BARBARY COAST DIVERS NEWSLETTER

NEWS AND EVENTS

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Next Dive Club Outing:

Memorial Day

May 26th through 28th Stillwater Cove Sonoma County, Sonoma County Campground

* BCD Abalone Cookoff! *

CA Beach Dive Photo Competition, Monterey — June 10-11

The 25th annual California Beach Dive Photo Comp will take place in Monterey on June 10 & 11, 2006. All contestants must dive from the beach, no boats allowed! There will be separate judging for film and digital entries. All compete for Best of Show. Great prizes, including dive trips, dive and photo gear, and other goodies will be awarded to the winners. The competition starts with registration on Saturday morning. Photographers spend the day shooting images. Images must be turned in at Backscatter Saturday afternoon. Everyone gathers for dinner and a show on Saturday evening. The judges select the winners Sunday and the winners are announced and prizes awarded Sunday afternoon. The entry fee is $60 if postmarked on or before June 2, 2006, $75 thereafter. Registration on Saturday is allowed until 9 a.m. The entry fee includes a T-shirt and a ticket to the dinner/show. Nonparticipants may also enjoy the dinner and show for $5. This event is presented by the Northern California Underwater Photographic Society. Details on their web site at www.ncups.org.

SCUBA Show 2006 — June 24-25
The largest dive expo in the western is U.S. is the annual SCUBA Show that will take place for 2006 on June 24-25 at the Long Beach Convention Center. There will be 57,000 square feet of exhibits, seminars, a continous film festival, door prizes, in-water demos and trials and much more. For complete details including advanced registration see the insert at the center of this issue or visit www.saintbrendan.com online.

Big Sur Expedition — June 2-5

The waters of California’s Big Sur are largely unexplored by divers. The dive charter boat Vision will once again pioneer another rare expedition to these virgin reefs, pinnacles and kelp forests on June 2-5. The Vision, normally based out of Santa Barbara, will be departing for this exploratory expedition out of Morro Bay on the Central Coast and then head north. Many of the locations to be visited have never before been seen by divers. Marine life is abundant and conditions are expected to be excellent with water clarity of up to 100 feet. This trip has only been done a handful of times in the past with great success. It is only conducted once a year in early June For more information, contact the expedition’s organizer, Adventure Sports Unlimited at 831-458-3648.

Dolphins can recognize each other by ''names''

WASHINGTON - Dolphins have the ability to call each other by their names, claims a new study. Researchers say that the bottlenose dolphins are the only animals beside humans who can use sounds to alert their friends as to exactly who they are.

"We captured wild dolphins using nets when they came near the shore," said lead researcher Vincent Janik, of the Sea Mammal Unit at St Andrews University in Scotland. "Then in the shallow water we recorded their whistles before synthesizing them on a computer so that we had a computer voice of a dolphin." He added that the researchers played back the sounds to the dolphins and the mammals responded, "We played it back to the dolphins and we found they responded," he said. "This showed us that the dolphins know each other's signature whistle, instead of just the voice."

These findings seem to suggest that dolphins might be closer to humans in their make up than previously thought. "I think it is a very exciting discovery because it means that these animals have evolved the same abilities as humans," Janik agreed. "Now we know they have labels for each other, like we do."
Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists said that it was feasible that dolphins were able to recognize sounds from their mothers, but the current study found that they are aware of what each one is called at large.

"Each animal develops an individually distinctive signature whistle in the first few months of its life, which appears to be used in individual recognition," Janik said. The researchers studied the dolphins in Sarasota Bay, Florida. These dolphins have been observed for close to 30 years.

Study co-author Laela Sayigh said that it was too early to tell that dolphins were skilled in language, “I tend to shy away from using the word 'language' myself, because it's such a loaded term,” she said. “I still really feel strongly that there is no evidence for something like our language. (Dolphins) have got the cognitive skills at least to have referential signals.”

Navy divers inspect Oriskany site

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Anxious divers got their first look at the USS Oriskany Thursday, reporting that the ship landed in an upright position facing north to south when the Navy used explosives to sink the massive aircraft carrier a day earlier.

The Navy said the Oriskany's flight deck was positioned at a depth of 150 feet as the ship settled into the sand.

The depth of the flight deck is important because the maximum depth for recreation sport divers is about 132 feet, said Eilene Beard, a dive shop owner and Pensacola native who donated $25,000 in retirement savings to help the community promote the Oriskany project.

The first official reports of the 150-foot depth of the flight deck were a disappointment to Beard.

"The maximum sport diving depth is 132 feet and we'd hoped it wouldn't go below that, but there will be plenty of superstructure along the wheel house for sport divers," Beard said.

Divers who go beyond the 132-foot depth must be qualified in technical diving and breathe a combination of gases to reach the extended depths, she said.

"Oh it looks like that's going to be a fun dive. She's going to hold so many fish in all those nooks and crannies," said shop employee Paul Sjordal.

The Navy sunk the massive Korean and Vietnam era aircraft carrier Wednesday morning 24 miles off the coast of Pensacola as a flotilla of boats filled with hundreds of Oriskany veterans watched. Many saluted as the Oriskany dipped below the ocean.

The ship, known as the "Mighty O" was the first warship sunk under a pilot program to dispose of old Navy vessels through reefing. The $20 million sinking was delayed for nearly two years by hurricanes and environmental permitting problems.

The Oriskany, commissioned in 1950 and named after an American Revolutionary War battle, saw duty during the Korean War and was home to John McCain when the Navy pilot and future senator served in Vietnam. It was also among the ships used by President Kennedy in a show of force during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. It was decommissioned in 1976.

Pensacola leaders hope the sinking will provide an economic infusion by luring sport divers and fishermen.

Phones rang nonstop at the MBT dive shop Thursday afternoon with customers who wanted to book trips to the Oriskany dive site.

The site was expected to be opened for recreational diving Friday afternoon.

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