Diving, running, sailing, travel… and stuff

Gaius' Adventures

Silfra, August 2018

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Gaius

Some friends of ours had dived Silfra and told us, it’s only two twenty-minute dives, and the rental drysuits leak, and you’re in a huge group, but I am happy to report that it was nothing like this with dive.is. The drysuits really were dry, we dived for 30 and 35 minutes, there was one guide for just B and I, who described us as the most in-trim couple she’d ever seen 🙂 As we were only diving for one day we just brought our dive computers and masks and rented everything else. Max depth was 17m and I surfaced with ~120bar each time, so we could have gone for longer and perhaps would have done in our own kit but overall very happy with the experience.

Some images taken by the guide:

Touching two continents

Red Sea, 11-18 December 2015

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Gaius

This time B and I were able to join our ~~dive gang~~ fellow diving enthusiasts The Sons of Narky (Red Sea Original) on Blue O’Two‘s MV Blue Horizon for Northern Wrecks and Reefs. We hit a snag almost as soon as we arrived at Gatwick; our 2× additional baggage tickets just said “diving equipment” on them rather than “30Kg” that we had booked and paid for, so we had to argue at the check-in desk (and again at Hurghada on the way back). More about Hurghada airport later…

Of the 21 (I think) possible dives, we did 15:

Dive	Location	Description	Max/Avg depth (m)	Runtime (min)
1	Poseidon Reef	Check dive on air, then switched to Nitrox	14/11	51
2	Emperor Fraser	I know someone who was aboard at the time!	28/14	50
3	Shark & Yolanda	Current – did not make it round to toilets	22/14	55
4	Shark & Yolanda	Ditto	24/12	42
5	Alternatives / 7 Pinnacles	Night dive	12/8	37
6	Dunraven	Strong current	29/18	33
7	Thistlegorm	Outside	30/17	42
8	Thistlegorm	Inside	25/17	47
9	Carnatic		25/18	52
10	Giannis D		22/14	49
11	Rosalie Moller	Another leisurely lap around the upper deck – would love to come back with mix and spend a whole day on her. BO₂ wanted us back at the shotline with 3 mins no-deco remaining, but we have plenty of gas left in our twinsets.	34/22	34
12	Ulysses		27/18	39
13	Siyul Kebir	Dived Siyul Soraya last time	19/12	35
14	Shab El Erg	Dolphins!	12/8	50
15	Umm Gamar		19/11	52
	Total	runtime:		668

Perhaps we dived a bit less than last time such as only one night dive, but that was fine, with a large group of friends there was plenty of hanging out to be done and beer to be drunk 🙂 Kit-wise pretty much the same, Argonaut, manifolded twin AL-80’s, about 3.5Kg weight, with merino baselayer. There were 5 of us in drysuits and 6 in wetsuits (plus a dozen other guests on the boat, all of whom were in wetsuits). One thing that struck me is that there is plenty of great diving to be done in the ART/R3 range; I still intend to complete Normoxic or T1 but have no real urgency to do so.

On the way back, we were told to disconnect batteries from electrical devices, which is contrary to usual airport requirements at the moment that devices must be able to be switched on for inspection. Also it is usual that lithium ion batteries be carried in hand luggage not in the hold. But we did, only to discover at the airport that they were confiscating all batteries! A bit of fast talking meant we got to keep our Light Monkeys, but they made us check the heads into the hold (why?) and just take the batteries in hand luggage. We only lost the AAs from backup torches and the 18650s from the video lights so in total about £30 worth, plus all the stress. On the other side of security, we found a bunch of infuriated people it had happened to as well. Later discussion with local contacts indicated it was just to show the world that Egypt was finally taking security seriously after recent events. I am more than happy to comply with reasonable security measures, I just don’t see how this one helped…

Anyway, it was a great trip with great people on a great boat, would recommend to anyone.

