2010 Recap

The Great Annual Fish Count was a great success. Held on 7/24/2010, the total count was 104 Divers, 114 Surveys, and 31 species. Thanks to Bob, Holly, and everyone else involved in the event!

The Reef Data is now available online:
http://www.reef.org/db/reports/batch/NE/negafc2010.dat

To view your own data, log in using your Reef ID

In total, divers spent over 100 hours underwater counting fish, with Cunner and Winter Flounder leading the most counted species list.

The NEADC would like to thank all the sponsors for the 2010 event:

REEF Newsletter Writeup

This text is from the July 2010 Reef-in-Brief newsletter:

GAFC in the Northeast - One of the Biggest!

By Holly Martel Bourbon, NE REEF Volunteer

For the ninth year in a row, New England's SCUBA-diving community hosted the largest single-day Great Annual Fish Count (GAFC) event. On July 24, 2010, a stunning 104 divers conducted 114 fish surveys at 13 locations around Cape Ann and southern Maine. After conducting their surveys, divers gathered at Stage Fort Park in Glouster, MA, for fun, food, and prizes (over $8,000 in prizes were donated for the event). The event was coordinated by active REEF volunteers, Holly Martel Bourbon and Bob Michelson, and was sponsored by the New England Aquarium Dive Club. With support from the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, REEF expanded the Fish Survey Project to the Northeast in 2001 and participation has been slowly growing ever since. We are currently working to increase the frequency that divers conduct surveys, taking it beyond the one-day GAFC event. Regional survey and training materials are currently being revised, and a companion invertebrate monitoring program for the area is also now in development.

2010 GAFC will be July 24th!!

The New England Aquarium Dive Club and The Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) will host the 9th annual Northeast Great Annual Fish Count (GAFC) event. The celebration will be centered at Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, Massachusetts.  GAFC dives are planned at seven shore locations around Cape Ann, along with dives at Nubble Light, York, ME.  There will be a picnic, free raffles and door prizes.  Every survey form submitted after each dive will count as an entry into the raffles for each diver.  We are expecting more than 100 divers to participate in the day’s celebration.

Raffle prizes keep growing

As of 7/21/10, Thanks to the generosity of DAN (this year with a new all-time high donation valued at $870.00) and all of our other long-time sponsors, our fish counters raffle is now worth $7.856.53!!  Everyone in attendance will go home with a raffle item worth at least $5.00!!

Help Wanted

We are looking for people to help organize the event, if you want to help out, email Rick, the club president at president@neadc.org. If you are interested in coordinating a site (basically record names, and point them toward the water), contact Bob Michelson

Bonaire Trip!

Thanks to Eileen Byrne and Carol Bradovchak with Reservation Services International we DO have a dive trip to Bonaire valued at $980.00 for 2 divers.

Includes: Seven nights - 2 people in a fully air conditioned studio condominium at Den Laman plus six days of unlimited tanks for shore diving plus unlimited Nitrox upgrades for 2 people courtesy of Bonaire Dive & Adventure 

Valid for travel between now and December 17, 2010 or between April 16 - December 16, 2011 

Retail Value:  $980.00.  Prize may be taken as offered, or the value may be applied to any Den Laman Drive & Dive Package, including  upgrades to a one or two bedroom condominium, addition of boat dives, or addition of a rental truck.   For package information please visit http://www.denlaman.com/rates.html 

Excludes: $6.50 per person per night government room tax, $25.00 per person Bonaire Marine Park fee. 

About Den Laman:  Den Laman is a small, waterfront properties featuring 16 modern, fully air conditioner studio, one and two bedroom apartments. It is also home to Fish Eye Photo/Video, PADI/SSI Bonaire Dive & Adventure, and the Sunset Bar & Grill.   

GAFC Info

Participants need to have a REEF Member # prior to the day of the event.  A REEF member # is required in order to do a survey and then hand it in to get a raffle ticket.  The process is painless:

• Becoming a REEF member -- Click here to Join Reef and follow the directions on the site.
• Already a member, but forgot your REEF member number?  Click here to lookup your Member number. If the email lookup is not working, email data@reef.org and they can look up the number.

Most dives begin at 8 am, with Nubble Light starting at 7am. Sites with Coordinators are listed below, contact Bob Michelson before July 24th to sign up for a dive:

2010 Dive Sites

Site Name	Map	Site Coordinator	REEF Zone Code
Folly Cove		Eileen Byrne	91010901(Left) 91010902(Right)
Cathedral Rocks		Ilya Taytslin	91010904
Pebble Beach		Mike Whyte	91010912
Lane's Cove		Kevin Brook	91010937
Halibut Shores		Alicia Lenci	91010939
Back Beach		Shawn Cormier	91010909
Old Garden Beach		A my Maurer	91010905
Nubble Light		Jim Drew	91030101
Plum Cove		Anna Krowczynska	91010940

After the dives, participants fill out their surveys, and meet at Stage Fort Park. The survey papers are handed in and participants get 1 raffle ticket. (1 raffle ticket / diver no matter how many surveys are handed in).The diver can choose what grand prize they wish to go for, only 1 prize per diver can be won.

There will be food and drinks for sale, as well as a touch-tank and many other activities.

The surveys must be handed in by 1:30 pm, and the Raffle is drawn at 2 pm. The Grand prizes are pulled 1st followed by general raffle prizes drawn in order of descending value. When you turn in your REEF survey this year at Stage Fort Park for the GAFC event you will also get a little gift from the NEADC.