Dec 12-17, 2009 - Trimix & Advanced. Trimix training
I recently completed my TDI Trimix and Advanced Trimix training in Central Florida with instructor Richard Dreher III, from Superior Dive Training (www.superiordivetraining.com). Richard is an excellent instructor, with a great attitude and professionalism. Originally from Minnesota, he now lives in cave country. He is active with the NACD and fully dedicated to cave and tech training. At first, I was a little apprehensive to sign up with a young instructor; I was extremely pleased immediately w...
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Full Cave in the Riviera Maya
After a week of drift diving in Cozumel with my wife and Alison, I headed to Puerto Aventuras for the final portion of my full cave certification with Steve Gerrard. Steve is a great instructor with a fun personality and lots of stories... He’s been cave diving for 30 years and teaching for about 25. If you want to know about him, visit his website http://www.deephorizon.info. Day 1: 2 good dives at Dos Palmas ~35ft. Water temp is 75F. Dive 1: 1h23 following the gold line to get acclimated to di...
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Cozumel - 26 Oct 2009
The weather was fantastic today in Cozumel. Air temp mid-80 but very humid. Sunny and calm seas. The water is warm, 83F, and a 2mm shorty is almost an overkill.... Can you imagine I showed up here with a 5mm. I was told a few weeks ago that the water was getting colder and it was time to dig out the 5mm.... That was probably only for a couple days before the current heat wave... This is our first day of diving with Alison and Carlos this week. They’ve painted the Maximus earlier this month and s...
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Monterey Bay - Aug 29-31, 2009
Diving in Monterey Bay area was fantastic. I rented tanks & weights, got fills and hired a local dive guide from the Monterey Bay Dive Center (MBDC.com) across the San Carlos Beach Park. DMs Chris and Tamin, and owner Jim Field are great local guides. The plan was to do 2 dives on Saturday and Sunday. I ended up staying an extra day to dive at Point Lobos on Monday and doing a total of 8 dives over 3 days. Point Lobos is booked months in advance, so early planning is necessary (not my strength) ...
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Dutch Springs - 20-21 Sept 2008
This weekend, we headed to Dutch for our last weekend of the summer... We brought the fire pit so we could stay warm in the evening. As usual, we camped for the weekend, but this weekend, the nights are high-30 to low-40. Pretty cold... I dived dry with my doubles and logged 6 dives over the weekend while divemastering with continuing education students on PPB, wreck, deep, search and recovery, and rescue and guiding tours. I also worked on my frog kick and buoyancy control in preparation to the...
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Dutch Springs - Aug 30-31, 2008 - deco training
I spent Labor Day weekend diving at Dutch Springs with Sterling Silver. This was the busiest weekend I have seen at the quarry. There were tents everywhere and the access ramps were always busy... Nonetheless, with the gorgeous weather and great dive team, we had a wonderful weekend! I also met a group of fellow French Canadian divers from Montreal. It was fun to speak about scuba diving in French - a new experience... Anyway, I arrived Saturday morning with my wife Nathalie and daughter Stephan...
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Dutch Springs - Aug 1-3, 2008
Sterling Silver Scuba was at Dutch Springs August 1-3 weekend for its 4th seasonal trip. We had three students taking OW, five AOW, two rescue and a couple of divemaster candidates doing internships. The water temperature was 78F at the surface, 72 at the platform (27ft), 65 at 30-50ft, 60 from 50-70ft and 44F below 70. The weather was fantastic; sunny during daytime and cool at night... My objectives for the weekend were 1) to assist with the AOW or Rescue as needed, 2) do a couple of fun dives...
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Nassau, Bahamas - Jul 9-13 2008
I just came back from a trip to the Bahamas (Nassau, Stuart Cove’s dive operation) booked through PADI travel. What started as a group of two couples turned out to be four couples of divers: KevinD and Carmen, Jason and Melissa, Carl and Maggie and Nathalie and myself, all from Sterling Silver Scuba in Northern Virginia. We landed as planned at Nassau International on Wed at 12h30pm and headed for our hotel, Orange Hill Inn on the west side of New Providence Island. As soon as we checked-in, a g...
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Dutch Springs - July 3-6, 2008
Sterling Silver Scuba was at Dutch Springs July 4th weekend for its 3rd seasonal trip. We had a dozen students taking OW, AOW and Divemaster training (myself included). On the staff side, we had Kevin, Carl, Jason, Rob, Jeremy, Annette and JF. Melissa, Nathalie and JP were also part of the logistic team helping with food, tanks, and so on. Despite the occasional rain, we had a great time certifying 8 OW (our youngest was 11yr old) and 5 AOW. We did several deep dives (~90ft) for AOW visiting the...
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USS Oriskany Pensacola, FL - June 20-23, 2008
We finally made it! We are in Pensacola, FL, for a weekend of wreck diving on the USS Oriskany, aka The "Mighty O". We are here for fun dives, dive buddies reunion and to visit the area in preparation for a fall trip with Sterling Silver Scuba dive shop. This adventure started a few months ago when Kevin and I got the urge to dive the "Mighty O". Our first attempt to dive the wreck got cancelled due to very bad weather (tornados). This time, Derek, David and Duncan joined us for the adventure. D...
