san francisco reef divers december 2017 volume xlv no. 12 · i’m checking out the “best nose...

San Francisco Reef Divers December 2017 Volume XLV No. 12

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STAMMTISCH By Pierre Hurter

It’s December and following-up on my comments

concerning catalogs, I just got the Hammacher

Schlemmer catalog in the mail. That’s 88

pages of things I never knew I needed, right now I’m checking out the “Best Nose Hair Trimmer” this baby is precision crafted in Germany and has a built in light and you can use it in the shower, I mean really, does it get any better than that?

No sooner had I finished perusing the highlights of the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog then this year’s Neiman Marcus Christmas Book arrived. The Christmas Book is without a doubt the best source for over-the-top gifts most of which no one I know could ever afford.

This year’s 91st edition includes his and hers Rolls Royce Drophead coupes, the perfect gift for that special couple on your gift list. These V-12 engine beauties were custom designed to celebrate two of the world’s more high-end locations St. Tropez and Lake Como. The Lago de Como car ($439,625) features an exterior in Selby Gray with a contrasting black interior. The St Tropez ($445,750) features a brilliant orange exterior with a white interior.

Or maybe your looking for something little more utilitarian, how about a 1950's style single-door stainless steel refrigerator designed by Dolce & Gabbana. They are hand-painted

appliances by artists including "Taratatà", by Michelangelo Lacagnina, "The Moors", by Michelangelo Lacagnina and "Giuseppe Garibaldi: The Hero of Two Worlds", by Michele Ducato.

Don’t delay, at $50,000 a pop, these babies are sure to go fast

Lest you think all this catalog browsing leads nowhere, I managed to glean a few nuggets from my meanderings through their pages. For instance have you ever noticed those nifty stud closures you see on old school British style bags? They’re Sam Browne studs, named after the British officer of the same name.

During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Captain Sam Browne was serving with the 2nd Punjab Irregular Cavalry. On 31 August 1858, Captain Browne was involved in the fighting near Seerporah. During the battle he had his left arm severed at the shoulder. He survived the injuries but, without a left hand, he found that he was now unable to control or draw his sword.

Browne came up with the idea of wearing a second belt, which went over his right shoulder and held the scabbard in just the spot he wanted. This would hook into a heavy leather belt with an assortment of D-rings for attaching accessories. To make it easy

to adjust it featured studs that could be easily handled with one hand.

On the continuing topic of what’s going on in the City I’m happy to report that Amoeba Music at

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REEFER’S RAP - 2017

JANUARY

01 - New Year’s Day 14 - Sanctuary Dive Boat - K Dock 16 - Martin Luther King Day 18 - Almanac Taproom 2704 24th Street @ Potrero 20 - Inauguration Day 28 - Chinese New Year

FEBRUARY

02 - Groundhog Day 11 - Sanctuary Dive Boat - K Doc 14 - Valentine’s Day 15 - l'emigrante wine bar, 2199 Mission Street 20 - President’s Day

MARCH

11 - Sanctuary Dive Boat - K Dock 12- Daylight Savings Time 15 - Fermentation Lab, 1230 Market Street 17 - Saint Patrick’s Day

APRIL

01 - April’s Fools Day 08 - Sanctuary Dive Boat - K Dock 19 - Barebottle Brewery, 1525 Cortland Ave., near Bayshore (before freeway)

MAY

05 - Scuba Show - Long Beach 17 - Movable Feast - Broken Record, 1166 Geneva Avenue 29 - Memorial Day Holiday

JUNE

10 - Sanctuary Dive Boat - K Dock 21 - Ali Baba’s Cave, 799 Valencia Street @ 19th Street

JULY

04 - Independence Day Holiday 08 - Sanctuary Dive Boat - K Dock 19 - Social Brewery & Kitchen, 1326 9th Avenue at Irving

