Scuba Diver June 17 - Issue 4

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VERTICAL BLUE 2017:

IN-DEPTH REPORT FROM THE ‘WIMBLEDON OF FREEDIVING’ IN THE BAHAMAS

BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS: SIR RICHARD BRANSON SPEARHEADS UNIQUE BVI ART REEF PROJECT

ABOVE 18 M Majestic Menai SCENIC SHALLOW DIVE OFF ANGLESEY

MID-RANGE

BCDS RATED

& REVIEWED

SPAIN submerged SHORT-HAUL JAUNT TO CALA JONCOLS

WEIGHT OFF

YOUR MIND HINTS & ADVICE ON HOW TO AVOID BEING OVER-WEIGHTED

ISSUE 4 | JUNE 17 | £3.25

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Egypt ‣ Scholarship Diary ‣ Bermuda ‣ Thailand WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

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Pelagian, Wakatobi’s luxury dive yacht Discover the best of Wakatobi with a combination resort stay and liveaboard cruise. Carrying just ten guests, the luxury dive yacht Pelagian ventures farther afield in the Wakatobi archipelago and Buton Island, visiting sites from openwater seamounts and dramatic coral reef formations to muck environments where cryptic creatures lurk.

“An exceptional package on Pelagian with fantastic and varied diving and snorkelling. Our guide, Yono, and every crew member on this yacht were outstanding. The quality of the boat, the surroundings, the diving and the service is second to none. We’ll be back!” ~ Angus, Tania, Jesse & Holly McNaughton

Spacious en-suite staterooms create ample private space; a dedicated chef provides fine dining; and a one-to-one staff-to-guest ratio ensures the utmost in attentive personal service.

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EDITOR’S NOTE Good news for dolphins and orcas,

BUT BAD NEWS FOR SHARKS

This month has produced a mixed bag for marine life.

First, the good news. Orcas and dolphins currently held in captivity in France at marine parks throughout the country will be the last of their kind to experience this hellish existence, as the government has banned captive breeding in these animals, and further has also ruled out the future keeping of all whales, dolphins and orcas in captivity. Many other countries - USA, I am talking about you in particular - could take a leaf out of the French government’s book and put similar rules in place.

Now the bad news. It looks like the UK’s last remaining resident pod of orcas is doomed to extinction. The results of a post-mortem conducted on an adult orca from the pod which died after becoming trapped in creel ropes in January 2016 showed extremely high levels of PCBs in its body. Lulu, as the animal was known, was estimated to be 20 years old, yet had never produced a calf (orcas typically reach sexual maturity from six to ten years old). PCBs are known to cause infertility, and considering her blubber contained 950mg/kg - more than 100 times the limit above which damage is known to occur - it is feared the rest of the pod are barren too. Given that no calves have been seen in the 23 years the animals have been monitored, this seems a strong, and very sad, possibilty.

And what about sharks. Well, they are getting vilified yet again by Hollywood, with the recent launch of shark-horror flick 47 Metres Down, in which two young women are trapped in a cage on the seabed and menaced by hordes of sharks. As if sharks don’t get enough bad press as it is...

MARK EVANS Editor-in-Chief

EDITOR IN CHIEF

MAGAZINE

Mark Evans Tel: 01691 661626 Email: mark.evans@scubadivermag.com

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WIN A ONE-OFF CUSTOMISED PRINT FROM NICK ONEILL WORTH £550!

VERTICAL BLUE 2017:

IN-DEPTH REPORT FROM THE ‘WIMBLEDON OF FREEDIVING’ IN THE BAHAMAS

BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS: SIR RICHARD BRANSON SPEARHEADS UNIQUE BVI ART REEF PROJECT

ON THE COVER ABOVE 18M Majestic Menai SCENIC SHALLOW DIVE OFF ANGLESEY

5

MID-RANGE

BCDS RATED

& REVIEWED

SPAIN submerged SHORT-HAUL JAUNT TO CALA JONCOLS

WEIGHT OFF

YOUR MIND HINTS & ADVICE ON HOW TO AVOID BEING OVER-WEIGHTED

ISSUE 4 | JUNE 17 | £3.25

+

6

Egypt ‣ Scholarship Diary ‣ Bermuda ‣ Thailand WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

PHOTOGRAPHER: MARK EVANS

REGULAR COLUMNS

FEATURES

Sir Richard Branson helps create the BVI Art Reef, and HEPCA launches a new flagship vessel.

Mark Evans heads down south and gets a whistlestop tour of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s headquarters in Poole, including the state-of-the-art All-Weather Lifeboat Centre.

8 News

30 Dive like a Pro

A panel of experts from all the main training agencies offer advice on weighting.

42 Underwater Photography

‘Duxy’ looks at wide-angle photography and why a specific wide-angle lens is worth the month.

62 Industry News

Up-to-the-minute news and information from the main dive training agencies.

98 The Course Director

Marcel van den Berg offers an insight into professional-level training courses.

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24 Poole, England

34 Thailand

Al Hornsby ventures out on dayboat and liveaboards to explore some of the top dive sites out of Phuket, including the famous Richelieu Rock and the Surin and Similan Islands.

46 The Scapa 100 Initiative

Insight into the Scapa 100 Initiative, which aims to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the German Imperial Navy Fleet in 2019 with a range of projects.

52 FREEDIVING: Vertical Blue 2017

DeeperBlue founder and freediving guru Stephan Whelan reports on the ‘Wimbledon of freediving competitions’, Vertical Blue, which recently took place at Deans Blue Hole in the Bahamas.

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CONTENTS

58 Spain

Stuart Philpott takes a short-haul flight to Cala Joncols in Spain and finds a plethora of dive sites suitable for all levels of diver, including some stunning caverns and rocky reefs.

GEAR GUIDE 84 What’s New

New products recently released or coming soon to a dive centre near you, including Apeks Wetnotes, and a Fourth Element duffel bag.

64 Egypt

86 Group Test

72 ABOVE 18m: Anglesey

86 Test Extra

Editor-in-Chief Mark Evans thinks the Brothers, Deadalous and Elphinstone rank among some of the best dives on the planet, and a luxury liveaboard is the ultimate way to experience them.

Above 18m is a series that aims to showcase shallow dives around this country that are suitable for all levels of diver, including those new to diving in the UK. This issue, we look at the Menai Straits.

76 TECHNICAL: Bermuda

Jason Brown reports on a ground-breaking survey conducted by highly trained GUE technical divers and advanced scientific submersibles in deep water off Bermuda.

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The Scuba Diver Test Team convened at Vivian Quarry in North Wales, this time turning their attentions to mid-priced BCDs.

Mark Evans tries out the i200 wristwatch dive computer from Aqualung.

94 Long Term Test

The Scuba Diver Test Team gets to grips with a selection of products over a six-month period, including the Shearwater Research Perdix AI and Thermalution Red Grade Ultra.

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News

Each month, we bring together the latest industry news from right here in the UK, as well as all over our water planet. To find out the most up-to-date news and views, check out the website. scubadivermag.com/news

SIR RICHARD BRANSON HELPS BVIS GAIN STUNNING ‘ART’-IFICIAL REEF

PICTURES COURTESY OF: OWEN BUGGY

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he sight of a monstrous Kraken atop a stricken naval vessel sounds like something out of a Hollywood movie, but now divers to the British Virgin Islands can experience this weird-and-wonderful spectacle for themselves, thanks to a ground-breaking scheme spearheaded by entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.

It all started when one of Sir Richard’s staff, underwater photographer and marine mechanic Owen Buggy, found out that a ship which had been abandoned in the BVIs and languished for years in a junkyard was scheduled to be demolished. Now derelict ships rusting away in quiet harbours is nothing out of the ordinary on the BVIs, but this particular vessel was the Kodiak Queen, one of only five remaining ships from the attack on Pearl Harbour in World War Two. He touted the idea of sinking the Queen as an artificial reef, and the BVI Art Reef project blossomed into life from there.

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It took over nine months to thoroughly clean the vessel of all contaminants and make it safe for divers, and then construct the giant octopus sculpture that is draped over the rear of the superstructure. It now sits upright on the seabed, ready to welcome its first underwater visitors when it is fully opened to divers in a few weeks.

In his blog on www.virgin.com, Sir Richard was obviously delighted with the project, stating “We made waves in the BVI when we sunk one of the only ships to survive World War Two’s Pearl Harbour attack, the Kodiak Queen. Having watched the Titanic countless times (what can I say, I’m proud to have Kate Winslet in the family!) and having sunk while crossing the Atlantic, I’m no stranger to seeing a ship make its way to the bottom of the ocean. It normally happens with great speed. However, the Kodiak Queen was so beautifully built that it took hours to go down.

“Cheers of joy and relief rung out when we heard her thud

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against the ocean floor – where the famous vessel will serve her new duty as a permanent eco-friendly underwater art installation.

“I’m already looking forward to returning for a dive once it has become a thriving marine habitat. Everything from corals to sea sponges, sharks and turtles will live on, in and around the wreck as it helps rehabilitate heavily over-fished marine populations.”

He added: “Congratulations to Unite BVI, Maverick1000, Secret Samurai Productions, Beneath the Waves, Commercial Dive Services, Association of Reef Keepers and everyone involved for getting this amazing project off the ground and under the ocean.

“It was so lovely to see the local community embrace an initiative like this.

Some of the team involved in building the wreck’s art piece, a giant Kraken, have previously created sculptures for the famous Burning Man festival. Unlike Burning Man, where the experience is incredibly memorable but fleeting, BVI Art Reef will last for generations – instilling kids, locals and tourists with a passion for ocean conservation.”

A comprehensive programme of coral-grafting is planned in the future, to boost natural growth on the sunken vessel, which in turn will create a vibrant artificial reef.

And that’s not all. As Sir Richard announced on his blog: “I couldn’t be more delighted that all this is happening in my own backyard. And it’s just the beginning.

We’re already talking about creating and sinking other installations close to the wreck, to make it not only one of the world’s most meaningful reefs, but one of the most vibrant and exciting too.” www.divethebviartreef.com

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News HEPCA launches new flagship

• Luxury air conditioned cottages with sea-view balconies • Fresh water infinity pool • Cocktail bar and panoramic restaurant • Custom-built spa • PADI dive centre • Dive boats with showers, toilets and space • Dedicated camera room • Full range of hire equipment

In continuation of the 25-year legacy of HEPCA and its pro-active intervention in the protection and conservation of the Red Sea environment, it has added an impressive new member to its fleet – the Amr Ali R/V Red Sea Defender.

The new flagship of HEPCA, acquired in co-operation with the US Forest Service, is a specially modified diving and liveaboard vessel that will sail the length of the Egyptian Red Sea coastline bringing together patrolling and mooring system management with scientific research and education.

Named after HEPCA’s late director, who dedicated his life to the protection of the Red Sea, the boat will be an invaluable platform to enrich our knowledge of the Red Sea (through research), and to foster true appreciation of marine resources through a hand’s-on approach to environmental conservation education. www.hepca.org

HUISH OUTDOORS ACQUIRES HOLLIS/OCEANIC

Find out more about a luxurious holiday in one of the world’s most premier diving destinations... +44 1926 421100 www.bunakenoasis.com info@bunakenoasis.com

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Huish Outdoors seemingly inexorable expansion throughout the dive industry has continued, with the news that the company has acquired long-established US brands Oceanic and Hollis from AUP (American Underwater Products), which also owns the Lavacore and Oceanpro brands.

The acquisition of Oceanic and Hollis represents the sixth and seventh such move by Huish Outdoors in just six years, and these brands will now sit alongside the likes of Atomic Aquatics, BARE, Liquivision, Sharkskin, Stahlsac and Zeagle.

AUP came into being way back in 1972, when it was founded by Bob Hollis, a well-known pioneer in scuba diving, and since then Oceanic and Hollis in particular have become recognisable brands, each gaining solid followings from legions of end-users.

Commenting on the acquisition, Mike Huish – CEO of Huish Outdoors – said: “Adding Oceanic and Hollis to the family of Huish Outdoors is an important step for our company – along with our existing brands, these two industry veterans allow us to offer a complete range of product categories and a full spectrum of price points to our retail partners, and build on our consumer choice strategy. Today’s consumers are demanding ‘best in category’ choice in the retail environment, rather than a one-brand approach to buying all their gear. Pursuing our approach of brand selection at retail has been fundamental to our growth, and we believe this trend will continue well into the future.

“While Oceanic and Hollis have been challenged over the years to maintain adequate inventory levels, retailers and consumers have been patient and loyal, and it’s most exciting for us to repay this loyalty with investments in inventory and a commitment to growing these brands with the help of our retail partners.”

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News Missing Orkney diver found alive and well after ten hours

A diver in the Orkney Islands off the northern tip of Scotland has had an amazing escape after being found alive and well some ten hours after he was reported missing.

Ivan Doychev failed to return to his dive boat in the Pentland Firth – between Orkney and the mainland – on Wednesday 3 May and the alarm was raised at 5.20pm, promoting the start of a massive search involving three lifeboats, two helicopters from Shetland and Inverness, four commercial vessels and Coastguard search teams from Hoy and St Margarets Hope. Some ten hours later, in the early hours of Thursday 4 May, he was sighted and picked up by a Russian sail training vessel, the Yunyi Baltiets, two miles off Duncansby. The crew of the ship reported Doychev was conscious and in reasonable health. He was then transferred to the Thurso RNLI lifeboat and taken to Caithness General in Wick.

The Orkney Islands is a hotspot for wreck divers, as the natural harbour of Scapa Flow is the final resting place of several ships from the German World War One Fleet, but there are many other shipwrecks in the surrounding area.

Two continents, two hemispheres, two climates - one winner The Shootout, which will be held from 15-23 June 2018, will again pitch two teams head-to-head in a live underwater photography contest. A team from the beautiful Gulen Dive Resort in Norway will be competing with their opposing team at the equally beautiful Lembeh Resort in Indonesia. The first contest, in 2016, resulted in the narrowest of last-minute victories for the team from Lembeh. And now the captains for the 2018 event have been announced.

Captaining the Lembeh team will be the world-renowned professional underwater photographer Alex Mustard and in the corner for Gulen will be another big hitter of the underwater imaging world, Keri Wilk. Keri also captained the Gulen team in 2016, so he has a score to settle…

“If last year’s three-round nail-biter was any indication of what to expect, we should have another exciting battle on our hands,” he said. “Last year, Team Gulen showed the world that we could indeed compete with Lembeh. Next year, however, we aim to show that we can win!”

Both captains will not only be providing guidance to their teams on how to get the winning shots, but will be making tactical decisions about image selection. They will, of course, also be helping team members to create stunning imagery by extracting the very best of their photographic ability.

Alex said: “Team Lembeh won the last Shootout, so the pressure is on me this time! It’s such a fun event where the team has to all work together to ensure that everyone gets great images to be sure of success.”

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The Shootout will feature a programme of live broadcasts and reports from the event, including video discussions with the captains and teams.

Both Gulen Dive Resort and Lembeh Resort are actively seeking team members to help them to win. If you think you have what it takes and would like to participate in what will be the mosttalked about and fun event in underwater imaging during 2018, contact Gulen Dive Resort (www.gulendiveresort. com/contact) or Lembeh Resort (www.lembehresort.com/contact) directly.

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Visit our chosen UK dealers: UNDERWATER EXPLORERS Dorset www.dirdirect.com SIMPLY SCUBA Faversham www.simplyscuba.com SANTI STORE UK Cottenham www.santi-store.co.uk WRECK & CAVE Shepton Mallet www.wreckandcave.co.uk DIVEMASTER SCUBA Nottingham www.divemasterscuba.com VOBSTER Radstock www.vobster.com Full list of dealers available on our website.

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Aggressor Fleet announces new Roatan Aggressor “As CEO of Aggressor Fleet, one of the most-important parts of the business is to offer new destinations for our guests.

We are extremely excited to announce the new Roatan Aggressor starting 3 June, 2017,” says Wayne Brown.

Roatan’s reefs are home to abundant corals, including large stands of endangered elkhorn coral, colourful reef fish and shy sharks. The island’s vibrant seagrass beds are a nursery for beautiful juvenile fish and even friendly, flashing squid. The island has long been a premier diving destination and now the 18-passenger Roatan Aggressor liveaboard will provide divers unprecedented access to reefs surrounding the islands of Roatan, Utila, Cayos Cochinos and the Sea Mount. The many dive sites such as Eel’s Garden, Enchanted Forest and Coco’s Seamount, combined with

Don’t drink and dive

Divers are being urged not to drink and dive as part of a new campaign from Northumbria Police encouraging safe diving.

Northumbria Police’s Marine Neighbourhood Policing Team (NPT) has launched the campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of the effects alcohol, drugs and even smoking can have on scuba divers.

The campaign is in conjunction with and supports the Royal National Lifeboat Institute’s (RNLI) national drowning prevention campaign ‘Respect the Water’.

Officers from the Marine NPT will be visiting diving schools in the area to speak to divers and let them know the physiological effects substance use can have - not just when they are diving, but in the lead up to their dive too.

Marine Officer PC Paul Cullen said:

clear water, will inspire underwater photographers and amaze marine naturalists.

“The Roatan Aggressor offers the unique critters and fascinating diving that the Bay Islands of Honduras have become known for. I cannot wait to get onboard myself,” says Brown.

The 36-metre Roatan Aggressor will host 18 guests in private air-conditioned staterooms each with a port hole, and private bathrooms. The yacht includes a spacious sundeck, comfortable salon, dive deck with camera tables, rinse tanks and gear lockers, nitrox fills, and offers scrumptious chef-prepared meals, between-dive snacks, around-theclock service from a professional crew and all the signature Aggressor Fleet amenities. www.aggressor.com

“The North East of England is home to some of the best dive sites around the country and we want people to have a good time out on dives. What we don’t want is for them to have their dive ruined by getting into difficulty because they are suffering physically or psychologically after drinking alcohol or taking drugs, or even smoking.

“Divers will know scuba diving requires information processing, recall, reasoning, decision making, attention and ability to take control of a situation and alcohol, drugs and smoking can have a massive impact on this and the consequences of not taking responsibility for avoiding the hazards could potentially be life-threatening.”

More information can be found by visiting the DDRC Healthcare website: www.ddrc.org. To speak to Northumbria Police’s Marine NPT, ring Northumbria Police on 101.

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News Major boost for shark conservation

China Southern Airlines, the country’s biggest carrier, has announced it is making a stand for shark conservation and is banning the shipment of shark fins.

This now means that 51 percent of international airlines (based on seat capacity) have banned the controversial cargo, and with national firm Air China already refusing to take shark fins on board, that only leaves China Eastern as the last of the main state-owned companies to yet give their stance on this situation. Other airlines that have already made the same commitment include British Airways, Emirates, American Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways.

The pressure on shark-fin suppliers is now mounting substantially. After years of relentless campaigning, this news from China Southern Airlines comes hot on the heels of China’s largest shipping firm – China COSCO Shipping – implementing a ban on shark fins.

