Bottom Time E-Mail News Archives 

June 27, 2011

The lakes are not dropping water levels any time soon with all the rain we are having.  Just in the last few days we have had over 3” of rain here at the dive center.  Let's hope it will be nice for the 4 th of July weekend coming up so we can get out and enjoy some diving. 

GeoCaching has really caught on and now the diving community as a global treasure hunting sport is drawing divers into the water.  DiveCaching involves an underwater hunt of a cache of “treasures”. To find the area of a treasure cache, divers use GPS coordinates posted on line.  DiveCaching is the underwater version of geocaching, a decade old game in which a global positioning system is used to track down a “treasure,” the GPS coordinates for which are posted on line.  To play DiveCaching, divers search for caches already hidden underwater by going to the website www.geocaching.com   and look for listings that include keywords such as “divecache,” “dive,” “underwater,” or “scuba”.  Divers who find the cache sign the on-site log, and put the cache back where they found it.  Sometimes they add an item to the cache or simply return it unchanged. When divers return to the surface, the visit to the cache is logged online at www.geocahcing.com .

Divers who want to search for a cache should follow these instructions.

  1. Go the www.geocahcing.com and create a free account.
  2. Go to Play and Click on “Hide and Seek a Cache”
  3. Then you can go to Advanced search options and where is it shows By Postal code select by keywords and type in divecache, dive, underwater or scuba and this will bring you directly to caches underwater.

The second option is to Scroll down to “Other Search Options” and I prefer to search for a cache by Zip code as this gives locations of caches in distance from your location giving the closest to the furthers away from your location.

  1. Enter the coordinates of the cache into your GPS device and read the hints and directions to locate the cache.
  2. Go diving. Search for the cache, sign the log, log into www.goecaching.com once back home, and record the experience.

For more information, visit www.facebook.com/DiveCaching to view and share an introductory video.  For more information about DiveCaching, including finding and hiding a cache, visit www.DiveCaching.org or www.beadiver.com . Within the next week we will be placing some caches for divers to have something else to do while diving in our area.  We will keep you posted when they are placed.

We have four used 72 CF Galv. cylinders for sale with new hydro and visual, new tank boot, and fill for $85.00 each.  When you take off the hydro, visual, boot, and fill you are only paying $45.00 dollars per cylinder.

The number one reason that divers are not comfortable diving is the lack of good buoyancy control.  It normally requires a lot diving to achieve good buoyancy control.  To fine tune it a diver must make an effort to work on it every dive.  I tell divers that until you are totally relaxed in the water, achieving good buoyancy will not happen.  Being trimmed properly is an important aspect of good control especially if you are in a current.  I will discuss more in detail skills that will help, in future newsletters. 

I still need those students that have not done their openwater dives to call us and set up your dives so we can get your paper work sent in as a class.

Sea You on the Bottom

Tri-State Diving    Making Diving Safe and Adventurous