Relax in the Comfort of your Hyperbaric Chamber!

Lots of friends, new and old are leaving us today. Simon and Katya have gone.....

As has john.....

And the group of crazy Italians are due to leave at 2pm....

Even Howard, our photography genius has gone, but dont worry, he's only off to England, he'll be back to teach us all some more about diving and photography in 11 days

We hope you all have a safe journey home and look forward to seeing you all again soon!

A conversation in Huggins last night lead on to Malta’s Hyperbaric chamber. I’ve only ever been in one hyperbaric chamber (no I wasn’t bent I just did a dry dive for fun – like divers do!). That chamber was at the Marine Biological Station at Millport off the west coast of Scotland.

I was told it was one of the best. However I found out last night that the hyperbaric chamber in Malta is like a home away from home. It has two beds at one end, sofa’s and a phone that you can use to contact friends and family for a chat. Sound’s a lot nicer than two black benches. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of this one but if I find one I'll put it up!

I’m not suggesting you plan your diving holiday around places that have the best hyperbaric chambers – nobody ever wants end up in one! But it’s just interesting to see the variation in chamber designs and it’s nice to know should you ever need one in Malta you will be going to a very comfortable one!

Clowning Around!

Simon and Katya did their last dives with us today after spending a long weekend here. They have achieved a lot in the last few days with Simon completed his Advanced and Katya her deep Speciality. So well done to both of them!

We’ve been getting some interesting characters coming to dive with us the last couple of days...

Luckily they didn’t actually dive in this attire! In actual fact for Kalle, who's been pleasure diving with us all week, had to wear this as a punishment for bad behaviour. However he's been good recently so we've let him go explore one of Cirkewwa's wrecks.

After we got back from a long day of diving we found Jack had already finished and gone to bed .....

Who’s really in charge at Divewise?

There is one member of the Divewise family that has not really been introduced. He is both loved and revered by customers and staff and I feel he needs a proper introduction if you are new to Divewise. . .

Once upon a time there was a little puppy at Divewise called Jacques Cousteau and how cute was he?

He liked to play out in the sun.


But he can be deceiving. When he was young we could keep him under control ...



but even then, when he knew our backs were turned


you could guarantee he was up to no good...........


Once he mastered the stairs there was no stopping him.





He does have a bed





but at the time prefered to dominate Nev's clothes



As he grew nothing in the dive centre was safe as he'd learnt to escape his confinds



Leave anything on the floor and he'll casually stroll towards it then after a flash of black its between his paws.......



He'll take anything no matter how bad it smells!



If he knows he's not meant to have it, only Viv will succeed in getting it back off him.



But for all the mischief he causes we did get our own back.....they are now in a jar !!


Don't get me wrong he does work hard though. He has a diverse range of skills working here with greeting people,


being an Entertainer



Gardener



Secretary


Mechanic


and of course a Scuba Diving Instructor




So, like Alan, he takes a nap wherever and whenever he can!

QUICKLY! .... to the leeward side!

We had lots of different nationalities yesterday and luckily Anne Japan is back so we had both a Japanese instructor and Fran our Italian instructor to greet them. Just a thought but have you ever found you tend to laugh when other people laugh even though they’re speaking a different language and you have no idea what they said!

One of GUE Tech divers got sea sick yesterday on a boat dive. It was that bad that unfortunatly he ended up not doing the dive. This interested me because I have seen many people with seasickness including marine biologists and divers. Is this an occupational hazard for divers or is it just a small percentage that will always have this problem?

I did a bit of reading about it and it turns out it can affect up to 90% of people and it can affect anyone at anytime. It also means that anyone who regularly dives could go on a live-aboard for a diving holiday for a week and be ill the whole time, even if they’ve never been sea sick before, which would be terrible because live-aboard holidays don’t exactly come cheap.

So how do we solve this problem?

Fran gets sea sick a lot. She said there are medications that help. Viv never used to get sea sick but now she gets it really bad and apparently none of the medications work for her. If anyone has any suggestions for her I’m sure she’d appreciate it! There are lots of theories about what causes it though so I guess it’s hard to cure something if you don’t know what’s causing the problem in the first place.