This announcement means that globally, 17 of the 19 biggest shipping companies (measured by container capacity) have banned shark fins from their cargo, which has an impact on 71 percent of the worldwide market. These include Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) and the world’s biggest shipping business, Maersk.

Pressure is now mounting on the other side of the planet, with the focus being on FedEx and United Airlines to follow suit and ban the cargo of shark fins.

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GUADALUPE ISLAND LIVEABOARDS WITH REGALDIVE Diving holiday specialists Regaldive now feature liveaboards in Guadalupe Island, Mexico. Great white shark encounters at Guadalupe Island are nothing short of spectacular. This is one of the best destinations in the world for calm, clear water and a consistently high probability of multiple shark encounters per day. Along with the superb visibility, Guadalupe outperforms other great white shark destinations with its shark-seeing consistency and ideal diving conditions, combined with easy access for UK divers, via direct flights to San Diego. Regaldive is work-

ing with the highly regarded Nautilus Fleet in Guadalupe. Nautilus liveaboards use submersible cages that descend down to 9m where the sharks naturally congregate. A permitted wrangling platform is also used and the action in the surface cages can be just as exciting. This experience is not limited to advanced divers. Guests do not need to be a certified scuba diver to join, although it is recommended that they take a Discover Scuba Diving course prior to their trip and that they are comfortable in the water. www.regaldive.co.uk

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P29 PATROL BOAT,Gozo MALTA The Blue Hole, As well as the Inland Sea (see the April issue of Scuba Diver), Dwerja on Gozo’s and time, was then The P29 is one of the most-popular artificial west coast is also home to the famous Bluereefs Hole. At one this purpose-sunk dive site was as a dive attraction in August 2007 after decommissioned. off the coastlinebyofthe Malta, notWindow, least because it is that structure collapsedbeing overshadowed Azure but since into the sea a few months ago, you are now free to marvel at the Blue Hole itself, which situated off Cirkewwa Point, close to other dive sits routes uprightonce in around is visuallylike stunning you even Arch. get into it. ThereShe are now various you 33m, with the hotspots the Rozibefore and the Double enter the Blue Hole. You can drop down and out under the rocky archway head upper portions of her and superstructure reaching to around towards the remains of the Axure Window, or you can swim off the other A 52-metre Kondor I-class minesweeper originally within 12m of the surface. Penetration is possible way, where you will find The Chimney at 20m. This narrow tunnel slopes gradually built in Germany in 1969, she was used as a patrol for those suitably trained, and she is already well upwards with a kink halfway, and is single-file only. The exit is always in view, and boat by the Offshore Command of the Maritime by marine only being down for you eventually pop out at 10m. Either route you makecolonised a circuit and returnlife to despite the Squadron Forces of Malta from Blue Hole of to the exitArmed – a magnificent way to end1997, a dive. ten years.

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Diverse Travel expands team and moves offices

UK tour operator Diverse Travel has expanded the team and moved to new offices in Ipswich.

Kirsty Scopes recently joined the company as administrator and now works alongside Jim and Cary Yanny, Holly Gibson and Bridget van der Horst in new offices in Ipswich. Kirsty is responsible for ticking the boxes for their guest’s dream holidays while making sure everything runs seamlessly.

“Cheerful, friendly and super-efficient, we couldn’t be happier to have her on board,” says Managing Director Jim Yanny. “Coupled with the team’s vast experience in dive travel, we can safely say we have built one of the most-professional teams in UK dive travel. Hence we needed more space, and our new offices are in the beautiful landscape of the Suffolk countryside.”

Kirsty has worked in administration for 13 years, having studied business administration and appreciates that good customer service is about understanding just what each client is looking for, keeping promises and delivering consistently high standards. When not in the office, Kirsty has a passion for Volkswagens, travelling the UK in her camper van; she also loves the sea and is looking forward to becoming a certified diver so she can fully appreciate why Diverse Travel’s clients love this hobby so much.

Diverse Travel’s new offices are at 1 Charity Farm Estate, Chattisham, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP8 3QG, and the phone number is: 01473 852002. www.diversetravel.co.uk

Cave diver survives being trapped underground for 60 hours A Spanish cave diver has defied the odds and managed to survive for 60 hours in an air pocket deep underground some 900 metres into a cave system in Mallorca.

Xisco Gracia had been diving with a buddy inside the system on Saturday 15 April when he began to have problems with his gas supply. Being an experienced cave diver, Garcia realised there was no way both of them could make their way out of the cave system on one set of kit, so his buddy went off on his own to seek assistance.

However, while his friend did manage to exit the cave and get help, it took over two days for the rescue teams to locate Garcia as visibility within the cave at 40m was described as ‘like cocoa’, leaving him sat alone in the dark breathing air so charged with carbon dioxide that he began to hallucinate.

He was eventually rescued at midnight on Monday 17 April, and was kept in hospital overnight as a precaution, but otherwise appeared to have escaped his ordeal unscathed.

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Get to the bottom of all this.

Get to the bottom of all this.

With thousands of species, hundreds of wrecks and North America’s only living coral reef, The Florida Keys has always been a little off the deep end. So whether you’re just dipping a toe in the water, or seeking advanced certification, our world-renowned dive instructors will have you engaging in submersive activities in no time. fla-keys.com/diving

MEDICAL Q&A

News

Dr Oliver Firth has gained considerable experience in the field of diving and hyperbaric medicine since joining LDC in 2006. He is an Approved Medical Examiner of Divers for the UK HSE, and a medical referee for the UK Sport Diving Medical Committee. He is involved in the management of all types of diving-related illness, including recompression treatment, as well as providing hyperbaric oxygen therapy for non-diving conditions.

He remains a passionate diver and has participated in various expeditions and conservation projects throughout the globe.

Q: I’m using these shoddy economic times and my recent redundancy as a good excuse to live out one of my dreams and travel through southeast Asia. My golden handshake was more a passionate bearhug (with tongues), so I’m lucky enough to be going on the road for the next year or so.

I want to dive but am going to be taking anti-malarials while out there.

You probably get asked this a lot, but what are the pros and cons of each anti-malarial and which is best from a diving point of view?

A: You’re right, I do get asked this a lot. Which stands to reason, as mosquitoes seem to enjoy most of the spots that divers do. Female mozzers of the Anopheles genus are the blighters that transmit malarial parasites, which hang out in their salivary glands. Mosquitoes actually feed mainly on nectar, but the female has to indulge in a ‘blood meal’ to get the necessary proteins for egg development. After biting, the mosquito pumps in saliva to inhibit blood clotting, and thus squirts malaria directly into the victim’s bloodstream. Yuk. So before we get onto medication, the most-important thing to say is don’t get bitten. Smother yourself in DEET and citronella, wear long-sleeves and trousers (smothered with DEET and citronella), burn coils and sleep under a net. As for prophylaxis, the world is now largely chloroquine-resistant; so the options are threefold. Resistance patterns vary so which one you pick will depend on the exact countries you’re visiting. Mefloquine (Lariam) is effective but resistance is developing in areas of southeast Asia and it can cause vivid and kooky dreams (some view this as a bonus, but if you do get lurid nightmares, it’s best to steer clear of it if you’re diving). Doxycycline is good and cheap but has the potential to exaggerate sunburn and lead to yeast infections down below. Malarone is good and has few side-effects, but is expensive. If any side effects do occur, yswitch to another.

20

Q: I have a friend (no really, it’s not me!) who is booked on a dive trip to Malta in the summer. She has always enjoyed more than a few drinks, but recently she has decided that she needs to go to a detox clinic. This has come as a shock to all who know her, but I understand that she will likely be given drugs to assist her in not drinking alcohol, including Disulfiram (Antabuse). She is supposed to be doing her Advanced Open Water course while on holiday. I am concerned that there may be some side-effects to these drugs that might preclude her from diving. Could you tell me if the taking of Antabuse would be a cause of concern? I’m hoping it is a far-better situation than the heavy drinking she was indulging in!

A: C2H5OH. Looks innocuous enough, but these few letters and numbers represent alcohol, a psycho-active drug that’s been in (ab)use for thousands of years. Paradoxically, in that time alcohol has been accepted both as popular social lubricant while simultaneously fuelling the dark underbelly of social malcontent, but anything this destructive discovered now would be instantly made illegal.

Disulfiram (Antabuse) is a drug that inhibits the enzyme that breaks down alcohol. Thus anyone taking Antabuse becomes acutely sensitive to the effects of even small amounts of alcohol; immediate symptoms of a hangover will follow, including flushing, throbbing headache, nausea, copious vomiting, chest pain, palpitations, hyperventilation, vertigo, blurred vision, confusion, and so on...

So my advice is to steer well clear of diving while your friend is undergoing detox, as all of the above symptoms might occur during the ‘drying out’ phase, and would certainly be very difficult to manage when underwater.

Do you have a question for Dr Firth?

Email divingdoctor@scubadivermag. com with your query and we will pass it on to London Diving Chamber.

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Next month’s issue: Next issue available 10th July

GET WITH THE FLOW

Why a pilgrimage to Scapa Flow should be on every diver’s bucket list

RED SEA RELAXATION

Kicking back with a ‘real’ Egyptian vibe at Roots Red Sea near El Quesir

BOUNTIFUL BUNAKEN

Marine park delivers thrills a-plenty

HAPPY 30TH ANNIVERSARY

Divemaster Insurance reaches milestone

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PORTUGAL’S OCEAN REVIVAL How wrecks become artificial reefs

LANZAROTE ON THE SIDE

Stuart Philpott gets technical on sidemount CCR in the Canary Islands

GEAR GUIDE: HIGH-END BCDS

The Test Team rate and review top-of-the-line BCDs priced over £450

21

STOCKISTS

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O KOMODO

w no ove ind “Th rth r 5 sw is c of of 0km ep olle th th i t is ct e e n la io ve ca th n n ry pi re ds of be tal e g , w nin st , M ro hic e di us up h ba vi ca s ar rr ng t an e en in , co d l spr , th nt ie ea e ain to d re s th gi s e on om ” e

“Unimposing topside, just a wave-washed bit of rock breaking the surface, underwater, Cannibal is an extravagant surprise of nature - a huge, rock pinnacle utterly buried under a one- to two-metre-thick covering of the most-exotic, outrageously-coloured life imaginable”

Oman

PHILIPPINES

Eg yp it t an co d m Jo a es rda hi to n dd d m en ivi ay ge ng ga m in rn t e on wit he r m Ph its h s Mid os ot og do om dle t of ra ph or e f E th sb st an as e yM ep ta t, at AR st bu te K ic t nt EV AN di OM io S vi A n ng N w is hen

The Sultanate of

CRUISING

Seasoned dive photojournalist AL HORNSBY is left entranced by the underwater topography and marine life in the Komodo National Park, not to mention the fabled dragons Photographs by AL HORNSBY

“The Kittiwake may be making waves in the diving world now, but the Tibbetts, which celebrated 20 years on the seabed last year, is still well worth a visit”

3

A TALE OF

The Fantastic

ISLA N DS

FOUR

The Cayman Islands are one of the top diving destinations in the Caribbean, if not the world. MARK EVANS explains the attraction of these three very different islands Photographs by MARK EVANS

The Philippines offers a wealth of diving opportunities, RICHARD SMITH shares some of his favourites

WildWEST

By DR RICHARD SMITH | WWW.OCEANREALMIMAGES.COM

F

or many years the diving scene in the Philippines played second fiddle to Indonesia, but with many great all-rounder destinations throughout the archipelago, the Philippines is fast becoming the big Asian dive destination of the moment. The diving is extremely varied across the country, attracting divers in search of animals both little and large, stunning coral reefs and great wreck diving. Here I’ll share my four favourite destinations, which are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the Philippines has to offer.

The west coast of Ireland boasts phenomenal vis, myriad varieties of marine life and some of the best topside apres-diving ‘craic’.

MARK EVANS headed for the Emerald Isle Photographs by MARK EVANS

ANILAO, SOUTHWEST LUZON ISLAND

Anilao is the Philippines’ answer to Lembeh Strait, where multitudes of fascinating muck diving critters await the sharpest of eyes. There are a plethora of accommodation options all along the richly forested headland, which is just a few hours’ drive from Manila on the island of Luzon. Due to its proximity to the capital, and international airline gateway, it is a great add-on destination for another dive location in the country. Or, of course, it’s a great dive spot in its own right. The dive sites include intriguing soft coral and sponge reefs, black sand and rubble slopes. For the non-initiated diver, this might sound like a terrible collection of sites. In fact, for muck dive aficionados these are some of the richest substrates.

Anilao accommodates many of the usual muck dive suspects such as hairy frogfish, seahorses, mandarinfish and even the rarer Rhinopias scorpionfish, Coleman shrimps, mimic octopus and other treats. Anilao and Lembeh Strait are, however, rather different. I have been to Lembeh Strait many times, but in Anilao I saw quite a number of species I had never seen before. One group that seem particularly well represented in Anilao are nudibranchs. I saw many species I had never even heard of beforehand, and many that I’d only seen in pictures. One, Allen’s Ceratosoma (Ceratosoma alleni), I had been hunting for years but never had the fortune of finding. On one dive in Anilao I saw three chomping their way through a glade of the soft corals that they mimic and feed upon.

Dives are generally made from local-style outrigger boats, which quickly and easily navigate the waters between the mainland and some of the other sites on neighbouring islands. Night dives are great in the area and offer various highlights, from mandarinfish on the resort’s doorstep to black sand and silty sites that have resident bobbit worms and the like.

Muck divers will undoubtedly love Anilao.

I

reland has a strong reputation among those in the know for its fantastic diving conditions, friendly dive centres and, of course, unrivalled after-dive entertainment – i.e. Guinness, great food, live music, banter a-plenty… oh, and did I mention the Guinness? There are dive hotspots the length and breadth of western and southern Ireland, but I chose to base myself in the northwest, around Connemara.

There are a whole host of diving opportunities in this area, so you can either dip in on a long-weekend diving break, or quite easily fill a full week of undersea exploration, which is what I opted to do.

Photographers, novice divers and veterans alike will be kept well entertained on the house reef of PADI five-star IDC centre Scubadive West. Bursting with fish and invertebrates, not to mention every colour of seaweed you can imagine, the house reef is often where newbies take their first steps into sea diving, but it is so good even experienced divers will find plenty to keep them occupied. My buddy Paul Cushing and I were both armed with cameras, and spent our time working slowly along the barrier where the kelp beds met the sandy bottom. Before we knew it, our computers were showing a dive time of 100 minutes – and our bladders were telling us to get out of the water!

INSHORE DIVE SITES

Want to get slightly further afield? There are numerous inshore dives sites that are accessed by Scubadive West’s rapid Marlin cataraman RIB, including Inis Barna, which has gained fame as the ‘conger dive’ thanks to the proliferation of large conger eels at the site; 35m-plus sheer wall dive Thanny Beag; and the Gaddys – two reefs diveable to 30m. Wreckies have not been forgotten, and divers can visit the Julia T. The Julia T is a 30-metre supply vessel which sank off the west coast of Ireland while on its way to be decommissioned. It now sits bolt upright in 27m of water and is an extremely popular dive. Visibility is not the best due to its location – it sits in the middle of a vast silt bed – however because it is washed by currents, it is smothered in dead man’s fingers, plumose anemones and bright orange, white and yellow sponges, so it is perfect for underwater photographers. Wrasse and crustaceans make the wreck their home, including edible crabs, spider crabs, shrimp, scorpion spider crabs and squat lobster.

Limited penetration is possible at the bow and in the crew’s quarters, but beware, the entire wreck is coated in fine silt, which can destroy visibility with one careless fin kick, so watch what you are doing.

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INSIDE

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is an organisation close to the heart of many divers, and MARK EVANS made the trek down to Poole to see behind the scenes of RNLI HQ Photographs by MARK EVANS AND RNLI/STEVE LOWE

THE RNLI

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MALTA

IMPORTERS AND MANUFACTURERS OF DIVE EQUIPMENT

Comino Qala Marsalforn Marsalforn Marsalforn Xewkija Xlendi Dwejra Munxar

B-SECURUS filter monitoring The B-SECURUS system monitors the saturation of the filter cartridge(s) by measuring the moisture in the molecular sieve and outputs a warning on the display or the compressor control in advance of when the filter cartridge should be changed.

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B-SECURUS automatically switches the compressor unit off when the cartridge reaches saturation point.

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T

he RNLI can trace its origins back to 28 February 1823, when Sir William Hillary made an impassioned appeal to the nation, calling for a service dedicated to saving lives at sea. That service, which came into being with royal patronage on 4 March 1824, was to become the RNLI, and since that time, lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved over 142,200 lives.

The headquarters of the RNLI is in Poole, Dorset, and I was given a whistle-stop tour when I was ‘down south’ to oversee the first RNLI Diver Sea Survival course (see a future issue for a full report on this one-day course, which is aimed at all divers venturing off our coastline). This sprawling collection of buildings is a true ‘RNLI-city’, and incorporated into this vast metropolis is the futuristic Sea Survival training centre with a computerised simulator representing the inside of an all-weather lifeboat, and a gigantic pool that is large enough to cope with even the larger rigid-inflatables, and through innovative use of machinery, fans and lighting can be made to look and feel like the stormy North Sea in the midst of a gale.

The RNLI College which houses all of the training facilities sits in the centre of the complex, and the hotel portion offers 60 spacious and well-appointed single and double rooms at respectable prices, and it is good to know that the money you spend on your stay helps to save lives at sea. Similarly, you can eat and drink in the Riggers Restaurant and know it is also money well-spent.

The RNLI HQ complex is also home to the RNLI Memorial sculpture by Sam Holland, a poignant reminder of those brave souls who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Unveiled in 2009, it features the names of all of those who died while on duty, and serves as a source of inspiration for current and future generations of lifeboat crew, lifeguards, supporters and fundraisers.

We, as divers, will be well aware that in the UK and Ireland, the RNLI provides a fleet of all-weather lifeboats and inshore craft at 237 lifeboat stations around the coast, and a seasonal lifeguard service on over 240 beaches, as well as providing coastal safety, research and education programmes, and flood response. However, the RNLI also works internationally with like-minded organisations to raise awareness of the significant global drowning problem, and grow prevention and rescue capacity within high-risk communities.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

The RNLI has pledged to provide every all-weather lifeboat crew with a 25-knot lifeboat by 2019. This means the organisation will require at least 50 new Shannon-class lifeboats, and will need to build six of these all-weather lifeboats every year, as well as maintain their existing fleet.

To make this happen, the RNLI constructed the brand-new All-Weather Lifeboat Centre (ALC) at their Poole headquarters, which officially opened on 21 August 2015. This state-of-the-art facility brings every stage of the lifeboat-building process in-house and under one roof, ensuring that they are fully equipped to build the next generation of all-weather lifeboats. It gives the organisation greater control of costs and quality, and it creates employment, including apprenticeships in marine engineering and boat-building.

