The nirtox panel has arrived, has been assembled and is working perfectly!!

We've had our lessons on how it works and what buttons not to press, apparently some of us, cough cough, are a bit of a liability! But from the blenders point of view this new set up is a dream! The other day, rather than staying blending until the late hours of the night 4 twin sets with trimix were finished in less than an hour, so the blenders, who will not be named went to the pub instead!! Much better use of time!!

This morning already we've been rushed off our feet with a trip going to beautiful Gozo with some newly qualified open waters to experience some grown up diving, no more skills on these dives! Fingers crossed they'll see some grouper and enjoy the awesome chimney taking them from 18 to 6m to the coral garden. Then off to the inland sea which gives one of the most amazing views I think Gozo and maybe even Malta has to offer. They start by descending at the start of the tunnel that takes a lot of the tourist boats, so don't be worried if you hear an engine over head, as they continue it slowly gets darker and darker until they turn and see straight into the big blue. The contrast from the dark tunnel to the light is spectacular and it glows in such a mesmerising way. One diver said they had this attraction to go towards the light and stopped for a second to remember they were diving and not dying! If anyone wants to come and see for themselves there is another Gozo trip on Friday and plenty more this summer!

Dangerous Diving? ? ?

In a place like Malta where diving is so common that after surfacing the kids are unfazed as you walk by them fully kitted up like spacemen, diving is almost assumed, by being here you are a diver or have at least tried. But I've been thinking lately about a novices view on diving, after a while of jumping in and out of the water everyday it is easily forgotten the nerves and worries of that first breath underwater. My mums going to coming out for a visit later on in the summer and is convinced she wont dive as she thinks its dangerous and scary. So if you've ever done an open water course or a DSD you've learnt about pressure, about never holding your breath and yes we have to admit there are dangers to such a sport, but think there must be hundreds of divers everyday diving the Maltese waters and millions around the world and we hear of very few fatalities, less than a hundred a year. It's amazing to think really that an activity that has such a high potential for disaster in reality has so few accidents.

My brother studies martial arts, trained in combat, surely my mum should be more worried about him that about me, I guess they're both the same though, once your trained and trained well you know how to handle situations, what move to make and how to overcome any problems that may occur. I think here at Divewise we can confidently say that through combined experiences we can prepare and teach people to do just that, overcome those nerves and worries and discover a love for diving and the ocean that they never knew existed.

HOLLAND TO WIN WORLD CUP 2010

We've been doing some well deserved patriotic support lately for Dorianne and Ben, our dutch side of divewise, they took a brief moment away for this little photo shoot, so come tomorrow when Holland play Uruguay, we want to see all orange shirts at Huggins cheering them on! Sorry Pau but you didn't have a Spanish top for the pictures! Who knows it could be Spain v Holland in the Final???

Enough of football and Wimbeldon has also finished, Spain can always rely on Nadal, we can now focus on diving again. You may of noticed yesterday there was no blog, no updates on facebook or twitter, we weren't being lazy we were given a very generous staff day, and guess what, we went diving! We had the day to only look after out buddies, rather than starburst DSDs or "you watch me" moments, we enjoyed the boat trip out there and then just went diving. I think when your working as a diver, yes you enjoy every dive, you get a buzz every time you perfect your buoyancy and if you anything like I am then you still get memorized watching your bubbles float 30m above you to the surface. But you do always have that responsibility, be it nervous first time divers or even experienced divers who are following your lead with expectations of blowing their minds, so yesterday was nice- to just go diving. A big thank you to Viv, Alan and Nev from all the divewise team!!

Sorry I think I lost my train of thought there as I was called away as Alan needed my body (sshh don't tell Viv) Since the new compressor panel is being fitted they needed the shortest person in the shop, apparently that's me, to test if i could reach it. Haha, no cylinder filling for me!! I'm sure they'll find away around it...

Diving on air is so 2009

We've been working our boys hard this week in preparation for our new compressors arrival. The back of the kit room has been transferred from a messy store room to a modern, chic, spacious area fit for its new potential. After it was cleared they went nuts with the drill and extended the wall then gave it a fresh lick of paint. I'm not sure whats with boys but when they start with the DIY it all goes to their heads. The were walking around with their drills, managing to get paint of everything but the walls with a very proud look on their face like they were well achieved manly men!! If only they hard working everyday!! haha!!

The point of all this labour is not only for the boys' egos but we are moving up in the world of compressors. We're going to have new panels installed hooked up to the oxygen bank at the back and you simply ask the bank whatever mix you want be it 36%, 25% and anything in between and it fills it for you. So no more long nights blending or sums to be done it will now be just as easy to fill nitrox cylinders as it will to fill air, so it anyone is thinking about doing their nitrox course then don't hesitate to ask, and we'll even show you how it works!!