AUGUST

12 - Sanctuary Dive Boat - K Dock 16 – Rosamunde’s 2832 Mission Street

SEPTEMBER

04 - Labor Day Holiday 17 - 19 Peace Dive Boat 20 - PI Bar 1342 Valencia

OCTOBER

09 - Columbus Day 14 - Sanctuary Dive Boat - K Dock 18 - PI Bar 1342 Valencia 31 - Halloween

NOVEMBER

05 - Daylight Savings Time Ends 11 - Veterans Day 19 - Sanctuary Dive Boat - K Dock 15 - Blacksands Brewery 701 Haight Street 23 - Thanksgiving Day

DECEMBER

16 - Sanctuary Dive Boat - K Dock 20 - Rosamundes - 2832 Mission, close to 24th Street 25 - Christmas Day


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Stammtisch from page 1

1855 Haight Street is celebrating it’s twentieth year in business. The Upper Haight music emporium was an expansion from the store's Berkeley outpost, which dates back to 1990. There is also an outpost on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

A lively business in trade-ins and a resurgence in vinyl record sales have kept them afloat while Tower, Virgin, etc. have fallen by the wayside. Records, who saw that coming? In June 2017, Sony Music announced that by March 2018 it would be producing vinyl records in-house for the first time since ceasing their production in 1989. Good thing I refurbished my Acoustic Research Turntable

On the flip side Boccalone, the charcuterie shop known for its tasty pig parts, closed its doors in the Ferry Building.

It was an offshoot of the Noe Valley restaurant, Incanto. In the interests of full disclosure I loved Incanto. The Ferry Building shop followed in 2008, becoming an anchor in the building’s revitalization and drawing lines of tourists for its signature meat cones.

According to owner Mark Pastore, the charcuterie scene has gotten extremely crowded in the last ten years. The closure is simply the result of declining sales.

Retrofit, on Valencia, the go to place for vintage clothes, wigs and stage makeup, perfect for Halloween is no more. Like so many shops in the City, increasing rents have taken another funky victim.

On the plus side there is a new spot that specializes in sleek,

modern looking “pour over” coffee essentials. For those of you out of the loop, “pour over” coffee is what I used to do with a plastic Melitta coffee cone and unbleached paper filters or when all else failed a paper towel and hot water poured from a Revere Ware pan. Apparently I was doing it all wrong.

Woke up Sunday morning to cool overcast skies. Wandered downstairs and as is usually the case on Sunday picked up the New York Times. As an added bonus there was an edition of The Yellow Pages phone book.

Here we are in the heart of Silicon Valley, we do almost everything online, from shopping to dating, our lives run by a seemingly endless series of Aps on our smart phones. And yet this huge paperback still shows up on my doorstep once a year.

There was a time, not too long ago that San Francisco proposed a law banning the distribution of unsolicited phone books. That didn’t last long, the Yellow Pages Association made the 1st Amendment argument; an infringement on the right to distribute speech, you can guess how that went. So here I am looking at a Phone Book. It’s an almost spiritual experience, like fondling an early 70’s Playboy. Don’t worry, I only read the articles.

According to the Sierra Club, AT&T distributes nearly 1 million phone books per year to

San Francisco alone, that’s over 5 million pounds of paper that 70% of the population will dump directly into their recycle bin with a disposal cost estimated at $54 million per year.

On the diving front a hardy band of Reef Divers headed off on our monthly club dive aboard the Sanctuary. Conditions both topside and underwater were terrific. When it’s December and divers are complaining about it being uncomfortably warm you know “the times they are a changin.”

We headed off from K Dock at 8:30, a most civilized hour I might add; hard to believe that we used to routinely make it down to Monterey for a 7:00 am departure aboard the Cypress Sea. I guess we were a hardier bunch back then, of course we also used to fill half the boat.

Anyway, Norm, Jim, Joerg, Gerda and I along with Mitch at the helm and Paula and Denise as our Dive Masters headed south to Carmel. The sea was flat as a mirror; the sun high in the sky and by the time we got to East Pinnacle the topside temperature was a balmy 66 degrees.

