Fishersville Quarry became available to local divers as a result of the efforts of Jeff Elkins. Jeff worked hard to secured this site as a resource for area diver on more that one occasion in the last decade. Today the Quarry is leased by Jeff and rights are distributed to other dive professionals and shops. These professionals pay a fee to use the quarry for their students and customers and also provide the needed insurance to protect both the lessee and the quarry owner. As the annual lease is due to be renewed we face the possibility of raising costs, but the real problem is not the costs but the evidence that local divers will support keeping the quarry available. Revenues this past year to the professionals and shops supporting the quarry have waned as divers have opted to travel to other locations including Lake Rawlings, Heymarket (aka Millbrook del Sol), Virginia Beach and other dive locations regionally and beyond. Certainly it is good news that divers are spreading their wings and going diving elsewhere, but it brings up the problem that their may not be enough financial support to keep the quarry available for those quick and easy dive opportunities and that there will be no local diving alternative. If you feel that diving in the community would be well served to keep Fishersville available you are urged to purchase a season pass from our club sponsor, Dive Connections, or any other Fishersville supporting professional or shop. Whether you'll actually go diving a bunch at the quarry or for that matter even at all, please consider helping keep this resource available. For more information and to purchase a quarry pass from Dive Connections, plese give them a call at 434-964-9200 or email at scuba@connect2diving.com |
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Some years ago, Ann McGrath embarked on a project to benefit all divers and all
the diving businesses in the Commonwealth by working to petition for a special
license plate declaring the interest that we have in scuba diving. Today
we are very close to the finish line, but we need your help.
It was early November and we were making our way out to the Fishersville Quarry
from my instructor’s house in Ivy, finally bumping over the potholed dirt road
and through the gates to the actual “lake” itself. It was beautiful in the
crisp breezy morning, the water was a deep green, and golden leaves dancing in
the wind occasionally dropped down to dot the water’s surface. The conditions,
however, were not what one would call ideal when it came to SCUBA
diving. It was, in my opinion, too cold, not just in the water but on land too.
After making a desperate attempt to struggle into my 7 mm wetsuit, I called upon
the help of my friend Robyn, who was also taking the class. Of course, my
instructor (affectionately known as Sea Hag) leaped into her dry suit and was
ready to go while I had barely stretched mine above my thighs. Finally, Robyn
and I were suited-up and ready to brave the frigid waters in the name of, well,
moving on to warmer ones that had more fish.
During our first surface dive, I saved a drowning Robyn, a Robyn with a cramp, a
distressed Sea Hag with a cramp, and an “unconscious” Robyn. We also did some
compass navigation and other such activities. Then it was back to shore to set
up our tanks and dive to 15 feet. As this was my first dive outside of a heated
pool in Waynesboro, you could say I was nervous. It took me ages to equalize
which, as Sea Hag later told me, could be attributed to the freezing water.
When we finally finished descending to the 15 foot platform, my instructor and I
played a game of tic-tac-toe by scratching in the algae on the wooden stand,
“fried” a leaf in a square pan, and received a call on the brown telephone which
was sunk for that purpose. We also saw a bass, which APPEARED to be over a foot
long (Nothing like refraction to make the critters interesting!). After a
not-really-emergency ascent and scrambling frantically back to land and the
warmth of the 50 degree air, I waited for Robyn to finish her first dive before
again descending, this time with all three of us, and down to roughly 30 feet.
This time we sank down to the 15 foot platform and continued on along the line
which led away toward deeper water. We quickly passed by the two sunken boats
and swam through a trail of diamond-shaped rings. We ascended, and Day One was
over. Two dives left.