Tekcamp, July 2015

Posted on July 19, 2015 by Gaius

We are just back from another amazing TEKCamp. I didn’t take as detailed notes as last time but had some great dives with Paul Toomer, Rich Walker, John Kendall, Mark Powell and Phil Short and attended some fascinating and inspiring talks. We also visited Fourth Element‘s underwater shop! Thanks to everyone involved and to the Vobster crew for organizing and hosting it!

One thing I will say tho’ – sure if a wreck is on the seabed, eventually it will be reclaimed by the sea and no-one will be able to see it, but that might take 50 or 100 years. If you nick the bell and the maker’s plate from the boiler and the portholes and stash them in your shed, then definitely no-one will see it and in 50 years your next-of-kin will probably sell them to a scrap merchant to be melted down. There was one speaker who bragged about his collection, then complained all the wrecks near the coast were “dived out”. The only negative thing about an otherwise brilliant event.

Drygloves

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Gaius

I have been trying a few configurations of my SiTech Antares system over the last few months, trying to find the right balance of warmth and dexterity. Of course it doesn’t matter how much dexterity a glove has on the surface, if your hands get too cold you lost it all anyway! These are the results of my experiments.

Option 1: Showa 660 size 9 with silk glove liners. I tried these on several dives in water between 7-9℃. This was a pretty good solution, the gloves are surprisingly warm considering how thin they are, with the size 9 gloves they fit my hands closely. The big disadvantage of this option is that the gloves are delicate, basically one touch of velcro will destroy them, so care must be taken in the order of kitting up and de-kitting. On longer dives in colder water tho’ I was starting to feel numb.
Option 2
Option 3
Option 4: Perhaps next winter I will try Santi heated gloves!

Another lesson is, the warmth of your hands makes a significant difference to your overall comfort. With option 3, I was far more comfortable for longer than with option 2, with all other kit being the same. I will need to swap out the rings to try to fix the slow leak before doing any more serious cold water diving tho’… I much prefer diving without gloves at all.

Red Sea, 20-27 October 2014

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Gaius

B and I dived the North & Brothers itinerary on MV Tala, flying into and out of Hurghada. Red Sea Explorers handled the transfers, taking us straight from the airport to the boat, and from the boat to the airport on the last day. We booked the diving directly, and the flights separately with Easyjet from Gatwick North direct, tho’ another option would have been EgyptAir via Cairo, which would have included 2×23Kg bags each, rather than the 32Kg bags that Easyjet charged us a fortune for (I think we could have managed with the very slightly cheaper 29Kg option). We chose RSE simply because they are the GUE facility in the Red Sea, which is the guarantee of quality. Of the 18 planned dives we did 16, sitting out 2 night dives to chillax with a beer 🙂

Dive	Location	Description	Max/Avg depth (m)	Runtime (min)
1	Fanous East	Checkdive to sort out weighting and thermal comfort	13/9	47
2	Salem Express	A penetration into this famous wreck, surfacing just after sunset. Shot some video inside.	30/18	56
3	The Brothers	Small Brother, saw sharks	31/16	60
4	The Brothers	West side of Small Brother	31/18	46
5	The Brothers	Small brother again, with more sharks	30/15	54
6	The Brothers	South plateau of Big Brother. Nice but uneventful.	30/18	48
7	The Brothers	North plateau, wrecks Numidia and Aida. Would be good to come back on mix and have a proper look at them, they were just below MOD for 32%. Negative entry off the RIB to 10m.	36/18	53
8	The Brothers	South plateau	22/12	50
9	Abu Nuhas	Wreck of the Giannis D, which I have done before, but its a good one 🙂	20/13	62
10	Thistlegorm	Strong current and unfortunately bad viz. Penetrated the forward section, saw the locomotive lying off the portside. Every time I dive her, I am dismayed at how much she has deteriorated since the last trip.	30/17	56
11	Thistlegorm	Night dive	22/15	42
12	Thistlegorm	Down the shotline to the bow, through the holds to avoid the current, then around the stern	31/18	50
13	Rosalie Moller	Down the shot amidships, around the bow, back around the stern then up. Only around the top of the deck at 34m – would love to come back and do this as a mix dive.	34/21	38
14	Gubal Island	Wreck of the Ulysses and many, many friendly dolphins	24/15	46
15	Siyul Soraya	A gentle drift dive with lots of life	23/14	60
16	Carless Reef	Double pinnacle with lots of life	15/12	63
	Total	runtime:		831

