Saturday, November 8, 2014 - 6:00pm 

Back by popular demand! Our very own Jamie Walthall will lead the group in learning how to create your own underwater-themed painted masterpiece. 

Jamie will choose a stunning image to paint, and then help you learn how to make a masterpiece of that image. If you do not like what she has chosen, you are always welcome to bring your own picture to re-create on canvas! Check out our photo album from the last art night on Facebook. This is something you should absolutely not miss.

Denver Divers will provide refreshments, canvas, paint and brushes, and easel for only $35 per painter. After you produce your masterpiece, you will be able to take your canvas home to display proudly on your wall!

Advanced reservation is required. You may sign up online or call us at Denver Divers, 303-399-2877, to reserve your space. Also, RSVP on Facebook to see who else is coming! 

End of the Year Holiday Party: 

December 6, 2014

 

Photo Contest Entry Deadline: 

November 6, 2014 

 

What would our life experiences while diving be if we did not share them with our fellow divers and friends? If you have a stunning photo from one of your amazing scuba trips, it is your scuba duty to enter it in our People's Choice Photo Contest! That way, you can inspire others to share their experiences through photos, and brag about how you won the Denver Divers photo contest!

 

Entry into the contest is free. All you need to do is bring in your 8x10 photo and we will mat it and put it up in the shop for display.  Customers will have a full six weeks to vote from November 6, through the annual holiday party on December 6 to the end of the year December 31. We will announce the winners in the January 2015 newsletter.  

 

Winning photos will be added to the revolving show on our website and will be printed on canvas and hung on the walls at Denver Divers.

 Entry Instructions 

(up to five  entries per person)

• Pick a category for your photo: 
• Topside, 
• Macro, 
• Wide Angel, 
• Marine Life, and/or 
• Humor.
• Print your 8x10 photo on photo-quality paper with no border.
• Bring in your photo with your name, category, and photo title written on the back.
• Come in and vote between November 6 and December 30, 2014, and to see your photo displayed alongside the competition.
• Winners will be announced following the Annual Holiday Party and prizes will be awarded in each category as well as an overall prize for best photo.

Stay tuned for more details! 

Saturday, December 6, 2014 - 6:30pm 

While we may not be near the ocean, and certainly do not have the best diving in the world in Colorado, we do have the best divers! Our annual holiday party is our way of saying THANK YOU to all our amazing students, customers, and staff. We truly believe you are part of our Denver Divers Family and want to show you how much we appreciate having you in the family.

Join us for our Annual Holiday Party, December 6 at 6:30pm. We will not only have very good nibbles and drinks.  We will also be showing our annual End-of-Year slideshow as well as exhibiting Photo Contest entries. That night, Training Director Wendel Benjamin will announce the Master Diver Challenge prize winner and the Specialty Diver prize winner.  

Come mingle with your fellow Denver Divers - bring your family (including kids) and friends -and have a great time while we dream of our next underwater adventures! 

Take the Specialty Diver or Master Diver Challenge!

We continue to bring you relevant news about ocean conservation efforts happening throughout our state.  To help you stay involved, we will begin posting events hosted by like-minded organizations in this column. 

 

Please join us as we help support our favorite non-profits at their upcoming events/fundraising initiatives:

 

StepUp4theOcean with Teens4Oceans

 

Date: Ongoing until October 10, 2014

Location: IndieGoGo Website

 

 

Colorado Ocean Coalition Blue Drinks

Date: Ongoing

Locations Vary

 

Colorado Ocean Coalition's Blue Drinks is a monthly meeting of ocean-minded individuals that come together for a social gathering somewhere in Colorado to talk about all things "blue"! To find out about the next Blue Drinks, please visit their website.

 

http://coloradoocean.org/ 

 

 

Date: November 15, 2014 at 4pm

Location: Denver Art Museum

 

Meet many shark conservationists and activists and learn about the plight of our shark populations around the world. Special guest Rodney Fox will discuss how he went from being a shark bite victim to ocean advocate and how you can help save our apex predators! Tickets will be $25 and all proceeds will benefit Fins Attached Marine Research and Conservation. 

Please visit the Fins Attached website for more information and to pre-register for the event.

Also join the event on Facebook to see who else will be there!

SSI Freediving Winter Courses 

Freediving Basic consists of four course sessions:

• Class 1: Freediving equipment and safety
• October 20 from 6-9pm
• December 8 from 6-9pm
• Class 2: Review of freediving skills and how to further your freediving career
• October 22 from 6-9pm
• December 9 from 6-9pm
• Pool 1: Learn the basic kicking styles, pool disciplines, and safety skills for freediving
• October 23 from 6-9pm
• December 11 from 6-9pm
• Pool 2: Learn proper headfirst dive/duck dive techniques, breath control and further safety skills
• October 26 from 9am-12pm
• December 14 from 9am-12pm

Last month Hurricane Odile made landfall on the Baja Peninsula, obliterating many of the Mexican communities and towns that populated the area. Los Cabos was most affected, with almost all of the buildings sustaining significant damage and changing the lives of that population forever. 

We would like to reach out to our community to help us support their community through two charities we have researched. Please visit the International Community Foundation and/or Waves for Water to find out how you can help the Baja community rebuild!

In Colorado we are very fortunate to have changing seasons with beautiful weather most of the year. As we watch the leaves fall off the trees and notice the chill in the air, it is hard to ignore the fact that summer is over and we will soon be trading in our flip flops for ice scrapers. But we want to make sure you don't pack those flip flops too far away as we have many upcoming ways to escape that winter gloom!

