Scuba in Polk County Florida

Craig McCaa's leisure time is often taken up with diving around Florida, and the Caribbean, but since his sons live up in New England, and wife Suzanne doesn't dive, he's pretty much stuck with his non-familial dive buddies. And not that isn't good, it is never the same as sharing scuba diving activities with loved ones.

Well that seems to have been taken care of recently. Craig's daughter Meaghan was recently in town for a visit, and while here, Meaghan and her best bud Ryan decided to become certified divers.

See Meaghan and Ryan have been overseas for awhile, Korea actually, teaching English. And while over there, they enjoyed their school holidays by traveling around Asia. It was on these travels that they tried scuba a couple of times, just for easy discovery type fun, and realized just how beautiful the undersea world actually is.

Article by Randy Trammell, of Vanguard School: Last weekend I, 14 students and our special guest Mrs. Trott spent 3 days in the Florida Keys scuba diving. We travel through all of the Keys during the weekend. On Friday Morning we left the school at 8:00am and headed south after an 6 hour bus ride to Big Pine Key, the federal Sanctuary for the Key Deer, we began to set up our campsites all worked together and it was set up quickly. We stayed at the Big Pine
Fishing Lodge they had many different amenities for all, from beach access to a pool which we all enjoyed after a long day of travel and set up. That night we enjoyed a night in Key West. We had dinner at the Original Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville restaurant, a visit to the most southern point of the continental United States, and a walk down historical Duval Street. All enjoyed visiting Key West.

For most of the Floridians, no matter whether you were born here, or you moved here. We all have one common item on our To-Do wish list. It's snorkel with MANATEES! A big group of 16 divers from Winter Haven, Haines City, Davenport and Georgia got together for a dive trip to Crystal River. They were the Methot family, father David, mother Lori, Dylan and Tavas; Jenna Swisher, Annie Lin, Denise Weaving, Kevin Wood, Anthony Wood, Shanna and Chris Adams, Brian and Ryan White.

The newest local instructor in our area has certified his first couple.

Chris Adams, who is a native from Georgia, moved down to Central Florida around a year ago. He has been a diver for 8 years, and he dove mostly at North Carolina, South Carolina and the Florida Keys, prior his move to the Sunshine State. After Chris moved to Davenport, the first thing on his to-do list was finding a dive center in the area. After finding a comfortable place to hang out here in Winter Haven, Chris has since spent his spare time on furthering his professional training. He recently finished his Instructor Development Course and passed the Instructor Exam becoming a PADI Specialty Instructor.

A party of 12 certified divers from Winter Haven, Haines City and Orlando, went on this magical dive trip. (You have to be a certified Open Water Diver in order to dive at Dive Quest.) The divers on this Disney dive were: Rich Patterson (Divemaster), Ash
Patterson, Joe Evans, Kelly Evans, Lindsey, Maggie, Craig McCaa, Denise Weaving, Anthony Woods, Kevin Woods, Shannon Adams, and Chris Adams(Instructor). This dive trip lasted about three hours, and everyone got 45 minutes of bottom time in the saltwater of Epcot.

The Methot family, David, Lori, Tavis, and Dylan, have all completed scuba certification training recently -- completing a circle for dad who was first certified when he was 18. Now they have a great activity that all of them can enjoy together, on weekends, holidays and summer vacations.

Mom and the Kids have all completed their Open Water Diver certification. While dad has gone on to do his Advanced, Rescue and Navigation certifications.

They've already started planning their new dive life.

On the weekend of Dec.7-8, a party of 23 people from Winter Haven, Lake Wales, Haines City, Lakeland and Orlando all headed together on a dive trip discovering the underwater beauty of Key West and also celebrating the birthdays of Dr. Teresa Yoder, and Bill Patterson. We had Teresa Yoder, Ashley Motern, Kenny, Jeff Anderson, JT Anderson, Charlotte Patterson, Bill Patterson, Eric Ingle, Paul Arellano, Chris Adams, Shannan Adams, Brian Eakin, Jenna Swisher, Jonathan, Chris Larson, Jagger Larson, Craig McCaa, Suzanne McCaa, Annie Ya-Hsuan Lin (Instructor) and Ken Wilhelm (Instructor).

On Nov. 17, a group of 21 divers from Polk County ventured south for a day trip of scuba diving off the southeast coast of Florida. This trip was a regularly scheduled day trip that takes place once a month leaving out of Winter Haven, in East Polk County.

