NEWSLETTER MARCH 8, 2001

DA ANCHORLIN= E

NEWSLETTER<= /b> October 9, 2005= , Issue 48

Members are encouraged= to submit articles, dive plans and dive reports.

Visit club web site at http://www.angelfire.com/nj4/= divers/

Photographs can be viewed at the above noted website.

Editor: Tom Gormley

Contents

Next Meeting Notice

Holiday Party Report

Artifact and picture contest

Peggy’s News

DAN News

DA Dive Log=

DA Dive Plan

Movie report

September meeting minu= tes

DA Calendar

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Next Mee= ting Notice

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Next club meeting is <= st1:date Month=3D"10" Day=3D"24" Year=3D"2005" w:st=3D"on">Monday, October 24, 20= 05.

We will have our regular business meeting at 730PM

Meeting Program:

  Mark Russomanno presenting “Dive equipment innovations at DEMA 2005”=

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2006 DA Holiday Party

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The 2006 Divers An= onymous Holiday Party will be held at the Branchbrook Manor on Saturday, January 14, 2006 in Belleville, N. J. We plan to have lots of food, = drink, festivities, and friends so make plans on your calendar to attend this even= t. Active members and their guests are invited, and we will accept reservation= s on a first come basis. Seating will be somewhat limited so see Al Nesterok or Norva Gormley at the next meeting to pay for your tickets. Cost will be $10= for each member and $30 for each guest. More details will be presented by Al at= the next meeting.

Divers Anonymous Annual Artifact and Picture Contest – 2005

Divers,

In our DA tradition, we will again host our annual artifact and picture contest during the November 28^th meeting. Here are the rules:=

Open to all activ= e DA members

Members must be p= resent to participate

Artifact or pictu= re entry must be collected or taken in 2005 by member on a scuba dive at least 15 feet deep

One entry in each category per member is allowed, but additional entries for display are encouraged for group enjoyment

Artifact or pictu= re must be presented, described, and story is required<= /b>

Entries of all ty= pes and qualities are encouraged

A first and second prize will be awarded for each category

Decision of the j= udges is final

        =     =

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______________________= _________________________________________________

Peggy’s News

Sent to Peggy by Pierre Guibor

'Underwater Plumbers'
Divers Help Restore Oil Rigs and Pipelines

By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer

www.was= hingtonpost.com
Thursday, September 8, 2005; D01

PORT FOURCHON, La., Sept. 7 -- Capt. Harry D. Hocks and his second in comma= nd, Capt. Paul Segura Jr., leaned over a map in the cabin of their 210-foot boa= t, plotting the route they would take from this port in southeastern Louisiana into the salty waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The map's red, green and blue lines marked the locations of the oil drills and rigs in the gulf -- or at least where they should be.
Since Hurricane Katrina hit last week, Hocks, Segura= and other employees of Epic Divers & Marine LLC have been in high deman= d. The diving services company has received about 100 calls from oil firms see= king to hire its ships and diving crews to locate their oil rigs and underwater pipelines and assess and repair the damage wrought by the storm.=

Diving companies such as Epic Divers, one of only 25 or so worldwide, play a small= but critical role in restoring the nation's energy infrastructure. The price is steep -- Epic Divers charges about $50,000 per day, or even more for complicated jobs-- but the stakes are high: The oil operations off the Louisiana and Mississippi coas= t supply about 18 percent of the country's oil.
"We're going to be busy for a very, very, very long time," said t= he sun-tanned Segura, a 20-year veteran of = the diving business.

Epic's president and chief executive, Julie Rodriguez, said she has even turned so= me business away because her 300-person company is still swamped with work from Hurricane Ivan, which struck the Gulf in September 2004.
"Ivan hit a year ago, and we're still doing work from that," she said. "We're trying to satisfy everybody. There's so much work to be done."

After Hurricane Katrina, the Epic Seahorse and its 36-man crew spent four days ou= t in the gulf, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, examining three rigs and their underwater pipes for oil giant Royal Dutch S= hell PLC. The pipes and two of the rigs were not damaged, they found, but one rig was missing.