Chris Eves, who was the manufacturing manager at the ALC and showed me around this fascinating building, said: “The ALC will allow the RNLI to govern its own destiny. In the future, there will be fewer suppliers who can meet our specialist requirements so, as well as mitigating the risk within our lifeboat-building supply chain, the new facility gives us complete control over quality and costs. By bringing all-weather lifeboat building in-house and capitalising on the expertise within the organisation, we will be able to save at least £3 million each year.”

FACTS AND FIGURES

There are over 408 lifeboats in the RNLI fleet, based at 237 stations around the UK and Ireland. Between them, they cover 19,000 miles of coastline and some busy inland stretches of water.

RNLI lifeboats are divided into two categories all-weather lifeboats and inshore lifeboats. The different lifeboat classes within these categories means the RNLI can reach people in all kinds of situations and locations. The type of lifeboat a station has depends on geographical features, the kind of rescues the station is involved in, and the cover provided by neighbouring lifeboat stations.

All-weather lifeboats (ALBs) are capable of high speed and can be operated safely in all weather conditions.

They are inherently self-righting after a capsize and fitted with navigation, location and communication equipment.

Inshore lifeboats (ILBs) usually operate closer to shore, in shallower water, near cliffs, rocks and even in caves.

The RNLI also has inshore rescue hovercraft for areas that are inaccessible to conventional lifeboats, such as mud flats and river estuaries.

The Shannon is the latest class of all-weather lifeboat to join the RNLI fleet. She’s the first modern all-weather lifeboat to be propelled by waterjets instead of traditional propellers, making her the most agile and manoeuvrable all-weather lifeboat yet.

Designed entirely in-house by a team of RNLI engineers, the RNLI harnessed cutting-edge technology to ensure this new lifeboat meets the demands of a 21st century rescue service, building on systems developed for her big sister, the Tamar-class lifeboat. The hull, deck and wheelhouse are constructed of composite materials, predominantly an epoxy resin film infusion glass sandwich construction, with carbon fibre in areas with a high load. The hull and the deck superstructure of each lifeboat moves around the ALC through a series of workstations as a pair, eventually being bonded together towards the end of the whole construction process.

The Shannon lifeboat was designed to be launched and recovered from a beach via a new faster and safer tracked launch and recovery system, and can also be launched from a slipway, or lie afloat. Just under 14 metres long, with a shallow draft of just one metre, she carries a crew of six, has a max speed of 25 knots from her twin 13-litre Scania 650hp engines and has a range of 250 nautical miles.

The Shannon was introduced in 2013 and will gradually replace the Mersey- and Tyne-class lifeboats, which are now nearing the end of their operational lives. Once rolled out, the entire all-weather lifeboat fleet will be capable of 25 knots, making the RNLI lifesaving service more efficient and effective than ever before.

The naming of the Shannon-class lifeboat follows a tradition of naming lifeboats after rivers, but it’s the first time an Irish river has been chosen. The River Shannon is 240 miles in length and is the longest river in Ireland.

28

“With courage, nothing is impossible” – Sir William Hillary, RNLI founder AIMS AND GOALS

The RNLI has set itself some serious goals, all underpinned by the completion of their 25-knot all-weather fleet and the final rollout of a lifeguard service to the remaining beaches that need patrols.

In 2019, they want progress towards a 50 percent reduction in drowning in the UK and Ireland; a declining trend in serious incidents; and a firmly established drowning prevention coalition that advocates effectively for the global cause.

By 2024, they are aiming for a 50 percent reduction in drowning in the UK and Ireland; a reduction in serious incidents; and effective drowning prevention strategies in place in the highest-risk areas internationally.

To achieve this, the RNLI needs to deliver a balanced lifesaving service to educate, supervise, rescue and influence those at risk from drowning; and the organisation will continue to build on their rescue service, but specifically strengthen their coastal safety work to ensure they focus their efforts and resources in the most-effective way.

Internationally, the focus will be to grow understanding and awareness of the global drowning problem, build a broad international coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), develop successful community interventions and then, with their partners, ensure there is broad evidence of the effectiveness of drowning prevention strategies for at-risk nations. n

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DIVE LIKE A PRO

This month, our panel of experts tackle the subject of WEIGHTING, and offer up a host of helpful hints and advice to ensure you can maximise your in-water comfort and air-consumption PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARK EVANS

WEIGHTING

N

othing beats the feeling of floating completely weightless in mid-water. Master achieving and maintaining neutral buoyancy and your diving will move on to a whole new level. You will effortlessly be able to swim around, through and under obstacles; stop to watch or photograph some neat marine life without having to move your arms and legs to hold your position; and hover at your safety stop looking like a boss. Whether you dive dry, or in a wetsuit in warmer waters, getting your weighting right is one of the most-important aspects of diving, and until you have it spot-on, your buoyancy is never going to reach the level you aspire to.

Martin Robson, PADI TecRec Instructor Trainer, said: “Take time out of a dive to check your weighting. Underwater, have your buddy look at your trim and experiment in the shallows with changes in weight positions to get your trim just right. Over- or under-weighted can be anything from uncomfortable to dangerous, so take your time to get it right.”

Emily Petley-Jones, UK Regional Training Consultant at PADI, said: “Don’t forget your buoyancy check! You should complete a buoyancy check: a) before every dive with different gear (including different cylinders/undersuits/ wetsuits); b) on your first dive on holiday; c) if you haven’t been diving for a while. The few seconds it takes to check your weight at the beginning of the dive can mean you get a longer dive as you won’t be using up your air while you struggle with your buoyancy.”

Vikki Batten, Director of Rebreather Technologies, Training Supervisor and Instructor Examiner at PADI, said: “It may take several dives in a new location or equipment to get your weighting right, so make a note of your equipment, location and the weight you use in your log book/calendar, etc.

Then when you next wear the same kit in a similar location, you will have a much-better starting point.”

John Kendall, GUE instructor trainer, said: “Getting your weighting right is a really important part of buoyancy control. It is often the case that beginner divers are overweighted by their instructors in order to keep them down, and make it easier to do drills, but this just starts a buoyancy problem that can go on for years if not corrected. For every 1kg of extra weight that someone is wearing, this requires one litre of extra gas in their BCD. Getting this extra gas out during an ascent can be difficult and will often lead to runaway ascents. Unfortunately, the normal response to this is to add more weight, rather than remove it.

“The best way of getting your weighting right is to get into shallow water with a cylinder that only has around 30-40 bar in it (don’t worry, you’re not going for a dive with it). Then dump all of the gas out of both your BCD and drysuit, and see if you sink. If you don’t then you need a little more lead. If you do sink, then take a big breath in. If you can hold neutral buoyancy like this, then your weighting is about right. If you are firmly stuck on the seabed, then you have too much lead. Get rid of some of it and try again. Doing this will make your diving a lot more comfortable and enjoyable, and you’ll probably find that your gas consumption goes down too.”

Garry Dallas, Director of Training for RAID UK (Recreational/Technical/ Cave Instructor Trainer), said: “Weighting and buoyancy go very much hand in hand. Being correctly weighted gives divers much better buoyancy control.

To achieve this, we have to consider the effects of weighting during positive,

30

neutral and negative buoyancy. E.g. to float on the surface, hover easily in good profile/trim underwater, and sink when we descend.

“Consider the elements affecting weighting: exposure suit, weight of equipment, water salinity, minimum gas needed in the cylinder/s, air in the buoyancy compensator and the divers’ lungs, especially during anxiety. Accessibility to dump weights are a requirement only for certain environments.

“There are various ways to achieve correct weighting, some more accurate than others, but must always be done prior to any open water dives in a controlled and safe environment. RAID advise, wearing only your exposure suit (squeezing all the air from the drysuit, holding half your tidal volume) and a weightbelt, establish the weight needed for the diver’s head to just breach the surface. Estimate the amount of lead to start, then add to it. Doing this without fins prevents offsetting the result by the diver inadvertently creating an upward motion. Ensure they can sink, by breathing out while looking upwards. This is weight ‘A’.

“Secondly, determine the weight of the equipment without air in the BCD, 30bar in cylinder/s and empty counterlungs on a CCR unit. Secure a lift bag to the equipment, adding air to the lift bag to make everything neutrally buoyant. Then, remove the lift bag carefully and add measured lead weights to make

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it neutrally buoyant again. This is weight ‘B’.

“Subtract A - B = Correct weight for the diver with equipment.”

IANTD General Manager Tim Clements said: “All divers aspire to that weightless astronaut feeling and it’s reassuring to know that it’s a fairly simple balance of physics to achieve. However, like all good humans, it’s possible to get in a bit of a pickle. Taking it all back to some very simple rules is essential to sorting out your weighting. Simply put, you and your thermal protection are buoyant - you need to add lead to counteract this. Where this lead goes is relevant - your ‘trim’ and stability will be affected. It’s worth understanding this early, as effort to maintain desired trim can be interpreted as not being heavy enough and lead to incorrect weighting.

“Start with a simple test, with just 50bar in your cylinders. Stop finning!. If you can stay at 5m or your shallowest stop, with no gas in your wing and only a squeak of comfort gas in your suit, plus minimum loop on CCR, then your weight is correct. You can move onto trim.

“If you find you are floating or sinking, make small adjustments until your weight is stable. Remember that if you have too much weight in a drysuit, you will balance that with too much gas in the suit and could feel unstable - some divers interpret this as ‘floaty’ and add yet more lead... The same goes for CCR - make sure you are on minimum loop, or you are merely compensating for gas that you don’t need, except this time, your PO2 can become less stable and increase your O2 use. Mojo loss alert!

“Trim - whatever you want, you need to feel stable. Work out if you are tipping forwards, backwards, side to side and make some changes - move the weight you have, such as cylinders or lead. Go for a good swim to get used to and analyse how your changes are working. It’s easy to get so tied up with fiddling here - go for a swim! Some divers hit this dead-on first time, others take a while to feel comfortable, so don’t be afraid to take the time you need to get your stability right before going for proper dives - time spent understanding what you are doing will be valuable in the long run.

“Lastly, keep your weighting under evaluation - we all develop as divers and you may find that as seasons change or you dive better that mysteriously, you need less weight. Enjoy your three dimensions.”

SSI referred to their Perfect Buoyancy course materials, which explain that the challenge to proper weighting in scuba diving is understanding that your buoyancy is not constant. Your buoyancy is always changing because your volume is continually changing.

31

One reason is because some of the equipment you wear - such as your exposure suit and BCD - contain gas spaces that vary in volume as you descend (increasing pressure) and ascend (decreasing pressure). In addition, you displace slightly more or less water depending on whether you inhale (which expands your volume) or exhale (which decreases your volume).

Your Buoyancy Control System allows you to adjust changes in buoyancy by adding or removing air to keep your displacement constant throughout the dive. Experienced divers know how important proper breathing (lung volume) and body position is to maintaining neutral buoyancy, and once you master Perfect Buoyancy, you will easily compensate for these continual changes in buoyancy.

Starting your dive with the proper amount of weight is critical to your safety. Diving with too much weight will affect your trim in the water, causing you to be more vertical than horizontal. This position presents more swimming resistance, requiring you to use more energy (and air). It also makes it more likely that your fins will make contact with the sea bottom, decreasing the visibility and possibly damaging sensitive marine life such as coral.

Although we don’t normally think about air having weight, it is another consideration in achieving Perfect Buoyancy. The air in question is the quantity contained within your dive cylinder. For example, air weighs 1.293 grams per litre. The air in a 12-litre cylinder, filled with 200 bar, weighs 3.103 kg. When the 12-litre cylinder (2,400 litre) reaches 50 bars, the air weighs .775 kg. Though it may seem trivial, this weight must be considered to avoid being too positively buoyant at the end of a dive after most of your air has been used.

Dave Lock, BSAC National Diving Committee adviser, commented: “Correct weighting of a diver can mean the difference between a comfortable, effortless dive or misery with constant adjusting of buoyancy in the BCD or drysuit.

“Many instructors overweight their students to make their life easier, this goes forward into the diver thinking they need much more weight than they do.

A simple rule of thumb is to start with ten percent of body weight for UK sea diving (seven percent for freshwater) with an appropriate protective suit and single cylinder. This obviously will need adjusting for different types of suit, cylinder types and size plus body fat. You’ll need to get in the water to try this and should be able to hold position at 3m with cylinders that are at reserve level.

“Having the correct weight for buoyancy is good practice, however, correct weight alone does not always solve the problems of balance and control; weight needs to be evenly distributed about the body so as to achieve optimum buoyancy for the type of diving to be undertaken. This is known as trim and can be achieved by moving the cylinder in the BCD or moving the weightbelt to a

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better position on the diver’s body. If you have integral weights in your BCD there are usually trim and weight pockets higher up to allow for adjustment.”

Mark Powell, Business Development Manager for TDI/SDI, said: “The first step to good buoyancy control is correct weighting. It is a fact that the majority of divers carry too much weight. This ranges from a couple of kilos to tens of kilos overweight.

Again, this is not just restricted to novices. Experienced divers are often over-weighted, some to a remarkable extent.

“There are many reasons why divers dive over-weighted. Sometimes it stems right back to their initial training, where they are encouraged to start off with more weight than is needed so that during their confined water and initial open water dives they can focus on basic skills. Unfortunately, this has the effect of getting the student comfortable when they are negatively buoyant. In conjunction with this, trainee divers are often worried about the risk of a rapid ascent. They mistakenly add extra weight in an effort to ensure that they do not have a rapid ascent without realising that by doing this they are actually increasing the risk rather than decreasing it.”

Mark concluded: “It is good practice for all divers, no matter how experienced, to do a buoyancy check at the start of each diving season, midway through the diving season, whenever they dive with a new or different kit configuration, if they haven’t dived for a while, or if they are diving in a different environment, for example moving from freshwater to seawater, or vice versa.” n

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Phuket Dive Guide

THAILAND is world-renowned for its diving, and PHUKET is the gateway to some of the best sites, as well as offering a whole host of other daytime and nocturnal activities Photographs by AL HORNSBY

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ention Phuket, Thailand, and most people envision long, sandy beaches, mountainous jungles and a party scene like no other. As Thailand’s best-known holiday island, Phuket is a world headquarters for revellers, with not only friendly locals, but crowds of people from around the globe – from Britain, Scandinavia, Italy, Russia and Australia, especially – there simply to have a good time. Accommodations run from five-star resorts and private bungalows to hostels and everything in between. Restaurants line the streets; besides local Thai and always-popular sushi, there are many others, especially European eateries, usually run by ex-pat visitors who decided they just couldn’t leave. And, the club scene… it’s electric, as funky as you could want it, and amazingly inexpensive.

Of course, there is also Thai massage, which is found everywhere and anywhere, in parlours, on the beach or in the hotels.

As to sporting options, there are many. While simply lying on some long stretch of beach or taking in the sights around town are never bad choices, you can instead hike to jungle waterfalls, golf, surf, kayak, elephant trek, rock-climb and mountain bike.

But, divers have a dirty little secret - there’s even more, much more. Indeed, Thailand’s most-exotic feature may actually be the incredible life that exists beneath the surface of the calm, warm waters of the surrounding Andaman Sea, with Phuket its major access point.

With many dive operators and dive charter boats operating in Phuket, reaching both local sites and more-distant dive areas (on multi-day liveaboard trips) is easy. And, there is an incredible range of world-class diving to choose from, with a wonderful density of marine life and many different topographical features. Anemones, soft corals and gorgonian fans grow on huge, granite boulders and walls, creating unique underwater landscapes. There are large schools of fish, rays, sharks and an assortment of macro-critters, plus a fascinating array of trademark creatures not often seen elsewhere, such as giant guitarfish and leopard sharks. And, if that isn’t enough, frequently, in the months of February through April, there are also mantas and whales.

DAY TRIPS

The most-popular day dives out of Phuket are conducted around several island groups within approximately one to two hours by boat. The visibility in the area is good, usually between 15 and 25 metres. These include: Anemone Reef – A submerged pinnacle 30km east of Phuket, it is a marine sanctuary. Its rocky ledges from 5-7m down are covered in anemones with clownfish, and soft corals; in the deeper areas, there are many large gorgonian fans. Dives are from near the surface to a maximum of 25m; moderate currents can be experienced. A good wreck dive, the King Cruiser, an 85-metre-long sunken car ferry, lies on the bottom just a kilometre away.

Koh (island in Thai) Racha Rai – One of two lovely islands about 20km south of Phuket, it has huge granite rocks above and below the surface, with lush coral growth and lots of reef fish, such as blue-ring angelfish and several species of butterflyfish. The water is typically calm and clear, with most dives averaging around 15m in depth, though the site reaches 30m. A number of different rays can be found in the sandy areas.

Koh Racha Noi – One of the most-dramatic day dive sites, with a maximum depth of 30m, the northern tip of the second of the Racha islands has huge boulders and pinnacles, with lots of fish and a healthy shark population, especially nurse sharks, leopard sharks and grey reef sharks. The southern tip is deeper, averaging 25m and exceeding 40m, with lots of soft corals on the boulders, and there is an old wooden shipwreck. The site features occasional sightings of mantas and whalesharks in the February-April season; currents can be moderately strong at times.

Hin Musang (Shark Point) – A line of three main pinnacles, one of which breaks the surface, the site is 1km southeast of Anemone Reef. With an average depth of 20m and a maximum of 24m, it is one of the most-popular Phuket day dives. It has lots of marine life, including sponges, gorgonians and big fish, such as trevally, barracuda and schooling snapper. A brilliant, soft coral-covered arch is a special spot, and a sandy bottom with a number of resident leopard sharks gives the site its name.

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THE PHI PHI ISLANDS

Located 48km southeast of Phuket, two-and-a-half hours by boat, the Phi Phi Islands are dived both as daytrips and by liveaboard. The islands are lovely, with two main islands and many jungle-covered islets jutting up from the water. The two most-popular sites are: Koh Bida Nok – A small island with a granite cliff face, its mountainous underwater terrain is formed by huge boulders, ledges and overhangs. The diving is from the surface to 30m, with little current. The scenery is dramatic, with the rocky faces covered with fans, sea whips and soft corals.

There are many fish, including ghost pipefish, seahorses and colourful reef tropicals. leopard sharks are commonly seen in the sand, and mantas and whalesharks frequent the area in season.

Koh Bida Nai – A few hundred metres away, Bida Nai is a small islet that also features rock faces and granite boulders, averaging 20m of depth. It has an exquisite swimthrough filled with glassy sweeper, and around the coral bottom are many scorpionfish and lionfish. Large pelagics are frequently seen, and unusual bamboo sharks can be found.

The site is also known for cuttlefish and squid, which can be closely approached and photographed.

“The site is for experienced divers, with the shallowest point at 8m and vertical walls dropping to 70m - it is said to have the deepest drop-off in Thai waters”

THE SOUTH

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Hin Daeng (Red Rock) – A solitary outcrop that barely breaks the surface of the sea, it is named for its thick covering of vibrant, red soft corals. Actually a series of walls and canyons that drop to 60m, it also has soft coral varieties in oranges and bright yellows, and many different species of sessile creatures, including sponges, gorgonians and anemones, fed by the currents that sweep across the intricate reef system. The beauty aside, Hin Daeng is famous for its large marine life - silvertip and grey reef sharks cruise by in the blue water, and mantas and whalesharks are regularly seen.