So the panels arrived and it's in its last stages so there may be another day or two with macho boys walking around the place, don't worry soon enough Sarah will have then back under control!

During these long summer days as we have people coming in, we're giving out gear, then washing the gear, giving the gear a wash and at the end of the day we wash the gear. But on those few occasions all the gear is washed we have have a whole list of other jobs to be doing. So the other afternoon we took the chance to tick some of these off. So we were all in the sunshine working on our tan, and I'm not sure if anyone saw the facebook status the other day but apparently the new divewise technique of tanning is to stand by me and even paper looks brown! At least i stand out in this golden bronzed country! Anyway, we were delegated jobs and we worked away like bust bodies, Dorianne was marking up our snorkeling fins ready for the summer hit, Pau and the boys were going through the tool kits double checking so we're never left at a divesite with no O rings or alan keys. Dude was cleaning up the Poseidon re-breather ready for some keen first timers and I was, if I don't say so myself, made Hannah, Harry and FX as clean as they had been in years, squeaky keen, cleaning of a perfectionist one may say! To those who may not know Hannah, Harry and FX aren't unfortunately unclean customers they are our fleet of nearly flawless transport. Come cheack it out, maybe we'll get some added business as a car wash as well!!

3 Generations of Milton diving with divewise

A good 40 years ago Malta was blessed with the opening of Divewise by a Sarah and Vince Milton, at a time when recreational diving was a new and unknown phenomenon they showed their faith of what diving was going to become. They were not disappointed as they would have seen their center and the love for diving grow over the years, now with over 40 dive centers on Malta the can look at theirs with pride.

It didn't stop there, the family passed on the divewise torch to their son Patrick about 10 years ago who continued to develop and adapt diving for everyone imaginable and we were happy to see him yesterday diving with his son 10 year old Luke who has clearly got the hereditary diving bug and is starting his open water course with his dad. Best of luck to him, and hopefully no family bickering between them!

What else has been going on around the center i hear you ask, well nothing really, ha we wish! Today we're sending Dude away captaining his own boat and taking his crew of divers to some new sites off the west coast of Malta. He'll start with a reef dive to Devil's Reef where we hope to find an old cave that shows signs of stalactites and predatory fish such as barracuda, dentex and amberjack then head to Scott's Craig which was a ferry operating in the Thames, it was then used as a filming vessel for the "popeye" movie and when that finished it became another wreck for the keen divers of Malta. Can't wait to hear the outcome of the dives when the guys get back and I'll let you know as soon as i do. Pictures will follow of the three generations and the dives sites.

So its been a while since the divewise blog has been out but we all know distance makes the heart grow fonder and now that summers here the dive shop is packed there's plenty to report back on!

Now, as one of the newer, younger members of the divewise team, its been a few weeks of getting used to the way things are run here. The holiday feeling has worn off, actually lets be honest I don't think that will ever wear off, my Scottish skin doesn't know what the big, bright, hot thing in the sky is!! But I now know how the compressor works, so yes I get to fill tanks, new systems and find my place in the hierarchy- i tell you its a very long view from the top, i mean to the top!!



Since the Instructor course run by Alan earlier in the year we've got a lot of brand spanking new instructors who are all very keen and fighting over Open Water Courses, DSDs and anything they can get their hands on, so if you walk into the diveshop and see lots of smiley people looking like they'll pounce on you do not fear they're just hoping that you're their student for the day! In the past week we've had plenty of these courses going on, congratulations to our welsh boyo Owain for finishing his open water course today and going straight into his advanced doing some navigation at Zurrieq.

Also on Sunday we had to part ways with our beloved group from Dive Wimbeldon who we were honoured with for the week. We watched them grow, improve and qualify- open water, Deep and Enriched air specialties and one of their own tech courses along the way. The were also involved in trip to Gozo, Comino, tho house reef and everything in between. Diving aside, they also saved a flat tire on Hannah and ended up having to push one of Maltas renowned buses while they stopped for ice-cream! Could of used those muscles to move some more of those tanks!!







I was lucky enough to join a beautiful trip to Comino with a boat full of newly certified divers, we had Viktor who had just finished his open water course and showed off his brilliant buoyancy dodging the many jellyfish the wind brought us, Asa on her first dive as a qualified Advanced diver watching over Phillip and Christoffer, our fantastic Swedish twins, as they completed their boat and deep dives that day! Congratulations to all our divers that day, all surfaced and not one sting between the lot of us!