"We went out to inspect this one platform and it wasn't there," said John Jansen, a diving superintendent for Epic, from a satellite phone in the gul= f. He has been a diver for almost 12 years.
"The platform had fallen over in 250 feet of water," Jansen said. "We knew we were on it because there were some gas bubbles coming to t= he surface."
The boat's crew spent 247 days offshore over the past year, assessing damage and repairing pipes and platforms. They expect to spend close to 300 days on Katrina-related jobs.

The dive preparation is intense. Divers coat their necks, wrists, ankles and gr= oin with petroleum jelly to protect them from oil. Wearing jeans, sweatshirts, helmets and white rubber boots, they strap on emergency air tanks and weight belts that help them descend into the water. They typically fall about 150 = feet deep, breathing through masks strapped inside their helmets that pipe air f= rom compressors aboard the ship. While in the water, the divers can communicate with the crew on deck via small microphones in their helmets.

"The water [coming] off the Mississippi River is black as night" with mud a= nd slit from upstream that dumps into the Gulf, said John Lariviere, a former diver and director of projects for Epic. "You could put your hand in f= ront of you and not see it."

Below the surface, the divers' first priority is to find the base of the above-wa= ter oil platform and locate the pipelines leading from the ocean floor into the rigs. They work by touch to find the valves on the pipes and the hulking le= gs of the platforms. Sometimes they use sonar devices or an eight-foot-long stick= to find pipes buried in mud. The pipes, if split from the main line, have an automatic cutoff valve that prevents oil slicks.

Once a broken pipe is found, it must be flushed with saltwater using heavy equip= ment lowered into the water by 25-ton cranes. The most dangerous part of the job= is helping guide the crane and hooking it to pipes that have to be put back in place. Repairing a single pipe can take anywhere from a few days to a few months. Divers are brought up to the surface slowly, stopping at different depths. Once on board, they are put in decompression chambers for almost two hours.

"We're like underwater plumbers," said Mike Roehl, a former naval officer and= the superintendent of the roughly 20 divers aboard the Epic Seahorse.
Entry-level divers make around $35,000 to $40,000 annually, while more experienced divers earn up to $140,000.

Epic Divers must deal not only with Katrina's damage to its clients' oil rigs but also with the physical and logistical challenges the storm poses for the company's work.
The storm damaged the windows, radar and lighting equipment of one of Epic Divers' four ships. Because of flood damage in her New Orleans office, Rodriguez is workin= g from Houston= . The company's workers hail from as far away as Michigan and Wisconsin, and some had trouble reachi= ng the area because of airport and highway closings. And most of those who live ne= arby were evacuated to other cities and were able to return in only the past few days.

Even navigating the ships back into the port can be tough. "We saw some of everything coming in," Hocks said. Some of his crew rattled off the li= st: dead cows, ducks, deer and alligators, all floating in the water. "We = were just zigzagging around it all to get through," Hocks said.<= /span>

But the divers are used to tough working conditions. The company motto on the b= ack of Hock's navy blue T-shirt says it all: "Working under pressure." And they understand that their work will help not only their client compani= es but also American consumers.
"The sooner we get everything up and online and running," Segura said, "the prices of gas will go down.&= quot;

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

- - - - - - - - --

Peggy Bowen, Director ....... New: pegdiver@earthlink.net

Ne= w Jersey Cou= ncil of Diving Clubs

http://www.scubanj.org/

DAN News

2005 DAN Online Auction
Get great visibility with a contribution to this year's DAN Online Auction while helping DAN raise funding for The DAN Endowment and other programs. G= o to http://www.DiversAlertNetwork.org= /development and click on the 2005 Auction for all the details about how the auction wor= ks, as well as your exposure to the full DAN membership and others. Questions? = Call (800) 446-2671 ext. 444 for assistance.

___________________________________________________________________= ___

DA Dive Log

It has been 7 months since the last DA Newslette= r and too much has occurred to give the diving justice in this long overdue editi= on of the news. Suffice it to say that the contributors of the news have been = up to their snorkels in other work, family matters, and minute details that ke= ep us from our other voluntary jobs such as this one. Some brief details of di= ving that has occurred since we last heard the news in March of this year, here goes:

Ian and Maurizia went to Australia for their dive honeymoon, We got to see some of their photos and video at our last meeting. The trip looked fantastic to say the least, which is why not many of us get= to go there, it being very very remote from NJ.