Hin Mouang (Purple Rock) – Just 500 metres to the southeast, Hin Mouang is a series of five pinnacles on a 200-metre-long, submerged ridge. The site is for experienced divers, with the shallowest point at 8m and vertical walls dropping to 70m - it is said to have the deepest drop-off in Thai waters. It has even more life than Red Rock, and it is described by some as ‘simply amazing’, and one of the best dives in Thailand. There are many soft corals, carpets of anemones and delicate hard corals, all jam-packed onto every available surface. Besides the numerous colourful tropicals and large rays, there are also many pelagic species seen here, including mackerel and barracuda.

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THE NORTH THE SIMILAN ISLANDS

Some 90km northwest of Phuket are the Similan Islands, nine larger islands and many smaller rock outcroppings that form the Mu Koh Similan Marine National Park.

These beautiful, jungle-covered isles are breathtaking – both above and below the waterline. The water typically is very clear, with visibility often exceeding 30 metres.

They offer many popular sites, some 26 being popularly dived, including the following: Beacon Point – On the south tip of Koh Similan, this site has large scattered boulders and profuse hard corals, and reaches 40m in depth. There are whitetip sharks and many schooling fish, plus many pelagic species. In sandy areas there are numerous stingrays, including blue-spotted ribbon-tailed rays, black-blotched rays and Jenkins rays.

Boulder City – Located some 200 metres south of Koh Payan, the dive site is a submerged jumble of huge, smooth-sided boulders and swim-throughs. The rock is decorated with many fans, soft corals and encrusting sponges.

Averaging 20m and reaching 30m in depth, it is an exciting dive, with eagle rays and mantas. There is a resident school of bumphead parrotfish, and dogtooth tuna and Napoleon wrasse are frequently seen.

Hin Pousar (Elephant Rock) – Just south of Koh Similan, several rounded rocks extending above the surface of the water provide a remarkable site – one of the Similan’s most-famous - that cannot be fully explored even in several dives. The boulders rise from the bottom nearly 50m down, their sheer sides covered with purple and white soft corals.

The jumble of rock creates meandering passageways, with every wall splashed with colour from sponges, corals and seafans. Schools of fusiliers, sweetlips and batfish swirl about, and black grouper move through the rock tunnels.

Currents can be strong at times.

“Richelieu Rock, at the park’s southeast corner, is a rough spire that just breaks the surface some nine miles off the southern tip of Surin Tai” 38

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LIVEABOARD DIVING Even more dramatic diving is reached by Phuket’s many liveaboard boats, which run trips typically from two to six days in length. There is a southern route that dives the Phi Phi Islands and the Ko Lanta Marine Park, and a northern run that reaches Thailand’s best-known diving in the Similan and Surin Islands.

THE SURIN ISLANDS

Some 100km to the north of the Similans are the remote Surin Islands, forming the Mu Surin Marine National Park. A collection of beautiful, forest-covered islands, the Surins feature perhaps the single-most-dramatic dive site in Thailand - Richelieu Rock, at the park’s southeast corner, is a rough spire that just breaks the surface some nine miles off the southern tip of Surin Tai. Rising from a gravel bottom at 30m, the crag is small enough to be easily circumnavigated in less than 30 minutes. It is difficult to describe the incredible density and scope of the life that surrounds this lonely ocean pinnacle. My log of my first two dives on Richelieu documented the following: two to three-metre-long giant guitarfish (one of which gave me a rare photograph); huge schools of trevally, cobia, snapper, blackfin barracuda and batfish; eight lionfish of two species; five species of clownfish; a pair of cuttlefish guarding a single egg; a three-metre nurse shark; a leopard shark; a six inch-long mantis shrimp; several yellow-margined morays and an unusual reticulated moray; a ten-inch-long murex shell laying eggs; and three species of scorpionfish – not to even mention the usual rich assortment of angelfish, butterflyfish, triggerfish, chromis, damsels and fusiliers swarming around gorgonians, sponges, crinoids and brilliantly-coloured soft corals. And if this remarkable place needed anything more, as I was to later discover, between February and April, whalesharks are frequently seen.

For anyone wishing to combine truly great diving with a fantastic, the-sky’s-the-limit holiday, Phuket is inarguably unique. It simply has to make any fun-lover’s ‘don’t miss it’ list. n

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WHY WIDE ANGLE? Wide-angle photographs are the images with that ‘wow factor’ you see gracing the pages of Scuba Diver, and here DUXY explains how they are achieved PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAUL ‘DUXY’ DUXFIELD

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n short, because they’re worth it. Newcomers will often baulk at the costs of the wide-angle lens that is designed for their camera and housing, but listen up, because I’m going to give you some good reasons for lashing out potentially hundreds of pounds on a chunk of glass that, at first glance, doesn’t appear to do much. Or, at the very least, make the future purchase of a supplemental wide-angle lens a major consideration when buying a camera that you intend to use underwater.

One of the commonest questions I get asked by people starting out is that they will say ‘why are my pictures so flat and blue?’, or words to that end. They often think that their camera isn’t good enough, or that they aren’t pressing the right buttons or something. It’s much simpler than this, though, but first you need to understand a couple of things…

WATER ISN’T NEARLY AS CLEAR AS YOU THINK IT WAS

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Even if you’re in the so-called gin-clear waters of a Mexican cenote, or the deep blue waters hanging off a wall in the Egyptian Red Sea, then the clarity falls off much quicker than it does in air. You’ll hear people talking about 30-plus metres of vis, but this is a moot point.

Does that mean things are so clear that you can define things underwater just as well as if you were standing 30 metres away on land? No, of course not. You only have to put your head underwater in the filtered conditions of a swimming pool to realise that things become much less distinct only ten metres or so away. And for the sort of colourful underwater pictures that I’m sure you want to emulate, then you need to do one very simple thing - get close, and then get closer still. This will mean that you are shooting through much less water and the less the better.

This is fairly obvious if you’re shooting tiny stuff.

And with most cameras with a kit lens, either DSLR, mirrorless or compact, then you may well be only a few inches away. And if you get enough light on your subject with a strobe, either external or built in, then your pictures should be lovely, colourful and crystal clear. Which is where most people come adrift.

They know their camera can do the colourful clear stuff, but as soon as they try and shoot anything

bigger than a macro shot, then the quality suddenly drops, and the pictures start to become drab and less dynamic. This has often had the effect of lowering confidence levels, because it may not be immediately obvious why this is happening. In their mind’s eye they are seeing the shot they want to take.

They’re experiencing the magnificent bow of a wreck, or the gaping mouth of a whaleshark, but the pictures they’re getting aren’t matching up to their expectations.

In my experience over the course of many workshop trips, I have found these problems keep cropping up, enough for me to now pre-empt this happening. Some people are quite forthright and will complain about their results, but others will just clam up and blame what they see as an inadequacy on their part.

So, I will try to head off this behaviour at the pass, and explain that it’s not their fault, it’s just simple physics to blame.

When you stop and think about it, what is happening is quite easy to understand. If you are shooting something quite large underwater, like a wreck, a huge coral head or maybe even your buddy, then you may well have to retreat a few metres, maybe more to get the whole subject in frame. Just as you would on land. However, if you’re shooting with a regular kit lens on your camera, regardless of the type, then the lens at its widest is quite a modest wide angle, and if you then add the factor of the water magnifying its angle of view, making it quite a bit less wide angle, then you’ll find yourself shooting through much more water than you thought between you and the subject.

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And so, if you could only go much wider, then you could get really close and get everything in shot at the same time, and everything would be clearer and sharper as a result. This is why add-on wide angle and fisheye lenses exist for underwater use, but here is where the potential buyer needs to be very aware.

If you’re in the market for a new camera that you want to take underwater, then you really deserve it to yourself to check that you can attach a sufficiently wide-angle lens onto it in some way or another.

If you have a camera with an interchangeable lens, then the chances are much higher that you can either buy an external wide-angle lens designed to be removed and put on underwater. Or better still a dedicated fisheye lens that you put onto the camera itself and then use a special dome port to allow the lens to work correctly underwater.

Most people though start off with a compact camera of some sort, but please get some advice before buying, from a proper underwater photographic retailer, as to the suitability of your intended purchase.

Or you could always drop me a line or Facebook me on my dedicated Duxy Trips Page. I make it my business to keep up-to-speed with all aspects of current underwater photographic tech, and sadly not all cameras are created equal particularly in this regard.

My personal experience of working within underwater photography retail is that people can, and do, make expensive mistakes when buying a camera for underwater use. So, if you have a camera in mind, or have already bought one,

MY ESCORTED TRIPS

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A great way to learn how to use new kit and develop your skills is on a dedicated trip. My escorted trips are for all and if you have a GoPro or compact, I can improve your skills and realise your full potential in an easy-going, relaxed environment. If you’re a more-experienced shooter, my itineraries and locations are carefully picked to be very photographically productive.

My first this year is at Marsa Nakari on 27 September - contact Oonasdivers on 01323 648924 and speak or email: Lydia@oonasdivers.com I will help you have a great holiday, and improve your photo skills along the way. I have further trips to the Philippines and two more to the Red Sea this year, both land-based and on a liveaboard. You can access more trip info on Facebook with my Duxy Trips Page, or contact Oonasdivers, or Ultimate Diving on 0800 112 3275 or email: Marcelina@ultimatediving.co.uk

www.oceanleisurecameras.com

then please just ask - it won’t cost you a thing to email me, and may save you a fortune in the long term.

The next question I’m usually asked is ‘what’s the difference between a wide angle and a fisheye?’ This terminology is used a lot, and can confuse beginners, as a fisheye lens is a wide-angle lens, but not all wide-angle lenses are fisheye.

Confusing or what?

Normally when referring to a wide-angle lens that is attached to a housing, then they will have an angle of view (AOV) of around 100 degrees, and a fisheye is simply a much wider angle again, usually from 130 to 180 degrees AOV. All this means is that you can get even closer with a fisheye lens so you’re shooting through even less water, and the less water then the sharper and more colourful your picture.

The downside is that fisheye lenses also distort the picture so that straight lines become bowed, and the greater perspective distortion means that anything close looks huge in the frame and recedes very quickly into the distance. For most of us though, this is the lesser of two evils, as we will take the distortion on the chin in return for sharper, clearer shots.

This becomes even more of a big deal if the visibility is poor i.e. shooting in plankton-rich water, or you’re a regular diver in the UK or other less-clear conditions. So, when shooting anything bigger than macro subjects, it becomes almost a necessity to shoot super wide.

If you own a GoPro or similar, one of the things that has made them so popular with underwater photographers is that they come ready equipped with a super wide-angle lens.

This does mean that they aren’t that good at shooting really small subjects and they don’t actually focus that close, but as an all-in-one solution they’ve become quite popular as you don’t need to spend anything extra on a wider angle lens.

So why not just buy a GoPro and have done with it? Well, a GoPro is a great Jack of all trades, being able to shoot video and stills, but it’s not very good at macro photography, and it doesn’t have a built-in flash - so it can’t trigger an external strobe, which you will find will restrict you in the long term.

Far better to spend the same amount of money on a decent camera that can shoot stills and HD video but will also trigger a strobe, etc. You don’t need to spend a fortune to get something very capable and flexible.

Okay, you’ve seen the light about getting a wide-angle lens, start slowly and especially if you’re more used to shooting macro subjects, give yourself time to learn. It won’t happen immediately that you’ll get good results, and you’ll possibly have to work a bit harder if you’re entrenched into a macro mindset.

Get close to your subjects. I try and find something to place prominently in the foreground - this has the effect of leading the eye into the shot. You can also start playing with illuminating the scene with your strobes if you have one, although at first my advice is to start with some good available light shots with your new wide-angle lens, as this will boost your confidence and encourage you to try more.

Have fun, shoot lots, and play around with the new angles and possibilities that a wide-angle lens will give you. n

BIOGRAPHY

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Since returning from Egypt working as a guide in the early noughties, Duxy has been at the forefront of underwater photography technology and how it has changed the way we all now take underwater photographs. Working as Sales Manager for the two leading underwater photography retailers, and more lately as the Photography Travel Specialist for a multi-award-winning dive travel agent, his light-hearted take on the diving world and underwater photography has resulted in him being a regular speaker at the Dive Shows and at clubs up and down the country, sharing his knowledge and experience with all levels and abilities of underwater photographer.

He likes nothing better than to get a beginner started on the route to rewarding pictures, and approaches the subject with an inclusive, rather than exclusive, manner.

He now has more than 40 escorted trips under his belt and is continuing to develop new ways to pass on the knowledge and share the love. He can be found on Instagram and Twitter @takeiteasyduxy and Facebook as Take iT Easy.

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Photo credits: Marjo Tynkkynen

2019 sees the anniversary of the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow, and an innovative project aims to mark this historic occasion in the manner it deserves.

The 100th anniversary of the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet falls on 21 June 2019. The Scapa 100 Initiative aims to commemorate this event, to promote Scapa Flow and the Orkney Islands, and to promote and support related historically important events. This will be achieved with a series of individual projects and events all with Scapa Flow as the unifying theme. It is a hoped that 2019 will see the culmination of these individual projects and a series of organised events and visitor attractions to mark the anniversary, and the significance of Scapa Flow as a whole.

The initiative will gather as wide a group of stakeholders as possible, and provide a forum to build a community and allow a working collaboration.

For inclusion in the Scapa 100 Initiative, projects should fulfil one or more of the following criteria: • Commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the German Fleet in Scapa Flow on 21 June 2019 • Promote and support historically important related events • Promote Scapa Flow • Promote quality diving-related activities in Orkney • Promote Orkney’s maritime, naval and wartime heritage • Explore the educational opportunities which arise during the project Projects should be self-sustaining, and funding sources should be sought by the individual projects, etc. They can be self-promoting, but should not detract from the greater project, and should be in the spirit of the collaboration.

Projects which meet these requirements may use the Scapa 100 branding, and the Scapa 100 website (www.scapa100.org) and Facebook page (www.facebook/ scapa100/) can be used to promote projects and to disseminate information.

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BATTLESHIP EXPLORER

3D photogrammetry is at the forefront of many current underwater projects and expeditions, and in the Orkney Islands it has been central to the HMS Hampshire and HMS Vanguard surveys - and is at the core of the new Battleship Explorer project, which is part of the Scapa 100 Initiative.

The ambitious aim is to create a complete 3D model of SMS Markgraf. To this end, the MV Halton and MV Huskyan have joined forces to host a unique 3D photogrammetry workshop in Scapa Flow from 29 October to 3 November. There are eight spaces available aboard each boat, and the week will include six days of tuition and diving, and seven nights accommodation (Team Halton will sleep onboard the boat, Team Huskyan will be in the recently renovated Divers Lodge in Stromness). Cost per person is £950.

The week will be split between surface and underwater sessions, with the focus on a practical hand’s-on approach. Areas covered will include a basic introduction to 3D photogrammetry, details of what equipment is needed, correct data-capture techniques, how to create and scale a model, and then how to use the models in virtual reality and 3D printing.

3D Photogrammetry credit: Kari Hyttinen

Heading up the team will be Professor Chris Rowland from the University of Dundee, leading technical instructor Kieran Hatton, photogrammetry expert Kari Hyttinen, and Newcastle University’s Dr Clare Fitzsimmons.

This is not a course for experts, but a minimum diving level is required, as is a certain amount of equipment. To get the most out of the workshop, you need to have a minimum qualification of PADI Rescue Diver with nitrox cert (or equivalent), have a drysuit, and then either 15-litre and pony/twin set for open circuit or a CCR (minimum Recreational Rebreather 30m certification). Minimum camera equipment is a GoPro Hero 3 or equivalent, or a DSLR/mirrorless stills camera with twin strobes, and a laptop with one-month free trial of Agisoft software.

For more information, or to book on to either boat, email: info@huskyan.com n

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SCHOLARSHIP DIARY

The Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society is a non-profit, educational organisation whose mission is to promote educational activities associated with the underwater world. It has offered scholarships for over 35 years. owuscholarship.org

MEMOIRES OF A MERMAID PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF MAE DORRICOTT

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et me introduce myself; my name is Mae Dorricott, from a little village in the North West of England, and I’ve always had a fascination with the sea.

Awe is the perfect word to describe how I feel towards marine environment and consequently it holds a very special place in my heart. So, to be presented as the 2017 European Rolex Scholar is truly a dream that has now breached my reality, and I’m only beginning to realise how awesome the next year is going to be. A huge thank you to the Our-World Underwater Scholarship Society and Rolex for making this happen!

So, how did I land this incredible opportunity? Well, I have the privilege of having a mother from Malaysia and her family loves exploring their tropical coastline.

We used to snorkel around the islands discovering the array of life the reefs held. But I distinctly remember the moment divers swam underneath me, blowing bubbles in my face and that was that. I wanted to be underneath the waves with them. My father, then followed my brother, learnt how to dive and I was itching to get involved too. As soon as was old enough I signed up and it’s snowballed from there.

Since then I have made my way up to a PADI Divemaster, a BSAC Dive Leader and Assistant instructor, completed my Part 4 HSE commercial diver qualification and have had experience on marine conservation bases. I’ve recently graduated from Plymouth University in Marine Biology, after having an absolute ball, and now have an innate passion to contribute to resolving our plastic pollution issue. At this moment in time I am half way through a Masters in scientific communication, an important tool I feel is needed in my arsenal to reconnect others to this environment that many of us truly care about.

I’ve recently landed back from New York, where the 2016 Scholars showcased their year and we were announced as the shiny new Scholars. The whole experience was such an amazing whirlwind-blur. The one thing I’ve taken away from it however, is the incredible experiences this Scholarship offers and I cannot wait for my first. It’s quite an overwhelming situation when you’re offered the chance to do whatever you like around the world (within means). Where and what do you do first?

Well, firstly I want to develop more as a diver by pushing myself in terms of technicality and environment. I’m also intrigued to see a range of marine biology research in action and want to probe marine scientists in the field about why what they’re doing really matters! I especially want to see and learn how current research is communicated to others outside of academia. A lot can happen in a year, so, watch this space… I’ll be watching it with you, too. n

WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

Mae Dorricott

WIN! A ONEOFF CUSTOMISED CANVAS PRINT FROM NICK ONEILL WORTH £550!

Scuba Diver has teamed up with British marine life artist extraordinaire Nick Oneill to give one lucky reader the chance to walk away with a one-off customised canvas print of ‘High Speed Pass’ which has been reworked by hand to make it truly unique. The artist-embellished print (seen above) is framed and ready to hang with an overall size of 775mm x 500mm, and is worth £550.

