Hopefully another trip to wales in a couple of weeks, maybe another boat trip late august, and hopefully a trip to the Farnes to dive with the seals in September.
It has always wound me up for some reason that dive boats fly an A flag at all times and not just when diving is happening. But I appeciate that they boats they use ofen mean that it is fixed.
This is a swim through the ‘V’, dropping into the bowl and across to a boat called Candida 2. When I look at my computer, the figure at the top is the current depth in m (bottom left is deepest that dive). The 99mins is time to needing decompression stops (hardly ever registers diving shallower than 20m like we do) and the counter bottom right is the duration of this dive.
The vis is pretty poor so you don’t see the drop off as you pass the road sign, it’s normally a bit like that the scene in Finding Nemo But you can see how quickly you descend and how hard it would be to judge without the computer or a gauge.
At 5:20 you see Sarah tap her wrist with two fingers, that’s the signal to get the other diver’s air level. When Sarah forms a ‘T’ and then a fist that is 150bar remaining (T = 100, Fist = 50, fingers = 10 each)/
This vid follows on from the last as we go around the edge of the quarry from the boat, Candida 2, to the ‘Pigs’. You’ll notice my time-to-decompression is now 40mins ish, because we’ve been at 17+ m for 10 mins. I’ll have around 130bar left by that point (we’re using 10l tanks filled to about 220 bar when we start) so half way in, but we try and exit with 50bar left so I have just under 100 bar left and have used about 100 bar, so I’ll manage no more than another 10 mins at this depth before I’d be looking to come up to 5m to do a 3 min safety stop then make my way out. Hence the 40 mins isn’t too relevant. In fact, not planning to need decompressing is the distinction between Recreational diving and Technical diving.
Another trip to Anglesey yesterday with 2 regular dive buddies. 2 ~1hr dives around St Tudwals again. Plenty of sightings of the seals on the surface between the two dives but no sign under the water But we did see much more wildlife this time - plenty of fish including some ‘square’ ones, lots of Starfish and some monster crabs (18in diameter!), a couple of lobster and some cute little (and one large) jellyfish. No photographic evidence of the monster crabs due to technical difficulties with the camera case but here’s a few pics from dive 1
Once the kids can be safely left for a while (once they’re about 25…) we hope to get further afield. There is a place called Silfra in Iceland that I’d love to try, plus the usual Red Sea, Gozo, farnes and Scapa sites
Yesterday’s involved 7+ hours of driving which is about the limit for a day in my view. Luckily we got a lift yesterday but was still knackered.
But you can see how quickly you descend and how hard it would be to judge without the computer or a gauge.
But we did see much more wildlife this time - plenty of fish including some ‘square’ ones, lots of Starfish and some monster crabs (18in diameter!), a couple of lobster and some cute little (and one large) jellyfish. No photographic evidence of the monster crabs due to technical difficulties with the camera case but here’s a few pics from dive 1