Ben, Mike the marine, Jamie, Tom, Norva, Maite, Angela, and Michelle went to St Thomas for a week long trip of diving, digg= ing, and dining. That was back in August.

Dive boat trips to several of our known NJ dive destinations were made on the Sea Lion, Ol Salty, Spring Tide and other dive boats during the year. Thanks to the captains, Al, Nick, And Tom as well as other s and their crews for safe and enjoyable trips. Look at some of the p= ics of our members on the trips on our DA website.

Fred Marcus continued his diving in the colored = seas of the world. This time it was the Red Sea. We have yet to hear his report, but it is on the schedule.

Shore dives were made to various locations from = Dutch Springs at our annual DA Days back in July to our Pre Memorial Day dive pic= nic and our Labor Day Weekend dive picnic all held at the Back Bay, Belmar. We also conducted several ocean shore dives to the Dual Wrecks, Shrewsbury River, Chauncy Jero= me Jr, Meta, Creole, Shark River Inlet, RR Brid= ge and other locations over the past months.

Mike L and Ben finally got a new boat and have e= njoyed multiple dive outings during the past 3 or 4 months. Rich, Tom, and Norva g= ot to take out the inflatable on the high seas for a trip to the Meta. And there was a Northeast Dive News report about some members going on a sk= iff dive back in the spring.

I believe the last dives made by any members inc= lude Pierre on the B-29 in Lake Mead, which merits a meeting report and Tom and = Rich on the Chauncy Jerome Jr which was just an average enjoyable fun dive last Sunday. Tom and Rich got skunked by the bad weather today, so no report of diving Greenwood Lake can be made, thus this newsle= tter instead.

Anyone who wishes to post a dive in this section should forward the report to Tom.

DA Dive Plan=

Shore Dives: DA Annu= al Underwater Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest, Sunday, October 23, 2005 at 9= AM, Sandy Hook Horseshoe Cove.

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Boat Dives: Tom, R= ich, and Ian plan to personally ch= arter the Spring Tide and the Sea Lion out of Brielle for dives in 2006. Please l= et each of them know of your interest for next year’s boat diving to help them make arrangements.

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Other club members have indicated that they will be arranging chart= ers. As dates are set, they will be added to the calendar.=

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Boat Diving Requirements

Everyone please be advised that the following are required by Tom a= nd Ben to dive on any of their charters:

1)      Standard NAUI Waiver and Release signed before boa= rding naming Tom Gormley and Ben Gualano as Instructors and Divemasters.

2)      Logbook indicating nor= theast boat diving experience or arrangements to do guided dive with Tom or Ben.

3)      Pony bottle and regula= tor with pressure gauge or other suitable redundant gear.=

4)      Compass, wreck reel, s= afety sausage, safety whistle and power surface audible signaling device, cutting device as well as other mandatory scuba gear.

5)      DAN or equivalent insurance= .

Movie Report:

At the recommendation of our good friend Scott ”the rock̶= 1; Aschimes, Tom and Norva went to see the latest dive flick “Into the B= lue” starring Paul Walker and Jessica Alba. Needless to say JA looks good in the underwater scenes as well as the above water scenes. As Scott said, there w= ere plenty of diving scenes. If you want to see how a treasure hunter works, th= is film is for you as well. Sharks, gold, underwater fights, car chases, boat chases, shooting, that’s what this movie is about. It will keep you h= appy on a rainy day, which is when we saw it.

I give it ****, that i= s 4 stars. One for JA, automatic, Paul Walker could breath hold for 3 minutes, another star for him, the treasure got one, and the shark got one. I recommend this movie to divers, = go see it.!

Members wishing to sell gear can post it h= ere!

(Send listing= to Tom)

Meeting Minutes

Divers Anonymous Scuba Dive Club

Mario’s Restaurant / 710 Van Houten Avenue, Clifton, NJ

September 26, 2005

Members Present:=

Greg Collucci

Tom & Norva Gormley=

Mike Granado=

Al Nesterok<= /p>
Don Van Dyk<= /p>
Matt Brinkerhoff=

Fred Marcus<= /p>
Pierre Guibor

Mark Russomanno<= /b>

Charles Soulas

John Kelly
Ian Fryer

Maurizia Fryer

Mike Carlucci

Rich Mullen<= /p>
John Donovan=

The = meeting began at 7:30 p.m.