To be in the running to win this amazing piece of wall art, simply log on to the website: www.scubadivermag.com/competition and fill in your contact details. It’s as easy as that NB: The closing date is 14th July, and the editor’s decision is final.

NICK ONEILL

Nick is a British artist who specialises in contemporary marine art. Growing up among a family of divers, his passion for the sea grew during holidays to destinations by the Red Sea, Caribbean, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Nick’s first diving adventures took place at an early age, allowing him to experience firsthand the vibrancy and amazing textures of the magnificent fish. Although he had been snorkelling for years already, learning to scuba dive at age 11 allowed Nick to experience the unique effects of light streaming through water and the changes in colours when in deep water.

Nick’s experience and artistic talent allowed him to develop a unique style of painting, which combines the technique of using pure colour on a dark background, as invented by the 16th-century Venetian artist Giorgione, with the vibrant colours and truth to nature practiced by the 19th-century pre-Raphaelite artists, like William Holman Hunt.

Nick now spends a lot of time in the Cayman Islands, diving and snorkelling with his favourite subjects.

His stunning works have been highly acclaimed by collectors and the press, appearing in Sport Diver magazine, Marlin, Crest magazine and has been selected as a finalist in the prestigious DSWF International Wildlife Artist of the Year Competition every year since 2010, with his work Highly Commended in 2012, 2014 and 2015. www.nickoneillart.co.uk

THE DARK WATER GALLERY

Featuring the work of Nick Oneill and other guest artists, the Dark Water Gallery is the first gallery dedicated to marine life art in the UK. The gallery stocks everything from huge original artwork to prints, sculptures, T-shirts, jewellery and gifts.

Dark Water Gallery, 36 Meeting House Lane, Brighton, BN11 1HB. www.thedarkwatergallery.com

VERTICAL BLUE 2017 WHERE LEGENDS ARE BORN

In a small corner of the Bahamas is a place where, every year, 40 world-class athletes from over a dozen different countries flock to compete in the world’s deepest freedive challenge.

STEPHAN WHELAN – founding father of DeeperBlue.com and our freediving guru – looks at this year’s Vertical Blue event Photographs by DAAN VERHOEVEN

T

his elite depth-competition is the premier sporting event of the year for the world’s most-talented competitive freedivers – dubbed the ‘Wimbledon of Freediving’ by the NY Times – and this tenth incarnation of the event saw everything set to be an epic showdown. Tension and excitement for the event is well deserved, as freediving world and national records are regularly smashed during the nine days of competition at the infamous Deans Blue Hole.

Day one of Vertical Blue 2017 was a bit of a mixed bag. Energy around the competition was high, but perhaps too much adrenaline was running through the veins of a few of the athletes (as well as some rather stormy clouds and rain) as the field resulted a good number of disqualifications for a number of reasons, but thankfully also 18 glorious white cards and five shiny new national records.

One of the most-anticipated records was set by Aolin Wang of China, who kicked off his second appearance at Deans Blue Hole with a strong dive to 100m Constant Weight (CWT) — making him the first Chinese freediver to ever reach 100m, and granting him entry to a very-exclusive club.

Alex Davis of Barbados achieved his country’s inaugural national record of 76m Free Immersion (FIM) on his first dive at the competition, which is extra special since Vertical Blue 2017 is actually also his first ever.

Hopes ran high that Alessia Zecchini of Italy, a regular on the Italian CMAS circuit but relative newcomer to the AIDA international stage, would grab her first AIDA World Record in free immersion, but she ran out of gas before she could reach the surface.

NEW IN FREEDIVING GEAR simplyscuba W W W . S I M P LY S C U B A . C O M

DeeperBlue.com is the World’s Largest Community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. We’ve been dedicated to bringing you the freshest news, features and discussions from around the underwater world since 1996.

The weather gods at Deans Blue Hole seemed to be more co-operative on day two of Vertical Blue 2017 (#VB2017), and after a capricious start to the international event, the preceding day, the diving, the divers and the wind seemed to calm down a bit. With only 18 announced performances, the mood was calmer and the schedule less hectic, which was manifest by the eight clean and consecutive white card performances in the first session of the day.

The day ultimately revealed another five national records for Italy, Mexico, Germany and New Zealand. “Due per Due!” (Two for Two!) beamed Homar Leuci as he nabbed his second new national record in as many days.

Day two was a great day for Germany; both Stefan Randig and Timothy Oehmigen successfully executed white card dives to take home titles in FIM and CWT, respectively, for Deutschland.

Event organiser William Trubridge was not as lucky as his fellow Kiwi Kate Middleton (who set a new national record of 92m in Constant Weight) - after completing a monster no-fins dive to 90m, the 18-times world record holder was disqualified by the judges for not completing the right protocol on surfacing and sadly handed a red card.

Day three of Vertical Blue 2017 was a stunner. An additional six more national records were set and (not that anyone doubted it) Alexey Molchanov of Russia cemented his place in history as the king of constant weight with a re-confirmation of a world record. In a dive time of three minutes and 50 seconds, the affable ‘golden retriever’ of apnea demonstrated that a 129m dive under constant weight is not only doable but easily repeated for someone like Alexey Molchanov. With his sister watching from the platform, alongside many fans at the comp and hundreds of internet viewers online, Alexey surfaced to flash a

OVERALL WINNERS MEN:

• Alexey Molchanov taking home gold (for the first time).

• William Trubridge taking home silver.

• Morgan Bourc’his taking bronze.

NEW IN SPEARFISHING GEAR simplyscuba W W W . S I M P LY S C U B A . C O M

winning smile, his super shiny new steel nose clip, and an absolutely clean surface protocol.

Including Molchanov’s, there were a total 24 performances, which yielded 19 white cards, three yellow and two red cards. Immediately after Alexey, William Trubridge took centre stage to try his hand at free immersion. With the pressure mounting, since his first no-fins dive was foiled and his main competitor just delivered a resounding world-record nudge, William needed to make his 116m depth and do so in clean fashion - which is exactly what he did.

Continuing a vexing trend, Alessia Zecchini of Italy found that her world-record attempt did not conclude in the manner in which she envisioned.

The spirited freediver was sorely disappointed that she did not have a clean dive and that she received another red card. In the aftermath of a second debacle at the competition, the other competitors rallied to her side and encouraged her to try again.

The visibility in Deans Blue Hole was nearly picture perfect on Day Four of Suunto Vertical Blue 2017. And so was the position that Michael Board of Great Britain found himself in. The man who became the first Brit to ever reach 100m propelled himself down to an astonishing 106m under constant weight on this, the fourth day of the competition (and the first day of the second act.) The truth is Board actually achieved a personal best dive of 107m on this dive, but he only gets to count what he announced. In any event, it was a celebratory white card day for the former Royal Marine.

It was also a great day for Alex Davis of Barbados, who nabbed his third national record at the comp to complete a tidy hat-trick. Davis is the first male record holder ever for Barbados.

On day five competitive freediver Hanako Hirose herself was in perfect condition to not only achieve a new national record for Japan, but to set the bar for other female freedivers, which set the stage for an epic showdown later in the competition (more on that later!)

A petite and bubbly blonde, Hanako’s small frame and sweet personality bely the steely strength and power that she possesses. In a dive time of three minutes 26 seconds Hanako became the first Jap-

anese woman ever to 100m depth. Simultaneously she took on an even bigger mantle of being the first female freediver to successfully complete such an amazing dive to 100m in a competition after the legendary Natalia Molchanova.

It was befitting that Natalia’s daughter, Oksana Molchanova, was in the arena watching Hanako and performing at the event herself as a judge. It all somehow felt like the torch was being passed and that the future of freediving for the ladies was shining brightly.

Day six was an epic and dramatic day replete with seven new national records and one massive new world record by Alessia Zecchini of Italy.

The day started off at an unusually early hour for the event organiser, William Trubridge, who was determined to offer a clean performance in his preferred discipline as his two previous attempts at 90m Constant Weight No Fins (CNF) had only yielded him red cards (and skepticism from some parts of the internet).

Despite the wind and the rain and the cold temperature, the water clarity in the blue hole remained crystal clear and so was the focus of Davide Carrera, who garnered his first national record of the comp with a constant weight dive to 114m; and the first of the day’s three triumphs for Italy.

After Davide, Aolin Wang of China and Stephane Tourreau of France suffered at the hands of time by elongating their surface protocols by two seconds too much, to sadly receive red cards. And then it was Alessia’s turn. Her slight frame, coupled with the increasingly bad weather, made it seem like the day would not turn in her favour.

But then the clouds broke, the rain stopped, the wind subsided and Alessia entered the arena. Everyone watching was literally holding their breath, and with an enormous sigh, exploded into cheers as the Italian phenom broke the surface. Alessia had corrected her mistakes from before, she kept her hand and her eyes on the line and delivered a timely protocol to ultimately receive the biggest white card of her diving career.

“It is like a dream come true!” shared Zecchini “I have wanted this record since I was a little girl watching Natalia Molchanova. To have reached my goal

NEW IN FREEDIVING GEAR simplyscuba W W W . S I M P LY S C U B A . C O M

OVERALL WINNERS

WOMEN:

• Sayuri Kinoshita taking home gold.

• Kate Middleton taking home silver.

• Estrella Navarro Holm taking the bronze.

after so many mistakes is very rewarding. The happiness I feel is so great!”

The final few days of Vertical Blue 2017 started in style with six new national records, including Russian powerhouse Alexey Molchanov setting a new PB and national record in Free Immersion (FIM) with a 121m dive. It also began to show how the intense level of diving required at this event has begun to wear on the athletes - with five early turns, and three red cards, the stamina is slowing.

British freediver Dean Chaouche opened the days’ proceedings by taking a break from battling with fellow Brit Michael Board over Free Immersion (FIM) to set a new British National Record in Constant Weight No Fins (CNF) to 80m.

Germany was made proud after Stefan Randig finally took his place in the record books with a Free Immersion (FIM) dive to 94m. He had previous tried three other times to reach the record books but had to turn early. “FINALLY!” Randig shouted as he was given a white card from the judges.

In trend with the overall competition, the last couple of competitions days at Vertical Blue 2017 did not disappoint!

The last day of the event on Long Island would prove to be life-changing for a few athletes and historic for the entire sport of competitive freediving. On the penultimate day, two fearless women set two astonishing new world records, charting an iridescent course of the future for women’s freediving.

Japan’s Hanako Hirose rose to the occasion and etched her mark into history by setting a new world record to 103m under constant weight in a quick time of three minutes 32

seconds. It was a stellar (albeit expected) performance by the strong yet petite Japanese freediver, who has shown pitch-perfect progression and risen uniformly on the radar in the past few years. One short diver later, after Morgan Bourc’his set a new national record in free immersion for France, a feisty newcomer to the AIDA scene, Alessia Zecchini, returned to the dive line.

Having just set her first world record two days ago, all eyes were on Zecchini. She darted off on her dive with a whale of a splash from her mono-fin. Then it was as if the universe wanted to add to the heightened suspense of whether she would make it or not when the sonar readings were disrupted and neither the judges nor the viewing public knew if she had touched down at the plate at 104m or not.

And surprise some naysayers she did, as she surfaced with vigour, proudly displayed her tag, and fiercely climbed up the line to grab her place in the world record books with a clean and super speedy dive to 104m in a dive time of three minutes 25 seconds. Alessia’s meteoric rise was complete.

It was a story-book ending to a fantastic competition that yielded a total of three world records and an incredible 47 national records in total.

At the closing ceremonies, event organiser Trubridge heartily thanked his hard-working crew, the gracious residents of Long Island for their hospitality, and Suunto for being such a reliable sponsor for Vertical Blue and the burgeoning sport of freediving. n

NEW IN SPEARFISHING GEAR simplyscuba W W W . S I M P LY S C U B A . C O M

VERTICAL BLUE 2017 The ‘Bluffers Guide’ To Vertical Blue freediving disciplines During the course of Vertical Blue, or in fact any freediving competition you may have read about, you’ll hear all sorts of acronyms and ‘disciplines’ being banded around. While different freediving agencies use slight variations, the basics are the same.

Vertical Blue is a depth competition (as opposed to a pool-based competition) so in an effort to de-mystify things, here are what the three disciplines in the competition are all about: Constant Weight (CWT) - Probably the most-common depth version of freediving. The diver descends on a line using either bi-fins or a monofin and typically a wetsuit and a small amount of weight.

The diver is not allowed to pull on any guide ropes or change the weight used.

Constant Weight No Fins (CNF) - In this discipline the diver wears a wetsuit and a small amount of weight without the need of any type of fin. The diver uses only muscle strength to propel them downwards and back up again. This is generally regarded as the most difficult and pure discipline from a sporting perspective.

Free Immersion (FIM) - This discipline is similar to Constant Weight No Fins in that the diver uses only a wetsuit and a small amount of weight, however in this case the diver can only use the guide rope for propulsion. You see divers doing this discipline both in a ‘head down’ and ‘head up’ position.

THE BRITS BATTLE IT OUT

Not to be outdone, the British contingent at Vertical Blue also kept the drama high. Three British freedivers competed at the nine-day competition - Michael Board, Dean Chaouche and Georgina Miller.

Michael Board, a former Royal Marine Commando, was the first British man to freedive to 100m in 2013. He owns and runs a freediving school and yoga centre in Gili Trawangan, Indonesia, called Freedive Gili and Gili Yoga. Dean Chaouche is, with his most-recent performance, one of the top ten deepest divers in the world in the Constant Weight No Fins (CNF) discipline. He is a freediving instructor at Team Vertical Blue in the Bahamas. Georgina runs Aquacity Freediving in Cornwall and is a six-time UK national freediving record holder.

All three athletes performed exceptionally well during the course of the competition, achieving the following final results in their chosen disciplines: • Michael Board: Constant Weight to 108m (new British national record); and Free Immersion to 100m (also new British national record).

• Dean Chaouche: Constant Weight No Fins: 80m (new British national record).

• Georgina Miller: CWT: 54m CNF: 33m FIM: 44m (Georgina placed sixth overall at the competition among a very strong field).

Commenting on his performance, Michael Board said: “After two years of struggling to find the way to dive deeper, this year seems to be a breakthrough year for me. Vertical Blue was a tough competition this year with so many good, deep freedivers from around the world really pushing hard and trying to dive deeper than ever. However, I trained well for this competition. After rupturing my eardrum last year just before the competition started and not being able to compete, I was really motivated to come back strong.

“I started the competition well on the first day (30 April) with a dive to 104m in the constant weight discipline, which was one metre deeper than my British record of 103m from 2014. However, I got a penalty point for losing the tag on the swim up and so it did not qualify as a new record. This was disappointing, but gave me confidence as I had achieved the depth and knew I could dive deeper. On the second day of the competition, fellow British freediver Dean Chaouche dived to 98m in Free Immersion, breaking my own national record in this discipline by one metre. This threw down the gauntlet and I knew I would have to try and dive deeper to regain it later in the competition.

“On 4 May, day four of the competition, I did a dive to 106m in constant weight in a dive time of just two minutes 59 seconds. This bettered my last British record which was a dive to 103m in December 2014.”

He continued: “After the success of this dive I decided to have a crack at taking back the British free immersion record on day five. So on 5 May, I did a dive to 100m, adding two metres on the record set by Dean just five days before.

“Finally, on day nine of the competition, I decided to try for an even bigger dive in constant weight and dived to 108m, also in two minutes 59 seconds, adding a further two metres to the British record I had set a few days before.

This also put me in the third place position with a bronze medal in the constant weight discipline - my first podium finish after five years of competing at Vertical Blue!”

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REDISCOVER YOURSELF

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BRAVO COSTA BRAVA

STUART PHILPOTT makes the short hop to Spain and finds that Cala Joncols offers a diverse mix of dive sites to keep even the most-hardcore diver satisfied Photographs by STUART PHILPOTT

F

irst impressions can sometimes be deceptive, but when Jan Boelen, the owner of Euro-Divers in Spain, said the Cala Joncols hotel reminded him of Fawlty Towers, I thought ‘oh s***, what have I let myself in for?’ I had visions of complete mayhem and disaster, with balmy Basil goose-stepping around the corridors all night long. Maybe I should have increased my life insurance policy before the visit? My concerns were further raised when Belgian-born Jan said the owner was called Manuel and he actually came from Barcelona. Que? This definitely had the makings of an entertaining week and I hadn’t even discussed the diving yet!

I booked a flight with one of the budget airlines from Gatwick to Girona. The transfer to Cala Joncols took about an hour, so there was plenty of time to quiz Jan on what other surprises lay in store for me. I noticed that Jan had some disturbingly similar ‘Basil’ traits. The moustache was missing, as were the ‘crazy eyes’, but there was a very distinctive loud laugh. Spending the past 15 diving seasons at the secluded little bay had probably taken its toll.

Jan turned out to be a really likeable character with bags of energy and enthusiasm. He began diving in 1991 and has worked in the Caribbean, Thailand and the Maldives. Even though Jan had been offered more prestigious dive centres under the Euro-Divers banner, he was content to stay at Cala Joncols. Jan had even bought an apartment in the nearby town of Roses, so there were no plans to move away just yet.

I arrived at the Cala Joncols hotel early evening and to my relief the place was nothing like Fawlty Towers. The three-storey building was surrounded by olive trees, shrubs, flowers and overhanging plants. From my balcony I could see the swimming pool, pebble beach and then the sea approximately 30-40 metres away.

The bay itself is flanked on either side by steep-sided cliffs. There were no other hotels, restaurants or bars in the vicinity, so don’t expect a pub crawl. Everybody congregated around the patio area at dinner time. Clientele was mainly German, French and Spanish

with a few Brits scattered about here and there.

Manuel Gomez Fernandez had worked at the hotel since 1968 and became the owner in 2000. It was 100-percent family owned and family run. There were 35 rooms and four bungalows (four people per bungalow) on offer. I had a good look around and could see that all of the white-washed rooms were well-maintained.

Some had ultra-modern bathrooms and sea-view balconies. On the ground floor there was a bar with wi-fi. This was definitely a full-on divers resort with a good number of rooms allocated for Euro-Divers clientele. The rest of the rooms were occupied by guests enjoying other outdoor activities including kayaking, walking and mountain biking. During my stay the hotel was full of Thai Chi enthusiasts and a group of naturists. The crescent-shaped beach was big enough to accommodate everybody, although I did get an eyeful of bare flesh on a daily basis.

In the summer months the protected bay was full with yachts and power boats visiting the top-rated restaurant. Food is typically Spanish. Full-board diving guests are served up a set three-course menu every evening at around 7.30pm. There’s only one choice available but the kitchen will rustle up an alternative if someone has a specific dislike. Fresh fish in some form or other is normally on offer.

The whole diving set up runs extremely well and, in fact, it reminded me of a kind of ‘land-based’ liveaboard operation. A normal diving day consisted of two boat dives, the first at 10am and the second at 4pm. Jan said they offer double boat runs (four dives a day) in high season. There’s also unlimited shore diving and night dives available.

