13. May 2010 by admin.

Well, we made through another winter, and now the dive season starts.  At least I had reprieve from winter, and spent six weeks working in Guam.  I seriously believe that I should be living somewhere in the South Pacific.

Anyway NOAA has posted some of our wrecks, during their buoy install this Spring,

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/ThunderBayShipwrecks

I need to get my doubles hydro-ed.  Can’t be slackin’

Happy Diving…

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7. February 2010 by alpenadiver.

Well, looks like we made it through another Northern Lower Michigan winter, and it’s Super Bowl Sunday.  Finally the days are getting longer, although the mercury isn’t rising fast, only 3° F as I type this but what the heck spring is just around the corner.  Soon it will be time to get the boat ready for another dive season, all my reg’s are in the shop getting serviced.  This year has to be better than last, had a bum shoulder, and didn’t get much diving in.  However I may get to travel to Guam at the end of February until April, so like the last time I was there I will be getting in some of that awesome warm water diving.  Until next time, get out and go diving.

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17. November 2009 by alpenadiver.

Well, the 2009 Dive season has come, and gone.  Boats are winterized, and covered or stored away for the winter.   Now what to do ?  time to attend some dive shows.  On Friday Nov 20th I will be heading to the Shipwrecks and Scuba show in Huron, Ohio.  I will be manning a booth promoting the Thunder Bay Underwater Preserve / National Marine Sanctuary, showing some awesome videos of the wrecks contained within the Preserve.  I hopefully will get to slip away from the booth, and attend some of the presentations offered.  If you are going to be in the Sandusky / Port Clinton Ohio area on Saturday Nov 21st, stop by the booth.  Here is a link to the highlights / presentations going on at he show.

http://www.bayareadivers.net/2009ss.shtm

Hope to see you there.

Alpenadiver

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30. September 2009 by alpenadiver.

Awesome News, one step closer to protecting our maritime resources, Thank you Congressmen’s Stupak, Kildee, McCotter, and Ehelers.  On to the Senate.  This story can be found on our local radio stations website -

http://www.watz.com/wire/localnews/07572_House_Votes_To_Approve_Sanctuary_Boundary_Expansion_055350.php

House Votes To Approve Sanctuary Boundary Expansion
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 3:55:55 EDT

The US House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday extending the boundary of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
The expanded boundaries will include waters off Alcona, Alpena and Presque Isle Counties in Michigan and east to the international boundary with Canada.
U.S. Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) introduced H.R. 905, which passed the House 286 to 107. The bill was co-sponsored by Michigan Congressmen Dale Kildee (D-Flint), Thaddeus McCotter (R-Livonia) and Vernon Ehlers (R-Grand Rapids).
“Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary is a place dedicated to highlighting and honoring our state’s rich Great Lakes shipping history,” Stupak said. “This expansion will help protect and preserve this Michigan treasure, while providing communities with the benefits of increased tourism, a key source of economic growth in our state. I was pleased to work with my colleagues in the House to pass this legislation and ensure continued success of the sanctuary.”
“Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary is a wonderful resource for families from across the country to learn about Michigan’s rich history. By authorizing an expansion to the sanctuary, we will help preserve this local treasure and well as improve its draw for tourists, helping to boost our local economy. I am committed to preserving the Great Lakes so that our families can enjoy them for years to come and I am proud to have joined my colleagues to introduce this legislation,” said Kildee, a senior member of the House Natural Resources Committee.
“Our Great Lakes and maritime heritage are state treasures,” McCotter said. “Thanks to the hard work of my colleague, Representative Bart Stupak, their unmatched natural beauty and archeological sites will be preserved in this sanctuary for future generations of Michiganders and all Americans.”
“I have personally visited Thunder Bay. It is a beautiful place, and a treasure spot in the Great Lakes. I have been involved in protecting shipwrecks and other maritime treasures since I was a member of the Michigan Legislature. Thunder Bay is a nationally known attraction, and I am pleased to join with Mr. Stupak in protecting the history hidden beneath the waters of the lake,” said Ehlers.
H.R. 905 expands the area covered by the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary to 3,722 square miles of water and 226 miles of shoreline, up from 448 square miles of water and 115 miles of shoreline. The expansion adds an additional 180 shipwrecks to the sanctuary. The legislation also directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to produce updated charts of the newly designated areas and apply the protection and preservation provisions in the existing management plan to the newly added areas.
Thunder Bay was declared Michigan’s first Great Lakes Bottomland Preserve in 1981, and in 2000 became the Great Lakes’ first National Marine Sanctuary. The sanctuary is a federal-state partnership with a focus on preserving the large collection of underwater cultural resources, consisting of more than 100 shipwrecks spanning more than 200 years of Great Lakes shipping history.
In 2005, NOAA and the state of Michigan established the Great Lakes’ Maritime Heritage Center in Alpena, Michigan to allow visitors to learn about Great Lakes’ maritime history, explore shipwrecks via live satellite feed, and see how archaeologists continue to preserve these historic sites.
To continue this positive outcome, the Thunder Bay Sanctuary Advisory Council, a 15-member group representing local fishermen, business leaders, educators and government officials passed a resolution recommending the sanctuary be expanded. The sanctuary designation in no way impedes recreational boating or fishing in the area.
H.R. 905 now awaits consideration in the U.S. Senate, where Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) has introduced companion legislation.

