MINUTES OF THE GENERAL MEETING; WEDS. 11 NOV. 98

The general meeting was called to order by our president Bill Johns, at 7:05 pm , with eight members present .

OLD BUSINESS - NONE OUTSTANDING

The first order of old business was discussed regarding the 8th annual underwater pumpkin carving contest which as you know is a long standing event for this club done on the the closest weekend before Halloween,( Full report given later in this newsletter.) Jim Trayer and Tony Ferrara appeared to be the only ones who attended . President Bill Johns passes the word along that Paul Pearah has restated that he will hold the annual clubs night dive on the Friday night following Thanksgiving (11-26-98 ),which was discussed prior as a two tank event meeting at the Monterey Breakwater Marina at 5 pm. He says that there is a lot of real interesting sea life that lives in the rocks of the breakwater that is worth seeing on this specific club dive . After the night dive he wants everyone to get together and have dinner at one of the local nice restaurants. Even though Paul could not be at this meeting he informed Bill to let everyone know he will be at the night dive for sure, So you should be there too in order to enjoy the annual event.. Member Steve Lopez says that a friend of his has offered a 3 day boat trip on the Conception to anyone who is interested for Dec 10 11 & 12. Cost will be $375 a 11 food & air. President BilI Johns says he will host the annual Dec . x - mass dinner , the exact date is open or maybe the 12 th. Come to the next meeting to find out.

SO WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING OUT THERE IN THE DIVING WORLD?

The 8th Annual " GREAT PUMPKIN," UNDERWATER CARVING CONTEST by TONY FERRARA, Dive Host

It was a cold , dark and dreary morning not a thing could be said as to warmth as the very thought of it just did not exist nor was it going to be a factor on this particular day. It was definitely windy and frosty overcast when dive buddy Jim Trayer arrived at 6:30 am , bringing other cold and not warm news about what to expect in as far as the weather report that he had just finished getting from the internet Coast Guard weather buoy out in Monterey Bay . It really was very discouraging to read " 4 foot choppy seas, rain showers, SMALL CRAFT WARNING, wind up to 14 knots". Man , what a tuff break, I'd been packed for a week, the boat was ready to go no leaks, motor serviced and should start on first pull. Gas tank full, dive gear in the van, extra tank of air, "let's go get wet!" But what about the other divers who said they also wanted to go. Because of the negative weather report I should call them and get a agreement as whether its going to be a full GO or not . Although its early they should be up by now, So I called and got Tom's business phone, the second call was to Rau hi's message machine which came on so I could only leave a short message to get back in touch with me later in the day. Well the best 1 could think of was that both of them had gotten together and were already on their way down to meet Jim and I at the Breakwater. I then explained this belief to Jim who told me that as long as they may have gone we might as well go too. So we did, and then an hour and a half later we pulled into the Breakwater parking lot to find a lot of other divers coming and going , several groups of classes. What a change in the weather, it was overcast and a little cold , but not anything at all like what the weather report had said to expect. At the first sight of the bay just above Sand City Seaside, we saw the water was flat, calm no waves so we knew no wind, Passing by the Holiday Inn there wasn't a breaker in site. The weather looks good maybe we can have a good day after all. So then we two waited and waited hoping against hope that any club member would show up, until it was clear that we were going to be it. And so then it now started to seriously rain, we were in place everything ready , we decided that as long as we were already getting wet we would go carve a pumpkin, and so that's what we did. Launching the boat- no problem, driving out and finding the sunken sailboat -no problem. Over the side and descending down to all of 31 feet - no problem. But then as usual Tony's slip knot in the goodies bag turned into a non-slip knot. It made carving the pumpkin a little hard through a 8 inch opening, " VERY INTERESTING" to say the least. But we got it done, not too B.- A. - D. Finding that we both had about 1500 psi of air left, off we went on the compass reading of 05 degrees into what appeared to be a black (at the least a very dark ) hole out in the distance. You must keep in mind that the viz had improved to alI of 6 - 8 feet by this time . After a 3 minute swim we came up on a blank wall, well at first I though that we had found the famous Half track, but no we had just swam up onto the keel side of the sailboat. It seemed to get extra cold and eerie by this time of our dive. a heck of a lot of kelp had grown over the boat and boy was it really dark inside. After further exploring we started back on a heading of 355 degrees and swam about 3 minutes, not finding the anchor rope we surfaced with 800 psi. It was a really good but cold dive , sort of eerie at times the water temp was a normal 48 degrees, worst viz 3 feet, best viz - 8 feet and best of all my dive buddy had the winning pumpkin which was not only the best, but also the scariest and the lamest entry . Like Mel Brooks said "Its nice to be King", Its also nice to win all the beans!

OUR CLUB MOTTO IS TO DIVE AT LEAST EVERY MONTH OF THE YEAR! DUES ARE $30. A YEAR, YOU GET AN AIR REFILL CARD GOOD AT DIVER DAN'S SHOP, AND ALSO A 5% DISCOUNT ON NEW EQUIPMENT PURCHASES. MEETINGS ON 2 ND WEDNESDAY OF EVERY MONTH AT THE STORE.