Sergio, Rick and myself met with Claus, a soon to be UofM phd who is working with NOAA about possible MUE projects. We are looking at documenting wrecks beyond Miami Dade DERM's limit of 100ft with video and photos. REEF fish surveys would be extremely valuable. Lionfish assassination and recovery would also be a niche way to help. The photos and video could be added to GUE's Project Baseline.

REEF fish data would be the first step in creating GUE trained "Research Divers" that could collect trusted data. Its a long ways away. Most "scientists" are paid by grant to do specific projects. They are not looking for projects and they have to be very cautious of the data they use because bad data could cost them their grant and worse, their reputation as a scientist.

MUE October 2009 Meeting Report

Hello MUE's




We had a great meeting last night with 13 MUE members attending. We missed those of you that couldn't attend. We welcomed our newest members, Guy Wagner, Kevin Corby, Frank Blanco and Berny Blanco. Rick Thomas was also able to come down and join us for the first time. Thank you all very much for coming.



Last night, Todd Kincaid, GUE & WKPP Science Director gave us an overview of GUE's Project Baseline via telephone. While it did take a little long, we got a great sense of what GUE's global conservation initiative entails. The exciting news is that MUE is going to be in the forefront of it all. Only one other GUE-based group, the BAUE (Bay Area Underwater Explorers in San Francisco , CA.) is working with the Project in the US .



After our call with Todd, we stayed and kicked around some ideas of potential sites where we'd be working in the future. We mentioned live reefs, artificial reefs (i.e., wrecks) and even Commercial Pier. All great stuff.



There are many "things" that we can and will be doing as research/science divers. Examples include taking photos and photo mosaics, videos, measurements, and performing fish-counts. As Rick mentioned last night, we need to be EXCELLENT in all we do and for that, we'll need to train. We only have one shot at making a first impression in the diving science community and with GUE. We can't just jump in the water tomorrow and start. We need to establish a training program and "train" ourselves as science/research divers. In this regard, we will start our training in the form of fish identification. Fish ID and counts are an important tool in the determination of the overall health of a reef. While it may sound mundane, it is a very measurable and used criterion in the science diving community. Besides, I personally think it would be awesome to actually know the names of the fish we see in our everyday dives.



Matt, Rick and I will be meeting and having calls over the next few weeks to hammer out a plan that for the future of MUE's science and research diving initiative. We'll also be speaking with a local scientist/diver that has already expressed interest in helping us in this regard and joining the team. We'll present the plan during our next meeting.



In the meantime, we ask you to do two things:



First: Look at the emails that Matt sent yesterday and start learning the names of the top 20 fish. The email titled “MUE_Level_1_ Fish.pdf” contains a three page .pdf file containing those fish. Just print that out (in color, duh) and write the name of the fish on the back and voila, you have flash cards (well, flash paper). You can always glue them onto cards. Matt will send out an “answer key” soon for the .pdf file. Let us know if you have any problems downloading, etc. We’ll review those fish during our next meeting and Matt & Rick will give us the next set.



Second: Please register with R.E.E.F.. It's free and a great tool to us get started in our Fish ID training. http://www.reef. org/resources/ fieldstations/ info



We’re on our way to help conserve our beautiful underwater habitat and use our amazing GUE training for a great purpose. And, of course, we’ll have a blast doing it!



Thanks again.



Sergio

[MUE] Dive Report: MUE July 2009 Team Dive- Miami, FL

Photos from Matt:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiswango/sets/72157621572961199/

Pics from the dive from William:

http://picasaweb.google.com/MiamiUnderwaterExplorers.org/MUEJuly2009

William's Report:

We arrived at Miami Beach Marina for the afternoon trip with RJs. Our Dive Trip Coordinator for today was Matt and he did a great job getting our team checked in, picking the sites and booking the boat. (Thanks Matt!)

We then took a couple of minutes to organize the teams, figure out our objectives and do some planning as a group before we broke up into individual teams. (Thanks Sergio!)

