QUOTES FROM THE SEA

“For most people, this is as close to being an astronaut as you’ll ever get. It’s leaving planet Earth behind and entering an alien world.” – Mary Frances Emmons

Safety Officer’s Message
By: Brad Freelove

Stop the Fog!

A mask that fogs up all the time could cause the Pope to drop and F bomb!  Not being able to see through the fog on the inside of your mask ruins your day.  You cannot see anything unless you are constantly letting in water to rinse off the inside of your mask lens.

A new mask or old, fogging of the lens can be cured.  There are a ton of products that you can purchase to help keep your mask lens clear as glass.  There are some products and methods you can use to achieve a clear lens that you would not even think about using.  Your choice on which way you go.

Standard stuff:

You can go into your local dive shop and pick up a bottle of mask defog solution.  Dolphin Scuba carries several brands, and they do work.  If you have just purchased a new mask, you will have to clean the inside of the lens several times to get it clean enough to use underwater.  Some of the mask lens cleaning solutions are in contained in a kit that has a bottle of cleaning stuff and a bottle of defog.  Once you get the lens properly cleaned most of the defog formulas will work.

Before you start any cleaning of a mask, make sure that your mask lens does not have some special, fancy coating on it or is made of plastic.  Check with Dolphin or the manufacturer of the mask for the best way to clean it if it is not glass.  You don’t want to damage any coating on the lens.  The same goes for any inserts that you might have installed such as a small magnifying lens. 

For defog purposes, use a small drop of baby shampoo instead of the commercial stuff.  All you need is a very small drop.  If you can use it on the head and face of a child, your eyes should not be bothered by it.  Someone might suggest that you try a liquid dish soap such as Palmolive, Dawn, or some other stuff for cleaning your dishes.  Do you reallllly want to put that stuff near your eyes?  Your own saliva can work if you run out of the commercial stuff.  I have rubbed a blade of kelp on the inside of the mask lens.  It did work but kelp is in short supply now.  Stick with the commercial stuff from your local dive store or try the baby shampoo. 

If you have just purchased a new mask or your current mask fogs up no matter what you do, a good cleaning might help you out.  You can you a commercial cleaning product.  Must be eye safe!  You can use toothpaste and a toothbrush.  Use a toothpaste, not a gel.  Just scrub the inside of the lens with the brush and paste.  You might have to do this several times before you remove all the dirt and crud.  Do not use your bare fingers instead of a brush.  The oils from your skin can defeat your cleaning process and keep your mask fogging up.

After all your cleaning efforts, if your mask still fogs up, you can use a method that always works for removing any silicon or oil from the inside of the lens.  I use a BBQ lighter and cautiously heat the inside of the lens.  Not the skirt, just the glass lens.  This will, in turn, burn off any residue left from the manufacturer or from any other contamination that might be causing you problems.  You will have some black stuff left on the lens when you are done.  Once the lens cools, you can use the toothpaste method or a commercial product to remove the burned residue.  Then use the antifog solution of your choice.  Keep your fingers off the inside of the lens!  The oils from your skin will get you a foggy mask.

There are a ton of YouTube videos out there with all sorts of suggestions on how to clean a new mask.  Watch them with caution. 

THANK YOU
By: Ken Takata

DOLPHIN DIVERS OF SACRAMENTO EVENTS
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP

One of the things that makes the DDS a great club is the number and variety of events we conduct. Everything from picnics, river cleanups, diving refreshers, Pumpkin Carving, campouts, ocean dives, and spearfishing contests, just to name a few.

The goal of these events is to provide fun and safe activities that develop a love of diving and an appreciation of the underwater environment.

Without your help, these wonderful events would not be possible. So, we would like to thank you for helping at events. This type of teamwork makes the event leader’s job fun and generates an enthusiasm to lead even more events.

With your help, the Dolphin Divers of Sacramento will continue its tradition of holding stimulating events that enrich your diving experience.
Thanks again for your help


Ken Takata
Vice President

Cheap Dive Travel
By: Joe Morgan

What is the best travel deal you have ever found?

In 2017 for a milestone anniversary, I wanted to take my wife somewhere special. We decided that Nashville would be fun, we could sit in little bars, listen to up-and-coming artists and simply enjoy each other’s company.

I began trying to plan the trip, investigated cheap flight websites, and stumbled upon google flights, by pure luck I found the “Explore” button. With Google flights “Explore” option, you can find the cheapest flight to any location over the next six months, then you can use the map to look for the cheapest flights anywhere that you zoom the map to (I hover over the Caribbean for example)

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I began looking at flights all over, and at the time I found that it was cheaper to fly to Paris (>$450) than Nashville. (I could write a whole article on google flights, but Scott’s does a better job, so just go read theirs)

I was dumbfounded, in my entire life, I was under the impression that travel was prohibitively expensive. I assumed that flying to Europe cost thousands of dollars.

Now with our plans changed to Paris, I began planning that trip, and I stumbled across a website called “Scotts Cheap Flights” with all sorts of articles about traveling cheaply. One tip was to take an “Open-Jaw” trip where you fly into one city and leave from another. We could save almost a hundred dollars if we flew into London, then out of Paris.
We ended up with that as our plan, London, Euro Disney, Then Paris. The flight cost was less than $400 round trip.