The skill of the guides and captain was very apparent in that we often had the dive sites completely to ourselves, the only boat there. I have been on Thistlegorm for example on dayboats where there are over a dozen boats tied on, and 200-odd divers in the water, it’s insane, but having the leisure to explore it without anyone else was infinitely better. Definitely worth paying the premium for! Another thing worth a mention was the trip onshore to visit the lighthouse on Big Brother. Kit wise, I wore my Argonaut drysuit with Icebreaker 200 baselayer, no hood or gloves, and identical to the UK kit configuration otherwise. The cylinders were twin manifolded AL80s (11.1ℓ each) with which I used a 3.6Kg v-weight, so pretty much the same weighting as I’d have with a BZ200 undersuit and a steel twinset in the UK or Malta, which is very handy to know for the future. My SAC averaged about 18ℓ/min, which is normal for me, we were often surfacing with 100 bar in our twinsets limited more by 1hr dive times or no deco limits (or currents). All this might seem like odd kit configuration for a recreational trip in warm 25℃ water, but it’s what we’re used to now, and gave me the opportunity to practice a few skills ready for a Fundamentals upgrade to Tech pass evaluation, the weekend after we got back.

TEKcamp, July 2014

Posted on August 16, 2014 by Gaius

Where to begin talking about TEKCamp? It really is an experience like no other – mentoring and coaching from some of the world’s truly pioneering divers, eager to pass on their knowledge and experience to divers even more eager to soak it up. I had booked B and myself onto the 9-dive package, which was incredible value for money, tho’ we didn’t actually dive together during the week, we both got loads out of it. I’ll run through a quick summary of the dives and talks according to my notes, but really, no-one can be told about TEKCamp, you have to experience it for yourself.

