Mahhz
Contributor
.....I say that because I just got my first Great Lakes Dives in! And being so, I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce myself to some of the local people.
Anyways, my name is Jeff, I just moved to the Pontiac area from Savannah, GA. I initially learned to dive in Oklahoma back in 2004, but my interest in the sport really took off in 2006 when I was finally able to start diving offshore Georgia and Florida. If you have never had the opportunity to dive in Georgia, it is a MUST. There are some fantastic artificial reefs as well as a beautiful national marine sanctuary called "Gray's Reef". However, I would recommend it only for advanced divers, as almost all diving is done by live boating (i.e. boat is not anchored), the current can often times be swift, and vis less than optimal.....also the jellies can be very thick at times.
Most of my diving has been as a volunteer diver. I started out volunteering with the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston, SC. I would drive up there from Savannah (4hr round trip) every other Saturday to assist the staff in exhibit maintenance, fish feeding, as well as dive shows where we don a full-face mast so that we can communicate with the visitors and do educational shows with other staff members. I did this for about a year:
In 2008, our local NOAA sanctuary started a program that would train local divers to become NOAA certified scientific divers to assist the sanctuary in their offshore projects. In this program, we assisted NOAA staff in a multitude of projects from retrieving acoustic receivers for a fish tagging project to monitoring the accumulation of marine debris on specific sites to assisting college grad students and professors with coral research studies. The highlight of helping NOAA came when I was invited to help on the NOAA Ship R/V Nancy Foster for a week. Having the ship on-site allowed us to do 4 dives a day, with 3 dive teams....putting the research we were already doing into fast-forward as well as taking on several other projects.
Here is a newspaper article about the "Team Ocean" Volunteer divers, as well as a news segment about us:
YouTube - DVD VIDEO RECORDER Title01
Volunteers dive into research | savannahnow.com
Our normal dive platforms include the 41' R/V Joe Ferguson, as well as the 36' R/V Sam Gray.....pictured in the back is the retired Ex R/V Joe Ferguson, which I only has the pleasure of diving off of once.
Here's what I look like after getting my face smeared with jellyfish tenticles.....
.....but you just suck it up, and jump back in!
NOAA's "Team Ocean" is a fantastic program that will hopefully be expanded to include more sanctuaries.
I also enjoy spearfishing when I have the opportunity.....especially after I got my first grouper in Apr '07:
My good friend Steve from Oklahoma City would come out to visit on occasion, and we'd go diving together whenever possible.....and being the good friend he is, he custom built me a beautiful teak speargun in his garage. So powerful and so accurate:
When I get a good catch, I love to cook it up and invite my friends and family over for a feast.....I love cooking good
seafood for people, like this scored Flounder and Thai baked Red Porgy....YUMMMMMM
I really haven't had the time or $$ to do a whole lot of travelling, the furthest away I've ever dove was out of San Diego when we went to the Corronado Islands just into Mexico and got to play with the sea lions.
I plan on getting my ice diving cert this winter, and probably start testing the waters into the tech realm. It's a
completely different environment up here, so I'm just going to try everything to see what new stuff interests me. Hope I
didn't bore you with my "story", but I just like to let people know about me, that way when I meet them in person, they
know who I am, and what I'm about. See you all soon!
Anyways, my name is Jeff, I just moved to the Pontiac area from Savannah, GA. I initially learned to dive in Oklahoma back in 2004, but my interest in the sport really took off in 2006 when I was finally able to start diving offshore Georgia and Florida. If you have never had the opportunity to dive in Georgia, it is a MUST. There are some fantastic artificial reefs as well as a beautiful national marine sanctuary called "Gray's Reef". However, I would recommend it only for advanced divers, as almost all diving is done by live boating (i.e. boat is not anchored), the current can often times be swift, and vis less than optimal.....also the jellies can be very thick at times.
Most of my diving has been as a volunteer diver. I started out volunteering with the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston, SC. I would drive up there from Savannah (4hr round trip) every other Saturday to assist the staff in exhibit maintenance, fish feeding, as well as dive shows where we don a full-face mast so that we can communicate with the visitors and do educational shows with other staff members. I did this for about a year:
In 2008, our local NOAA sanctuary started a program that would train local divers to become NOAA certified scientific divers to assist the sanctuary in their offshore projects. In this program, we assisted NOAA staff in a multitude of projects from retrieving acoustic receivers for a fish tagging project to monitoring the accumulation of marine debris on specific sites to assisting college grad students and professors with coral research studies. The highlight of helping NOAA came when I was invited to help on the NOAA Ship R/V Nancy Foster for a week. Having the ship on-site allowed us to do 4 dives a day, with 3 dive teams....putting the research we were already doing into fast-forward as well as taking on several other projects.
Here is a newspaper article about the "Team Ocean" Volunteer divers, as well as a news segment about us:
YouTube - DVD VIDEO RECORDER Title01
Volunteers dive into research | savannahnow.com
Our normal dive platforms include the 41' R/V Joe Ferguson, as well as the 36' R/V Sam Gray.....pictured in the back is the retired Ex R/V Joe Ferguson, which I only has the pleasure of diving off of once.
Here's what I look like after getting my face smeared with jellyfish tenticles.....
.....but you just suck it up, and jump back in!
NOAA's "Team Ocean" is a fantastic program that will hopefully be expanded to include more sanctuaries.
I also enjoy spearfishing when I have the opportunity.....especially after I got my first grouper in Apr '07:
My good friend Steve from Oklahoma City would come out to visit on occasion, and we'd go diving together whenever possible.....and being the good friend he is, he custom built me a beautiful teak speargun in his garage. So powerful and so accurate:
When I get a good catch, I love to cook it up and invite my friends and family over for a feast.....I love cooking good
seafood for people, like this scored Flounder and Thai baked Red Porgy....YUMMMMMM
I really haven't had the time or $$ to do a whole lot of travelling, the furthest away I've ever dove was out of San Diego when we went to the Corronado Islands just into Mexico and got to play with the sea lions.
I plan on getting my ice diving cert this winter, and probably start testing the waters into the tech realm. It's a
completely different environment up here, so I'm just going to try everything to see what new stuff interests me. Hope I
didn't bore you with my "story", but I just like to let people know about me, that way when I meet them in person, they
know who I am, and what I'm about. See you all soon!