This is a terrific site, featuring a beautiful pinnacle, a bit exposed so you can’t always anchor here; we took advantage of the conditions and jumped in. Good visibility, lots of fish and a balmy 57 degrees of water temperature.

Our second dive was at Stepmothers, a site I have never been to before. Of course several people had to mention that this was roughly the same area where a Great White attacked a free-diver last week.

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Stammtisch from page 3

A great site, with a series of rocky “steps” leading to a sandy bottom at 105 feet; visibility at both sites was near 40 feet, give or take. We had a bit of surge on this site, but if you tucked n a bit it was manageable. Both sites were very fish, but no kelp to speak of and lots of purple urchins everywhere you looked.

Another terrific year of diving, managed to log 64 dives, not exactly a record, but not bad. Of those, roughly half were local cold-water dives. Looking forward to next year’s adventures, anticipating lots of dives and hopefully a few warm water dips as well.

I’m hoping that Mike Nelson’s words of advice will soon come in handy again, “Kelp is a beautiful underwater growth. It forms underwater gardens, dense jungles, but sometimes graveyards. To swim through a kelp forest, a diver needs a good knife and plenty of experience, or he may end up like Dan Morgan."

As an aside Lloyd Bridges was cast as lead character Mike Nelson. Sea Hunt was a comeback vehicle for Bridges who had been blacklisting from acting. Bridges was blacklisted after admitting to the House Un-American Activities Committee that he had been a member of the Actors' Laboratory Theatre, a group that was tied to the Communist Party.

Looking back, it’s been a good year. Looking forward to the New Year and new adventures. Dive often, dive deep and stay wet.

IN MEMORIAM

William A “Bil” Phillips - January 5, 1955 - November 26, 2017 - From the Vancouver Sun

Bil was not a member of the San Francisco Reefdivers, but several of us knew him from our forays into cave diving. He was a dedicated instructor, the most demanding I have ever experienced.

Born and raised in North Vancouver, Bil became a world-renowned cave diver whose decades-long exploration of the water-filled caves of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula resulted in his induction into the exclusive Explorers Club of New York. This achievement officially placed Bil in the pantheon of the world's greatest undersea explorers, mountain climbers, astronauts and more. It is an honor reserved for few and one

Bil accepted with his characteristic humility and good humor, never taking himself too seriously and always ready with a helping hand or words of encouragement for the many who sought his advice.

Bil stayed in touch with and visited his family and many friends in Vancouver over the years. In the 1990s he adopted the Yucatan city of Tulum as home and base for his exploration, dive business and teaching. There, he was loved, trusted and admired by all who knew him - other ex-pats and Mexicans alike. He was a consistent and respected advocate of initiatives to make cave diving safer, to preserve the underwater environment, and to inform and educate through his collaborations with the National Geographic Society and others. His death leaves a gap in the local community that will be very difficult to fill.


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Gerda and I were privileged to have had the opportunity to

spend time in Tulum, diving with and learning from Bil. It made

us much more competent and confident in the water.

SFRD October’s Blast From The Past Once again You are There, the time is December 1997, here are some of the highlights of Volume XXX No. XII of The Reef Diver Times, Newsletter of the San Francisco Reef Divers. For those of you wondering how this is possible, you need only remember Mr. Peabody of Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show.

As you may recall, Mr. Peabody, is a beagle and the smartest being in existence. A Nobel laureate, Olympic medalist, scientist and inventor, despite his many accomplishments, he is lonely. So, he decides to adopt. He meets Sherman a dorky, bespectacled, red-haired boy. After saving Sherman from a group of bullies, Peabody discovers that Sherman is an orphan and decides to adopt him.

After a court appearance and a talk with the President, Peabody becomes Sherman's new guardian.

As a birthday gift for Sherman, Peabody invents the WABAC (Wayback) time machine. He and Sherman go back in time to see a Roman speaking in Latin; Peabody adds a translator circuit to the machine so that everyone seems to speak English. Their next trip is to see Ben Franklin flying his kite and discovering electricity, but Peabody and Sherman realize that they cannot interact or change the past. Peabody makes some more adjustments, turning the WABAC into a "should-have-been machine". That brings us to where we are now …

REEF RAP

Tuesday, December 16 - Holiday Party: At The Pacific Rod and Gun Club. Karen Wertz needs help organizing this fun-filled tradition. Pleas give her a call if you have some good ideas or can lend a hand.

