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Chairperson: Bill
Little
Duties: The committee acts as the focal point for maintaining the club roster, creating and generating the club’s monthly publication, and maintenance of the club’s web page
Most important aspect of committee: The committee is the point of contact for all official club communication, both internally among members and externally with outside entities, organizations, and individuals
Club member since: 1987
SCUBA certification: PADI Advanced Open Water
Specialty certifications: Equipment Specialist
Most memorable diving experience: My first checkout dive for my Open Water Certification was an event to remember. The day was overcast, windy, with squalls. The seas were running six to eight feet in the inlet leaving the marina! There were about a dozen students and four instructors on board, which turned out to be the one thing that saved a lot of us.
We got to the dive site, suited up, and got into the water. Our instructor gave the signal to deflate our BCs, and down we went. As soon as my mask went under, visibility went to zero. The water was so churned up that from the surface to about 20 feet, I could see nothing. Then, as I kept descending, the water began to clear and I could make out the bottom. The only problem was that, due to the surface conditions and the current, I was now completely alone! None of the other students or instructors were anywhere in sight.
As I got to the bottom, I spotted a few other divers, and swam toward them. As luck would have it, one of them was an instructor. We went through our skills, then swam along the reef a little way before returning to the surface to struggle back onto the boat. Needless to say, the surface interval was singularly unpleasant, as the boat pitched and rocked and caused several of us to lose lunch. We then suited up and did our second dive.
On the way back to the marina, our instructor came around to shake everyone’s hand and announce “Congratulations! You are now a certified SCUBA diver. And oh, by the way, if it had been any rougher out here today, we wouldn’t have gone out.”