The dive trip was led by three dive professionals: Ken Wilhelm (Course Director), Annie Lin (Master Scuba Diver Trainer), and Rich Patterson, Jr (Divemaster). This trip consisted of two drift dives over relatively shallow reefs, as we had a number of Junior divers on the boat. There were 6 junior divers who have recently been going through their Open Water Diver certification training.

As the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons approach, we still remain active in diving.

This weekend, our destination was Key Largo, diving the famous wreck- the USS Spiegel Grove. It is a Landing Ship Dock, which was sunk to create an artificial reef in Key Largo. The vessel is 510 feet in length, 84 feet wide.

A group of eight local divers from Winter Haven, Bartow and Tampa all got together for this dive trip, including Craig McCaa, Chris and Shannan Adams, Lynn Walter, Sid Yarbrough, Brian Eakin, Ken Wilhelm (Instructor) and Annie Lin (Instructor).

On October 16^th Scuba Central held an Equipment Maintenance and Safety Seminar, free for the divers in our local area.

Scuba Central and their PADI Course Director, have received an Award from Project AWARE for their coordination and participation of Clean-up activities in 2007. This year Scuba Central, with Ken acting as coordinator, has run several clean up activities aimed at helping maintain the cleanliness of our local waters.

This past Saturday October 13^th, 16 local divers challenged the waters to dive a couple of wrecks and a drift along a reef. The group on the first dive enjoyed the Mizpah and Amarilys Wrecks, and the second dive on the North Doubles reef system.

The divers included both experienced divers and newbie divers. Some of the newer divers were on their first ocean trip, while others were on their second or third trip. For the more experienced divers, this was another fun trip to add to their extensive logs.

Divers on the trip were: Hifumi Kirtley, Denise Weaving, Anthony Woods, Kevin Woods, Chris and Shannon Adams, Craig McCaa, Mike and Michael Drousche, Ken, Daniel and Katie Cruit, Brian Eakin, Annie Ya-Hsuan Lin (Instructor), and Ken Wilhelm (Instructor).

A group of divers from the local area, along with a dive buddy from England, went for a day trip down to West Palm Beach and enjoyed an afternoon of diving off a chartered boat. The divers enjoyed two dives, both dives were drift dives, the second one going over a barge wreck and artificial reef area called the Toybox and Playpen. After the dives the whole group enjoyed a wonderful dinner at a very very nice Chinese Buffet on old US 1, just south of Northlake Road. On this trip we had a couple of divers complete their newest certifications. Annie Lin, a Master Scuba Diver Trainer, had the pleasure of taking her sister to complete her Advanced Open Water Diver certification. Ken Wilhelm, a PADI Course Director and Master Instructor, had Craig McCaa going through his Multilevel Diver certification. Also of note was Scott McCoy going on his first ocean dives after completing his Open Water Diver certification a couple of weeks ago.

Over the weekend of September 8^th and 9^th, a group of twenty-three local Polk County divers enjoyed four great dives, led by Erin Symonds-PADI Divemaster and USF Graduate Student, Ken Wilhelm-PADI Course Director, and Annie Lin-PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer. Divers from Babson Park, Haines City, Winter Haven, Davenport, Lake Wales all trekked down and dove Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. A great time was had by all, and several advanced scuba diving certifications were completed over the weekend.

The Aquaholics Dive Club is a local Winter Haven, member run, non-profit association of scuba divers that meets once a month. Since January of this year, the club has seen continued growth in membership, and increased levels of diving by its members.

Recently, on July 14th an excited group of divers from eastern Polk County, ventured down to the coast for a great afternoon of diving. All in all there were 20 local divers on the trip.

On July 28^th Ken Tuttle Wilhelm, of Winter Haven, Florida, completed the intensive two week program at the California headquarters of the Professional Association of Diving Instructors, commonly known as PADI.

The rating of Course Director, commonly known as 'CD', is the highest instructor rating within the scuba diving industry.

The Fritz Family of Babson Park, Florida, recently picked up their Open Water Diver certification. That's right, all four of them, Dad, Mom, Son, and Daughter (Robby, Sheila, Robert, and Jessica). They were led through their course by Annie Lin, Instructor, and Rich Patterson Jr, Divemaster. And since completing their certification course they've already gone on their first ocean dives.

Scuba Central was recently recognized for their efforts in providing scuba diving services for the Handicapped and Disabled.

Man we just can't seem to keep Brian out of the water. He's just so happy when he's diving. Brian got certified a few weeks ago as an Open Water Diver. He has already gone on to achieve his Advanced Open Water Diver certification.