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2005 Club Photos 2005 NEADC Officers at the 12/2005 informal
Top row:
Scott Matey, Rick Rosa NEADC November 2005 General Meeting
Assabet River Cleanup Text by Alan Budreau The Organization for the Assabet River (OAR) holds its annual cleanup the 2nd Saturday after Labor Day. The Assabet is a tributary of the Concord – it joins the Sudbury in Concord to form the Concord River. Until I got involved, it did not include diving. About 4 years ago, I joined, and started including the cleanup as a New England Aquarium Dive Club (NEADC) dive. As the OAR provides doughnuts and coffee before the dive, plus latex and work gloves, a T shirt and a Clean Up Your Assabet water bottle, filled, and a pizza lunch after the cleanup (at noon) it is a good deal! In past years, it has been a solo dive- not my favorite style, but pretty safe as it rarely is too deep to stand up! But I have thoroughly enjoyed this relatively clean and clear stream, with green plants, fish and turtles. I was delighted this year to receive an email from Michael Whyte of NEADC that he planned to join me. The OAR had located an area of the Assabet in Hudson, MA where they knew that there were tires. It is not feasible to remove a tire dug into the bottom even in 4 ft of water without SCUBA (unless you have arms more than 4 ft long!). At the same time, divers alone are fairly useless, as the tires need to be removed and disposed of. Michael and I met the Hudson contingent (OAR meets at about 5 different towns for the cleanup) at the closed PC Creams on Rt 62 in Hudson at 9 AM. We got our goodies, mentioned
above, and waited for Marty, from Hudson, and
the man with the 2 flat-bottomed boats on his
pickup truck. We followed them to a bridge over
the Assabet, where there was easy access. After
putting the larger boat in the water, we geared
up and began the dive around 10:30. Marty followed
along as we went downstream, paddling. , The
water was warm - around 70degrees. I was very
comfortable in my normal wetsuit, except that
I wore a 1/8 in hooded chicken vest instead
of my usual hood, and leather gloves. Michael
reported sweating in his dry suit. Visibility
ranged from zero to a few feet. I spotted a
few freshwater fish and a large crayfish. A
very good sign, as crayfish can’t tolerate
much pollution. There were plants most everywhere.
At times it was so shallow that I was running
aground. Maximum depth was around 4 feet. Michael
found 8 tires, which it took the 2 of us to
dig and lift onto the boat, with help from Marty.
In addition, we found assorted small trash,
including bottles and cans. When we had about
5 tires in the boat, Marty managed to paddle
upstream back to the launching point and leave
them on the bank and return. While Marty was
gone, we reached a point over a mile downstream
where the river was barely passable -fallen
trees and branches pretty well blocked the stream,
as well as plants which completely covered the
surface. Also, there was some sort of animal
body with maybe a thousand maggots feeding on
it floating in my way. I thought at first that
it was a large bird or small mammal-say a raccoon.
But then I spotted the empty 2½ ft. long
turtle shell. I was able to move the plants
back and recover some floating bottles. At that
point I also spotted 5 ft long kid’s plastic
jeep and retrieved it. But one of my yellow
Force Fins came off- apparently stuck under
a branch while I was standing in the 3½
ft deep water. At this point visibility was
negligible and I had to wait until the water
cleared to find it. Meanwhile, Michael had found
more tires and put them on the bank. The bottom
was highly variable, and here was so muddy and
soft that it was impossible to walk on, even
with fins. We now proceeded back upstream against
the current. Total bottom time was about 1½
hours. With the negligible depth, we still had
plenty of air. We got the tires and other trash,
and boat, up to the road and waited for the
boat to be picked up, then joined the rest of
the Hudson crew for a pizza picnic at a local
park. 2005 Seal Dive
Great Annual Fish Count Great Annual Fish Count/Stelwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary Celebration-Saturday, July 17, 2005, Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center By the end of the day, the divers had filled out 120 surveys and identified 33 species. And everyone went home with some kind of prize! Here is an article from The Boston Globe 14th Great Annual Fish Count
- The 2005 edition of the GAFC was another great
success for this premier citizen science marine
conservation event. The GAFC generated nearly
2,000 surveys in the month of July. It also
boasted participation from approximately 1,000
volunteers throughout REEF's survey regions
who contributed directly to marine conservation. For the fourth year in a row, the folks
at Stellwagen Banks National Marine Sanctuary
and the New England Aquarium set the single-day
GAFC record for involvement - they
had just over 100 divers complete 127 individual
surveys!
Dive Into Earth Day 2005 Dive into Earth Day 2005-Saturday,
April 23, 2005, Lane’s Cove, Gloucester
Massachusetts (44
degree ocean temp) The foggy weather
did not keep these divers from participating
in this event. Seas were calm and vis was about
25 feet. About 180 pounds of trash were removed
from the water’s edge. Mostly bottles,
cans and food wrappers. Much fishing line and
gear as well as plenty of plastic bits and plastic
lobster id tags. Some of these tags were Maine
lobster pot id tags. Dano found some green army
men (we seem to collect these every year here).
Jim Karos removed a hair brush from underwater
and his grandson James removed a golf club.
I also found a golf club along the coastline
as well as a few golf balls. What made this
day even better was that we finished just before
the deluge of rain, it was perfect timing. Thanks
again to all participants, you made a difference.
Want to participate in a cleanup this year?
You still can, check the dive calendar to learn
more.
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