Posts Tagged ‘Scuba Diving’

Abriged Two Thousand & Eight

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

With a deepstop crash and a huge data loss, most of my blog entries went missing, I did manage to recover the ones older than the end of April 2008.

Basically the rest of 2008 involved a trip to the Fairweather V

Which was a good fun trip and my last with Cumbernauld Sub Aqua Club.
Dive Boat

A few guddles in the Sea Lochs with Hamilton Sub Aqua, a trip to Bali for Terry and Ely’s wedding with some nice fast drift diving, sea snakes, my first shark, endless searches for the invisible Mola Mola and a wreck dive at Tulamben.

I also had a last minute space on a trip to the Farne Islands on a YD Trip diving with seals.

Over all a pretty good year including passing my PADI OWSI, EFRI and getting a provisional on GUE F (Hopefully going back to pass that in 2009 so I can do CAVE1 in 2010 for my 40th Birthday).

The figures for 2008 are as follows:

48 Dives

32 Drysuit Dives (Scotland & England – My First Quarry)
16 Wetsuit Dives (Mallorca & Bali)

Total of 1996 Minutes
Average Dive 41Minutes

Average Depth 18.5 Metres
Maximum Depth 35 Metres (Kintyre Wreck)

I started my IANTD Advanced Recreational Trimix Training and hope to finish that in the first half of 2009.

That finishes 2008 of with a total of 283 Dives to date, 40 Minute average dive time, 17.5 Metre average depth and total underwater time of: 188 Hours 15 Minutes.

125 Dives in a Drysuit and 158 in a Wetsuit.

In other words I am a big soft warm water diver.

Davie

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Whirlwind Jan 1st-7th Northern Red Sea

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

2009 started well with a sneaky wee trip to Egypt and a weeks diving on Whirlwind.

Whirlwind Jan 1st-7th Northern Red Sea
Just back from a great fun week on Whirlwind (third time on this boat in three years) doing the popular Northern Wrecks and Reefs trip.

Whilrwind is getting a little tired but she’s still a lovely boat with a great crew and they provide fantastic food all week long.

All the Guests:

Guests

Backrow (left to right): Claire, Richie, David, Terry, Zoe, Me, Craig
Middle: Carol, William, James, Jenny, Ely, Harry, Richard, Dimitry, Nina
Front Row: Alyissa, Toby, Bryony, Jim & then Sammeh one of the Guides.

A great mixed crowd on the boat, with Jenny doing her 500th Dive (night dive on the thistlegorm wearing Pyjamas), me doing my 300th (Shark & J(Y)olanda Reef) and two others doing their 50th Dives and a young lad doing his AOW course during the week. We also had two Birthdays, Nina & Richie

We had great guides (Sammeh and William) that where up for a laugh and let you do as you wanted within safe limits (Penetration to the Rosie’s engine room is now off limits, due to a diver being lost in summer 2008).

Rosie

I left the UK and 2008 with 283 Dives logged and returned with 301 Dives.

A couple of days before I left I got an email from Tony Backhurst staff to tell me I wouldnt be getting my last night in sharm EL Sheik as booked but would be staying on the boat out at sea.

I was not amused by this and I called the next morning to complain, I got a call back later on to say that on this occasion the trip would finish with one night in Sharm however all future trips would be last night at Sea.

To me this means the end of my dealings with Tornado Marine Fleet and Tony Backhurst, I wouldn’t spend a week in Sharm but I do like it to finish my holiday off.

Being stuck on a boat for 36 hours with no diving would drive me crazy!

Tornado Marine / also have changed their Nitrox charges to 90 Euros (from £60)for a Single cylinder and as I found out to my shock at the end of the week 150 Euros for a twin set (no mention was made of this at the start of the week during the briefing).

This meant using a twin set for the week cost £70 for the hire of the twin set and £150 for the Nitrox as the exchange rate offered was exactly Euro 1 to £ 1.