The main season is between April and November, but this peaks in July and August. Jan said the best time to visit is around September. The weather is still warm and the evenings are slightly cooler. I sat down and filled in the usual liability and release paperwork and was pleasantly surprised when Jan said ‘we don’t ask you to do a check dive. You have a qualification and a logbook. We treat everybody as a diver. We do a good briefing and then you do your dive. Divers don’t have to be guided’.

The core staff was made up of three full-time instructor/ dive guides (everybody spoke good English). Jan explained the logistics for a standard diving day which, in my case, started with an early morning swim followed by a leisurely breakfast. At around 9.30am, I grabbed all my kit from the drying/equipment room, put my semi-dry on and walked down to the beach carrying everything except a cylinder. The cylinders are filled every night and then brought down to the beachfront in a truck. 32 percent nitrox is free and most of the cylinders are 12-litre steel dumpies with twin valves. Jan said ‘we have had no major incidents. Nitrox for free helps’. Most of the divers were using nitrox on air profiles while keeping a close eye on depth limitations. When I had finished setting up my gear, I just walked to the water’s edge where the boat was waiting to pick us up.

Euro-Divers ran a hard boat capable of carrying up to 36 divers. This is owned by the hotel and skippered by one of Manuel’s sons. They offer 18 different dive sites inside the Cap de Creus natural park. Maximum on-water travel time to the furthest site is 20 minutes each way. The boat returns around 12.30pm and lunch is served at 1pm. This gave me a few hours for an afternoon siesta before repeating the same routine again at 3.30pm.

I managed to split my dives between macro and wide angle so I could get a good overall feel for the place. Water temp rises to a maximum of 24 degrees C in July and then starts to cool down in September. I was wearing a full 6mm suit without a hood and felt comfortable. Jan said

‘the diving here is very good for the Med’.

Cape Norfeu was Jan’s favourite dive site, so I was looking forward to experiencing it first-hand. I followed Jan down the mooring line and across the boulder-strewn seabed to a wall packed full of purple-coloured gorgonians. The sun was positioned perfectly for photos and the visibility topped 20 metres. I dropped down to 30m and was still nowhere near the bottom. Jan said dives were limited to a maximum depth of 40m, although I did see a few sneaky divers going deeper. We finned along the wall and then headed towards a shallow cave. There were a number of big grouper on show but they just wouldn’t let me get close enough for a picture. All in all, it was a great dive. Jan said ‘if you come here for big fish you will be disappointed’, but there was still plenty to see including free-swimming morays, banded bream and shoals of yellow-striped saupe.

Jan’s fish-spotting capabilities were called upon at a dive site called Norfeo. I found a wide range of species on show from nudis, gobies and scorpions to starfish, blennies and lobster.

My underwater time seemed to fly by. I watched the moray eels go into a trance-like state while being ‘cleaned’ by an army of bright-red prawns. One particular moray had about eight industrious little prawns in its mouth and on top of its head. The eel was so preoccupied I managed to get close enough for a really nice picture. The spiky purple nudis were not so easy to capture. Even the slightest current or surge would toss them backwards and forwards, making it difficult to get a clean in-focus picture.

Jan showed me a number of underwater caves dotted along the coastline. My favourite was known as La Caverna. We went through a wide post-box-shaped entrance which reduced to quite a tight squeeze further along, eventually surfacing inside a giant cave. When Jan shone his torch I could see hundreds of bats flying over our heads.

Jan told me that three seahorses had been spotted at La Virgen, so I joined a German-Swiss contingent on a seahorse hunt.

We spent more than an hour looking for seahorses but alas there was nothing to report. I found an interesting-looking nudi, which turned out to be quite a rare find, but not much else. The same group went back to the site for a night dive and actually found a seahorse - and got the picture to prove it.

I finished off my week’s diving at Punta Prima. The rocky seabed was carpeted in sticky snakelocks anemones. Jan guided me over to a huge rock swathed in gorgonians. Nestled in among the deep purples was a solitary bright yellow sea fan. Its positioning was difficult for a picture, but I managed to contort myself upside down with my head firmly wedged against the pebble bottom and get a reasonable picture.

Jan is often seen loitering around on the dive boat throughout

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“To be perfectly honest everything ran smoothly without any hiccups from the first moment I arrived at Girona until I returned back home a week later” WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

the season. He likes to keep an eye on the instructors and get any first-hand feedback from his clients just to make sure there aren’t any complaints. I noticed that the weekends were a lot busier than week days. Jan said that groups from France and Germany often popped over the border for a long weekend. Jan’s dive centre is both PADI and CMAS affiliated. He said ‘clubs can do their own training and use their own instructors if they want’.

Overall I had a great week at Cala Joncols. The resort is ideal for families, groups and clubs. All the facilities including food and accommodation are provided on site, the boat is big and spacious and there is easy access to shore diving. To be perfectly honest everything ran smoothly without any hiccups from the first moment I arrived at Girona until I returned back home a week later. In my mind this is the sign of a professionally run outfit that actually knows what they are doing and how to treat their clientele. The dive sites had marine life, but don’t expect to see an abundance of big animals (although there are mola-mola at certain times of the year). There were plenty of different-coloured anemones and gorgonians and definitely no shortage of photogenic moral eels.

I saw grouper on every site but they were easily spooked. Macro life was just about everywhere.

Quoting the iconic words of Mr Basil Fawlty himself ‘another satisfied customer, we should have him stuffed!’ n

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Dive Agency News Each month, we invite all the main dive training agencies to showcase new courses, forthcoming events, staff changes and promotions, and so on. scubadivermag.com/agencynews

TDI/SDI UK would like to congratulate Rob Sutherland and Jenny Lord on becoming the newest UK SDI Course Directors. Rob runs Cardiff Scuba and has been working towards Course Director with IT Mark Powell. As a CD, Rob can now run SDI Instructor Development courses and instructor crossovers at Cardiff Scuba. Jenny did her course in Egypt with German Regional Manager Juergen Hitzler. She is an accomplished technical diver who has previously worked in Dahab, but is now based in the UK. TDI/SDI Head Office has just announced that each and every student on all TDI/SDI courses will be sent QA questionnaires. This gives the ability to see what is happening in the field in regards to standards, customer service and instructional quality in real time. TDI/SDI is the only agency to have the hat-trick of quality measures; - Full member of RSTC and RSTC-Europe - ISO Accreditation by EUF - 100% course QA surveys Ifield Divers, an SDI club in Crawley, West Sussex, have four places now available on a diving weekend in Plymouth on charter boat Venture from 1-3 July. Accommodation also available. They will be diving the James Eagan Layne, Scylla and other local dive sites and wrecks. Max depth around 30m, so open to all divers with at least SDI Adventure Diver or equivalent.

The TDI and SDI newsletters are sent out once a month to anyone who has done a course with TDI or SDI. They are full of useful tips, opinion pieces and longer articles. If you would like to receive the newsletter, then simply go to: www.tdisdi.com/sdi-blog/ and sign up. www.tdisdi.com

EIGHTH GREAT NORTHERN INTERNATIONAL Over the Easter weekend, the eighth Annual Great Northern International Pool Freediving Competition returned to Manchester. For two days, freediving athletes pushed their lungs to the limit. PADI attended the event to witness first-hand these incredible freedivers hold their breath for, in one case, over six minutes. The athletes competed over two disciplines static and dynamic apnea – with the best time and distance combined determining the champion. The winner of the female category was Alice Hickson, while Adam Drzazga took first place in the men’s. PADI is proud to be a sponsor of the Great Northern International Pool Freediving Competition and wishes all those freedivers who attended the best of success as they train their minds and bodies to break records.

LIMITED-EDITION PADI REPLACEMENT CARD PADI Course Director and photographer Luke Inman captured an image of an inquisitive sea lion while diving Los Islotes. The image is being used for a limited-edition PADI replacement card, which is available now for a short time only.

“Near La Paz, Mexico, in the Sea of Cortez, Los Islotes is a nirvana for wild animal encounters. The sea lions there have provided me with some of my most-incredible wild animal interactions. They have inspired my photography, where I hope to capture the spirit of the sea lions and their home, Los Islotes. Through my photography I aim to illustrate and promote the importance of making stronger connections with wild animals and, perhaps, to foster a greater sense of conservation and nurturing of our planet,” said Luke.

To get your hands on this limited-edition card, visit: www. padi.com and follow the instructions for Certification Cards. In addition to this, PADI Pros can visit the PADI Pros’ Site to process their student’s replacement card. www.padi.com

GLOBAL UNDERWATER EXPLORERS

Global Underwater Explorers is pleased to announce three new GUE Rebreather Instructors. John Kendall (UK) and Stefano di Cosimo (Italy) are now GUE CCR Instructors and Chris le Maillot (Mexico) is now an RB80 Instructor. All three are long-time supporters and instructors for GUE, and so we are pleased that they will be offering rebreather training to our community of divers. For more information about the GUE Rebreather classes, as well as other classes, then please visit: www.gue.com

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RAID are immensely proud to announce the release of their brand-new cave programmes.

Having secured the expertise of cave diver extraordinaires Steve Lewis and Jill Heinerth to pen the cave range of manuals, the courses are based on cutting-edge techniques.

RAID have released Cave 1 and 2 Diver and Instructor plus Cave IT. All the cave programmes are technical open circuit and are completed using twinset or sidemount configuration.

Cave 1 is the cave fundamentals course and includes a range of modern manuals with quizzes and exams. The skills learned in this course are focused on diving caves safely and responding to emergencies while in the overhead environment. Divers are certified to make limited penetrations of up to 300 metres and can make one Tee to explore a passage. There are no gaps, or jumps included in Cave 1, but divers can use the rule of thirds rather than sixths.

The Cave 2 programme is a complex navigation course and expands on knowledge and skills already mastered in the Cave 1 program. The manuals are rich in graphics depicting jumps, gaps, tees, traverses, circuits, etc. Penetration is not limited and to that end, divers may complete limited decompression and use one stage cylinder.

After in-depth consultation with their dive centres and instructors, RAID have recently revolutionised their Open Water programme. By analysing and tweaking the course sequence, RAID have created a more-comprehensive programme that improves diver engagement and understanding while enhancing instructor flexibility. www.diveraid.com

We often refer to Calne Divers as an extension of our own families, by the nature of what we do and the close bond that builds up among the diving fraternity. One thing that often strengthens these bonds is a little project, such as the one we recently encountered.

A few months back, Calne Divers was contacted by the local BID (Business Improvement District) group, who work in conjunction with the local council and businesses to improve the area around Chippenham in Wiltshire. Would we be interested in doing another river clean? This hadn’t been done for about three years now, in this particular stretch of the river, so of course we would.

As you can probably tell we’ve done this a few times now, and because of this we seem to be gaining a bit of a reputation for it, for the good that it does, the profile it raises and the awareness of what lurks beneath the surface in some of our rivers.

After agreeing to be part of this planned day to clean up the area with other community groups, we set about putting a team together to organise ourselves and the task at hand, D/O Jamie King looked after the divers, project manager Charlie Lewis working on the risk assessment and the strategy plan of how we would face the task ahead, John Hunt being the land based dive supervisor on the day monitoring and controlling the activities, and Scott Barker liaising with the organising group of the whole project.

On the actual day we retrieved some 20 trollies, six or so bikes, a wheelchair from the local hospital, a crowd barrier, loads of traffic cones, road signs, scooters, skateboards, bottles, glasses, chairs and a whole array of items, for which the BID group and council were grateful in our assistance in removing them. Other factors to bear in mind, removing these items would stop swimmers getting snagged up and stops the river from damming up, with debris coming down the river fouling on them, and for our troubles we received a £200 donation to our club and a free hog roast lunch.

If you want a nice little community project, that is a challenge, why not approach your local council if you have a river or a lake nearby that needs attention and see what you can do - it certainly won’t do your club any harm and maybe some good, in raising the profile of your club and you may just end up recruiting a few new members along the way. www.saa.org.uk

BSAC has launched a new safety blog to help keep the safety focus of its training fresh in the minds of members and divers in the UK, and around the world, through an ongoing series of engaging and informative ‘bite-sized’ content.

Since its launch in April, the first posts of the new safety blog have gone down really well with UK divers, with over 10,000 views already.

Jessica Evans, BSAC Digital Marketing, said she was excited by the potential of the safety blog to support safe diving all year round.

“We hope that all UK divers read BSAC’s blog posts to keep their skills and safety knowledge fresh. We also hope they become a topic of conversation among divers in the club environment and to help reinforce BSAC’s safety messages.”

Content on the blog will be posted regularly and will include Safety Talk, BSAC’s established monthly safety column. The blogging platform allows for easy sharing on social media, so if you look after your club’s online presence, please share the blog with your club on Facebook and Twitter. You could even embed the posts on your website if you wish – please contact: marketing@bsac.com for support on how to do so, or for any help online.

Visit: www.bsac.com/blog to read the safety posts. www.bsac.com

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Egypt’s OFFSHORE MARINE PARKS The offshore marine parks of the EGYPTIAN RED SEA offer some of the best diving in the world, and now, with the standard of liveaboards ever-improving, you can enjoy them in abject luxury Photographs by MARK EVANS

E

veryone has their favourite dive locations. Thanks to my years heading up diving magazines, I have been fortunate to travel extensively, and so my ‘top dive sites’ list is rather long, but if I had to nail it right down to one location, the Egyptian Red Sea would undoubtedly come out on top. I am constantly blown away by the diverse mix of world-class shipwrecks, stunning walls, colourful coral gardens, exhilarating drifts, and a rich variety of marine life, including sharks and other pelagics. And best of all, this cornucopia of diving delights is just a five-hour flight away from the UK. I can then further narrow down my favourite dive sites. The Thistlegorm will always be right up there, as will Ras Mohammed, but for the most bang-for-your-buck, you will struggle to better a liveaboard trip to the offshore marine parks, or more-specifically, the Brothers, Daedalous and Elphinstone. There is a reason this itinerary is known as Simply the Best among Red Sea aficionados!

My last trip to these remote outcrops of coral and rock in the middle of the Red Sea was onboard the Red Sea Aggressor, which along with a few other liveaboard vessels has sent the quality of Egyptian dive boats through the roof. Think spacious ensuite cabins, sumptuous furnishings in the salon, huge sundecks, mountains of tasty food, monster dive deck, well-equipped zodiacs and you get the picture.

THE BROTHERS

The Brother Islands - also known as El Akhawein in Arabic - are two pinnacles of rock which protrude out of the Egyptian Red Sea some 60 miles offshore. There is simply nothing else around apart from these two barren outcrops, which lie about a mile apart, hence why they are a magnet to marine life of all shapes and sizes.

Big Brother, which is roughly cigar-shaped and approximately 800 metres long, is topped by a British lighthouse built in 1883 that is manned by military personnel, who have got a nice sideline in ‘I Dived The Brothers’ T-shirts!

On the north point lies the wreck of the Numidia, undoubtedly one of the most-stunning wreck dives in the world. This huge

cargo ship ran aground in 1901, and then sank down the reef, becoming impossibly stuck upright on to the sheer wall. Thanks to the length of time it has been underwater, and swept by sometimes extremely strong currents, the Numidia is absolutely smothered in soft coral growth, which drapes over the superstructure, railings and masts. Reef fish swarm over the wreck, and grey reef sharks can be seen circling around it in the blue, as well as the odd barracuda, trevally and tuna.

The bow has been smashed by constant wave action, and so the top 10-12m comprises broken wreckage, but beyond that the ship is remarkably intact, all the way down to the props at 86m. Technical divers will absolutely love it! One of the coolest dive routes is to enter the ship at around 13-14m and drop down inside, before exiting right next to the main mast, which handily protrudes straight out into the blue at 40m, and making your way back up in the shallows on the outside of the vessel. The sheer size of the wreck, plus its bizarre orientation, make it a dive not to be missed.

Around the west side of Big Brother lies a second wreck, that of the Aida. This Egyptian transport vessel was bringing supplies to the lighthouse in 1957 when it ran aground and promptly broke in half - the bow section was obliterated on the shallow reef, while the stern portion sank into deeper water and lodged vertically between 35-65m. You don’t get long on this wreck unless you are teched-up, but again it is covered with soft corals and makes for a dramatic view disappearing into the deep blue below.

It’s not all rusting metal, though. The southern tip of Big Brother has two plateaus, topped with peaks of coral, which drop away into the deep, and around the lower plateau, at some 35-40m, you can occasionally encounter thresher sharks. On this particular trip, we just got grey reef sharks, but on my previous Brothers jaunt, we had no less than four thresher sharks for a good 30 minutes on these plateaus.

Small Brother lies around a mile away from Big Brother and is a small, circular island surrounded by sheer walls and deep plateaus. Currents sweep on to the north point, bringing with them nutrient-rich waters, which means the soft coral growth is phenomenal. And you get sharks. Grey reefs are the most-regular

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THE RED SEA AGGRESSOR

This 36.5-metre vessel has been outfitted to the highest standards and offers a comfortable base from which to explore the Red Sea. It can take 20 passengers and boasts 12 crew, and the large salon has plenty of space to spread out and relax. The same applies to both sundecks, which have more than enough room for every guest.

All rooms have ensuite, air-con and, rather niftily, a flat-screen TV equipped with a USB stick.

You can simply plug in the USB to the onboard Mac, select a movie from the huge collection, drag and drop on the stick and then watch it in the comfort of your own room.

The RIBs are equipped with boarding ladders to make getting back in easier, and are larger than the average liveaboard zodiac, so even with ten divers in it is not too bad a squeeze. www.aggressor.com

visitors, but hammerheads, oceanic whitetips and threshers do put in the odd appearance - we saw a couple of hammers this time around, and the other RIB saw a thresher and a manta ray. The sheer weight of life on Small Brother makes it a smorgasbord of rich, vibrant colours, as all the reef fish flutter in and out of the coral and sponge growth.

The southeast wall boasts some of the largest gorgonian fan corals I have ever seen, starting from 25m and disappearing down well below recreational dive depths.

DAEDALOUS

Daedalous - Abu Kizan in Arabic – is a massive circular reef, again topped by a lighthouse. The sheer sides to the north, east and west are often swept by currents, and boast prolific coral growth, as well as being a hotspot for grey reef sharks, giant trevally, dogtooth tuna, barracuda and even the odd manta ray. The southern side, where the liveaboards moor up, comprises a large plateau, and this area can be a hangout for oceanic whitetips and turtles.

However, Daedalous is known for one thing – hammerheads. Drop into the blue and hang at 30-40m off the north or west walls and you have a good chance of seeing shoals of these weird-and-wonderful creatures. On my last visit, we hadn’t been on-station in the blue for ten minutes when a batch of 19-20 hammers cruised in formation towards us. In the past I have had these inquisitive sharks swim within a metre or so of me, but in this instance they stayed just outside 16mm pancake lens distance, so I couldn’t get any photographs. And just to round out an awesome encounter, as they swam off into the blue and my buddy and I turned back towards the wall, a huge manta ray glided overhead.