Day	Session	With	Notes
1	Dive 1	Rich Walker	A warmup dive, 90 minutes on the 6m platform with teammates Clare and Ben and safety diver Dave H, who we had met while doing Fundies in Malta and stayed in touch with. Propulsion, v- and s-drills, DSMB deployment, etc.
1	Talk 1	Mark Powell	The author of Deco For Divers on various myths that surround deco diving. I asked him why Staying Alive hadn’t been called Disco for Divers 😉
1	Talk 2	Garry Dallas	“Sidemount Bob” on his exploration of caves in Mexico, sponsored by Apeks
1	Dive 2	John Kendall	Practicing ascents, up and down in 1m increments from the entrance to the tunnel. Teammate Toni and safety diver Greg.
1	Talk 3	Paul Toomer	Diving Bikini Atoll, where a fleet of warships left over from WW2 were sunk for early nuclear weapons trials. A fascinating talk about penetrating the aircraft carrier Saratoga and the treats to be found therein. £8k for the trip. Hmm…
2	Dive 1	Mike Potts	Trydive on a Sentinel. The first thing to know is that failure at the beginning of Sanctum is actually perfectly survivable on a Sentinel, you just switch the BOV to OC, no need for trying buddy breathing in a FFM! I achieved neutral buoyancy easily enough, the benefit of GUE training, but I wasn’t comfortable, the tightness at the end of a breath running minimum loop volume, the bulk of the loop cutting off peripheral vision. I still see a Sentinel in my future, but it will take some getting used to. Teammate Giles, safety diver Tom.
2	Talk 1	Kieran Hatton	Scapa Flow “in depth”
2	Talk 2	Graham Blackmore	Cave diving in the Philippines and China
2	Dive 2	Rich Walker	Stage handling and lost deco gas procedures. Teammate Heather, safety diver Greg
2	Talk 3	Martin Robson	A mind blowing tale of deep cave exploration in Russia, the Blue Lake project. Soon to be a book but not available yet for pre-order on Amazon. He suffered a spine bend and spent 9 days in the pot being looked after personally by an Admiral in the Russian Navy!
3	Dive 1	Ian France	Equipment failures, rescue and lost-line drills, teammates Paul and Luke (who “died” so many times it became a running joke for the rest of TEKcamp 🙂 ), safety diver Xavier. Absolutely fascinating to watch myself on the video later attempting to locate the line with a blackout mask on – what you think you are doing is often very different from what you actually do! I am looking forward to joining Ian for some mine diving after I have done C1.
3	Talk 1	Mark Powell	A lecture on dive computers, in summary 10 years ago they weren’t very good, nowadays they’re a lot better!
3	Talk 2	Adam Wood	Filming sharks and wrecks off the North Carolina coast with the BBC
3	Dive 2	Paul Toomer	A dive simply entitled Brown Hawk Down based on a particularly hairy dive Paul and safety diver Alex had done on the Black Hawk. Paul mentioned in the briefing “I don’t think we’re going to have too much by way of reliable equipment on this dive” 🙂 Blackout masks, line following, stage handling, shutdowns, air-sharing all followed. At one point I had 3 stages clipped on and a spool and DSMB in each hand! A 60 minute dive that seemed like 6 minutes. Awesome fun 🙂
3	Talk 3	Dr Duncan Price	A visit to Wookey Hole for a guided tour and to hear a talk from the man who has dived furthest in there.
4	Dive 1	Graham Blackmore	Trydive on Suex DPVs, excellent fun, I think GUE have successfully sold me another course, whenever I get round to it (C1 being a priority for me). Teammate Stewart, safety diver Dave H.
4	Talk 1	John Kendall	JK talking about the St George cave survey in France
4	Talk 2	Martin Robson	Cave survey techniques
4	Dive 2	Martin Robson	The “practical” session from talk 2, a team of 5 of us surveyed the crushing works, depths, distances, bearings of various features to produce a 3D map. We did one pass to lay a line between the points we wanted to survey, then another pass, at each of the tie-offs, recording depth and bearing to the next, then following the line a metre at a time to record distance. It was eye-opening just how much time such a simple mission took, surveying for real is a massive undertaking for a team of divers!
4	Talk 3	Rich Walker	Croatian wrecks. Another trip to plan… 🙂
5	Dive 1	Rich Walker	A simple mission to retrieve a spool and a reel, tied off “somewhere” past the aircraft. It started very well, we planned exactly what we would do – I would lead on the way in, to the end of the spool, then we would turn and I would be lineman reeling in, and Heather would lead us to the end of the reel, then we would would turn, she would be linegirl, and I would lead us out. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, and we all died 🙂 Teammates Heather and Andy, safety diver Alex.
5	Talk 1	Gareth Lock	Learning from others, primarily the military aviation community, on safety, the creation of a “just culture” in which people can talk about accidents and mistakes without fear or stigma.
5	Talk 2	Roz Lunn	A sales pitch for Eurotek. Don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity this year but it looks good.
5	Talk 3	Ian France	A talk on the UK Mine and Cave team. I am really excited about joining these guys when I am ready
5	Talk 4	Kieran Hatton	Wrecks of Norway

All in all an incredible, action packed week in which I learnt alot and met a bunch of cool new people to dive with 🙂 I cannot wait for next year’s…