Highlights including being the only boat at most of the dive sites all week.

Being dropped in on the Giannas D in a three (with Jenny & Zoe) while the rest of the boat dived the Kimon M, having a wreck like the Giannas D to yourself is just amazing. We played Star wars in the engine room with our torches complete with Lightsaber noises (I was Darth Vader, Zoe was Obi Wan and Jenny was Not Amused (A cousin of Luke for those not familiar with the Star Wars charcters)).

Playing God on a night dive at the Barge as a big hungry Grouper used my torch to pounce on and eat any schooling fish.

I hired a ali 80 as a stage and got it filled with EAN50 which meant along with Craig (the poor bloke that wasnt amused with having to share a cabin with me after I puked in our sink on the first night and went to bed leaving it for the morning Well it was January the first and I’d had to stay sober on Hogmanay, oh boy!) my new buddy for the week, with whom surprisingly after the first night, we actually got on really well and done some good deco dives on the Rosalie Moller and the Thistlegorm with a nice dive to celebrate my 300th.

Craig and I also dived the Thistlegorm and let our third team member plan the Deco.

Wooly Wabbit

Wooly Wabbit taking time to plan the deco schedule (he done a better job than me!)

The last night in sharm was in the Bay View Hotel just a two minutes walk from the town centre.

I failed to do any shopping what so ever in sharm electing to have fun instead, with an afternoon chilling in the cafe’s, an evening starting at the camel rooftop and finishing in Buddha nightclub jumping around to eastern European Techno till 4am..

The hotel wasn’t somewhere Id stay a week in but it was adequate for a nights fun in Sharm.

So remember anybody planning a northern red sea liveaboard with Tony Backhurst this year, you’ll be on the boat at sea on your last night and all on board prices are now in Euros with Nitrox having gone up significantly.

Safe diving for 2009.
Davie.

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GUE / DIR Scotland Day May 11th 2008

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Argyle Caravan Park, Loch Fyne

I managed to get my teenage daughter out her bed around nine am and drag her into the scuba bus (aka my rusty old pug 406 estate that cost about the same as my primary torch!) to go along to see if I could get a chance to get in the water with John Kendall or Iain Smith and try to remember some of the things I was meant to have learned three weeks previously at my GUE Fundamentals course.

Unfortunately due to my late arrival I managed to get there as Steve, John & Iain where already on a dive and Kat was chilling in the sunshine.

Eventually after surfacing the lads all got out the water, I fettled and tweaked a couple of bolt snaps and knots (with Johns help), set up my doubles (chuckle) and got ready to dive, Iain’s mum turned up and I struggled to not laugh too much at the banter between her and Iain, a right good comedy show with mum giving as good as she got well that is until Iain savaged her dive gear and set up a single tank GUE compliant wing for her complete with long hose, I don’t think she knew what hit her, even her ankle weights and fins where banished…

So as the mayhem was going on around us, Stevie and I agreed to go for a wee guddle…

11/05/2008 Dive: 251

Maximum Depth: 14.1Metres
Water Temp: 9-13oC
Visibility: 3-5 Metres
Dive Time: 43 Minutes

Equipment:

DUI TLS 350 Explorer (DUI Zip Gloves), Halcyon 21w/9A HID, Double (Twins ;-) ) Twelve Eurocylinders, Frog Midnight Wing, Apeks XTX200 Primary and Backup Regulators, Salvo RAT Backup Torch, Scuba Pro JetFins.

Weighting: 3 x 1KG V Weights, 1 x 2.25KG P Weight, 2 KG Tail Weight 1 x 1KG on Waist Harness. Total 8.25 KG

Goal: Practice GUE Skills & Procedures, V Drill and Buoyancy Control, launch DSMB, Have fun!
Unified Team: Stevie Hick dive and myself, myself to lead dive.
Equipment: Head to toe check performed on surface prior to dive (I Forgot to do Bubble checks) Stevie had a one piece harness on, w00t!

