Who We Are:

DASC Officers:

• President: Paul Cracknell
• Secretary: Kristina San Clemente
• Treasurer: Kelly Fulton
• Boat Schedulers: Gary Hawkins & Max Petersen
• Boat Manager : Kelly Fulton
• Social Activities: Katri Snyder
• Dive Activities: John Leek
• Shore Dives : Nathan Fanara
• Membership: Kelly Fulton
• Webmaster: Paul Cracknell
• Newsletter editor: Scott Bell
• SDCoD rep.: Eric Williams

DASC Board of Directors

• Scott Bell
• Paul Cracknell
• Jim Hudson
• Dan Snyder
• Bill Whitmarsh

Where to begin... We are the largest independent scuba club in San Diego with over 160 members. Check out the past issues of the newsletters on this site - they tell a pretty good story of what we get up to.

Of the total membership, probably 50-60 are very active (this is a good number for a club of this size!) and by active I mean diving every weekend (on our own boats) or diving on other local charters - we love taking the Horizon out to the San Clemente Islands. Or we go off on trips sponsored by club members and advertised through the club. Currently we have two groups taking one week cruises to the Cay Sal Banks off Cuba, a group going to the Kern river to go white water rafting in May, and we just got finished with a dive trip to the Colorado river (chute diving - cold, but very fast!).

We actively promote safe diving, through visiting speakers and training. A large number of our club members are Dive Masters - so you can always find someone to work on dive techniques with. We encourage all divers to better their dive skills, and we have several instructors in the club that teach everything from basic to DM (the club was founded by a dive instructor!).

And we love to party - we don't take ourselves too seriously (except for safety, of course!) and this comes through clearly in our club meetings - the third Wed of every month we have a social at Casa Machado at 6:30 (and every third month we have our General Membership Meeting there). This is a good spot to meet with the club members, make connections and set up dives for the weekend - I strongly suggest you go and check it out. Our club meetings and board meetings occur sporadically through the year, usually about every three months, and are very informal. All club members are welcome.

If this type of relaxed group sounds good to you, swing on by. 

Feel free to introduce yourself to whomever is there and have a beer. People to look out for are Frances San Clemente (La Presidente), Jim Hudson (Boat Guy), John Leek (Membership), and there will always be one of Donna Kruse's great greeters there introduce you around. Any of them will be happy to fill you in on all aspects of the club.

Scott Bell 4/01
Vice President

The Dive Animals originally started out in 1984. During the heyday of General Dynamics in San Diego, the Convair Scuba Club was formed for GD employees only. GD had 40,000 employees, plenty to start up a club. It was subsidized by the company and over the next 6 years two inflatable Zodiac style boats were purchased. The club enjoyed solid membership, fun outings and best of all, cheap, available diving for the members. Phil Benham was one of the founders. If you have the opportunity to ask him about the early days he can give you an earful.

In 1990 GD was shrinking fast. The mighty GD was suddenly and endangered fish, selling off whole divisions and cutting jobs in San Diego. By 1993 the Convair Recreation Association (the parent organization of the Scuba Club) had to close it's doors for good, and sell off all property, including two excellent scuba club boats.

In that last year I got deeply concerned about continuing the scuba club. I wanted to see the boats go to good use for other divers, so I invested many hours and sweat toward a way to continue the spirit of the Convair Scuba Club. With lots of research, incorporating with the state, securing insurance and a meager starting membership my efforts paid off. The Dive Animals were granted pink slips to the boats, and an additional $6000 to help through the transition (mostly because the insurance was way too high to be supported by the small membership). We were now floating free.

I spent two years as president and director, helping generate club interest while teaching scuba, and each year marked successively higher membership. Bobby Mertz and Geoff Nelson have taken the reins since then and made the club even bigger, breaking the 100 mark last year (with alot of help from Frances!). It's been a long hard road for the club in the last 6 years, but here we are, the second largest (I think) in San Diego!

John Ellerbrock 4/98