Mori's First BCD, Fins and Regulator . . .

Mori's shiny new gear arrived on Monday . . .

He sensibly went for compact and lightweight equipment so that he can take it arround the world with him without having to to what a lot of divers do when they have to fly with their gear and sacrifice clothes for dive equipment!

He's bought the hotshot fins, the zuma BCD and the Micron Regulator, all from Aqualung.

He got it all assembled and went in with Ed, Fran, Steph and 5 Discover Scuba Divers to test it and make sure it was all working properly so he could use it on his night dive Speciality course that he started that night . . .
He reported that it's all working great and he loves finally having his own gear to dive in . . .

Daves Digital Underwater Photography Speciality Course

Ben completed his Open water course with a dive on the Maori yesterday, while Dave and Jack attempted to revive a strange plastic looking person that was found lying unconscious near the basins! Anyone recognise this person? . . .

Dave has been diving with us since 1991 and so has gained quite a bit of experience over the years of holiday diving he has done. Before getting stuck into his rescue course Dave did a Digital Underwater Photography Speciality course at the Maori and Ghar Lapsi. I’ve already done a blog on the course itself but I thought I should share some of the photos from his course with you . . .

Sarah showing correct positioning . . .

During the dive at Ghar Lapsi they came across a lost fishing net that had become entangled inthe marine flora. Ghost fishing (Lost fishing gear that continues to fish for years entangling marine life and killing it) continuse to be a huge problem in all of the worlds oceans.

Many divers group together to clear as much of the gear as they can from sensetive marine ecosystems. Our instructors make a habit of clearning rubbish off the dive sites if they come across it during their dives. You can also do this wherever you happen to be diving at the moment. We also do an annual clean up of the house reef which you can get involved in.

Luckily there didn't seem to be anything entangled in this one except seaweed . . .

If you want to find out more about the Digital Underwater Photography course see my earlier blog on it . . .

Pat's Crazy Month at Divewise . . .

Our visiting Instructor Pat leaves in the next couple of days. He’s had a crazy time while he’s been here taking lots of technical courses and teaching a lot of recreational courses. Chances are if you have done a course with us in the past couple of weeks you have met and probably been taught by Pat.He will be back in November to help out on the Instructor Development Course.

The Swedish group came for a week of diving. During their time here they covered most of the dive sites with Pau, they even managed to fit in two trips to Gozo!

Annika a member of staff at the language school did her Discover Scuba dive with Howard on Sponge Bob Day and has carried on to do her open water course, which she will be finishing with the final exam tomorrow.

Aaron had a hilarious time with one of his DSD students, Paulo, on Tuesday. He was apparently a natural in the water and LOVED having his photo taken!

Jack took over Nev’s job of inspecting the basins while he Nev was in the UK. "Yep looking good guys i could sure eat out of these things . . .

But then again i could eat out of anything . . ."

He also did some merchandise testing.

"Yeah I can see you, these ones are good!"

The Divewise Dance

Congratulations to Ruichi who completed his Open water diver course with Pat yesterday!

He did so well all the staff did the Divewise dance with him . . .

There’s not only Ruichi who has been working hard Reinhold has just completed his Advanced course today, finishing off with his first Nitrox dive.

While all this has been going on Jack has reverted back to his Pikie ways . . . watch out shoes, socks and underpants!

Unfortunately I have no pictures to share with you from day 2 of the Side Mount course because we had a slight technical problem with the camera!

However they got plenty of practice doing skills in the deep (unheated) pool which sickeningly is currently warmer than the sea, with Daryl’s computer reading 25deg! Toasty!

Side Mount Course, Day 1

First they invaded and successfully destroyed Sarah’s clean classroom

Then they headed outside to play with their box of goodies . . .

Their first new toy was the razor harness

Steve selected his model for the course . . .

They had to adjust the harness so that everything that attaches to it will be easily accessible . . .

It is defiantly one streamlined piece of kit! You get the option of switching to low profile D rings if you prefer.

Nowadays all people who do the side mount course with Steve must purchase the razor harness as in the past when people used to turn up with whatever harness they owned he found it very difficult, even impossible to teach the skills he wanted to because the equipment simply made the skills impossible to perform. In the end most course participants ended up buying the razor harness after the course anyway. So now to make sure everyone gets the most out of their time on the course he insists they purchase the harness to begin with.

Then there was the pouch . . .

The Bat wing came next . . .

The way it is set up depends on whether you are diving in a dry suit or a wet suit . . .

Jason also contributed to the work load . . .

Until he got distracted by the mystery of his missing sandwich . . .

I wonder who that was . . .

Then it was time to suit up assemble the equipment

And head to the pool . . .

Where, after Steve had made sure they had attached the side mounts correctly . . .

They were let loose in the pool to work out how much weight they need to add

I for one was very jealous.

Boo boo was in awe at how good his buoyancy was with the side mounts saying its definalty a winner for him!

So you Have Some Spare Cash to Finally Get Some of Your Own Dive Gear, But What to Buy? . . .

So you’re an Open Water diver. You’ve done quite a few dives now and are thinking about purchasing some equipment. Problem is diving is and equipment intensive sport. And good equipment doesn’t always come cheap.

People who are relatively new to diving often ask what equipment is worth investing in initially as very few people can afford to buy all the equipment in one go. Each diver who own their own equipment will have different opinions on that to buy first but the general consensus is that a mask, a dive computer and an exposure suit are probably the most popular and sensible choices.

To enjoy your dives you want a mask, and an exposure suit that fit properly. Rentals cannot always guarantee a good fit. If you’ve ever had a leaky mask because there isn’t one that fits your particular face shape or you have to wear contacts while diving because you can’t rent a prescription mask that will correct your vision perfectly it can put a bit of a dampener on the experience.

Having a wet suit that is too loose means you end up getting cold quickly. Not so much of a problem when diving in the warm waters of Malta but if your home means colder waters you want a good fitting suit to keep you warm. At the other end of the scale having a wet suit that is so tight it involves you holding on to a pole while your buddy lifts you horizontal in the air in an attempt peel the suit from your legs is a hilarious experience but a rather sweaty unpleasant one to be doing every time you want to dive!

The dive computer is just as important if not more important. Yes you can plan your dives using the RDP, however many divers have an instructor or divemaster plan their dives for them and just stay at the same level as them. Divewise do recommend that divers hire a computer for every dive if they don’t have one of their own as it’s much safer for every diver to have their own computer that records their exact dive profile as we are aware that many divers do not sit there before a dive working out their maximum depths and times for that dive and then working out their required surface interval after their dive. Having a computer makes planning a dive and diving the plan easy and makes you a safer diver.So this makes buying a computer a sensible first choice.