While on Scotts Cheap Flights I fell down a rabbit hole of how to travel cheaply and began reading every article I could on the subject, from airline credit card loyalty programs and bonuses to hotel hacks, and many other things.
Some Main points from Scott’s front-page article:
1. Pick your destination and dates based on price
2. Find the cheapest place to fly with the Google Flights Explore Map
3. Be flexible—even by a few days—to save more
4. Focus on crossing the ocean as cheaply as possible, then take a cheap local airline to your final location

THE 75 SMART TIPS ARTICLE IS HERE

After reading many articles I found ways to get cheap lodging – AirBnB
Cheap in-country transportation – ROME TO RIO
Ways to save up to 60% on almost every attraction we wanted to see in London – 2FOR1 London
(Links are examples but there are many more options)

I will admit, it took some work and effort, but in the end, we spent 10 days overseas for less than I could have imagined. We stayed in apartments along the way instead of hotels and had the most wonderful time imaginable.

• 

• 

Now I use these tricks to plan all of my Dive adventures. I use the same websites to plan out the travel parts and email each local dive shop in a location to ask about discounts, and then lay out the different trip options in a spreadsheet, with the ultimate goal of finding the cheapest per-dive cost for any trip.

• 

• 

• 

These trips can be as cheap as $1500 for a week of Caribbean diving. A long weekend of cold Monterey diving can be half of that or more, I choose warmth.

Now, admittedly some locations are hard to do cheap. Let’s use the Galapagos as an example, a trip I would like to make one day.

In a short search of Liveaboards.com, I found multiple boats offering weeks at +/-35% off based on when you go. In this instance I make a list of all of the discounted weeks, and then search Google flights for those same dates, matching up the cheapest flight/boat combo. Liveaboards are not as simple as shore-based diving, but it absolutely can be done for 35-40% off.

Hopefully, some of these websites and tricks can help you to plan you next trip somewhere warm and beautiful.

Go Dive Cheaply
Joe

A Special Day with No Diving
By: Brad Freelove

Sometimes, diving is not possible. Could be any number of reasons or you are just looking for something exciting to do that does not involve the water. Yep! There are days like that! But not many. You might want to try out this!

• 

• 

• 

• 

DAN’s new Travelers Medical Guide

TAKE DAN
WITH YOU

DAN’s new Travelers Medical Guide was created to help divers, boaters, and adventure travelers recognize and manage travel-related illnesses and injuries.

Drawing on DAN’s decades of experience managing emergencies, this digital guide explains common symptoms, illnesses, and treatments in an easy-to-understand manner.

VIEW GUIDE

Member News

September Birthdays:
Ilkan C.
Joe L.
Holly L.
Glenn R.
Ken T.

New members:
Dennis King
Craig Hansen
Glenn Ripley

Are you interested in becoming a Dolphin Divers of Sacramento member?
CLICK HERE TO JOIN

Great American River Clean Up
September 17th
By: Brad Freelove

• 

• 

Come join Dolphin Divers of Sacramento, The Sacramento Seahorses, and other concerned divers as we float and dive the American River removing all the trash we can.

September 17 is the official American River Parkway Foundation clean-up day where over a thousand volunteers will come together to gather up as much trash as we can from the banks and bottom of the American River.

We will start our journey at about 9 am at the Lower Sunrise Parking Lot entry to the river and end somewhere around 2 pm at River Bend Park. Boats will be provided by the American River Raft Rental company. We need divers and boat handlers.

If you have any questions on how this works or want to sign up for the dive, let me know. Our goal is to pull out as much trash as we can while having as much fun as we can. After Labor Day, I will send out more detailed information to all.

Brad
bradlinda@frontiernet.net

Past Club Events

• 

• 

• 

• 

DOLPHIN DIVERS OF SACRAMENTO
CLUB STORE NEWS

If you are looking to purchase any Club-Branded merchandise, it is available at the monthly meeting.

Over the summer the club will be printing more Club-Branded merchandise and if there is anything that you want to be printed please bring it up with Tracy Clarke at the general meeting.

CALENDAR OF UPCOMING EVENTS

EDITOR’S NOTE
By: Joe Morgan

Each month I will be looking for submissions in the following categories:

• Trip Reviews: Let us know where you have been diving, what operator you used, the hotel you stayed at and how was the diving there. Let us know if the operator was safe and fun. Let us know if the hotel was a good deal, give us as much detail as possible and hopefully more Dolphin Divers will venture there in the future.
  
• Recipes: I was told that in the past Dolphin Divers gave each other SEAFOOD recipes that they loved so that everyone could enjoy the bounty of the sea, I hope to continue that each month with at least one good recipe.
  
• Dive and Camping yard-sale items you wish to include in the newsletter.
  
• Dive Activities: Please let me know if there are any dive-related activities you would like included in the newsletter.
  
• Pictures from your last dive. Please make sure to let me know how you would like the picture credited in the newsletter. -example – Picture by John Member, of a Silky Shark, at Roca Partida Mexico.

PLEASE MAIL ALL SUBMISSIONS TO

Editor@dolphindivers.org

DOLPHIN DIVERS OF SACRAMENTO
BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President: Owen Autry
Vice President: Ken Takata
Treasurer: Marlyn Sepulveda
Secretary: Elizabeth Marchiondo
Safety Officer: Brad Freelove
Activity Chair: Ilkan Cokgor
Webmaster: Renee Viehmann
Promotions Chair: Tracy Clarke
Newsletter Editor: Joe Morgan
Historian: Jack Millard
Member at Large: David Whiteside
Member at Large: Corinne Fuerst
Member at Large: Marylin Campbell
Member at Large: Steve Campbell
Member at Large: Lalanyia Little
Member at Large: Tom Mischley
Alternate Member at Large: Bob Taylor
Alternate Member at Large: Tom Oja