“The southeast wall boasts some of the largest gorgonian fan corals I have ever seen, starting from 25m and disappearing down well below recreational dive depths”

“One of the coolest dive routes is to enter the ship at around 13-14m and drop down inside, before exiting right next to the main mast, which handily protrudes straight out into the blue at 40m” ELPHINSTONE

Back in the day, Elphinstone was the place to go for sharks, particularly hammerheads, silvertips and grey reef sharks. Now that it is accessible as a day dive site via large RIBs, you just don’t get the large shoals hanging off the deep plateau at the northern end like you used to, but the reef is still teeming with marine life and colourful coral growth, so it still makes for a superb location for the last two dives of an itinerary such as this.

As with any offshore Red Sea reef, there is always the chance of something unusual turning up, and on my last trip, my buddy and I were treated to a display of power and grace by several dolphins. The current was absolutely steaming, and we were tucked in behind a coral head for some shelter, but the dolphins cavorted in the maelstrom like it was a calm lagoon.

Elphinstone’s ace in the sleeve is oceanic whitetips. Time your visit for the right months, and you can regularly encounter oceanic whitetip sharks in just a few metres, generally off the southern plateau right under the moored-up liveaboards. These magnificent sharks are a firm favourite of underwater photographers, and will make repeated, ever-closer passes as they are a very curious species.

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CONCLUSION

The offshore marine parks of the Brothers, Daedalous and Elphinstone offer up some of the best Indo-Pacific diving you could hope to find. The Big Brother wrecks of the Numidia and the Aida are simply stunning, and the soft corals on Small Brother are mind-blowing. Daedalous serves up pelagic action in spades, as well as dramatic walls, and Elphinstone, at the right time of year, is oceanic whitetip central. If you want an itinerary that combines multiple undersea wonders, Simply the Best is the one.

And what about the boat? The Red Sea Aggressor is certainly a nice vessel. It is right up there with the best in the Tornado Marine, Blue O Two and Emperor fleets. The rooms are spacious, the ensuite bathrooms have a decent-sized shower, the salon is comfortably furnished, and the sun decks have plenty of room.

As part of the worldwide Aggressor Fleet, it is used to catering for a mainly North American clientele, and so offers four dives a day out at the offshore marine parks instead of the usual three run by its rivals. If you are going all the way out to the Brothers and Daedalous, who wouldn’t want to get an extra four dives in over a normal week-long itinerary? We were often the only divers in the water on our second afternoon dive. n

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18m

ABOVE

Back by popular demand, we have resurrected the ABOVE 18M feature, where we focus on a dive site that sits in 18m or less, thus making it suitable for all levels of diver. First up is the Menai Straits, which separates Anglesey from mainland North Wales Photographs by MARK EVANS & MARTIN SAMPSON

“The first thing I noticed was the incredible amount of dahlia anemones on the seabed. In places it was literally a carpet of these colourful animals”

T

he Menai Straits is a narrow band of water that splits the Isle of Anglesey from the Welsh mainland. Harsh currents rip through here at a serious rate of knots, and it is the last place you’d want to find yourself going for an impromptu drift dive! However, on the Anglesey side of the Straits right under the spectacular Menai Suspension Bridge – one of two bridges which span the water – you can find a couple of shore dives which, done at precisely the right time so you catch the short slack period, will turn up carpets of anemones, crabs galore and myriad varieties of fish.

ARRIVAL AT THE SITE

To get to the entry point, you need to drive into Menai on the Isle of Anglesey and then follow the signs for the bridge. This will take you down ever-smaller roads, culminating in a single-carriageway road with passing places that passes directly under the high arched supports of the suspension bridge. There are a couple of parking spaces right under the arch going overhead, but the rest of the road has double yellow lines – and the traffic wardens can be extremely predatory. If you don’t get lucky and snap up one of the two parking spaces, the best bet is to pull over to the right-hand side of the road and unload all your kit, get into your drysuit and then move your car to the nearest suitable parking spot.

DIVE BRIEFING

There are two separate dives here. One enters the water to the right-hand side of the suspension bridge and is a scenic bimble around the rocky supports and one of the main arches. According to Martin Sampson, owner of SSI dive centre Anglesey Divers, based in Holyhead, it is a great dive, but there were already several buddy pairs heading that route, so we opted for dive two.

The second dive enters the water on the other side of the suspension bridge. You will find a wooden gate leading from the road onto a square grassed area, and you can stash your kit safely here just through the gate on the lefthand side while you go and park your vehicle.

Getting to the water’s edge involves a bit of a daring climb down some extremely narrow stone steps. It is hard enough with a single cylinder on your back, but with a twinset you have to adopt the ‘mountain-climber’ approach - this is certainly a place where sidemount divers will be in their element!

Once at the water’s edge, wade out until you are waistdeep and don your fins, then swim out on your back until you are in a couple of metres and can descend. As you drop down, look for some thick black cables running out into the middle of the Straits lying on the seabed. These telecommunications cables, which actually go right across the Menai Straits, make navigation a doddle – you just follow one out, and then follow it back to shore again, looking at the marine life around you as you do so. You will usually end up in around 13-14m by 25-30 minutes, which is a good time to turn around and make your return, as the period of slack water is not long here.

STRAIT DOWN THE

MIDDLE

ANGLESEY DIVERS

Anglesey Divers is a well-established SSI and PADI dive centre which has been in existence since 1991. It is owned and operated by Martin and Caroline Sampson, who have a wealth of experience (Martin is navigator on the Holyhead all-weather lifeboat) on the local area.

The centre is situated in Holyhead at the end of the A55 dual carriageway, so is easily accessible, and this positioning enables them to reach all the main dive sites quickly and simply.

They offer training from beginner to professional. The shop is compact but well-stocked, and they can offer air and nitrox fills to 300bar from their Bauer compressor. www.diveanglesey.co.uk

MENAI STRAITS WHAT TO EXPECT TYPE OF DIVE

Relatively easy entry from the shore

DEPTH

16-18m possible, but 12-14m more common

MARINE LIFE

Various crabs, dogfish, dahlia anemones

VISIBILITY

Varies, we had three metres at the deeper sections

SEABED

Sand, silt, pebbles

HAZARDS

Current, boat traffic

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR

Crabs of all shapes, sizes and species, from common and shore to edible and velvet swimming; dogfish; masses of different coloured dahlia anemones.

THE DIVE

There were four of us in total, so Martin split us into two buddy teams and we each set off on a different cable.

Now finding the cables in the shallows can be quite interesting, as they are massively overgrown with seaweed, kelp and algae, but persist and sooner or later you will come across one – they are as thick as a drainpipe, so once you’ve got one in your sights, they are fairly easy to keep track of.

My buddy Nigel Abbott is an Anglesey local, and so I pressed him into a spot of modelling during the dive. We found a cable within a few seconds, luckily, and then set off on the dive.

The depth stays fairly constant at 3-4m for a while, then drops off into 5-7m, and then you find yourself on a gentle slope. Once you get out of the shallows, the thick kelp and seaweed growth drops off, and it is easier to maintain visual contact with the cable over a sand and rock bottom. The vis in the shallows was only a couple of metres, but it increased to four or five metres once we were deeper, albeit with plenty of detritus floating around.

The first thing I noticed was the incredible amount of dahlia anemones on the seabed. In places it was literally a carpet of these colourful animals. The only other place I have seen so many and in such different colour varieties is off the west coast of Ireland.

The other main critter on display was crabs – lots of crabs. And every species you can imagine, from common to edible to lively velvet swimming crabs. They were everywhere! We even found a large dead edible crab lying on its back that was making a fine meal for a small mountain of common shore crabs.

Apart from the odd gobie and a single juvenile pollack, we didn’t really see that many fish, until on the way back towards shore we encountered a small dogfish, which let me get one shot before it shot off into the gloom.

When we entered the water, the current was still running slightly, meaning we were finning against it gently to maintain position while making our way down the cable, and then on the way back up, the tide had turned and we were finning the opposite way as we headed to shore. The current absolutely screams through the Straits, so you have to ensure that you time your dive to perfection. n

VIVIAN DIVE CENTRE

Duttons Divers, who are now running Vivian Dive Centre, near Llanberis in the heart of Snowdonia National Park, is a PADI dive centre offering an array of courses, as well as gas fills.

Alongside the picturesque on-site quarry, which is ideal for training or just for a nice freshwater dive (it is also where the Scuba Diver test team conducts most of their reviews), they also offer a variety of shore and boat-diving excursions to the North Wales coastline and Anglesey, including a special tour which goes on the hunt for migrating basking sharks. www.viviandivecentre.com

DEEP SCIENCE IN

BERMUDA

The deep oceans play a critical part in sustaining life on this planet, but we know precious little about them.

JASON BROWN talks to a member of a cutting-edge dive team that set out to reveal some of its secrets Photographs by GRAHAM BLACKMORE, JP BRESSER, SU EUN KIM – PROJECT BASELINE

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hat did you do on your last dive? Did you swim around admiring the marine flora and fauna, or maybe you’re a wreck diver who enjoys nothing more than visiting your favourite shipwreck. For divers involved in the recent Nekton Mission to explore the deep ecosystems around the remote volcanic islands of Bermuda, there was little time to take in the sights – for them, every dive was about achieving an objective to further our understanding of the health of the world’s oceans.

We know that the oceans cover seven tenths of the Earth’s surface and that they contain 97 percent of all our water, yet we take them so much for granted.

Much of what we know is restricted to the shallower depths – the deep ocean is the most-critical part, yet it’s the region we know the least about. The socalled ‘Bathyal zone’ is located between 200 and 2,000m below the surface and is home to the greatest diversity of marine life anywhere on the planet. This all-important deep zone contains all the critical indicators of ocean health and its effect on the planet is far reaching – it performs the essential task of absorbing CO2 and regulating the world’s climate. But, like so many delicate eco systems, the Bathyal zone is under constant threat from human exploitation due to the wealth of oil, gas and fish stocks that lay within it.

It’s only in recent years that we’ve really begun to fully appreciate the importance that the deep ocean plays in regulating the ‘life support systems’ that sustains life on planet Earth. Realising that greater insight was clearly needed, Nekton – a charitable foundation whose mission is to explore and research the deep ocean – teamed up with key players, including Unesco, Oxford University and Global Underwater Explorers, to deliver the XL Catlin Deep Ocean Survey.

Nekton’s mission brief is ambitious – to create a baseline to measure change in the function, health and resilience of the deep ocean that scientists and key decision makers can use to influence future policy and our own attitudes towards the ocean.

Nekton chose Bermuda for this initial phase as it was historically the location for some of the very first submersibles dives into the deep ocean. Its location played a prominent role in its selection too - nestled at the very western edge of the Sargasso Sea near the transition into the Gulf Stream, Bermuda is a collection of 130 coral islands capping an ancient volcano that rises from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Rising up from 3,000m right to the surface, its sits atop the transition zone between the shallow and deep ocean.

To aid the project’s ambitious goals, Nekton partnered with Project Baseline – an environmental monitoring initiative established by diver training agency Global Underwater Explorers. Set up in 1999, Project Baseline empowers divers through ‘citizen science’ to observe and record changes within the world’s underwater environments. Groups of like-minded divers are actively encouraged to

set up their own projects with data collected and recorded into a vast online database. In the UK alone, there are three Project Baseline sites. Baseline projects don’t need to be deep or technical – the Portland Harbour wrecks project in Dorset monitors sites in less than 15m of water, making it perfect for divers of any level.

While Nekton’s own science team included divers with experience in conducting science projects underwater, they lacked the equipment, procedures and training to carry out complex dive operations beyond recreational dive limits. GUE sent a team of nine volunteer technical divers to work alongside the scientists at Nekton aboard Project Baseline’s own research vessel, Baseline Explorer. Over the

course of 27 days, the dive team from Project Baseline, lead by Science and Conservation Director Todd Kincaid, documented 13 miles of reef at depths ranging from 15m down to 90m. For deeper dives, the team employed Baseline Explorer’s own submersibles to take the researchers down to depths of up to 250m.

The UK was proudly represented on the dive team by Dorset-based Graham Blackmore, a GUE technical and rebreather instructor who has been actively involved in a variety of exploration and science projects over the years. For Graham, the Nekton mission was a perfect fit for his own academic background and echoes what first got him interested in diving.

“I’m somewhat unique in that I have a PhD in Marine Biology and that’s really what inspired me to learn to dive. I felt that I was missing out on a huge amount of what was happening with marine biology by only being able to see what was going on above the waterline. So when I was studying for my PhD, I learned to dive. That’s really when I found GUE - they took my diving to a new level and enabled me to travel the world and dive with like-minded divers and conduct some relatively aggressive diving down to 120m plus,” he said.

“I’ve done a lot of research work on corals in shallow water so I was very comfortable conducting video transects, sampling corals underwater, collecting water samples and so it worked out quite well. On this project, we worked as three-person teams - we

had a guy laying out the transects, somebody else to video the transects and then the third person to manage the marker that we needed to resurface.”

Conducting all this science takes time and the teams endured some pretty aggressive diving to achieve their objectives. “We were doing six to seven hour run times with something like 40 to 60 minutes at 90m-100m. We would then move up to 60m and do a further 20 to 60 minutes before moving up to 30m to do another hour. When we started the project, the plan was really to achieve one level on one dive but when you run the profiles, you find out that if you do an hour at 30m after an hour at 90m, it doesn’t change the decompression a great deal so you almost get that 30m dive for free. Running the profiles, it was quite interesting to see the run time increase by an hour, but the total time to surface remained very, very similar.”

Not surprisingly, traditional open circuit equipment wasn’t really an option as the sheer volume of gas required to complete the profiles the dive team were conducting would simply have been unmanageable above and below water. To make life easier, the dive team used JJ-CCR rebreathers configured in a GUE configuration. This unique set-up gave the team access to a large amount of accessible bail-out back-mounted on the rebreathers via a pair of seven-litre diluent tanks. The flexibility that the rebreathers delivered allowed the divers to conduct fairly aggressive multi-level dives without having to carry specific mixes for those depths. The rebreathers made life a lot easier for the team members pumping gas too – with little more than 50 bar of diluent and approximately 150 bar of oxygen being used on a seven-hour dive, the gas blenders didn’t need to chalk up any overtime refilling cylinders.

“We were doing six to seven hour run times with something like 40 to 60 minutes at 90m-100m”

“There was real delight on the scientist’s faces when they were able to interact with somebody who could act as their hands actually in the environment”

“There was a nice friendly rivalry between the subs and the divers. The subs are multi-million pound pieces of equipment and quite complicated with long check lists and huge amounts of fettling in order to get them ready to go diving. We often had to stand on the back deck and sweat in our drysuits while we waited for the subs to be ready.

“Of course, the real benefit of the subs is that they can take someone who can’t dive to an environment they wouldn’t otherwise be able to experience. Being able to take a scientist underwater so they can actually see what’s going on at the bottom and how the divers collect the data, and to be able to communicate with the dive team through the 90mm thick pressurised acrylic dome which surrounds them.”

As the project progressed, the co-ordination between the divers and the submersibles began to pay real dividends for the science team. While the submersibles are sophisticated, their interaction with the environment is limited by the quite primitive and clunky manipulator arm that the sub team are forced to use to pick up samples – they can literally spend an entire dive fumbling to pick up a rock and place it into the sub’s collector basket. As Graham

explains, the inclusion of the divers into the equation made life a lot easier for the scientists.

“A diver has two functional hands and can swim up to something, pick it up, show it to the scientist in the sub, twist it around, turn it over and so on. There was real delight on the scientist’s faces when they were able to interact with somebody who could act as their hands actually in the environment.”

The dive and submersible teams collected a mountain of data which is now being evaluated by Nekton’s scientists at their base in Oxford right here in the UK. Already the scientists believe they have identified a number of new species and have made discoveries that are changing the way we look at the health of the world’s oceans. With legal protection of the oceans still so sadly lacking despite calls from the UN to establish more protected zones, the work that Nekton and the divers from Project Baseline are doing will prove invaluable in winning over the hearts and minds of the world. If the rainforests are the lungs of the planet, it’s clear that the oceans are its heart… n

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What’s New

STAHLSAC STEEL LINE BAG RANGE SRP: £86-£232

From roomy and durable, to lightweight and versatile, each piece in the new Steel Line of bags is specifically built for its role.

And every piece is constructed uniquely for watersports, with ultra-tough materials and modern design.

In the wheeled bag category, the Steel 34 (£232) boasts 148-litres capacity, the Steel 27 (£206) has 82 litres, and the Steel 22 carry-on (£172) has 40 litres.

The handy Steel Duffel (£86) can swallow 36 litres, and the Steel Back pack (£86) takes 27 litres.

As with all Stahlsacs, they are robustly constructed, have numerous pockets and zippered sections, and are built to last – which is why they come with a lifetime limited warranty. www.stahlsac.com

ATOMIC AQUATICS VENOM FRAMELESS SRP: £130

The Venom Frameless is a low-volume, hydrodynamic single-lens mask which is incredibly comfortable thanks to its co-molded silicone skirt, which bonds two different hardnesses of silicone directly to the Atomic UltraClear lens. The ‘Gummi Bear’ silicone creates an incredibly soft yet reliable face seal, and the more-rigid silicone skirt is also soft, but won’t collapse, distort or fold. www.aquaticatomics.co.uk

APEKS WETNOTES | SRP: £40

BARE AQUA TREK I | SRP: £945 This drysuit uses BARE’s exclusively engineered Cordura Nylon Oxford four-layer fabric, which means it is durable, breathable and designed to be lighter weight than traditional trilaminates, making it the perfect travel companion.

It features a low-profile plastic dry zipper, 2mm nylon/smoothskin warm collar with vented neck drain, M-PADz knee protection, and the two-needle felled seam construction increases seam integrity and is less prone to abrasion. There is flexible double-taped reinforcement at ‘critical wear’ seam points for added durability, and a telescopic torso with field-replaceable crotch strap. The suit comes with four-point braces, tech boots and a drysuit backpack. www.baresports.com

The Apeks Wetnotes are the perfect place to store your dive plans, make a note of your deco schedule or simply write your packing checklist.

Small enough to fit in a pocket, waterproof and manufactured from super-tough ballistic nylon, the new Wetnotes from Apeks are an essential part of any serious diver’s kit.

With 23 reusable and replaceable pages (including three blank deco tables), a 316 stainless-steel double-ended bolt snap, a solid graphite pencil with bungee holder and two transparent pockets for storing a compass or cutting device, this product is an affordable and useful accessory. www.apeksdiving.com

BEST DIVERS BECAM 4K ULTRAHD ACTION CAMERA SET | SRP: £180 This well-priced gold-coloured action camera features an Omnivision12 Megapixel LCD with two-inch display, and can create stills at 4MP, 5MP, 8MP and 12MP, and has a video resolution from 720p, 1080p, 2.7K and a stonking 4K. It has a 170-degree wide-angle glass optic, and a slot for a Micro SD card up to 32GB. You get a battery life of around 90 minutes per battery, and the set comes with two batteries so you will never be left out of juice.

