Chamber Day chairman Ken Kurtis and Chamber Director Karl Huggins with the proceeds from the event, totaling $117,129. Photo by Jeff Bozanic, courtesy Chamber Day.
Chamber Day 2015, held on Wednesday, May 6, raised $117,129 for the Catalina Island Hyperbaric Chamber.
This year, 121 divers departed at 7am to dive off 7 different commercial scuba charter boats for two scuba dives, then concluded the day with a 75-minute walking tour of the hyperbaric chamber facilities. Participating dive charter boats included the Asante, Cee Ray, Giant Stride, Hattitude, Magician, Pacific Star, Perfect Mistress, Sundiver Express, Sundiver II, and Truth, and Westerly.
That evening, the Aquarium of the Pacific hosted Chamber Evening. At the evening event, nearly 400 divers explored the Aquarium, bought raffle tickets, and dined in the Great Hall. The raffle drawing capped off the evening, with the grand prize this year a week of diving in Yap, won by Angi & Ron Burkard. The evening raffled gave away $10,000 and prizes, including regulators, BCs, computers, and more.
The hyperbaric chamber on Catalina Island.
Chamber Day is the largest single-day scuba charity event in the United States. The 2015 event was chaired by Ken Kurtis of Reef Seekers Dive Co., Paul Dimeo from Aquarium of the Pacific, Angi Froehlich Burkard from ConocoPhillips, Clara Galvan from Sport Chalet, Susy Horowitz from the Douglas Dive Club, Roy Houston of Loyola-Marymount University, Ret., Karl Huggins from the USC Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber, Julie Koh from the USC Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber, Steve Ladd from Ocean Adventures, Jerry Nickelsburg from CA Wreck Divers, Aubery Shaughnessy from Sport Chalet, Laurel Silver-Valker and Tom Wetzel from LA County.
Sponsoring dive shops for Chamber Day 2015 included Aqua Adventures, Beach Cities Scuba, Bluewater Photo & Video, Deep Blue, Deep Sea Supply, Dive N’ Surf, Eco Dive Center, Hollywoodivers, Malibu Divers, Ocean Adventures, Pacific Wilderness, PCH Scuba, Reef Seekers Dive Co., Scuba.com, Scubatude, Sharky’s Eco Diving and Sport Chalet.
Equipment donors included Analox Sensor Technology, Aqua Lung, Atomic Aquatics, BARE, Big Blue Dive Lights, Body Glove, Cochran Undersea Technology, Diving Unlimited International, Fourth Element, Go Pro, Halcyon Manufacturing, Henderson Sport Group, Ikelite Underwater Systems, i Torch, Just Add Water Solutions-JAWS, Oceanic, Pelican Products, Princeton Tec, Reefnet Inc., ScubaPro, Sea & Sea, Sealife Cameras, Cramber Decker Sherwood, Stahlsac, St. Moritz, Submersible Systems Inc., Trident, TUSA, Underwater Kinetics, Xcel Wetsuits, XS Scuba and Zeagle.
For more information on Chamber Day 2015, please click here.