Sunday, December 28 - Kayak Paddle: Anthony Singleton coordinates a paddle on the Oakland Estuary. For more information, call Anthony.

Thursday, January 1 - New Year’s Day Pt. Lobos Dive: This is a Reef Diver tradition. We have 18 spots this year, but only a few are still available. Jim Vallario Coordinate; call him to make your reservation or to get on the waiting list.

Saturday, January 17 - Sonoma Coast Dive: Coordinated by Curtis Degler, weather permitting. If inclement weather precludes diving, a kayak paddle will be held on the Russian River.

Tuesday, January 20 - January General Meeting - Boat House at Lake Merced: John Dingler, from USGS (U.S. Geological Survey), will give a slide presentation on “The Sedimentary Process at Monastery Beach.” It would be nice to have a god showing of Reef Divers, Since John is making a special trip up to SF for this event.

February 6 - 8 - Annual Ski Trip: A wonderful weekend of skiing at Incline Village, North Lake Tahoe. Pamela Radkey coordinates, please call her or more information.

Tuesday, February 17 - February General Meeting - Boat House at Laker Merced: Please call Karen Wertz if you have any great ideas for meeting entertainment.

Tuesday, March 17 - March General Meeting - Boat House at Laker Merced: St. Patrick’s Day Party: Whether you’re Irish by descent or just have a bit of the leprechaun in your heart, wear a wee bit o’ the dark green and come celebrate. Please call Karen Wertz and volunteer to plan the festivities.

Saturday, May 2 - Cypress Point Boat Dive: The Cypress Point is a new dive boat in Monterey. It is the sister ship to the Cypress Sea. We have chartered half the boat (10 spots). This is a three-tank dive with lunch. We run this trip on an “at cost” basis for club members. Contact Frank King or Jim Vallario for reservations.

Saturday, July 18 - Cypress Point Boat Dive: Same trip as above.


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Trips in the Planning Stage ...

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) Tour: February, March or April. Some people missed out last year on this unique opportunity to get up close and personal with one of scientific research marvels of our time. Contact Frank King and let him know when you’d like to go - he’ll try to coordinate the date that works best.

Abalone Season Opener: We camp April 3-5 at Van Damme Park.

North Carolina Wreck Dive: In the creative dive planning department, our experienced wreck-diving East Coaster John Sengeris working on an exciting dive trip for us innocent West Coasters. Sometime the second or third week f Jun, several brave Reef Divers will join in an excursion to North Carolina. Here lie some of the famed wrecks in the aptly named “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” Any suggestions or ideas for this trip please call Loretta Lowe or e-mail John.

It’s fun to read the old newsletters, times have changed, there are articles about boats that no longer sail in Monterey, the Cypress Point, the Cypress Sea, the Pacific Star. It was an era when we had more club officers that we now have active members. We had events at places like the Rod and Gun Club and met at the Boat House at Lake Merced, which are no longer around. And there are members that are no longer with us, they have crossed the bar and are with us only in memory.

Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Looking for a New Dive Toy/Tool? We’ve all gotten used to using our cell phones to get directions through it’s built in GPS. It gives us maps, enables Uber to pick us up, lets us know where the closest coffee shop is, it’s great. Once we go underwater the dynamic changes and we’re back to counting fin strokes, relying on a compass or running a reel.

Project Ariadna, a Finish company, plans to change all that. GPS signals don’t penetrate water past an inch or so. There have been a


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number of attempts to use other technologies, but non-have been particularly practical.

The idea behind Project Ariadna is to use the GPS signal at the surface as a starting point and an inertial navigation system to calculate a diver’s position once submerged. Using multiple independent sensors it processes data in real time and calculates where the diver is.

