Places

• Judith Garfield's La Jolla Underwater Park web site. Judith has written two excellent books about the La Jolla Underwater Park. If you're coming in from out of town, this site will get you started off on the right foot.
• Divebums covers San Diego area diving. They have site descriptions and a rolling dive report log which is always worth reading.

Ocean conditions

• NOAA provides tide predicitons on their site. They also have specific predictions for the La Jolla area.
• Here's a live camera above La Jolla Shores

San Diego SCUBA organizations

• San Diego Council of Divers: The Council of Divers represents the SCUBA diving community before City and state government agencies.
• San Diego Underwater Photographic Society. The SDUPS is a great bunch of people who love underwater photography. They meet the fourth Thursday of the month at Sumner Auditorium at Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
• San Diego Oceans Foundation: The SDOF sponsors a variety of projects to enhance our local marine environment. They are best known for sinking the HMCS Yukon as an artificial reef.

Periodicals
We are fortunate to have some good magazines available. Here are my favorites:

• Rodales SCUBA Diving -- Good gear reviews, interesting articles, and they let their readers rate dive destinations.
• California Diving News -- You can't beat the price on this one. It's free at most dive shops. Stop by early in the month as most seem to run out by mid-month. Besides the buddy ads, its best feature are the local news and dive site write-ups. If you miss an issue, they have the articles on their web site too.

Books
A good SCUBA book help us kick start new diving activities, appreciate our history, or keep us sane on rainy nights. Here are a few that I've found helpful.

• Rapture of the Deep and Other Dive Stories You Probably Shouldn't Know. One divemasters travels and travails. It's an entertaining read. It feels like my life story; credible and surreal at the same time.
• The Fireside Diver -- Bonnie Cardone gathered the most interesting stories from Skin Diving magazine and other sources. All of the stories date from the early days of diving. Well worth reading.
• Best Publishing -- These guys publish a lot of SCUBA related books. We have several on our shelves and they've all been good. Visit their site and check out their catalog. Most dive shops carry their books, but Aqua-Tech has the best selection.

Research Projects
Pardon the pun, but there are a boatload of worthwhile reaearch activities underway in our local waters. All of them depend on volunteer divers for their research data. I can't encourage you enough to contribute effort to these projects

• La Jolla Ecological Reserve Study - This project is led by Dr. Paul Dayton, and Dr. Ed Parnell of Scripps Institute of Oceanography.This is a multifaceted study which is to take place over the next several years. Its goal is to discover the kind of roll the reserve plays in local waters. All data will be available to all interested parties for research, or public policy.
• Yukon Monitoring Project -- This project will study the sealife colonizes the HMCS Yukon. Currently, volunteer divers are swimming transect lines on the ship and counting fish. It's an easy thing to do, and several local dive boats have graciously offered discounts for volunteer research divers when diving the Yukon.

Dive Boats

• The incomparable Lois Ann. We've been diving on the Lois Ann for a long time. They know the area, they feed you well, and it's an excellent crew. They have Nitrox fills onboard too.
• Ocean Express and One-Eyed Jacks The Ocean Express runs a nice 1/2 day, 2 tank trip to the Corronado Islands. I've done one trip off the D'n'd II and it's a nice boat.

Travel

• InsureMyTrip.com This site quotes trip insurance from several companies and gives you the summary. Pretty handy for big trips.
• Lynn Rose Tours - We booked our La Paz trip through Lynn. She has excellent prices, and can also book fishing or hunting trips.

Dive Stores

• Ocean Enterprises

Equipment

• Photography
  • Southern Nikonos - This is one of the best places to get your Nikonos camera serviced. I've used them several times now, and have been very satisfied. The work gets done when they say it will and it gets done right. Be forewarned that they don't take credit cards. I've been having them COD the package, but this may not be viable for everyone.
• Doing it Right Resources
  • GUE: http://www.gue.com/
  • WKPP: http://www.wkpp.org/
  • Dan Volkers Page: http://www.sfdj.com/
  • Andrew G's 5th D: http://www.fifthd.com/
  • Undersea & Hyperbaric Medicine Society http://www.uhms.org/
  • Jim Cobbs Page: http://www.cisatlantic.com/trimix/trimix.html
  • Todd Leonards Page: http://www.mindspring.com/~toddleonard/caverig/
  • Halcyon: http://www.halcyon.net/
  • Extreme Exposure: http://www.extreme-exposure.com/
  • GAP: http://www.gap-software.com/
  • Tech list Archives: http://www.aquanaut.com/bin/mlist/aquanaut/techdiver

Please send your feedback to stargazer1@cox.net