Are you well trained? By Tec Clark

Charter dive boat captains and divemasters are reporting increased occurrences of diver assists and rescues on their trips. The increased issues include problems with equalizing, crashing into the reef due to improper buoyancy, buddy separation, and running out of air. The vast majority of these incidents do not happen because divers have been out of the water too long. Instead, these occurrences are most often related to poor training.

Please join SFDI this coming Wednesday, September 1st, as we welcome dive industry educator Tec Clark, who will speak about the decline in training standards and the increase in standards violations by diving professionals. Tec will help us identify dive centers that offer good, solid training, as opposed to abbreviated training. He will tell us what to look for in a dive instructor, either for beginners, or seasoned divers who want to continue their dive education. He will also advise us how to prepare for new members joining SFDI who have had inadequate, abbreviated dive training.

See you there, and please note that Tec’s presentation will be IN PERSON, and not on Zoom.

About Tec Clark

Tec Clark is a dive industry expert who has held very elite positions in the industry including Managing Director of the University of Florida’s Academic Diving Program and National Director of the YMCA Scuba Program. He holds over 40 professional certifications with over 15 diving agencies. Tec has been a police officer, dive rescue team member, and forensic dive accident investigator. He has appeared as a diving expert on A&E, The Learning Channel, and the Outdoor Life Network. Tec was Captain of the US Freediving Team, and is the founder of Reef Ministries. He curates ScubaGuru.com and ScubaGuru Academy, and is the host of two podcasts: The League of Extraordinary Divers and The Dive Locker. Tec is also the Associate Director for Aquatics and Scuba Diving at Nova Southeastern University.

Exploring the Dolphin Mind By Dr. Kelly Jaakkola

How do dolphins think?

Do they really have names?

And how do we know that, anyway?

Please join SFDI this Wednesday, August 4, when we will meet Dr. Kelly Jaakkola from the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, FL. She will take us behind the scenes and show us how scientists study the dolphin mind “up close and personal.” She will share some of what she and her colleagues have learned about these amazing animals, and discuss the importance of these types of studies, which help to improve dolphin welfare and conservation. This will be a presentation on Zoom. We look forward to seeing you on Zoom or in the room!

About Dr. Kelly Jaakkola

Kelly Jaakkola, PhD, is one of the very few people in the world whose job it is to figure out how dolphins think. Director of Research for the Dolphin Research Center, she has investigated dolphin behavior and cognition for over 20 years. She earned her Masters degree in Psychology from Emory University, where she began her career studying cognition in chimpanzees and human children. After earning her Ph.D. from MIT, she won a grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct research on dolphin cognition and communication, where she has stayed ever since.

Kelly has taught courses on human and animal thinking at several colleges, including Boston College, Brandeis University, and MIT. Her research has been published in numerous international scientific journals and book chapters, and her research findings have received worldwide coverage in news shows, newspapers, books, magazine articles, and television.

The Great Whites of Guadaloupe By Dr. Gary Rose

SFDI looks forward to the return of Dr. Gary Rose, who will address us in person at the VFW! (Those who cannot meet in person can join the meeting on Zoom.) We enjoyed Dr. Gary’s presentations in 2015 and 2016 when he talked about the sharks of the Florida coast and the Caribbean, as well as the venomous stings and bites of marine microorganisms.

This Wednesday, July 7, Dr. Gary will take us on a journey to Guadaloupe Island with the great white sharks. Through his anecdotes and animated style of speaking, you are bound to have a great time. Looking forward to seeing you in person or on Zoom!

About Gary Rose:

Gary Rose MD has been a certified diver for over 45 years and is a PADI Open Water Instructor. As a Plastic Surgeon and Associate Professor of Microbiology and Surgery at the College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University, he has fulfilled his life passion as a marine biologist with his research on marine microorganisms, as well as large ocean apex predators.Dr. Rose lectures all over the world on “Shark Identification and Behavior” and gives seminars on “Updates On Diving Medicine”. An avid underwater photographer, his articles appear in Alert Diver and X-RAY magazine. Dr. Rose is a member of the Divers Alert Network and The Undersea And Hyperbaric Medical Society. You can find him on weekends diving our local waters and photographing our plentiful and diverse sharks. You can reach him at garyrosephotos@gmail.com

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The Ecology of the Twilight Zone By Tyler Phelps

Fifteen minutes. That’s all the time they have to collect their data at 500 feet. Dressed like “aquanauts,” they are the first divers to ever visit these deep coral reefs. After documenting the habitat, conducting fish surveys, and collecting potential new species, they begin their ascent. It will take six hours of decompression before being able to surface. Diving to these depths took years of preparation for Ichthyology Graduate Researcher, Tyler Phelps and his team. Each dive takes hours of preparation and extensive safety precautions to mitigate the risks in conducting their research. Join SFDI on Wednesday, June 2, at 7:30, as we take a “dive” with Tyler and hear what it’s like to explore the Twilight Zone, and learn the latest discoveries that he and his team have made in these remarkable communities.

Photo Credit: Luiz Rocha 2016 California Academy of Sciences

About Tyler Phelps

When Tyler Phelps’ parents took him for stroller walks along the Long Beach, CA peninsula, they had no idea that someday he would be diving deep below the surface. Inspired by family trips to the aquarium and his elementary school teachers, he has dreamed of becoming a marine biologist since the age of eight.

During Tyler’s college career, he balanced his love of science and scuba diving while earning a Bachelor of Science in Marine Science from the University of Hawai'i at Hilo. He created his training company, Balanced Divers, to offer private instruction as a NAUI Course Director, Technical Diving Instructor, Rebreather Instructor and DAN Instructor Trainer. Tyler has won several awards from NAUI and is a co-author of the current NAUI Master Scuba Diver and NAUI Leadership and Instruction textbooks.

While still an undergraduate student at UH Hilo, Tyler joined the Academy's dive team in 2016 and has researched coral reef fish ecology in 15 countries across 25 scientific expeditions. For his Master of Science in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology from San Francisco State University, he investigated how community structure and ecology of fishes change across depth gradients in Micronesian coral reefs.

Today, Tyler is an Ichthyology Graduate Researcher with Cal Academy (based in San Francisco, CA), co-author of seven scientific peer-reviewed publications (including five new species descriptions) and On-Call Dive Officer for Steinhart Aquarium. Tyler's research focuses on how fish communities change and have evolved across depth gradients. He plans to pursue a Ph.D.

Tyler remains active in the diving community by co-chairing the NAUI Citizen Science Diver and NAUI Technical Rebreather training committees. He is happy to be a mentor and resource for early career marine biologists and divers. He can be contacted at tphelps@calacademy.org.

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