Camp Wonderfun Discovers Scuba Again!

 

Another repeat visit, this time to our little friends at Camp Wonderfun at the Harleysville Learning Center, with a special emphasis on their Learning about the Undersea World Week.  Team IVS brought out all the big guns, with Bev Loggins, Chris Rich, Mike Gusenko, Maureen Gribb, Steve Clem, Jim Cormier and Ray Graff sharing our love of the ocean with over 60 campers!   What a great way to reinforce what they had spent the week learning about, with Bev making sure we had plenty of great “touch and see” items, including sharks teeth, sea turtle shells, urchins, conch shells and more.  After an enthralling session in the classroom, we moved out to the pool, and spent the next two hours in the water, teaching the 7 & under crowd how to snorkel, while the 8 & up bunch enjoyed a Discover Scuba Diving session with our instructors.

This was our second visit this year to Camp Wonderfun, and we look to come back next season.  Would you like Team IVS to come to your school or camp program?  Just call us at the shop!

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DSD comes to New Life School

Another day, another batch of new scuba enthusiasts!  Today we visited the New Life School in Schwenksville, PA for our third annual Discover Scuba Diving program.  This alternative school for youths age 12-19 is one of our favorite stops on the DSD tour, where we get to help turn a lot of energy in a positive direction.  Director Dan Novak tells us this is one of the most looked-forward to events of the summer season for the young men enrolled in the schools’s program.  Team IVS included Csaba Lorinczy, Steve Clem, Ray Graff, Maureen Gribb, Chris Rich & Tom Brennan, bringing a lot of collective experience into the mix to provide a great experience for the young men.

Phase one is a classroom session, with the students viewing the PADI Discover Scuba Diving video, followed with a detailed gear discussion and Q&A session.  Then, it’s off to the pool, for gear fitting and a snorkeling session to get everyone comfortable.  Finally, the scuba units are put on, and the class gets a great session of diving, learning some basic scuba skills, and most importantly, having FUN!

Want to join in our our DSD activities? Call Bev at the shop and see where the IVS Scuba Tour Bus is scheduled to travel to next!  Be part of the team and share what we  love so much with others.

BSA Troop 141 Discovers Scuba!

Hatfield, PA’s Boy Scout Troop 141 Discovered Scuba Diving tonight at the North Penn YMCA with Indian Valley Scuba!  Richie Kessler led a star-studded cast of IVS luminairies as we introduced the magic and wonder of scuba diving to yet another group of young persons from the area – this time the young men and adult leaders of Troop 141, located in Hatfield, PA.

Another great event, and as usual all sorts of training activities taking place in the pool, with Dry Suit classes, Open Water classes, and some Advanced Open Water work taking place simultaneously!  Team IVS sure knows how to choreograph pool time!

Let us know when your group wants to try diving, and we’ll be glad to bring our show to you!

Camp Wonderfun Discovers Scuba!

The Harleysville Learning Center’s summer camp program, Camp Wonderfun, was treated today to some very special visitors as the Indian Valley Scuba Traveling Discover Scuba Show came to town!  Bev Loggins, Ray Graff, Chris Rich & Mike Gusenko brought a truckload of gear and information about the oceans, the critters that live in it, and how we love to dive there!  Project AWARE, PADI’s environmental awareness & education arm, provided videos, handouts, coloring books and all sorts of goodies for the 40 students and 8 teachers to take home and remember their day by.  We also brought some of our very own display items, including the shell of a green sea turtle discovered off of Key Largo, Sand Tiger Shark teeth that Dave gathered during his diving days at the NJ State Aquarium and other items from the seas.  After the interactive classroom presentation and equipment lecture, the participants headed to the pool and suited up for a real scuba dive with their teachers!  Camp Director Lisa Keene said “We never imagined how much fun this could be!  We not only learned a lot about the ocean realm, but we actually got a chance to experience real scuba diving!”.  At the end of the day it was big smiles and hugs all around, and they already asked us to come back again.  

And if a morning of Discover Scuba Diving wasn’t enough, we had a second DSD session tonight at our regularly scheduled Indian Valley Family YMCA Open Water class.  More future divers, more happy faces, more empty tanks…..this is what it’s all about!