DUI "Dog" Days Delight!

To say that Drysuit diving is nicer because "its warmer" doesn't quite describe the experience completely! DUI's "DOG" (DUI Owners Group) Day lets divers experience it first hand and try out the entire line of dry suits available to them.

The first aerial shot was courteousy of Vertical Reality's climbing and repelling tower! The tower is the tallest in the Midwest and hosts training sessions from public rescue agency's as well as letting walk in customers don some gear and try out repelling! Bring your scuba gear and your harness!

My dive buddy, Mitch (students know him as their instructor from GLDC), was a popular guy with his new friends down at Gilboa Quarry! His CLX 450 dry suit kept him nice and toasty and nearly doubled his play time!

I opted for the TLS 350 suit which kept me comfy too! I felt very comfortable exploring Gilboa Airline's Grumman airplane! ;-) Mitch caught me coming down the gang plank... There's so much to explore here at Gilboa, take a moment and check out the site.

Here's an eery view from inside the plane, yikes! Hope you get to come down to explore the quarry first hand, you won't regret it. Email me or Mitch anytime and we'll buddy with you for Gilboa (or anywhere else! ;-)

Ty Sawyer, from "Sport Diver" magazine was here today snapping shots. DUI's event at Gilboa is the largest dry suit event in the country and will be featured in September's issue. Be sure to check out his photos!

Representatives from Divers Alert Network and DUI spoke about their involvement in the industry. Very impressive was DUI's all-American production facility in San Diego! Personal pics of the great staff working on every aspect of DUI suit production, from sewing to quality control testing. Mention's of respectful involvement in the movie industry as well with help in filming diving scenes in movies like Mission Imposible and the Italian Job. DUI is a very impressive company indeed!

DUI put 172 divers in the water on Saturday alone, but Mitch and I were just happy to be 2 of them! We met fellow dive enthusiasts, DUI dive professionals, and rounded out our own dive experiences by test driving our favorite dry suits! A very successful day!

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Open Water Divers at White Star

Everyone enjoyed the weekend's initial dive brief under great weather and a beautiful sun! Luckily our group started early and grabbed some valuable picnic table space while the rest of the day brought out nearly 100 divers that filled-in almost the entire lake-front shoreline!

Soon, everyone was entering the water and the challenge of weekend OWD Skills were on!

White Star Quarry has done a great job at developing their site to cater to all divers, experienced and the divers-in-training, by providing these great submerged platforms for skills tests.

Mitch (left), an instructor at Great Lakes Dive Center, congratulates a student after a successful controlled emergency swimming ascent to the surface from the training platform. As you can see, visibility here is one of the best in the Great Lakes area.

After a long first day, what better to cap off the night than a tall tasty treat from the local ice cream parlor extradinaire, "Mr. Freeze"! (No relation to the chilly May waters of White Star! ;-)

And who could resist the temptation's of the Ohio "Buckeye Sundae", or my favorite, the "Mudd Sundae" complete with Oreos, Hot Fudge and Gummy Worms! Mmmm!

Some students learned a valuable lesson not to be found in the Instructor Manual... Clean and "Dry" your wetsuit out after your dives! Some of the students found their wetsuits a little chilly on Sunday morning! ;-) But that didn't stop them from getting back in the water with a giant stride entry into the day's activities.

I think Sofia embodies all the satisfaction of becoming a new Diver in this picture! Now a new PADI Open Water Diver, she enjoy's the comfort and peace of mind every diver has after great dives, meeting great new friends, and the thought of great new underwater opportunities!

Great going GLDC Spring Class of '09!

Looking forward to diving with you all in the future!

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White Star Quarry Enjoys 60' Visibility!

Who is that masked man at the top of the quarry!? It's eerily similar to the "Christ of the Abyss" statue from the Florida Keys!

I'm not sure about other divers this weekend, but at White Star Quarry in Ohio, I saw crystal-clear views like these were found on every dive! I can't express how fun it was to dive in the clarity and content of this site that made up such a fulfilling experience!

On top of the stone crusher in the quarry is "Instructor X", a soon-to-be dive instructor exploring the quarry's in's and outs down near the stone crusher passageway.


This unidentified diver we'll call "jacket winner" didn't want to be identified to keep his cool demeanor absent from the paporazi-style coverage of the weekend. This weekend's focus was on the students to be instructed rather than promoting the success of his dive jacket pursuits.

B-U-T, it wasn't all study, study, study!

When you're not busy doing instructor-in-training skills, why not ride an underwater motorcycle at exceptionally high speed (not really) to keep you grounded!?!?


But whatever you do do, don't STOP taking education classes! To stop diving experiences, training or diving, you limit yourself! Never stop taking your continuing education classes and you'll forever find yourself in new and ever expanding situations of discovery!
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