AOW, 29/30 June 2013

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Gaius

This weekend was busy not just for one or two groups as usual but for the entire dive centre, with 30 students doing OWR, OWC, AOW, EFR and Rescue courses. Fortunately the weather smiled on us and most of the students could be in wetsuits, which we have plenty of! We took basically every piece of kit from the stores to Wraysbury on the Saturday in 3 vans, with more people coming by car. All LSD people were instructed that we would need to provide all of our own kit this weekend including tanks and weights, which I didn’t mind at all as it meant I could breathe Nitrox on the deep dives 🙂

I was with the group doing AOW, with instructor AD, DM GL, 4 students and fellow DMT DB. As usual we did one day at Wraysbury (PPB and Drysuit 1 and 2) and one day at Vobster (Deep, Wreck and Navigation). Also this weekend I got signed off for Search & Recovery and Discover Local Diving, both at Vobster. The former I did in a buddy pair with DB, locating (search patterns) and raising a 12kg weight belt using a lift bag, managing a controlled ascent by bleeding air from the dump valve. I had hoped to do the latter on the aircraft at Vobster, which I know quite well by now, but instead did it in an unfamiliar part of the lake based on a verbal briefing from AD of “show them X, Y and Z”. The statistics for that dive showed that my SAC was a bit up with the task loading of navigating and also shepherding the students. The lesson learnt here is to allow a margin in gas planning (over and above reserves like 50 bar/rule-of-thirds) for dives with a “mission”. I think with a bit more experience I will get guiding back down to my usual 20ℓ/min.

Dive	Max/Avg Depth	Min Temp	Time	Consumption	SAC
1 (DLD)	22.3m / 14.6m	7℃	28 mins	136bar/ 1632ℓ	23ℓ/min

GL brought up the rear and once again it was very clear (no pun intended) how valuable powerful lights are in lo-vis conditions even if it’s not actually dark; even tho’ I couldn’t see him and possibly at times the second buddy pair of students couldn’t see me, everyone could easily see both the lights casting beams in the particulates. I tried a slightly DIR-style configuration with a compass on my left and the Uwatec bottom timer on my right wrist and as usual my Light Monkey on a Goodman handle on my left hand – this made the compass awkward to use, I think both on right wrist would have been easier. Hmm.

Still outstanding on my DM are:

400m swim

Divemaster Conducted Programmes:

Scuba Review
DSD: OW dive

Just the last lap to go, and then I’m done!

AOW, 25/26 May 2013

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Gaius

Another extremely busy weekend, with instructor ES, DM GL, myself and 4 AOW students, 3 of whom were also doing the Drysuit Spec, and 1 student doing an OW Completion. We were at Wraysbury one day for Buoyancy, Drysuit and Navigation, and Vobster the next, for Deep and Wreck adventure dives, and the optional second drysuit dive to complete the certification, 6 dives in total of which I did 5. Not much to say about this one, it all went like clockwork, the sun was shining and all the students had their acts generally together, their own transport and most of their own equipment, so the logistics were very easy. It was strange how empty the van looked compared to how it usually is! We stopped off for icecream on the way back from Vobster and were still in the pub an hour before the team who had been teaching an OW Referral!

We did the deep dive on the Jacquin II in the middle of the quarry, and the wreck dive on the aircraft again. Even in good vis, it was very apparent how useful powerful lights are for signalling. On the deep dive I used 80bar from a 12L tank in 22mins at an average depth of 12.2metres, giving a SAC of 19.6L/min. I am reasonably confident now in using 20L/min as the basis for gas calculations. It will be even more conservative in warm water gear. No kit changes this week, as while it was warm on the surface, I still expected it to be cold below the thermocline. The OW student was in a 4mm steamer with a 4mm shortie over the top, and did feel the cold at even 10m depth. On the DMT sign-offs front, I completed the 800m swim scoring a 4, and completed the surveying for my mapping project, which I will submit in a few days. Fellow DMT SB and I keep trying to get a few hours in the pool at LSD to practice our skills circuit, which I plan to video on my little Canon S95 with an UW housing for feedback, but slots are few and far between, and we both have busy lives too! So we shall have to see.

