Dive Club Blood Drive, San Diego — Dec. 1
The Sport Chalet Dive Club of San Diego is sponsoring a blood drive Saturday, December 1 at Sport Chalet, 3695 Midway Drive, San Diego. Interested participants should meet in the store’s parking lot 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Please contact Shelley Burns at (619) 697-6589 or (619) 303-6589 to schedule an appointment.

All participants will receive a Hawaiian print T-shirt. Please eat a good meal and drink plenty of fluids before donating. Bring your picture identification and donor I. D. card if you have one. Donors are eligible to give blood every 56 days.

L.A. Co. Instructor Certification Course — pretest Dec. 8.
The Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation and the Los Angeles County Underwater Instructors Association invite all experienced and advanced divers to participate in their 49th Underwater Instructor Certification Course. The course runs from January 5, 2002 to April 13, 2002. Candidates will have thorough training on how to teach scuba in confined water and in openwater with emphasis on beach diving. Upon successful completion of this course, the recipient will be a certified diving instructor in the oldest diving instruction agency in the country. Pretesting will be on December 8, 2001 at a pool and December 9, 2001. For further information, contact Tyrone Brown of the Los Angeles County Underwater Instructors Association at (310) 965-8258. You can also email lascuba@lascuba.com or visit http://www.lascuba.com on the web.

Dive With Scuba Santa Benefit — Dec. 8
Come dive with Scuba Santa in support of Sport Chalet Dive Club of the Inland Empire and California Department of Forestry and Southern California Firefighters. They have teamed up to benefit ABC 7 with their “Firefighter’s Spark of Love Toy Drive For Underprivileged Children”

Dive with Scuba Santa will take place Saturday, December 8, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Sport Chalet—Scuba Diving Training Pool, 12449 Foothill Blvd., Rancho Cucamonga. Participants must be age 10 and over to participate. Scuba certification is not required. Medical Questionnaire completion required prior to event. Please contact shop for details. (Parent or legal guardian must be present for all kids under 18 years of age). Those participants donating a new unwrapped toy or piece of sports equipment will be rewarded with the opportunity to have your picture taken with Santa Claus underwater for free. Don’t forget your bathing suit and towel. Everyone can see and speak to Santa through the on site underwater communications system and big screen TV in the Rancho Dive Center.

For more information, please call Sport Chalet Divers Rancho Cucamonga, 909-987-4321 x347 or Clarke Skinner, 909-247-5586 or on the web visit www.scdcie.com.

Underwater comm Gear is provided by the San Bernardino County Sheriffs’ Search and Rescue Team. The big screen TV & VCR are courtesy of Circuit City - Rancho Cucamonga. Official Sponsors include Disneyland & Resorts, KFRG-95.1, METROLINK, Mighty Ducks, Denny’s, Sav-On-Drugs, Inland Paper, and the Anaheim Angels.

Central Coast Marine Discovery Series — Dec. 6
Maureen McEvoy, Divemaster and Underwater Naturalist, will present the first of the four-part Marine Discovery Series at Wallin’s Dive Center in San Carlos on Thursday night, December 6. Part one of this series is designed to give the diver and non-diver alike a comprehensive overview of the intertidal and subtidal communities we dive in on the Central California coast. The three-hour lecture and slide presentation will cover local kelp and marine algae, invertebrates, fish and marine mammals followed with two-staff led shore dives in Monterey on Saturday, December 8 for participants to experience the information from the lecture first hand. Certified divers only are invited to participate in the diving portion of the program.

Parts two, three and four of the Marine Discovery Series will cover each of the original topics in greater depth. Each of the next three months of the program will focus separately on invertebrates, fish and kelp, and marine mammals. All lectures will be followed with shore dives on the weekends (weather and conditions permitting). Wallin’s Dive Center is located at 1119 Industrial Road, San Carlos.

For directions and to register, call Wallin’s Dive Center at (650) 591-5641 or log on to Wallin’s at http://www.wallins.com. Space is limited and pre-registration is required.