General meeting: The May general meeting will be on Monday, May 3, 2004 in the Garden Room at the Orinda Public Library.

Entertainment at the May Meeting will consist of a presentation by Tony Torralba regarding his dive mentoring program in the Oakland public school working with the UC Berkeley dive research program. Mark your calendar and plan to attend this very interesting presentation!

If you have suggestions for entertainment for upcoming meetings, please contact Membership Coordinator Chris Fryer at cfryer@hansonbridgett.com.

General meetings are generally held the first Monday of every month from 8-10 PM at:

Garden Room

Orinda Library

24 Orinda Way

Orinda, CA 94563

Executive board meeting: Executive board meetings are usually held on the third Monday of the month at 8 p.m. and are usually preceded by a potluck at 6:30 pm.

The May Eboard meeting will be held Monday May 17^th at Marcia Marcellini’s and Rocky Rockafellow’s, 57 California Drive, Orinda. All Alacosta members are welcome to attend EBoard meetings.

Old Dives: There was yet another successful ab dive to Van Damme State Park to celebrate the new abalone season, April 9 – 11, 2004. No official trip reports were received by the Blurb, but she understands that there were plenty of accessible abs right off of the Van Damme beach, and that the potluck was well attended. Weather reports were mixed.

As we go to press, some Alacostans are enjoying drifting along Palancar Reef in Cozumel! Simon Kisch is leading this trip, which of course means that participants won’t be eating at any fancy restaurants! Moreover, there will be at least two generations of Alacostans and friends-of-Alacostans present: long-time member John Kelly reports that his son Kevin Kelly, just certified in Monterey in April, will be joining the group, along with Kevin’s sister Monica Kelly. As if that wasn’t enough family togetherness, Janet Myers and Marcel LeBlanc will be bringing son Luc LeBlanc along; Luc celebrated his first birthday just before leaving on the trip! However, not to worry, new divers aren’t getting THAT young; Marcel and Janet plan to alternate dives (and also brought along a friend to help baby-sit) so that Luc can remain on shore. The Coz group returns May 2^nd, so we look forward to a report on their trip in the June issue of the Blurb.

UPCOMING DIVES:

Catalina 2004: The dates for the annual trip to Catalina will be September 11 -18, 2004. Mark your calendars now and plan to attend; details to follow soon! Catalina trip Co-Chairs will be Rocky Rockafellow and Gary Schleimer. Contracts have been received from Emerald Bay and Ms.Christie (the Charter that carries us to Emerald Bay) and it appears that the trip costs will not increase from last year. It is anticipated that sign ups will start at the May or June meeting.

Russian River Canoe/Kayak Trip: On Saturday May 22^nd, join John Beland and other Alacostans for the almost annual canoe/kayak trip down the Russian River. You don’t have to dive to enjoy this one, so bring your family for an exciting, fun day on the river. This will be an 11 river mile trip (which will take a full day) from Asti to Alexander Valley. The group will meet in Healdsburg at 8 a.m. for breakfast, and then arrange carpools up to Asti. Bring your own boat or rent locally or from Trowbridge Canoe in Healdsburg. You may want to reserve your boat at Trowbridge in advance.

For more information, you can email John at jwbeland@att.net, or call him at 510-482-2934.

You can get information about Trowbridge at their website, http://www.trowbridgecanoe.com/ or call them at 1-800-640-1386. ).

Yet Another Van Damme Ab Dive: August 20 – 22^nd: Join Trip Leader Mike Daily for yet another great weekend of tank diving, ab diving, camping, and eating, at Van Damme State Park. There may be campsites available to reserve, try http://www.reserveamerica.com/jsp/commonpage.jsp?goto=/usa/ca/vand/newindex.html

Australia: Susan Carter plans to lead a dive to Oz in November of 2005. If you are interested in going, email Susan at Susan.Carter@ucop.edu or still15320@aol.com.

New Interactive Web Site: Alacosta has a new interactive website. You can post dive reports. Users are allowed to modify the web site themselves, adding items, including

images.

Look at http://www2.alacosta.org/drupal and let Alacosta webmaster Kevin Dalley know if you have comments or suggestions.

Alacosta Calendar

May 3, 2004, Monday, May General Meeting

May 17, 2004, Monday, EBoard, 57 California Drive, Orinda

April 25-May 2, 2004 Cozumel

May 22, 2004, Saturday, Russian River Canoe and Kayak Trip

August 20-22^nd, Ab dive and camping weekend, Van Damme State Park

September 11 – 18, 2004; Catalina Trip, Emerald Bay

November 2005 Australia

Alacosta Divers Officers and Executive Board Members:

Officers: Mike Daily, President; Kevin Dalley, Vice President; John Beland, Treasurer; James ‘Rocky’ Rockafellow, Secretary and Immediate Past President;

Chris Fryer, Membership Coordinator; Susan Carter, Blurb Editor

Executive Board Members: Mike Elliott, Simon Kisch, Bill McDowell, John Purnell, Gary Schleimer, Rob Vermuelen

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The Blurb

Alacosta Divers, Inc.

Editor: Susan Carter/still15320@aol.com/415-647-9036

101 Appleton Ave

San Francisco, CA 94110