Teams and Objectives

Team 1: Rick, Gary and William (Photo)

Team 2: Matt and Andrea (Photo)

Team 3: Jan and Carlos (Intro to GUE diving)

Team 4: Morgan, Nicole and Javi (Doubles Team)

Team 5: Sergio and Angela (Wreck diving)

We arrived at the St. Anne Wreck (75') and the boat tied in. Team 1 headed in first to get some pictures of the other teams as they headed down. The current was hitting this wreck from the starboard side and we found a good spot out of the current to wait for the group. Once everyone was down and had some pictures taken, a couple of divers tried a scooter, we then started to explore from stern to bow and snapping more pics of the teams as we went along. There were plenty of divers on this wreck, we moved slowly allowing them to pass when we met them. After a complete tour of the external part of the wreck, we made it back to the ascent line and went through our stops. It was a little crowded but our team continued to communicate well through our stops.

During the surface interval, we planned for a drift dive on the wreck of the Tarpon (75'). We changed teams around based on objective and I had an opportunity to dive with Sergio and Angela.

The current seemed to keep taking us west away from the reef, we made a course correction to get back on the reef and to the drop off. This allowed us to cruise right over the Wreck of the Tarpon about 22 mins into the dive. The rest of the dive, we just went with the flow and practiced our liftbag and ascent with stops. This was certainly a great way to kick off the MUE group.

A couple of us stayed after for dinner at Monty's to talk about the dive and more importantly plan the events for August.Thanks to everyone who joined us and looking forward to more diving with MUE members.

Lauderdale by the Sea Dive Report: Amy and William

Amy and I met up at 6:30 AM just in time for the sun to start comingup. The ocean was flat calm. We planned on going out just past thereef to practice some skills.The water was nice and warm 84-86F.

It was a good idea to only wearthe top portion of my farmer john with a skin and I was also testing alycra hood. On this dive I brought my new Halcyon Pathfinder Reeland a set of sea snips to complete the gear I needed for WreckPenetration.We have a very nice tune up dive spending almost 2 hours in the waterand I made it out just in time to log in to work at 9 AM.

After thatwe had breakfast and a quick trip to Fill express for some fills toget ready for tomorrow's dive.I really enjoyed this sunrise dive and hope to do some a littleearlier making it a Night to sunrise dive.

If there are any morningpeople that want to meet up at 5 AM let me know.

Pics from the divehttp://picasaweb.google.com/MiamiUnderwaterExplorers.org/SunriseDiveLauderdaleByTheSeaJuly172009#

The First meeting of MUE was a great success. We had over 20 people there. I introduced myself to some new and interesting divers! Sergio rolled out the first draft of the logo! The banner was great and everyone recieved a sticker for a completed membership application!

We are diving Saturday July 18th with RJ's

Next meeting is Wednesday 8/19 at 7PM at Underwater Unlimited

Next dive is Saturday 8/22 in the afternoon.

SFRRT Dive Report

Photos from the dive:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiswango/sets/72157621230282011/

We had two divers not show at the dock. Luckily, we three experienced divers we can accomplish all the core goals of our quarterly monitoring.

The Seahorse is a 46ft Louisiana shrimp boat that has been modified into a recreational dive boat for archeology and other projects. Its slow, but with a full kitchen, bbq grill, AC, and French onion chip dip, the day flys by!

We left at 9 AM and headed to the borrow pit. Team leader David Kaplan and I jumped in to find the sediment bottles in the sand. We hit the bottom, and I thought I was on the reef ledge until my depth gauge broke thru my tunnel vision narcosis that I was up off the sand in 90ft of water. Swimming back to the ledge I didn't recognize the area so I was left with the classic decision of "right or left". When you are not sure of where you are, you don't know where to go?

I bet on a big lead into the drop point and went South with the current. The ledge faded and my cheerleader "You can save this dive" faded back. I started kicking myself when the bottom timer said 10 minutes. I just broke another cardinal rule of research diving.

