Seahorse Ahoy!

The water basins have been coming along nicely. Nev and Howard have been branching out to make a seating area next to the basins so that there can be an area for technical divers to put their gear which will give the recreational divers more space for their equipment.

JC’s group are off on the boat to Comino today to dive the Santa Marija caves with Pau. The water around Comino is very clear and there are loads of fish that collect in balls around you if you take bread to feed them. It’s an amazing experience. They’re sure to have a great day.

Simon Read is leaving us today. He had an amazing time doing his wreck diver speciality and getting to explore all the wrecks. He’s very greatful to Sarah for finding him a seahorse. Unfortunately his wife has said she is not so grateful because he won’t shut up about it so she will probably be sending him back out here soon to keep him quiet!

Hannah is getting close to retirement she's not been drivable for a few days now after breaking down and its looking like we may have to find a replacement for her.

Fancy Surfing in the Confined Area?

Ed’s been really busy the last few days with open water courses. The hotel pool has now been cleaned out from the winter so we are starting to use it for the Open water and Discover Scuba courses and given its too cold for holidaymakers to use yet it’s nice a quiet which is great for training.

The weather on the house reef is bad today. Dive sites across the whole island appear to be blown out so it may be a dry day for our beginner level divers today. So Nev has been off on a mission to find somewhere for JC’s group to dive.

JC’s group went to Zurrieq for a night dive last night in the valley. For those of you who have never done a night dive the marine life at night is very different.

A lot of life that appears stationary during the day becomes active such as sea urchins, and a lot of marine life that stays hidden from view during the day comes out at night. Simon Read said that everywhere they looked they saw sea hare’s Morey eels, Cuttle fish and large schools of fish.

Sea hares are a type of sea slug. They are not as colourful as Nudibranchs and are normally a lot bigger. They get their name from the two rhinopore’s on their head which look like the ears of a Hare. Unlike in terrestrial slugs that have light sensors like our eyes on the ends of stalks on their head, the sea hares rhinopores act like our nose and detect smells or tastes in the water to help the sea hare locate its food.

I Want Whatever They're Having Please!

All the Divewise staff attended the PADI forum last night so it was a long day for everyone, but the free cake, drinks and Richard Howes jokes kept everyone going. Then it was off to Huggins to say goodbye to Phil Short who has been out here updating Tech divers and teaching a rebreather course the last couple of weeks, JC’S group were also there watching the football.


Amazingly they were up bright and early for more diving adventures. Today is the Faroud, they look so excited you wouldn't believe they’d had a late night!

Mori who did his Open Water with Anne Japan the other week is here today gaining more experience and fine tune his newly found diving skills by doing some pleasure diving with us.

Lineda is letting off some steam by doing a few days diving with us. It appears to be doing her the world of good , I don’t think she’s stopped smiling since she got here!

Bad Weather, But We're Still Diving!

Yesterday we had an entertaining journey back from Cirkewwa with Simon Williams, Simon Read and Malcolm Dubber in the back trying to untangle a reel that hadn’t been wound in properly. Once they’d done with that they moved on to making an in-van communication system using string and two paper cups!

Today is rather wet and gloomy, however it has not been able to deter our divers from getting in the water . . .

JC’s group that have come over from England to dive with us were straight in the water this morning for a check dive and after a good lunch they have been getting their equipment ready for a dive on the Maori. Nev and Howard appear to have come prepared for the bad weather . . .

You do wonder where they learnt this trick . . .

We got some shiny new 10L cylinders the other day too . . .

Tonight all the staff are attending the PADI Forum which is held annually in Malta. The forum is to update all PADI Professionals on updates and changes to courses and standards so that everyone teaches the right things. The Divemaster course has gone through a lot of changes this year. There have also been some changes to the Rescue diver course so anyone who is going to be doing these courses this year expect them to be a little different than they were when your friends did them.

The Resident Eskimo!

Fran spent the other day at the Inland Sea on Gozo. They couldn’t get down to the Blue Hole because the road was closed unfortunately but there was plenty to see at the inland sea so it wasn’t much of an issue!

Ed has become our resident Eskimo after being so covered in dust and sand yesterday from working on the new wash basins with Nev.

We were all very lucky the other day at Divewise to get some of Viv’s amazing carrot cake that she’d been promising to make for the last few weeks.

Having now destroyed yellow, red, blue, white and purple bandages Jack paw has finally been freed from the bandages. So he can now bounce around chasing flies as usual.

PADI EMA Award

Simon Read arrived yesterday for a week of diving with us. His main ambition was to see the Maori as it held a personal significance to him so after his check dive we drove him straight there with a 15L so he could have a long dive on the wreck with Steph. Unfortunately for Nev they didn’t find any seahorses.

Yesterday Richard Howes from PADI EMA awarded Divewise and the staff with a plaque to commemorate Divewise being a PADI member for the last 20 years and on reaching number one dive centre rating in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Let’s see what happens in 2011.

Richard also commented on how Divewise has continued to improve every year despite changes to the Economic climate.

Busy Busy!

Yesterday was meant to be a quiet day, but like all supposedly quiet days at Divewise it quickly turned into a rather hectic day. Fran had two pleasure dives at Cirkewwa with Cameron and they won’t stop talking about the huge Grouper they saw near the Rozi.

Ed had a very intense day of diving yesterday. He did 4 confined and 3 open water dives for the Open Water course to make sure Gareth Phillips completed his Open Water by the weekend

Malcom and Anastasia loved their DSD and Bubblemaker so much they came back yesterday to do it all again! Anastasia went out on the house reef on the hunt for a cuttlefish that had been seen on the check dives an hour before and Malcom spent another hour in the confined area hunting for crabs and sea cucumbers
under the rocks. To Steph's delight they found a rather large nudibranch under one of the rocks – Malcom didn’t find it quite as impressive as the crabs though.

Jacks back today. Limping a bit but he's a lot livelier now and he’s opted for a yellow bandage today.

Ed, Pau and Jason are out of the water today helping Nev and Dave with yet more hammering, sawing and heavy lifting.

Well sort of . . .

Sarah is back in her little cave servicing regulators and fixing Steph's dry suit that has another hole in it. Luckily this time she noticed it before she got in for the dive!