A beautiful sunny summer day at Humber Bay with our Divermaster, Martin Bonert, and Blue North board member, Alison Morley. The visibility was good for Humber Bay this time of year at 15 feet. The divers were able to practice their scuba skills, particularly diving in cold water with full 7 mm wet suit including gloves. What a difference to our thin Caribbean wet suits and no gloves.
Meanwhile the revellers started the BBQ party and were soon joined by the Humber Bay divers and Alison and Martin’s families — just in time for the speeches to welcome our new summer divers, celebrate the return of the May Turks & Caicos divers, and kick off the summer dive season, 25 partyers in all.
Happy Anniversaries!
There were so many reasons for festivity with lots of anniversaries to celebrate.
- The first anniversary of the founding of Blue North Scuba Club
. - The 60th anniversary of the club where many of us trained or dived was founded in 1962, and continues to offer training and Inner Space Seminars. This year is the 60th anniversary. The open water tradition of safe diving continues. Some of us started diving together in the 70s, enjoying each other’s company so much that we dove every weekend of the summer for decades from the 24th of May til Thanksgiving, with a trip to the Caribbean each winter. We grew up together as young adults, diving, camping, partying, volunteering to teach in the pool each Tuesday night, attending Inner Space Seminars on Thursday nights, serving on the Executive Committee, partying together on the weekend. And here we are today, still diving! We just returned from a 10-day dive trip together in Turks & Caicos in the Caribbean, diving on the 3rd largest barrier reef in the world, feeding lionfish to the groupers and sharks, watching the baby fish on the coral heads and hand feeding the stingrays. Diving has been a wonderful experience in our lives, and we wish that for the new generation of divers, hoping you will have as much fun as we did, enjoying the aquatic world together.
. - And so, we are celebrating you today for joining the world of diving, and we are celebrating the future, and hope that you will find enjoyment, adventure and friendship while you learn about the underwater world.
. - And it’s the 51st wedding anniversary for two wonderful couples: Bob & Peggy Belcher, and Patti & Dave Bragg. Each couple was married on the same day, June 25, 51 years ago, at the same time, 7:00 pm, both weddings were in the GTA (Toronto and Streetsville). We are delighted to be here to celebrate with you this year.
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Thanks to our Divemasters!
- Martin Bonert is divemastering two dives this summer: Humber Bay today, June 25, and Western Islands Georgian Bay, July 23-24, 2022.
. - Courtney Gibson is divemastering the Tobermory dive weekend, Aug. 6-7, 2022.
. - Heison Chak is divemastering Brockville-Morrisburg shore dives, Aug. 27-28, 2022.
- And a big thank-you speech and presentation from Dave to Rebecca Metcalfe, our intrepid trip leader, who once a year for twenty umpteen years has taken us on fabulous vacation adventures around the world to the Caribbean, Galapagos, Indonesia, Philippines — and last month to Turks & Caicos.
- Thank you so much, beloved Divemasters. There would be no diving without you. You are appreciated very much!
Thanks to our Hosts
It was a great party, and we would like to thank our hosts, Dave and Patti Bragg for sharing their home with us on this important day!
Blue North Scuba 