REEF Seminars

[Brian Gilpin]

Are any of you SBers also REEF divers? I have run into them in various places and I am thinking of attending an event of theirs which includes seminars and census diving next month in Monterey.

http://www.reef.org/fieldsurv/index.htm

Anybody have experience with REEF?

 

[DennisS]

Their fish ID seminars are a lot of fun and you learn to identify the different groups. I'd definitely recommend them

 

[StingRob]

I was planning to give them a hand with some voluntary work and I called them. They called me back, very nice people, they also send me some files to be filled on whatever fish I was about to see on my trip. I would say is worth a try they're doing a good job.

Safe Diving

Are any of you SBers also REEF divers? I have run into them in various places and I am thinking of attending an event of theirs which includes seminars and census diving next month in Monterey.

http://www.reef.org/fieldsurv/index.htm

Anybody have experience with REEF?

 

[Brian Gilpin]

Im all signed up and the dives and seminars start this week. I will post on my experience after I get back or from Monterey if I get the opportunity.

 

[The Chairman]

I look forward to it Brian.

 

[Brian Gilpin]

For those of you who dont know, REEF is an evironmental group that trains divers in fish identity. These divers then carry a small notepad on their dives and make note of the fish they can positively identify with a general idea of quantities seen. Afterwards they transfer this info to scantron and send it to REEF. With approx 2000 surveys being done each month their database on fish populations
is quite extensive and readily available to interested parties such as scientists the government and the public in general. It also attempts to educate the public on environmental issues involving marine life. I signed up for the survey after hearing about it from a diver(Pam from Sacramento) at Pt Lobos who also attended the seminar. The survey was to encompass four days diving from the Cypress Sea.

The first night ( Tuesday April 20) we all met for the first time at Schnarleys Pizza for dinner. Seemed like a pretty good
group. We had Allan from Alameda, John from Berkeley, Mark from Oregon , my wife Kathy, and Christy the west coast REEf person from Seattle who is also the REEF scientific advisor. With her were Gracie her daughter and her husband Brice who is almost finished with his PhD in marine conservation. It was obvious that these people knew their stuff. It was also obvious that I did not. To their credit everybody was very patient and willing to help out.

I immediately put my best foot forward by bumping the table and spilling wine on a couple of people. Just for good measure I asked if they were all tree huggers. No response.I was able to resist the temptation to order seafood. By now I'm feeling a little intimidated. I'm not used to associating with so many liberals at once. Fortunately we stayed away from politics and concentrated on fish counts.

From there we proceeded to the Monterey Bay aquarium for a fish ID seminar.We were joined by staff from the aquarium(Gil)and the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary. Wow, this was not going to be easy. The problem is that so many of the rock fish and perch seem to look almost identical. In the tropics fish can usually be IDed easily if you know the name to start with. The fish up here seem to adopt various colors and shades. I left the seminar able to identify only a couple of fish. Forunately I enjoy a challenge and we went over the fish each night. Finally we could take no more and we adjorned for the evening.

Kathy and I headed to McFlys for a little rock and roll and a second more protein filled dinner. We then went back to our hotel to prepare for diving the next day at 8am.

(To be continued)

 

[Brian Gilpin]

After breakfast(my first mistake) I met the other divers at Fisherman's Wharf and we all loaded our gear onto the Cypress Sea. It was decided we would leave the bay and go to Carmel to dive. We no sooner left the bay before I forfeited my breakfast thanks to 10-14' swells.. Fortunately that was the only such incident that week. We saw two whales about thirty feet from the boat and stopped to watch them a while. Pretty cool. Upon arriving at the dive site, Eric's Pinnacle I realized that I had the wrong inflator hose for my BC. I decided to dive without it and use my drysuit for buoyancy.

There was a lot of surge even at 70'. Visiblity was around ten feet. Nonetheless I was able to recognize some of my new friends such as Gopher Rock Fish and Kelp Perch. The REEF veterans were busily finding and recording on their underwater slates as many species as possible. I was busily trying to maintain my buoyancy. I lost my weigh belt somewhere on my return to the boat.I had now firmly established myself as a Klutz both on land and at sea. Just to top things off while I was sitting onboard somebody's tank came loose in the heavy seas ad fell directly on my fingers. Ouch! I thought I had a broken index finger but a couple of hours of ice helped quite a bit.

The other fish counters had a successful day and found around thirty species. We all met later for a behind the scenes tour of the Monterey Aquarium. The tour was fascinating and seeing the local fish up close helped a lot on my ID skills.

After hearing of my day my wife Kathy decided I had not yet recovered mentally from tax season and ordered me to take the next day off which I did. ( continued)

 

[Brian Gilpin]

Well the rest of the trip went pretty smoothly and I feel I did OK Friday and Saturday on the boat. Counted several species including gopher,blue,black and olive rockfish as well as lingcod and kelp greenlings. Saw a few perch as well.Felt pretty good about that because I didn't know any save the lingcod at the beginning of the week.

The Cypress Sea was at full complement including Phil and Xcott the two most knowledgeable divers I know. In general I was impressed with the skill and dedication of all the divers last week. All were high quality individuals both in and out of the water.

I think I will stay involved with REEF. It really does not change the way you dive at all except for carrying something to take notes on. A lot of this info is sorely needed to create good environmental policies. I will be in Catalina next week so I will have time to study and a chance to practice.

If any of you are interested in volunteer activities check out their website

www.reef.org

As a CPA I can tell you that volunteer expenses are deductible as charitable contributions. More importantly it may give your diving a renewed sense of purpose. Give it a try.

 

[smrtblnddiver]

I did their Discovery Tour to Turks & Caicos last Nov and had a great time. I found it to be much more enjoyable than other "dive and drink" trips I had been on in the past and I really enjoyed knowing what I was looking at when I was diving.

 

[archman]

If any of you REEFers get the opportunity, inquire for me about submitting REEF survey forms without having taken the class from them. I had trouble with this a few years back, after teaching a reef fish course to divers. We followed the protocols and filled out the forms, but we were later told that they were no good since we weren't "properly" trained. Various anti-REEF sentiments were expressed by many divers in the summer of 2001, needless to say.