Project Ariadna gives divers access to all the familiar features of common GPS navigation systems, such as Way Points as well as a 3D-dive log, which can be reviewed with tools such as Google Earth.

One of Project Ariadna’s goals is to eventually create an underwater map of the world with underwater POIs already marked and ready for easy route planning. Stay tuned, it’s scheduled to be available in the New Year.

Spear Fisherman Attacked by Shark at Pebble Beach

Details as usual are sketchy, but what’s not in debate is that a spear fisherman was bitten by a shark, probably a great white at Pebble Beach.

Armen Azatian told KSBW-8 TV that a great white shark took “two or three bites” of his son before they were able to get him out of water and to safety.

Armen and his son Grigor spear fish three or four weekends per week in Southern California. They were in

Monterey in advance of a family wedding.

Grigor Azatian, a UC-Irvine grad and computer science student, is expected to recover, although the extent of lasting damage to his leg is still uncertain.

If this makes you nervous about getting into the water, here’s a little perspective. According to the International Shark Attack File, from 1926 to roughly January of this year, there have been 120 people attacked by sharks off the California coast. In Monterey County, there were at least 11 attacks before Friday. The most dangerous part of diving in Monterey is the drive to get there.

Whatever Ever Happened to the Calypso?

Those of you who remember Jacques Cousteau’s iconic ship Calypso may wonder whatever happened to her. The ship, which started life as a British Royal Navy minesweeper in 1943 and for a short time, a ferry in Malta was converted into Cousteau’s scuba-explorer’s dream vessel.

She’s had a tough life lately, including having been severely damaged when a barge rammed and sank it in Singapore harbor in 1996. The ship was raised and patched

up but no further work was undertaken.

Last year the Cousteau Society announced that the Calypso would finally begin undergoing conservation after a 20-year fight to save the vessel. Having purchased the ship, the society plans a full restoration.

Now it seems that although the renovations were pushing ahead at a shipyard in Turkey, there has been another setback. On September 12 at around 2:30 am, a fire broke out and damaged the legendary ship. There was no loss of life or injury. The damage impacted the newly finished wooden parts and the ship’s historic elements remain intact.


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Mexico creates vast new ocean reserve to protect the 'Galapagos of North America'

Mexico’s government has created the largest ocean reserve in North America around a Pacific archipelago regarded as its crown jewel.

The protection zone spans 57,000 square miles around the Revillagigedo Islands, also known by the largest island in the chain, Socorro, which lie 242 miles south-west of the Baja California peninsula.

Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, announced the decision in a decree that also bans mining and the construction of new hotels on the islands.

The four volcanic islands that make up the Revillagigedo archipelago, called the Galapagos of North America, are part of a

submerged volcanic mountain range.

Abalone Fishery closed in 2018

By a unanimous vote of the California Fish and Wildlife Commission, the abalone fishery on California’s North Coast will be closed next year.

The decision was based on evidence of mass starvation and mortality among red abalone over the past several years. The growth of kelp, a major food source for abalone, has declined significantly, and a dramatic increase in the population of purple sea urchins has competed for the remaining kelp with the abalone.

Ongoing surveys at 10 popular diving sites on the Sonoma and Mendocino coasts suggest density has declined by an average 65 percent this year compared with years past, according to Fish and Wildlife data. An estimated 25 percent of the red abalone found in the surveyed area were starving, and between 22 percent and 67 percent of abalone in the water were found dead at the survey sites.

The current collapse of abalone is a result of three main factors. A starfish wasting disease that decimated populations of starfish along the west coast; starfish are a natural predator of purple sea urchins, which, left unchecked, experienced a very rapid population growth. Purple sea urchins in turn rapidly consumed kelp, which is also the food source abalone depend on.

A study done in 2016 by the Department of Fish and Wildlife found that there are about 31,000 active abalone divers, and that abalone tourism produces between $24 million and $44 million in revenues per year for local dive shops, restaurants, campgrounds, lodging facilities, and related businesses. With a full closure, there is no doubt it will have an impact on these north coast businesses.