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26. September 2009 by alpenadiver.

Well, on Sept 9th, I went in for my surgery, although it was going to be Arthoscopic my Acromium Inpingment was worse then the Dr. thought.  So it turned out to be regular surgery, and know I have a nice 4 inch scar on top of my shoulder.  Physical Therapy is now taking place, and brother does it make the incision area ache.  However my shoulder for the most part feels better then before the surgery.  So next spring it will be a busy dive season, I have a lot of catching up to do.

Later

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31. August 2009 by admin.

Well the short Michigan dive season came to an end for me, even before it started.  I injured my shoulder in May, trying to lift a culvert full of sand, and injured my left shoulder.

The pain never subsided, thinking it was just a pulled muscle.  Come to find out a have a Acromion Impingement, basically my Acromoin process is making contact with a tendon, I can’t even support a BCD with an Aluminum 80, without causing pain.  So in Sept. I go in for Arthroscopic surgery to remove some bone from around the tendon.  So hopefully next dive season is going to be a long one.

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30. July 2009 by admin.

Well, today our group finished our NAS 1 class, for the less informed NAS is the Nautical Archeological Society class on the proper techniques of documenting shipwrecks, either on the foreshore, and underwater.  We were taught the proper way to set up baselines, and how measure using offsets, and trilaterations.

The shipwreck we surveyed, and documented was the Joesph Fay just North of Rogers City, Michigan at the 40 mile Point Lighthouse.  The section was determined to a 130 foot starboard hull, that has been beached.  After we setup our baseline we broke up into teams, each team had a fifty foot section to survey.

Surveying the width on both sides of the baseline was easy, the daunting task was measuring every spike, and there had to been 500 just in our fifty foot section.  Thank you Wayne, and Tane (our instructors) for only making us do a detailed 10 foot section, which only had maybe 100 spikes, which we never finished, I would have been there until Thanksgiving trying to finish.

I can only imagine how this works underwater.  Wayne did show us the rest of the wreck he, and a team of seven completed in two days, underwater, and it was amazing, it resembled a piece of art, just awesome.

So with practice, and I mean a lot of practice maybe one my documenting will resemble those of Wayne, and Tane.

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18. July 2009 by alpenadiver.

Well as the title states, I finally get to take a NAS class, For the last year every time I try to sign up for the class, there was always a wedding or some other family function.  Well not this year, the last three days of my vacation will be spent in the classroom.  Studying, and Learning about underwater archaeology,  and the proper way to document underwater shipwrecks.  This class is going to be great.

If your wondering what NAS is here is there website: http://www.nasportsmouth.org.uk/

Two years ago, I had the privilege to sit in a NAS Instructors class given by Chris Underwood, this two day observation of the principles, techniques, discipline.  Had me hooked, know I’m just counting down the days until the class.

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27. June 2009 by alpenadiver.

Well it’s that time, the water up here in Alpena is, as usual cold, and clear.  The diving is great, I need to get the dust off my dry suit, put away the wetsuit, and hit some wrecks.  If you have never dived Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, here is a video of just one of our pristine deep wrecks The Kyle Spangler:

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19. May 2009 by alpenadiver.

I know this has nothing to do about scuba diving, but I figured I needed to post something…

So I’m going to write about Windows7, I personally have been running the operating system since the beta version came out, and just recently installed the Release Candidate on my HP DV9700z laptop, which came pre-installed with Vista which is nothing but a dog.  However I must say Windows 7 is a total opposite of the failure known as Vista.  I’ve been abusing the install, and I have yet to get any type of crash or blue screen.  I can also access my home network at least twice as fast as Vista.  The only drivers I had to download from HP were the chipset drivers, all other hardware was recognized by Windows 7 during the install, boot time is twice as fast as vista, and the new taskbar is awesome.  So I know for sure that when Windows 7 is released I will be purchasing the Operating System.  If after reading this, you may want to give Windows 7 a try it free, and can be downloaded from Microsoft the operating system will run until June 2010.

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