2020 has been a deadly and challenging year on all fronts. As we learn to live with it and around it, it's time to start planning for the 2021 dive season, particularly our international travel schedule. Daryl and Dan have scoured the travel deals and Active Divers is pleased to offer the following international trips to our membership:

Blackbeard Cruise (May 29 to June 4, 2021) - A live-aboard dive experience to the Bahamas

Little Cayman (July 17 to July 24, 2021) - Spectacular diving in a boutique dive setting

Annual Dive Cruise (November 27 to December 4, 2021) - Four world class dive sites, Costa Maya, Cozumel, Belize, and Roatan, packaged into a one week trip aboard a luxury cruise ship.

Click on the links above for more information.

Safety Officer orientation participants (from left) Amber Vazquez, Daryl Johnson, Juliana Bach, Mark Silverman, Lon Von Lintel, Mo Smith, Dan Baeza, Rachel Davis, Lee Wood. Photo by Active Diver Charles Julian.

Six Active Divers Safety Officers (Dan Baeza, Rachel Davis, Daryl Johnson, Mo Smith, Lon Von Lintel, and Lee Wood) and four Divemasters training to become Safety Officers (Juliana Bach, Charles Julian, Mark Silverman, Amber Vazquez) gathered at the home of Lenora Bach and Charles Julian for this event held on Saturday, August 22 in South Miami. We studied the Safety Officer manual and candidates learned what it takes to wear the Safety Officer red shirt and lead dives for the club. We also enjoyed a delicious lunch from Shorty's BBQ.

In addition to the all-day training event whereby all Active Divers guidelines and procedures were reviewed in detail, the prerequisite for becoming a Safety Officer is a Divemaster or higher certification from a recognized scuba training agency. In addition to this training session, the four candidates will complete an internship by shadowing Safety Officers on at least three club dives, then become candidates for nomination and voted on by the Safety Officer Committee. Good luck to all candidates and congratulations on completing this important first step on your journey!

UPDATE: This Dive Has Been Moved to October 31st

Scuba Diving in South Florida

We've added a new advanced night dive to our 2020 schedule. It's called Black Water Drift Dive, and it promises to be a spectacular event. It will take place on Saturday, September 12 October 31st, starting at 6:30 p.m. There are limited spaces available, so reserve your spot now.

Want to book it? Go to our dive schedule page, or click here.

The Covid-19 pandemic has created difficult challenges both health-wise and economically to the scuba diving community. To mitigate these significant risks and increase our safety, Active Divers will charter (i.e., buy out) many of our dive boat operations for the remainder of the 2020 dive season. Limited divers on our boats chartered exclusively for Active Divers members will provide additional space for social distancing and other COVID-19 mitigation.

The cost of the dives will remain the same as announced on our dive schedule. Where it makes financial sense for the club, Active Divers Association will charter the entire boat to ensure that extra safety precautions are in place for our members during this pandemic. This may mean that our dive schedule will change as the dive operators change prices or policies.

To offset higher charter fees, Active Divers will raise the optional insurance fee on club charters from $5 to $10 for the remainder of the dive season. For an additional $5 per person, per local dive trip, a total of $10, members can eliminate the worry of losing their dive fees because of an unforeseen change of plans. If for any reason you are unable to attend a local dive for which you are scheduled and have paid the insurance, Active Divers will credit your dive fee to another date. All our dive insurance is non-transferable and non-refundable.

Dive Season is in Full Swing!

--by Dr Dan Baeza

After a loooooooggggg hiatus, dive season is back, albeit, with social distancing rules. We went diving in Riviera Beach on May 30th. The water was cold and murky, with maybe 20 foot visibility, but it was great to be in the water!!! Social distancing rules in Palm Beach county limited the number of divers on the boat to eight. While not great for business, it made for a very uncrowded environment. So, although the pandemic has been generally bad for our health and the economy, the conditions on the boat were very tolerable.

