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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Reward offered for Barbie Pirate

This spy photo has been obtained by scubabyjoe.com that shows that Barbie's home on the bow of the one of the wrecks in Union Lake is becoming jeopardized!

This yet-to-be-identified diver is the leading prospective criminal! Yielding a knife in his right hand and a strong grip on the victim in his left, he's not to be trifled with!

Join the effort by emailing savebarbie@scubabyjoe.com!

How do you map a dive site?

It takes some planning and team effort to map a dive site, but it can also be done on your own! Some critical materials to have on hand: Blank dive slates for notes, graph paper, compass, etc., etc., etc....

Nonetheless, the more knowledge you accumulate or that you have available, the more safe your diving will be!

We're all confident now that we have a navigable map that we can pass along to our students;, value to us and value to new divers!

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Looking in the Library

In a recent visit to the local library I decided to investigate the scuba-related resources available...

I found a sufficient shelf of introductory books, but with a little picking I also came across these great DVD videos that are directed at kids! Perfect way for them to start their learning!



It's nice to have these titles in mind when teaching DISCOVER classes which often include younger divers! not to mention the convenience of the availability at the library!

Instructors Converge in Class

It wasn't just PADI course backpack's loaded full of study materials, dive slates and a boring old-school teaching environment...

It was a whole weekend of concentrated pool sessions focused on refinement of teaching scuba skills; and it was a huge success!

Instructor students from Adventure Scuba Center and Great Lakes Dive Center built camaraderie through entire days of practice in the pool. We're all excited from our successes and are looking forward to our long futures as dive professionals!

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I think I speak for all of us (students) when I give an emphatic "Thank You!" to the professional staffs at these two great dive shops for such a well run weekend!

Videos for Viewing

For the curious "fan" of everything diving, here's a nice collection of videos that show all the details behind various scuba equipment...

Ever wondered how your first-stage hardware was machined??

The answer lies here...


For more videos, see these.