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Sterling Silver at Dutch - June 13-15
Sterling Silver Scuba is going to Dutch Springs this weekend. We have much less students than last month which will give the staff some time for personal diving. Personally, I’ll be trying a new Torus 35 wing from Deep Sea Supply and training with deco bottles. We’ll be easy to spot; we have a new trailer (big black with our new logo on it) and will setup at the peninsula area near the refreshment center. We’ll have BBQ/grill all weekend! Stop by and say hello if you are around. Cheers, JF....
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Dutch Springs - May 23-25 - DM internship
Sterling Silver Scuba had its first weekend of the summerfest at Dutch Spring during Memorial Day weekend. More than a dozen new OW students were certified. In addition, we had a few AOW and several specialties: wreck, DPVs, Drysuits, etc. The water was in the 60’s up to 30ft and 45-50 below the thermocline. The visibility was about 30ft. On Friday, the SSS staff (KevinD, Jason, Carl, Dan, Larry, Jeremy, Annette, JF, Melissa and Derek) left Sterling as a caravan around 10am. The caravan reached ...
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Murrells Inlet, SC - Apr 18-21, 2008 - Wreck dives
Sterling Silver Scuba organized a wreck dive trip to Murrells Inlet, SC with Express Watersports dive operation. This was my first Atlantic Ocean wreck dive trip. We went to 4 dive sites and visited 5 wrecks during the weekend: the Hebe on Friday, 11 miles (tugboat and A-7 plane) on Saturday and USS Vermillion and City of Richmond on Sunday. I had 3 goals for the weekend: 1) get comfortable with my new gears in drysuit: a Dive-Rite dual bladder classic wing, a set of twin Faber LP 85 with a Dive...
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Oriskany -- Feb 16-18 trip cancelled - bad weather
Crappy weather forecast for the weekend (5-7 feet waves) made us cancel our trip to the Oriskany this weekend... Although it was a disappointing decision, it seems that it was the right one as severe storms and a tornado destroyed home in south FL and AL (see online news). We haven`t figured out when we`ll go, but we are already looking a rescheduling alternatives......
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Cozumel -- Jan 19 to 27, 2008 (Part 1)
PART 1 - Bad beginning... During our first two days we didn`t get to dive, but once the Norte was gone, we had 13 wonderful dives. This was my most wonderful family vacation ever. Saturday, January 19th, 2008 (travel day) We left home bright and early Saturday Jan 19 to catch our flight at Dulles. After a few minutes trying to figure out where to check in (we booked with US Air, but needed to check in on United since the first leg was via United Express), we were told that we would miss our conn...
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Cozumel -- Jan 19 to 27, 2008 (Part 2)
part 1 PART 2 - The Kid`s Open Water Certification and some fun dives Monday, January 21st (2 dives: 0:51, 1:11) Everybody is happy that the weather turned around; we have a nice sunny day with little waves. It`s JP and Stephanie`s first open water dive and Louis` first ocean dive. We decided to start with Palancar Horse Shoe. This is one of my favorite and a great dive to start the week. JP, Steph and Nath dove with Alison for the kids first training dive while JF and Louis dove with Torro, a M...
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Cozumel -- Jan 19 to 27, 2008 (Part 3)
part 1, part 2 PART 3 - The Kid`s Advanced Open Water Certification Thursday, January 24th (3 dives: 0:54, 1:06, 1:01) Xicotencatl (USS C-53) mine sweeper wreck. This was Stephanie and JP`s first adventure dive for their Advanced Open Water certification. The wreck is 180ft long and sits at about 75ft at the bottom. It was `deja vu` for Nathalie and I as we visited it back in October. Our thrill was to see the excitment in the kids eyes. We saw many spider crabs, star fish, large groupers and sc...
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Bainbridge -- Jan 6 2008 - 36F water in the quarry
Rob, Kevin, Jason and I went to BSC in Bainbridge, PA this weekend. Our primary objective was for Rob to complete his final AI OW exam, and then, temperature permitting, a couple of chilly willy dives.... It was my first time diving in the winter. Let me start by saying that it was a beautiful sunny day, with air temperature around 45F. The water surface temperature was 40F and dropped quickly to 37F by the time we reached 5ft... Let me tell you that I was pretty well insulated with cold weather...
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Cozumel -- Nov 24 to Dec 1, Rescue Diving (part 2)
Part 1 Tuesday, November 27th (multiple short training dives) Today is the big day. I`ve been preparing for the last few weeks taking my EFR (CPR / AED / First Aid / Care for children) and DAN DEMP and Neuro. Alison has buddied me with David for the class. After meeting him and chatting for a few minutes, we realized that we live about 10 miles away from each other in Fairfax county, Northern Virginia. What a coincidence! We spent the entire day at Paradise tied off to the mooring buoy with Ted ...
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Cozumel -- Nov 24 to Dec 1, Rescue Diving (part 1)
Part 2 This is my second dive trip to Cozumel (only 6 weeks after the first one... this sport is really addictive...). The main purpose of the trip was to relax, dive and do my Rescue Diver certification with Alison. This time, instead of staying at an all-inclusive resort, I decided to stay at the Vista Del Mar, a small hotel located couple blocks (5 mins) from the main place in San Miguel. Sunday, November 25th (4 dives: 0:59, 0:55, 0:58, 0:58) Dive one was on Palancar Gardens with Kathy, Alan...
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