Left Pocket (equipment planned to be used on dive): Halcyon 1 Metre Oral Inflate DSMB, Deep-sea Supply Delrin Finger Spool.

Right Pocket (backup / spare equipment): Spare Beaver Atomic Mask, Wet Notes & Shears

Exposure: Maximum Dive based on GUE minimum deco Rules (Explained quickly to Stevie as part of GUE EDGE) planned maximum Depth 12-18 Metres.
Decompression: First stop 50% of max depth, 1 minute stops, 3 metres apart Ascent Rate 9MPM
Gas: EAN28 (Air top off on a EAN32 Fill) – Stevie on Tyre Gas (AKA AIR) All Usable, Minimum Gas 50 Bar.
Environment: Cold, dark and horrible boat moorings!

It only took us two minutes to run through the GUE EDGE on the surface but I have a feeling it was because I missed stuff and Stevie just agreed with whatever old tosh I actually said.

Stevie was diving without a primary light as he has some problems with his torch on the previous dive, this caused me all sorts of mental problems as I was trying to tune into my new found GUE Spidey sense and couldn’t see a torch beam so had to keep looking behind me for Stevie, it’s weird, you just learn how important the torch is, that it’s your voice underwater and then I go diving with Mr. super eloquent and funny but silent, bit strange, hey ho!

We settle into a pattern and just meander around, I am trying some modified frog kicks, being cautious of trying to not go too slow, also I try a few back kicks but don’t quite get them right and end up going backwards and upwards like a milk cart reversing down a one way street.

Anyway we guddle around, Stevie goes for his valves when I’m not looking, I wasn’t expecting that but should expect it cause I’ve dived with the stroke many times now.

I signal to Stevie I am going to try to do my valves (remembering this is why I only got the provisional pass on Fundies and not a full pass), I oscillate my torch in my left hand, purge my backup reg and start to reach back for my right post, whay hey I get it! I manage to shut it down although my buoyancy is over the place and I have to pause to regain composure, I switch over to my backup reg (ooh damn the orders wrong, I think, heck I can’t remember now!) I give in, I try to reach back and turn on my right post but can’t reach it, I signal to the Stroke and he gets it for me, ahhh its nice to be diving with Stevie, I Know I can trust him to sort me out and I think he can trust me to sort him out (not like that!, clean your bloody minds will you!) These shut-downs are doing my head in, I so want to get them off and on.

We bimble around looking at the moorings, chasing crabs, examining up to it after the valve closing lark.

So we get up to around 6 metres and I signal for blobs, we both start off about the same time, I unfurl and assemble my spool to my blob, Stevie already has his assembled in his pocket.

We both orally inflate and play the maypole dancing game, trying not to tie each other up.

Up we go and on the surface wind in our blobs (well it’s not quite that smooth, I end up winding my blob down to me as I hadn’t inflated it enough so I give it a good blow this time, fwar fwar!)

We surface swim back to the slip and come out the water feeling triumphant, or at least I feel great that Iain and John didn’t witness any of that!

So out we get, have a gab, Eventually Iain, John and Iain’s mum surface, there is no shouting only laughter and smiles, looks like Iain’s mum enjoyed being assimilated into the collective too.

I pack my gear, Derek and Anne turn up on the Posh RHIB and we have a wee gab, I say my goodbyes, Taylor and I head off to M&S for some nice tasty food and I drop Taylor off at my ex wife’s, A nice wee day out but I tell you this, I need to get shut-downs sorted because I am so fed up of doing boring featureless dives at training sites, I crave a nice piece of ferrous oxide, all I would be doing is tempting fate and hoping nothing goes wrong, if something did I wouldn’t be able to sort it….

Tune in next time for more adventures of a GUE Newbie……

John Kendall http://www.guetraining.com/

Conger Alley Scottish Forum http://www.congeralley.com

Thanks to Iain for organising and Taylor for being a great daughter :)

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