Activities and Events
The 2019 SCUBA Show was held the first weekend of May. We had nearly 20 volunteers man our booth, talk to attendees and sell our new t-shirt design. We also had a drawing for an OMS Regulator which was won by Jeff Haroldson; and a 2 tank boat dive with the WAVES Project on the Marissa Dive boat out of San Diego. Adam Kirk is the luck winner of the boat trip.
As usual our star volunteer for the event was Trina! She single-handedly spoke with nearly every one of the ten thousand plus attendees. Thanks also to her dad – Ruchir for always making sure they can be there to man the booth for the entire weekend!
We are so grateful for the support of the SCUBA Community for the WAVES Projects programs. T-shirt sales were almost twice as much as previous years and donations doubled!
Our great group of volunteers had a lot of fun talking to people and seeing all the great products displayed at the show. Travel information booths are a very big part of the show and we got lots of great ideas for future trips!
Canyon Lake Cleanup
Veteran volunteer Patrick Runion has been researching dive spots trying to find some fresh water dive areas closer to home. He started by contacting Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District and suggested a clean up of Canyon Lake. They were exited about the idea and put him in contact with the local property owner’s association. They were on board with the idea, so he got to work with planning the event.
This being the first environmental clean up WAVES Project has taken on Patrick wanted it to go great in hopes that we would have more opportunities to do dives like this locally. We ended up having more than 20 divers show up, a volunteer with a pontoon boat, and the local marine patrol for safety. In less then an hour of diving we pulled up nearly three yards of trash, including bikes, scooters, skateboards, and chairs just to name a bit of the trash we pulled!
You can see in the photos some of the trash we removed. The clean up turned out great and we are looking forward to putting on another soon.
Article contributed by Patrick Runion – WAVES Alum; and Sid Siez – Dive Master and Chaplain.