"If you don't find you site in 5 minutes, surface and drop again." A diver is never going to find a site when lost because you don't know where you are and where you jumped it at.

We surfaced, donned fresh tanks and reviewed the drop with the captain. Jumping in again, my confidence was shot and I was beating myself up for breaking a rule I haven't had to use in years. I've always had great drops! As we went down my internal map said, "yeah, this is the place" and I swam right to the bottles. One sediment bottle was broken, the rest were intact. We changed them, took a visibility reading and surfaced in 15 minutes. I had more gas left over than after the first dive!

The second dive was on Jeff's Ledge, the 55ft 3rd reef line off Commercial Pier. The current was ripping so the three of us made a quick decent. David found the bottles as I was getting dragged to the reef by the dive flag. I hit bottom and grabbed some rock with my hands. Andrea was ahead and fine. I pulled and glided my way back to the site and tied the flag off. The current wasn't bad on the bottom. Andrea did her fish count while David and I changed the bottles. Then we shot the 20 frame photo Mosaic on the bottom. 35 minutes we drifted off and ascend with the mission accomplished.

We had lunch and planned the 3rd dive on the shallow reef in 40ft of water. David borrowed a tank from the boat. Andrea volunteered to take the AL80 with 2200 psi for the fish count and I took her third tank. I use more gas taking pictures making constant buoyancy adjustments. Again I usually bring a stage AL80 just in case, but all our trips have gone so well I just haven't needed it.

The current was moving again and this time I left the flag on the boat. We jump in and hit the bottles. Made the switch and shot our photos. After packing up I shot a lift bag. Andrea was down to 800 psi so we shared gas as we drifted down the reef for 10 minutes and then ascended.

After showering and cleaning up, I down loaded the photos and made a copy on a USB drive for David Kaplan to take home and process. It was a great day on the water with many good lessons remembered and reinforced!

First meeting and Dive

Meeting: 7 PM, Wednesday July, 15th. Miami, FLLocation: Underwater Unlimited -GUE Support Center5749 SW 40th StMiami, Florida 33155phone: 305.445.7837 info@underwaterunlimited.nethttp://www.underwaterunlimited.net/
We will use this opportunity to present the objectives, structure and membership requirements of MUE and to gather feedback from local GUEdivers before a full launch to the public. We will have pizza and diving DVDs at 7 PM. Meeting kicks off at 7:30PM
We are also setting up a group dive on Sat, July 18. If you would like to take advantage of the group discount. Please bring $55 cash to the dock and we will pay as a group. Currently, we have 7 divers confirmed for diving.
Dive: 1PM, Saturday, July 18th, MiamiTwo Wreck dives-The Ste. Anne D'Auray (75') and the Tarpoon(70')
Location: RJ VenturesRJ Diving Ventures, Inc. Boat docked at Miami Beach Marina300 Alton RoadMiami Beach, FL 33139Phone: 305-861-6277 web site: www.RJDiving.com
Thanks,
Sergio, Matt, Rick and WilliamMUE Founding Membersinfo@MiamiUnderwaterExplorers.org

SFRRT Dive 7/12 8:30 GO

The next South Florida Reef Research Team (SFRRT) Dive will be on Sunday 7/12, go at 8:30 AM.

The boat is FREE, the Seahorse is a shrimp boat docked off Pompano Beach at Dr. Ray's house. Need a full crew with a few borrow pit veterans! Newbies are always welcome, the Seahorse is rigged for diving with tank rack and ladder with 4 rungs underwater.If we are really lucky Dr. Ray will come out and tell stories!

Crew: David KaplanMattAndrea4 Spots Open!

Pics from the last dive:http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiswango/sets/72157617575574935/

Regards,

--Matt

PS: Back up date is Sunday Aug 2nd.

Stay Tuned as MUE Forms

We have a meet and greet planned for Thursday July 16th and dive planned for Saturday July 18th. More details to follow!

Matt Hoelscher
tiswango@yahoo.com

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