MWDC presents a first time, unique experience for divers by presenting a round table discussion called "Special Interest Groups". Attendees will break up into four groups; UW Photography, Boat Diving, Shore Diving and UW Hunting. We'll spend twenty minutes or so with each group in an informal discussion listening to the people who are leading the group. Gear, pictures, books, etc. could be used, such as a book showing the various Cape Ann dive sites for shore dives, or using a laptop to show pictures with the entry and exit points of specific shore dives dives. Each group leader will bring their own materials and people are encouraged to ask questions and engage in meaningful conversation.

We'd really like to run this as an information sharing session where the more experienced people are helping those who have an interest in that particular topic. The people leading the group may want to even prepare a single page of important ideas to share as a handout. Here are the scheduled group leaders:

• UW Photography – Jim McKnight and Mike Walsh
• Boat Diving – Heather Knowles and Dave Caldwell
• Shore Diving - Alexine Raineri and Roy Mennell
• UW Hunting – John Desmond and Jeff Wagner

Ethan Gordon will share his brand new images and stories of diving the wrecks of the famed Truk Lagoon as well as images from an earlier trip to Lake Champlain.

Ethan became certified as a scuba diver in 1984 and has nearly 2800 dives under his belt. Since 1989 he has taught scuba diving to hundreds of people and has received awards for his skill as a teacher. He holds numerous certifications in addition to his instructor ratings (PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer- 5 specialties, SSI Dive Control Specialist Instructor- 10 specialties). He has been working as a freelance photojournalist primarily in the diving, fishing and travel industries since 1995. His assignment work has taken him from the cold waters off New England to the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Coral Sea, and numerous islands in the Caribbean. Ethan has photographed thousands of marine creatures from around the world. However, his skill doesn't stop at the water's edge. His topside photography makes his assignment work stand out. Ethan has been honored twice by Skin Diver Magazine and Asian Diver. Both magazines included his images in their prestigious Photo Annual Collector's Editions, and once by Sport Diver, which included one of his images in their first Photo Annual Collector's Edition. Ethan also served as editor of Fathoms, the magazine of the underwater world, from May 2005 - February 2008.

Fred Calhoun will present a film called “The Rockport Breakwater”. The film is about the building, abandonment and subsequent scuba diving on the granite structure two miles from shore off the coast of Rockport, MA. The Rockport Breakwater was produced by Chris and Fred Calhoun.

Prior to the presentation there will be a short description and discussion of the situation in Gloucester having to do with the Diver's Flag Law and how people can be represented by it.

Fred has been an observer and participant in this arena someone has mis-dubbed “the scuba industry” for the last 55 years. Fred began diving while in high school in 1953. With two friends he assembled scuba units from CO2 fire extinguisher “bottles”, built “fins” from plywood paddles bolted and taped to low-rise war surplus “sneakers”, made “masks” from inner-tube bodies and cut glass ports. His first “professionally assembled” product was a do-it-yourself wet suit kit complete with a sheet of foam neoprene (10’ long by 4’ wide), a pattern (small-medium-large), and a bottle of glue – all in a box. Whenever we needed something, we built it.

Fred opened a dive shop on Boston’s South Shore and began teaching servicemen to scuba dive in the Army/Navy pool on Boston Harbor in 1957. He later sold the store and expanded his scuba school.

Fred wrote The Basic Course for the Underwater Society of America. He became “certified” as a NEC instructor, a YMCA instructor, a NAUI instructor (#380) and PDIC instructor. Fred became NAUI’s North Atlantic Manager in 1967 and has been training NAUI instructors since then to the present.

For the last 30 years Fred has been chartering his dive boat EASY DIVER out-of-Gloucester. During this time Fred has written 15 books on scuba diving (available from AQUA-QUEST or NAUI). During that same period Fred has produced and directed 10 underwater films.

Bob Foster will discuss the planning and execution of the first dives to the Frank A Palmer and Louise B. Crary, two enormous coal schooners that collided and sank together in December, 1902 in what is now the Stellwagen Bank Underwater National Marine Sanctuary. The Palmer is believed to be the largest 4-masted schooner ever built at 274 ft. in length and a beam of 43 ft. In July of 2007 Bob and three other local divers became the first to visit these wrecks, which sit in 365FSW right here in our own backyard.