OW Completion, 18/19 May 2013

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Gaius

The water at Wraysbury this weekend was a balmy 11-13°C, at the surface a full 10°C warmer than my first dives there this year! The next dive I will try in just merino baselayer rather than the PBB, of which I only wore the farmer john and in which I was rather warm. This might mean dropping a little more weight. No kit changes this week.

My new skill this time was driving the van, which apparently doesn’t get anything signed off for DM, but it should 🙂 This weekend it was instructor KT who I have worked with several times before, fellow DMT JP, 3 students and myself. The logistics were super-smooth and both days we were finished around lunchtime, then back to the dive centre for debriefs and paperwork. All students passed, but one had brought her boyfriend, an already qualified diver, with her. I did have to ask him not to keep helping her; this is a class after all. And everyone makes mistakes – if he inadvertently makes her a “dependent diver” at this early stage, then it’s his buddy check that’s going to be skipped, with potential consequences if he say forgets to turn his air on…

As of right now, the things I have outstanding are:

400m and 800m swims
Skills circuit
Search-and-recovery and mapping project
All the Divemaster Conducted Programmes

From next month, I will be concentrating on filling in these gaps.

Oh, and one bizarre thing I spotted this weekend, on several divers presumably from the same club or school, it’s bad enough strapping a knife to the outside of your leg, being an entanglement hazard and hard to reach if you need it, but then attaching it to its sheath with a lanyard – what are these people thinking?!

Rescue Diver, 11/12 May 2013

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Gaius

Someone said to me when I started, but the Divemaster course won’t make you a better diver. My response to that is, it entirely depends on what you mean by “better”. A good diver has, among other characteristics:

Good situational awareness
An ability to handle a bit of task loading
The ability to look after themselves and a helpless buddy if necessary
Has actually practiced rescue skills, since taking the Rescue Diver course
Takes a preventative, pro-active approach to safety
…

The DM course teaches all of this, or requires that you learn it yourself in order to progress. Better means more than “deeper”…

I had the rather dubious honour of being first in the water at Wraysbury on the Sunday, the vis was better than the Saturday but still pretty poor due to algæ, I would estimate 2-3m, tho’ of course that depends what you’re looking at. I spent much of the weekend being a victim/patient (these words have specific meanings in the PADI system) assisting instructors RR and ES with 3 students, but also got the chance to practice the skills myself. Happy to say that there was little rust on them, and I have been signed off for performing a “demonstration quality” rescue. This puts me roughly halfway through all the required sign offs. Most of the rest aren’t internship, they are all assessments of specific skills, so I just need to organize getting them done.

Kit configuration changes this week:

Moved 4Kg to trim pockets on my upper tank cambands, with 6Kg in my BCD’s integrated weight pockets. This is a much more comfortable configuration. I can descend very easily and have good buoyancy control in the 0-5m range but still feel too negative at around 8m. Perhaps I could drop even more weight. I still wore a weight belt tho’, empty, in order to conform with PADI standards for the course!
Swapped the default rockboots that came with my drysuit for a pair of Northern Diver Rock Swim Boots. These are the same boots that are issued to UK military divers. I see this question being asked all over the Internet, so for the benefit of the wider diving community, these boots in size 10 fit perfectly the Hollis F1 fins in size 2XL. They are slightly buoyant and that in combination with the weight change are making me flatter in the water, tho’ without any weight in the belt to inhibit air migration, I was a little worried a couple of times about the dreaded floaty feet. I’ll stick with this configuration for a few more dives to get a proper feel for it.
It was a bit warmer in the water, around 9°C, so I risked removing the top half of my undersuit, wearing just the farmer john over a wicking t-shirt. Got a bit cold waiting to be rescued, playing the “unresponsive diver on the bottom” while the students faffed around, but should be able to reach valves for a shutdown drill, using the head forward, wrist on back of head, head back method. A great relief to know I won’t need a new drysuit when I start diving a twinset!