One of the main theories is that when you go below deck or look at things on the boat which are rocking with you (like when you are setting up equipment), you are feeling the motion but not seeing it. This sends contradictory messages to the brain which interprets it as a poison that is affecting your balance (for example what alcohol does) and the brain makes you sick to get rid of the poison. This is a clever and plausible idea but not really something that would easily be cured.
One piece of advice I’ve found that doesn't involve taking medication, is to look at the horizon with your peripheral vision, apparently if you look at it directly it doesn’t work, I can’t imagine this being easy, it would be like trying to subtly eye up someone in a bar without them realising, so your there ...... on the boat kitting up you gear, feeling sick, and trying to eye up the horizon at the same time, maybe someone should try it and see if it works?!

Alan says chocolate is the answer and he thanks all the Italians for all the chocolate they brought for him yesterday! Yes there was a LOT!

Project Jellyfish!

Yesterdays weather turned out to get the better of the Divewise staff and Harriet (one of our 3 vans) most of the sites were blown out and the only site remaining that was originally thought dive able was too rough. So what did we do?

Hellooooo confined water Dry Suit Speciality ......


Don’t worry I’m kidding. Justina didn’t really attempt fin pivots, hovers and an inversion in the wet suit tank. However she and Lieven where enjoying themselves so much I certainly wouldn’t have put it past them to try!

With it being their first experience putting on a dry suit they needed a bit of a hand getting in and out, those neck and wrist seals can be a bit of a pain ....



But soon they were both experts at it ....




Now for the more serious thing that happened yesterday , Nev had ...... wait for it ............. A PLAN!

And it’s called PROJECT JELLYFISH!

Nev and Steph went to visit the University yesterday to view a talk on Jellyfish. They got to learn quite a lot about what’s happening with jellyfish around Malta at the moment along with other conservation efforts.

Most people say they are scared of sharks. In Malta I’ve never been lucky enough to see one but I have seen many jellyfish at certain times of the year. The jellyfish is ever revered by unfortunate swimmers who stumble across them, but generally marvelled at by divers. Probably because they’re easier to avoid when you can see them!

A member of the university started a 12 month programme in May last year called ‘Spot the Jellyfish’. He wants to find out about populations of jellyfish that are present in Malta, what time of year a species blooms and there they occur. He doesn’t really have the man power to survey all the waters around Malta and so needs local people and tourists, especially divers, to get involved. And as most of you will know, if there’s something going on Divewise has to get involved.

The programme is aimed at families and teachers, but unless these jellies wash up on the beach or you’re lucky enough to be stood on a pier where you can view them from a safe distance the only other way you can identify them is to go snorkelling or diving with them.

When I was younger I assumed you couldn’t dive before you were 18. Totally untrue! You can go diving as young as 8. Which means getting up close enough to identify a jellyfish is actually possible for children. So Nev believes, and I agree, that diving is a great way for families to take part in Spot the Jellyfish. If only I’d known this, I’d have had a whale of a time diving with jellyfish as a kid!

So for families who don’t want to miss out we have Bubblemaker courses for kids age 8-12. Kids aged 10 and above can do a Discover Scuba diving courses along with their parents. Also here’s the flyer in case any of you have seen any of these little guys and want to know what they are:

We're Back Blogging!

So it’s been quite a while since the last Divewise blog and there’s plenty to report.

The IDC and Instructor Examinations finished on Saturday 12^th of March. All went well after a gruelling 2 weeks of listening to Nev’s horrendous jokes and now the exhausted candidates can have a well earned rest, however the staff must keep up the pace.

Tech divers are all over the place at the moment. The GUE tech 1 course proved particularly entertaining for John Kendell as Blas, Eunice, and James spent time doing line drills – which basically involved them stumbling blindly around obstacles outside Divewise.

I’m just getting used to the way things are run around here but I can tell you it may only be my second day but from what I have discovered this place is one well oiled machine. There seem to be many systems in place to make sure everything runs as smoothly and as efficiently as possible and most importantly so nothing gets lost! I had a hand at using the compressor which I have to say is far bigger and more complex than any I have previously encountered, but then Divewise does have to supply air and gas mixes for up to 90 divers a day!

My Divewise grand tour yesterday concluded with the new range of Divewise clothing. One of the designs, which Nev is very proud of, is the names of all the Malta dive sites shaped into Gozo, Comino and Malta....

There's also two new jumper designs which are good for after dives at this time of year .......

and board shorts for the summer .....

my favourite are the t-shirts with prints of the dive sites on......

Hope you like them as much as we do!