Bob has been an active diver since 1972, and became interested in wreck diving while living near the Great Lakes in the 80’s. He has been searching for shipwrecks in Massachusetts Bay for the last 8 years, and has discovered and documented over 15 including the YF-415, Brenton Reef Lightship, and Augustus Snow. Bob’s wreck diving interests have also taken him to Lake Superior and to the Florida Keys, as well as to New York/New Jersey to dive the U-869 and the USS Spikefish.

While being one of the first divers on a new wreck is certainly a thrill, some of his most memorable dives are in the kelp forests off Monterey and the warm blue waters of Bimini and Puerto Rico.

Bjorn has been a MWDC club member since 2000, board member since 2003, and enjoys all types of scuba diving. From cold water ice diving in northern Michigan, to the wrecks of the Great Lakes, to the warm tropical Caribbean and Pacific waters. With a busy work schedule and two young children, there is not as much time left for diving as one might want. But he and his wife (and favorite dive buddy) Gayle make at least one dive trip each year. With kids in tow, they find family friendly destinations where everyone can have fun. In Hawaii this February, they found a local pre-school where the kids could play all day while mom and dad got one week of good diving. The most memorable dive destinations are probably a tie between Sipadan and Kapalai Islands of Borneo, Malaysia and Cocos Island on the pacific of Costa Rica.

The presentation will be from this summer's trip to western Norway with fellow club member Roman Ptashka, to dive a few of the many WWII casualties along the rugged Norwegian coast line. With only a simple acrylic housing for our "point and shot" cameras, neither Roman nor Bjorn claim to be underwater photographers. The presentation will show a few under water photos and some shots of the beautiful Norwegian interior and coastal. A 25 minute promo film will also detail the wrecks dived and the marine life encountered.

Mike Walsh will present slides from a trip taken in February 2007 to Anthony's Key Dive Resort in Roatan. Anthony's Key offers a wide variety of Caribbean type diving including walls, sprawling reefs, a few scuddled wrecks and specialty shark and dolphin dives. Mike logged 18 reef dives during the week and captured them all on film.

Mike Walsh is an avid scuba diver with over 900 logged dives ranging from the lobster infested New England coast line to the crystal clear cenotes of the Yucatan to the warm/exotic waters of the south pacific.

Among a wide variety of diving experiences, Mike has searched for 25 million year old shark teeth fossils in the deep/dark rivers of the southeastern US, recovered artifacts from a sunken World War II German UBoat off Rhode Island and explored shipwrecks in Massachusetts Bay.

His most memorable dives include encountering sabre toothed tiger remains on the floor of an underwater cave in Mexico, coming eye to eye with a humpback whale just off the Rockport shore and swimming with the worlds largest Manta Rays around a remote Pacific island.

Mike received his open water certification in 1980 and has since earned trimix and cave certifications. Mike took up underwater photography in 2000 and now spends his warm water dive time hunting down the most exotic photographic subjects as passionately as he spends his cold water dive time hunting down good old New England lobsters and scallops.

Fellow club member Jeff Wagner will give a video presentation on his dive trip to North Carolina. The dives were unique and exciting to Jeff as this was his first time diving one of the best destinations along the East Coast. He will share his experience and narrate the video presentation. Jeff tried diving while on a trip to Cozumel, Mexico in 2001, and has been an avid diver every since. Although Jeff enjoys warm-water locations such as Cozumel and Key Largo, the Cape Ann area is where he can be found diving most of the time, year round.

Janet will present photos from Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, North Carolina and the bath water of the Bahamas, Fiji, and Bonaire. Janet frequents the cold waters off local New England shores, still delighting in the mysteries therein. Color, texture, and form always interest an artist, and the ocean offers plenty to stimulate the mind’s eye. A naturalist, Janet continues to be fascinated by the ecosystems and relationships of life forms. One can witness this in New England as well as in the comfort of the tropics, just as the Tangs in Bonaire are blue and the ones in Hawaii are yellow. You just have to look closer here and dress well. Janet has also dived in Quebec, Seattle, Catalina Island and Hawaii.