Member voted to pay $15 per member= for the Holiday Party to offset the cost of $30,= which will be the price for nonmember guests. Members also voted to send Rich to = the next NJCDC meeting to lobby for blocking the salt water fishing registration effort that is currently being promoted by NOAA.

Tom, Al, Rich, and Ian gave their reports followed by a timely presentation by Ian and Maurizia about their t= rip to Australia. They presented a slide show and video of the fantastic diving found on the = Great Barrier Reef. Thanks to Ian and Maurizia for = doing a great job on shore notice.

Minutes submitted by Tom for Secre= tary, Richard Mullen

=

2005

Divers Anonymous Calendar

   Updated 12-31-04        =

Jan 2005

·         01/05: DA Planning meeting       &nbs= p;            &= nbsp; 7:30 p.m. at 6 Bros Diner Rt. 46

·         01/08: DA Holiday Party       &nbs= p;                7:3= 0 p.m. San Carlos Rest       &nbs= p;            &= nbsp; 620 Stuyvesant Av= e, Lyndhurst

·         01/31: DA Club Meeting 7:30 p.m

Feb 2005

·         02/01: Bottle Show, South River

·         02/20: Toms River Flea Market

·         02/28: DA Club Meeting 7:30 p.m. Tom and Ben= 217;s Boat Charters, Payment and Sign-Up, and    Kev= in Mc Murray presenting “The Empress of Ireland”<= /span>

Mar 2005

03/13: South Jersey Shore= Dive (?)

03/18~20: Beneath-The-Sea

03/28: DA Club Meeting 7:30= p.m. Dan Lieb presents “NJHDA update”

Apr 2005

·           &nb= sp;         04/03: Manasquan RR Bridge= Dive, 8AM

·           &nb= sp;         04/06: Pool Dive for gear check and warm-up 9:15 p.= m. Clifton YMYWHA

·           &nb= sp;         04/17 Sunday shore dive in Belmar SRI

·           &nb= sp;         04/26: DA Club Meeting 7:30 p.m.       An= nual Dues and Officer Elections,

      Gary Gen= tile presents     =      “U-boats = of eastern US”

May 2005

Sunday shore dives

05/15: Pre-Memorial Day Picnic

05/23: DA Club Meeting 7:30= p.m.

June 2005

06/12 Boat dive, Spring Tide06/27

DA Club Meeting 7:30 p.m. – U= plines and lift bags by Paul Duff= y

Jul 2005

·           &nb= sp;         Local Shore Dives TBA

·           &nb= sp;         7/16 & 17 DA Weekend at Dutch Springs

·           &nb= sp;         07/25: DA Club Meeting

·           &nb= sp;         07/31 Sea Lion boat dive

Aug 2005

08/21: Tom – Spring Tide Boat Dive

08/28 Sea Lion boat dive

08/29: DA Club Meeting 7:30= p.m.

=

Sep 2005

·     &nbs= p;   09/04: Labor= Day Delaware Picnic

·         09/26: DA Club Meeting 7:30 p.m

Oct 2005<= /o:p>

10/31 Local Shore Dive Location TBA

10/23 Halloween dive at Sandy Hook

: DA Club = 10/24/7:30 p.m. Mark Russomanno o= n new DEMA equipment

Nov 2005<= /o:p>

·           &nb= sp;         Local Shore Dives 11/21

= ·     &nbs= p;            &= nbsp; 11/28: DA Cl= ub Meeting 7:30 p.m. 2005 Artifact & Picture - St= ory Contest

Dec 2005<= /o:p>

·     &nbs= p;            &= nbsp; 12/12: DA Club Meeting 7:30 p.m.

·     &nbs= p;            &= nbsp; 12/18: Lizzie H Brayton 101 year anniversary dive, 2PM=
·     &nbs= p;            &= nbsp; “Happy Holidays̶= 1;
·     &nbs= p;            &= nbsp; Friday, 12/31: Last Dive of Year 10AM

Pink highlighted events are subsidized by DA dues=