From Cuba to Cozumel to Dominica, Denver Divers wants to make sure we have a little something for everyone in our upcoming group trips. Whether you would like a more adventurous trip to the Socorro Islands, or a laid back getaway to Little Cayman, you can be sure your fellow Denver Divers will be there with you. Visit our trips section for more information.

Falling leaves also means it is Halloween season! Please visit our Scuba Rangers section to learn how to get your kiddos involved in our upcoming Night Dive events. In addition, don't forget to drop by Denver Divers on Halloween weekend for a special treat and to see our staff in all of our Halloween attire!

As always, thank you for being a part of our Denver Divers family!

Saba is not a party island! 

The island is a little mountainous jewel of forests and waterfalls that plunge directly into the sea.  If you want to wind down after the holiday madness and celebrate New Year's  in paradise with other Denver Divers blowing bubbles, this is the trip you've been waiting for!

Also known as "The Island of the Unspoiled Queen", Saba's pristine reefs and mountains are an explorer's paradise. Surrounded by the natural beauty of the island, even non-divers will have a glorious stay sleeping in little Dutch houses that cling to the sides of this extinct volcano.  

Click here for more detailed information!

Experience all that Cozumel has to offer, from their amazing dive sites, to their rich culture during Carnaval! 

Denver Divers will go down to Cozumel for 4 nights, with 3 days of diving and a packed schedule of activities at night. We promise you will not be bored! If you want a full week, just ask and we will make it happen.

Click here for more detailed information!

Scuba Diver Magazine made this legally-sanctioned trip to Cuba its cover story in July.   Readers of the magazine voted Garden of the Queens the Best Marine Park in the world in 2014.  

Yes - it is expensive. But, in order to make the trip as enjoyable as possible, we contracted with the most comfortable and newest boat available. We will be among a very few divers on the reef, protected since 1996 as a no-take zone that sees only 1,000 permitted divers per year. It has taken our non-profit sponsor - the Ocean Doctor - more than 15 years to make this happen for American divers.

 Price: $8580

 

Click here for more detailed information!

Click here for more detailed information!

You have listened to the stories that fill your dreams with dancing mantas, hammerhead sharks and breaching whales. Now is your chance to make your dreams come true! 

Join Denver Divers as we embark on a shark research expedition to the Revillagigedo Islands (Socorro Islands) with Fins Attached Marine Research and Education hosted by Dr. Alex Antoniou and Dr. Mauricio Hoyos Padilla. We will travel on the Southern Sport, one of the newest of the boats to travel to Soccorro with one of the earliest crews to offer recreational divers the chance to dive with pelagics.  Denver Divers has been diving with this Mexican crew since 2009. 

Click here for more detailed information!

A fairly untouched island with pristine beaches, amazing diving and a rich cultural heritage, Little Cayman is the perfect Caribbean hideaway. From diving Bloody Bay Marine Park to exploring the surrounding wrecks and learning about marine ecology, you will not be bored! 

This trip will have a special educational component. Local scientists will come by to give us information on the ecology and environmental sustainability efforts going on throughout the island. Come learn, dive, and support the local environmental movement in a slice of Caribbean Paradise!

Click here for more detailed information!

From vast underwater gardens of soft corals to the plentiful ship and airplane wrecks, Truk Lagoon offers something for everyone from the recreational diver to the technical diver looking for adventure! 

Denver Divers will be embarking on the Truk Siren for a 10-day tour of Chuuk, or Truk, diving daily with ghostly relics from World War II. Denver Diver instructors will be diving both mixed gases and the Mark VII rebreather.  So there are many opportunities for certified technical divers to reach new depths and for recreational divers to learn first-hand about some of the opportunities in technical diving. 

Since the Truk Siren supports rebreather diving, you can get certified on the Poseidon MKVII with our very own Wendel Benjamin and see for yourself what's down deep! 

Click here for more detailed information!

 

We are planning more and more trips each day. Please call us for more information about the following trips as we start building our calendar!

 

Bonaire -Summer 2015

Cozumel Short Trips - Multiple throughout 2015 (more details to come soon!)

Raja Ampat and Triton Bay, Indonesia - November 2016

...and many more to come!

As THE leader in the action sports camera category, GoPro continues to innovate with unique product design and unprecedented quality. The newest line of cameras, the GoPro HERO4 features a new built in touch LCD screen and amazing quality video. The Silver edition delivers 1080p60 quality video while the Black edition can deliver up to 4K30 quality video. 

 

Denver Divers has ordered early, so we expect our first shipment to arrive this week, October 6, 2014. Don't miss your chance to be one of the first with the new GoPro HERO4!

Thanks to Jamie Walthall's idea and Wendel Benjamin's amazing design work, we have all new Denver Divers t-shirts and sweatshirts now available! Please come by and check them out and be the first to own a piece of Denver Divers history.

Congratulations to Jolyn Anderson who successfully negotiated a return of early morning hours at the Ashland Rec Center location in The Highlands.  Look for Jolyn to begin teaching survival swimming from 7 am to 9 am several mornings a week.

TRAINING NEWS

RANGERS PLUS Junior Open Water Class

October 16 - November 20

5pm - 7:30 pm

Our next Rangers Plus class is scheduled to begin October 16, 2014, at 5 pm.  These weekly, two-and-one half hour classes end on November 20.  Please see the Rangers newsletter or visit the Scuba Scheduler for more information.

Teaching standard open water curriculum to budding junior divers using a slower approach, in a class with up to seven peers, has proven very successful.  Our Rangers instructors make the process much more fun for kids 10 to 13 years old.

However, kids this age can also join our regular adult weekend or weekday classes.  The choice is yours! 

Fall Activities for SCUBA RANGERS