The Florida Keys opens up for divers and other visitors on June 1. We will still continue to practice social distancing (see our social distancing article elsewhere on this page), but the silver lining is less crowded boats. Again, not ideal for  a number of reasons, but we'll take what we can get. So, if you haven't already booked some dives, go to our Dive Schedule page and have a look. Keep in mind that social distancing rules limit the number of divers on any given trip, so the number of available spaces is small and they  are filling up fast.

Above and below are some photos I took while on the dive.

Bonaire Trip Report
“What an absolutely beautiful dive vacation! “

It seems only fitting to start this story with the quote above as it sums up what many of our international divers said about this trip... that this was the best Caribbean dive trip yet! Seventeen divers were booked on this trip but unfortunately, one person missed the trip due to transportation problems. Toucan Divers was the resort’s dive operator and they started out with an orientation and briefing on the marine park rules and the boat diving procedures the evening we arrived.

Bright and early the next morning we sat at our private group table in the concierge area of the restaurant getting some food prior to our 8:00 AM boat departure. Our group was the largest there and we had to split into two groups, one on the “Blue Moon” and the other on the “Green Flash”. Throughout the week we went on many of the same dive sites, but not all. While it would have been nice to be on one large boat, it was actually very pleasant to be in smaller groups on the reefs with less crowding.

After two morning dives, we had lunch and relaxed a bit before going for an afternoon dive on the house reef, 18 Palms. It is absolutely amazing how nice the reefs are in Bonaire just a few feet off shore, and the house reef was no exception. Lots of tropical fish, healthy coral and a squadron of tarpon greeted us that afternoon.

The rest of the week followed a similar pattern: eat, boat dives, eat, shore dive, eat, sleep and repeat! As we started our shore dives it became apparent that every diver had to verify that they brought everything they needed, plus some spare articles to share if needed. One diver forgot to bring a BCD on the first shore dive, but that was easily remedied by a quick trip back to the resort. For many, the highlight of the shore dives was the Salt Pier, which we were able to do as a drift dive in the morning and then as a dusk entry shore dive that evening. It is an actual production pier with ships arriving twice a week to fill with salt for export so you have to know the schedule, since you cannot dive there when a ship is docked. Shown above at right are divers preparing to start the dusk entry on the pier. 

And then an hour later or so you see them starting to come out of the water.

Thousand of pictures were taken and many have been posted on Facebook, YouTube and in various emails of the trip both above and below water. The reefs were the star of the trip and in true Bonaire fashion they were all spectacular- simply no bad dives the entire trip!!

Top Row L to R: Al Menendez, Tony Spagnolo, Chris Noll, Connor Fiehler, Dan Baeza, Randy Sonntag, Rachel Davis
Bottom Row L to R: Jay Abbazia, Dennis Fiehler, Susan Noll, Daryl Johnson, Jason Fiehler, Cindy Sonntag, Zee Mayer, John Davis, Kathy Whitcomb

The Plaza Beach Resort and Toucan Divers went all out to make sure we had excellent accommodations, great food, entertainment and personal attention in the concierge area. Quincy was at our service in the dining area and always asked “Do you need anything? Do you have any problems? “. And he took care of everything we brought up!! In all the trips I have planned and run, I got more accolades throughout this trip than any other I have done.

On the last night there, we were honored at a party at the dive shop with our own commemorative “rock” created by the shop that will remain for all to see that the Active Divers were there in 2019!

No trip report would be complete without a group picture so here it is on the right:

It’s going to be hard to top this trip but Dan and I will start shopping for the next great Caribbean adventure soon- any suggestions just send them to me at diverdaryl@bellsouth.net.

The End-of-Dive-Season BBQ and Raffle is History!

Yet another dive season has come and gone, and just to punctuate it,it was one of the coldest days so far this Fall.

Congratulations to our raffle grand prize winner, Geoffe Chaney. Geoffe won the dive computer generously donated by Austin's Dive Shop.