Front Row Seat to Extinction

It looks as if conservationists in Mexico will have front-row seats to a species on the verge of extinction. They can watch, but it looks as though there is little they can do to prevent it.

The species in question is the vaquita porpoise. Experts believe there are only about 30 vaquita left in Mexico’s Gulf of California, the only area in the world where the small porpoises are known to live.

As recently as 1997 a study identified roughly 600 vaquita


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in the Gulf of California, by 2008, that figure had dropped to about 250. The vaquita’s numbers have dwindled dramatically in recent years, and the species’ exponential decline can be attributed almost entirely to human activity, especially gillnetting.

Conservationists had been engaged in a last-ditch effort to rescue the porpoises. An international team of experts set out to identify and track any remaining vaquita, with the hope of eventually placing them in specially designed sea pens where they could be safely housed and monitored.

The mission was a part of VaquitaCPR, an international effort that brought together multiple nongovernmental organizations and the governments of the United States and Mexico in a final, emergency attempt to save the vaquita from the brink of extinction.

For the first several weeks of the operation, efforts to save the creature seemed promising. In late October, scientists briefly capturing a vaquita calf before returning the baby to the wild after it began to show signs of stress.

In November, an adult female vaquita died while being monitored in captivity as a part of the operation. Dr. Cynthia Smith reported to the New York Times that the team successfully transported the vaquita from open waters into a sea pen where she was closely monitored. She began to swim back and forth erratically before suddenly going limp, likely due to the stress of being held in a human enclosure.

The adult vaquita’s death suggested that the species might be more averse to human care than some conservationists previously thought. It also complicated an already controversial mission which cost roughly $5 million over the course of this year alone.

Fishers often catch vaquita accidentally while hunting for the similarly sized totoaba, another endangered animal whose swim bladders are valuable in Chinese black markets for unverified medicinal uses. A single totoaba swim bladder can sell for $10,000 on the black market, creating a valuable incentive for poachers in the region.

Meanwhile, the Mexican government’s Ministry of the Environment will continue to scour the waters of the Gulf of Mexico to enforce this year’s permanent gillnet ban. They will serve as the last line of defense against illegal poachers, but no one knows if that will be enough to save a species on the brink of extinction.

The Silver Prince has been sold

The Silver Prince a local dive boat active since the 70’s has been sold. The boat is being sold to Darren and Cynthia Snider and will be going to its new home in Puget Sound in the next few weeks.

If you want to make one last plunge, the last local charters will be on the weekend of December 16th and 17th, a 3 and 2-tank trip to Carmel respectively.

In Local News - Swimmer Bitten by a sea lion at Aquatic Park

A swimmer was severely injured after being bit in the arm by a sea lion in the Bay on Thursday afternoon. The 56-year-old man was swimming beyond the cove at Aquatic Park and was bitten around 1:45 p.m.

A nearby sailboat saw the swimmer in distress, pulled the man onto his boat and called the police. Police told the captain of that boat to bring him to the Hyde Street pier.

The SFPD provided emergency aid, the swimmer was then


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transported to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

There have been two further incidents and the area is currently closed to simmers.

SINCE JANUARY 1ST 1973

ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO REEF DIVERS (SFRD): The Reef Diver Times is the official newsletter of the San Francisco Reef Divers, a not for profit

community organization dedicated to safe sport diving and the preservation of our ocean resources. Membership is $25 annually, dues payable to “SFRD”. The General Meeting is held the 3rd Wednesday of

the month. Location is announced one week prior to the meeting. Please check our yahoo site for details http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sfreefdivers/ We meet at 7:00pm for socializing, drinks, food and club

business. For more information, visit http://www.sfreefdivers.org or our Facebook page

SAN FRANCISCO REEF DIVERS

Reef Diver Times C/O Gerda Hurter

515 Diamond Street San Francisco, CA 94114

san francisco reef divers december 2017 volume xlv no. 12 · i’m checking out the “best nose...

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