The housing is water-resistant to 50m, and it comes with a red filter for salt water and magenta for freshwater.

You can also get the Becam kit with Bellatrix torch, camera adaptor and camera arm for £366, and there is also a deep 200m-rated housing for £295. www.becam.co.uk

O’THREE 65 DIVING SEMI-DRY | SRP: £249.95 Sticking to their beliefs in what they know about neoprene and diving suits in general, the team at O’Three have made clever use of modern technical fabrics and the latest technology in seal skin finishes to make this unixes-fit semi-dry what they consider the best they’ve ever made.

Will Goodman put the previous version of the 6/5mm semi-dry to good use, achieving a world-record CCR dive in 2014 – and O’Three reckon this model is even better.

The suit can be worn from early summer through to mid-September here in the UK (14-18 degrees C), and comes into its own in the winter Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Add the O’Three DeepSkin Short John underneath and you can increase the temperature range that the suit can be used comfortably in. www.othree.co.uk

FOURTH ELEMENT EXPEDITION SERIES DUFFEL BAG | SRP: £60.95-£89.95

Made from heavy-duty mesh PVC with high-quality components, these duffel bags are inspired by discussions with some of the more-intrepid members of our dive team debating the experience of looking for, and then looking for something inside, their bags. Looking for a black item of dive kit inside a black dive bag is never the easiest thing, made more frustrating if this is also at base camp in a cave system. The answer?

It’s in the duffel bag!

The bright orange colour of the Expedition Series Duffel is designed to make the bag distinctive and practical, for use in low-light conditions as well as making it just as easy to spot on the airport conveyor. The double-lined base of the bag is hard-wearing and the rucksack carry straps are well padded, engineered to house heavy equipment and an abundance of gear. The bag features a large ‘luggage label’ in which you can insert a card with your initials, identifying your gear in a similar way to how you identify your stage cylinders. High-quality clasps and buckles in the compression straps complete a rugged specification.

The duffel is available in 60- (£69.95), 90- (£79.95) and 120-litre (£89.95) sizes. www.fourthelement.com

SUEX VR | SRP: £1,995 Suex have long been one of the leading lights in the scooter world, but with the new VR model, they have brought a lot of their technology within the price range of many mainstream divers. The specs are impressive – a lightweight (16.5kg with lithium battery, which can be recharged in six hours) technopolymer/polycarbonate scooter that will go to 101m, boasts a 150-minute runtime, has a dual-speed control, battery indicator and a waterproof battery pack, and comes in at £1,995. www.blue-orb.uk

Gear Guide

THIS ISSUE: MID-RANGE BCDS

Each month, the SCUBA DIVER test team assembles to rate and review a selection of dive equipment from a range of manufacturers. Products are split into price categories and are then evaluated for performance, comfort, ease of use, build quality, looks and value for money. The Test Team comprises Editor in Chief Mark Evans and a squad of volunteers, whose dive experience ranges from a couple of hundred dives to well over 6,000.

MID-RANGE BCDS This issue, we kick off our BCD reviews, with a look at the middle-of-the-range models. There are many types of BCD available these days, so this time we concentrated on traditional-style jackets, leaving back-inflate and backplate-and-wing set-ups for another group test. We examined their build quality, comfort, fit, ease of use (particularly weight pockets and accessory pockets) and the performance of dump valves and power inflators.

ON TEST THIS MONTH: • AP COMMANDO EXPLORER • AQUALUNG PRO HD • MARES DRAGON • OCEANIC ATMOS • SCUBAPRO EQUALIZER

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Location: Tested at Vivian Dive Centre, Llanberis www.viviandivecentre.com

Date tested: 18/05/17 Water temp: 8 degrees C

WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

AP COMMANDO EXPLORER | SRP: £430 (£375 DIRECT FROM AP DIVING) The Commando Explorer is based on the original tried-andtested Commando jacket, which is no bad thing as they were virtually bulletproof. Made from robust 1,000 denier material with a twin-bag construction, it is built to withstand the roughest treatment.

It is equipped with three efficient dump/over-pressure valves, and has 10 pre-bent aluminium 50mm D-rings. The ‘Reflex’ comfort-fit system means the BCD is anatomically contoured, fully padded and adjustable to the finest degree at shoulders, waist and backplate.

The basic Commando Explorer doesn’t have weight pockets, it comes with Cargo Clips, and a pair of pouches is a £25 option.

It comes as standard with a robust APV200 power inflator but you can opt for a chunky Auto-Air octo-inflator for an additional £42. And while it is set up out of the box for a single cylinder, you can get a twinset camband for an additional £30.

The Explorer envelopes you so completely it is like being hugged, and it is very supportive in the water. The pockets are huge and easy to access, the dumps and power inflator are efficient, and the swathes of padding on the backpack and straps mean it is exceptionally comfortable. And the build quality is second-to-none - it just oozes durability and I defy anyone to be able to kill one! It is quite bulky compared with some of its rivals, but that may appeal to some users.

CHOICE

VERDICT

Robust BCD that scores highly for comfort, fit, useability and performance. A cracking price direct from AP, too.

SCORE

••••••••••

AQUALUNG PRO HD | SRP: £290 The Aqualung Pro HD is a well-specced BCD that benefits from a lot of the technology and design points from its higher-priced siblings.

It is constructed from ResisteK material, which resists fading and abrasion, the chest strap and waistband can be adjusted for comfort and fit, and it has large pockets with two-way zippers. There are five stainless-steel D-rings for accessories, and is has knife-attachment points on the left side.

There is a scooped Octo pocket to stow your octopus on the right-hand side, and you can route your intrument hose through the left-hand side, which keeps everything neat and tidy and less of a snag hazard.

It is equipped with SureLock II integrated weight pockets, and has two non-dumpable trim weights on the camband.

The Pro HD is a lightweight but well made jacket, which is extremely comfortable and can be adjusted to fit snugly. It holds you well underwater, allowing easy movement into any orientation, and lets you sit upright at the surface.

The power inflator is fast and efficient, as are the flat dump valves positioned to the rear and on the shoulder.

The SureLock II integrated-weight pockets clip securely in place, and the dual-zippered pockets are easy to access and quite roomy. Cracking bit of kit for the money, and good for diving both here in the UK and abroad.

BEST VALUE

VERDICT

Lightweight but durable, with a good fit and plenty of features, this is a well-specced and performing jacket for the money.

SCORE

••••••••••

MARES DRAGON SLS | SRP: £439 The Dragon SLS sits near the top of our price bracket, but you do get a lot of BCD for your money.

The backpack and shoulder straps, which are fitted with swivel buckles, are well padded, and the design of the aircell means it slides up the back of the shoulders as it inflates for added comfort.

There are D-rings and grommets for attaching lit, and the cargo pockets have stretch panels so they can store more or bigger accessories.

The new controls on the SLS integrated weight pockets mean you get a visual confirmation that the pockets are securely clipped into place. The ‘sword handles’ are being redesigned, though, so they do not protrude as far, and will be out soon.

The Dragon is a good-looking jacket, and in the water it is very comfortable and effortlessly holds you in whatever position you contort yourself into. The high-lift aircell also provides plenty of lift on the surface, but because of the design, there is no ‘squeeze’, so you are still comfortable even fully inflated.

The new weight pockets work very well, but the new version that doesn’t stick out so far will be an improvement.

The stretchy pockets are a neat idea, but the zipper to get into them is still fairly small, which makes accessing them quite awkward - a bigger zipper and these would be great.

All-round, another nice BCD from the Italian manufacturer.

VERDICT

Nice new jacket from Mares, with innovative weight pockets and a clever aircell, all wrapped up in a good-looking package.

SCORE

••••••••••

OCEANIC ATMOS | SRP: £349 The Atmos is a robustly built jacket which features an innovative hybrid aircell which provides rear-inflation for support underwater along with front inflation as per a traditional BCD for surface support.

It incorporates 1,000D denier Cordura fabric in crucial areas, has two large zippered pockets, a depth-compensating cummerbund, and a well-padded backplate for comfort.

The ‘pinch-and-release’ integrated-weight pockets are very secure and easy to both lock in place and jettison.

It boasts three over-pressure/dump valves for optimum buoyancy control, and a compact but efficient power inflator.

The Oceanic Atmos sits right in the middle of this price bracket, and has always faired well with the Test Team. It is a comfortable jacket thanks to the padding on the straps and backpack, and the extended lumbar support helps transfer some of the tank weight on to your hips to relieve shoulder stress.

The innovative aircell works well, with the BCD acting like a rear-inflate jacket underwater, but then offering upright support on the surface as the air shifts into the frontal areas. This means underwater you do not feel as restricted up-front.

We all liked the weight pockets, which were easy to deploy with one hand, and the pockets were okay, just a little problematic to access when wearing a bulky drysuit. Good overall jacket from Oceanic that performed well.

VERDICT

Well-designed BCD that benefits from an innovative aircell and a solid integrated weight system, all at a reasonable price point.

SCORE

••••••••••

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LIGHTWEIGHT

SCUBAPRO EQUALIZER | SRP: £295 The Equalizer is Scubapro’s latest foray into the sub-£300 category of BCDs, and as you would expect from this company, it is a good-looking piece of equipment with a decent amount of features.

It is made from 420 denier nylon to ensure it is both lightweight and durable, and has a wraparound aircell for comfort and support both underwater and on the surface.

It has the tried-and-tested Scubapro balanced power inflator and pull dumps, and comes with Velcro-closing pockets, and four stainless-steel D-rings for attaching accessories.

The Equalizer also has the company’s secure ‘pinch-and-release’ integrated weight pockets.

The Equalizer is a good-looking BCD that looks more expensive than it actually is. Made from a robust material, it is still quite lightweight, so would suit the travelling diver as well as someone who dives regularly in the UK. I still maintain that the Scubapro inflator is one of the best on the market, and it does work exceptionally well, but it is matched by the rapid pull dumps. And we are big fans of the integrated weight system, which is secure yet easy to use.

This is the only jacket here with Velcro-closing pockets, and they are easy to locate, but quite hard to access as it isn’t the biggest opening in the world. Overall, though, another classy offering from Scubapro.

VERDICT

Good-looking jacket that belies its price point, and has some neat features, including SP’s awesome power inflator.

SCORE

••••••••••

VERDICT

Due to splitting our back-inflate jackets into a separate test, we were down to just five jackets for this Group Test. All of the BCDs reviewed performed well, offering plenty of support underwater and on the surface, and were comfortable when walking about topside as well.

The Best Value award went to the Aqualung Pro HD, which offered a great all-round package at an enviable price point. It was pushed close by the Scubapro Equalizer, which was just left down by its pockets.

The Choice award was a tough one. The Mares and Oceanic of-

ferings were both very good jackets, but both of them suffered a little by having pockets which were not the easiest to access. The AP Explorer was well priced, robustly built and the massive pockets were easy to get into, so it just edged it over the competition.

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Test Extra

AQUALUNG I200 | SRP: £248

MARK EVANS: Wristwatch dive computers are becoming more affordable these days, and the i200 is leading the charge when it comes to bargain-priced units that don’t skimp on the details.

With the i200 in particular, ‘cheap’ does not equate to lack of features. The Aqualung computer boasts four operating modes – air, nitrox (two mixes up to 100 percent O2), gauge with run timer, and free dive (which tracks calculations to allow unrestricted switching between dive settings and free) – and has a user-changeable battery, but data retention means it will maintain settings and calculations between battery changes.

The i200 also has a Deep Stop function with a countdown timer, and if you purchase the optional download cable, you can then easily update the software as any additional features or upgrades become available. It even has a nifty high-visibility LED alarm light on the side, which shows up well in low-vis conditions or at night.

The Aqualung i200 is extremely lightweight, but at the same time feels reasonably rugged. It has a nice, clean, sporty look, so you could quite happily wear it as an everyday watch, safe in the knowledge that when you are ready to go diving, it is right there with you.

The buttons are big enough to be operable when wearing thick neoprene gloves, and have a definite ‘feel’ to them, and the menus are easy to navigate – in time-honoured tradition, I didn’t break out the instructions and was getting to grips with it in a short-time, which gets the thumbs up from me.

This neat little unit would make a fine starter primary dive computer for a new diver, but equally is priced keenly enough – and has enough features – to warrant a more-experienced diver getting one as a solid back-up to a more-expensive primary computer, such as Aqualung’s i750T. www.aqualung.com/uk

Long Term Test THERMALUTION RED GRADE ULTRA Mark Evans: Well, what can I say. The Thermalution Red Grade Ultra really delivered. I had been impressed by previous vest-only incarnations from this company, but this full-length suit is on a different level completely. The thigh heating elements make such a difference to your overall warmth, and okay, we are nearing double figures temperature-wise even in quarries now, but it still gets chilly after an extended period of time underwater and so I could feel the benefit.

The controls are simple - each INFORMATION ‘slide’ lights up a different Arrival date: April 2017 colour, which corresponds Suggested retail price: £1,050 with the power setting. Easy!

Number of dives: 4 I just stash the controller in a Time in water: 3 hrs 50 mins thigh pocket on the dive.

ZEAGLE HALO Mark Evans: The Halo has been getting a workout recently, with plenty of ‘test’ dives in their own right, as well as an outing in the highend price bracket for our BCD Group Test.

The comfort and fit of the Halo is excellent, and can be adjusted to your personal requirements. The backpad and straps have plenty of padding, and once it is cinched up correctly, there is zero tank movement topside or underwater.

I also like the zippered pockets, which are easy to access even with a bulky drysuit on - just practice that you are opening the pocket up, though, not where the integrated weight pouches go!

APEKS MTX-R Mark Evans: With a BCD Group Test in three price brackets, as well as some general ‘test’ dives, the MTX-R has been getting plenty more in-water hours. And no surprises for guessing that it continues to impress.

Wherever I take it, UK or abroad, it gets plenty of attention for its slick good looks - the white and matt metal combo works so well - and it is refreshing to be able to say that it performs just as well as it looks, perhaps even better. It faultlessly delivers gas regardless of depth, temperature, current, position and so on - just what you want from a go-anywhere regulator.

INFORMATION Arrival date: December 2017 Suggested retail price: £529 Number of dives: 29 Time in water: 28 hrs 15 mins

DEEPBLU COSMIQ+ DIVE COMPANION

INFORMATION Arrival date: January 2017 Suggested retail price: £567 Number of dives: 9 Time in water: 8 hrs 45 mins

Mark Evans: Finally retrieved the DeepBlu Cosmiq+ Dive Companion from Test Team member Dave Hope, who had taken it with him to Grenada and clocked up some warm-water hours.

Now it is back in the UK’s colder waters and still performing well. I am still a huge fan of the vivid screen display, which is just so easy to read even in the lousiest UK conditions.

I also like the heavy-duty NATO-style webbing strap, which INFORMATION can be quickly and easily Arrival date: February 2017 adjusted for a wetsuited or a Suggested retail price: £230 drysuited wrist, and holds the Number of dives: 14 computer securely in place Time in water: 12 hrs 55 mins during the dive.

AQUALUNG REVEAL X2 Mark Evans: Along with the Cosmiq+, we also got the Aqualung Reveal X2 back from Mr Hope. It had found favour with many divers in Grenada, and its comfort, fit and decent field of vision have gained it plenty of fans over here as well.

Art Director Matt Griffiths collared it as a replacement for his ageing Scubapro mask, and was instantly smitten. He liked the all-black colour scheme of our test mask, but most of all the comfort of the super-soft silicone skirt. It is one of those masks that you can just ‘slap’ on your face and it fits, no faffing around getting it settled in place.

SHEARWATER RESEARCH PERDIX AI

INFORMATION Arrival date: March 2017 Suggested retail price: £46 Number of dives: 9 Time in water: 8 hrs 45 mins

RATIO iDIVE SPORT EASY Mark Evans: We finally got our iDive Sport Easy, in a subtle black finish.

In the flesh, it is a neat, lightweight and reasonably compact unit, which will not look out of place on your wrist on a day-to-day basis.

It got its first outing during the BCD Group Tests, and the screen display proved clear and easy to read even without the backlight, but switch this on and it really pops. I’d recommend setting this to ‘permanently on’ here in the UK. And because it is rechargeable, no worries about running the battery down.

INFORMATION Arrival date: March 2017 Suggested retail price: £375 Number of dives: 2 Time in water: 1 hrs 50 mins

Mark Evans: The Perdix AI has been busy again, accompanying me for the BCD Group Test dives, as well as a few ‘test’ dives.

Testament to how good it is, I just chuck it on my wrist and it is as if it has always been there. I glance at the screen and immediately know what it is telling INFORMATION me. When a comArrival date: February 2017 puter becomes Suggested retail price: £870 (comp only) second nature, Number of dives: 9 you are onto a Time in water: 8 hrs 35 mins winner.

XDEEP NX ZEN

Mark Evans: It felt a little like Christmas at Scuba Diver HQ, as the arrival of the Ratio computer was swiftly followed by the xDeep NX Zen. I had been looking forward to getting this unit after briefly trying one in the Bahamas last year, and it did not disappoint. It is very comfortable and performs well, but perhaps most importantly, it looks the business. Look at the construction of that backplate, for instance - it INFORMATION is like a piece of modern art.

Arrival date: February 2017 You could hang that on your Suggested retail price: £535 wall as a discussion piece.

Number of dives: 7 The workmanship is simply Time in water: 6 hrs 55 mins sewcond to none.

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Courses for complete beginners.

DIVE DEEP BLUE MALTA

9/11 Ananija street, Bugibba, St Paul’s Bay SPB 1320, Malta T: +356 21583946 E: Dive@divedeepblue.com W: www.divedeepblue.com Dive Deep Blue Malta. Operating 20 years.

PADI, BSAC, SSI and TDI Center. Providing recreational, technical training, plus guided and independent diving services.

PHILIPPINES EVOLUTION

Bounty Beach, Malapascua Island, Daan Bantayan, Cebu, 6013, Philippines T: +63(0)917 631 2179 | E: info@evolution.com.ph

W: www.evolution.com.ph

Progressive Recreational and Technical Diving in the Philippines best all-round diving location. 4 dives/day including

Thresher Shark encounters. All PADI/TDI classes available, Tech/CCR Friendly.

BUCEO ANILAO BEACH & DIVE RESORT Anilao, Barangay San Teodoro, Mabini, Batangas, Philippines T: 0063 919 510 57 65 E: info@buceoanilao.com W: www.buceoanilao.com Cozy resort - sophisticated camera / video room - dedicated spotters - easy access from Manila Airport - Critters - Healthy Reefs - Biodiversity!

THAILAND SAIREE COTTAGE DIVING 5* IDC CENTRE 1/10 Moo Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, Suratthani, 84360, Thailand T: +66872650859 E: info@idckohtaothailand.com W: www.idckohtaothailand.com One of the Best PADI Diving Instructor IDC Courses on Koh Tao, Thailand.

For more information please visit: www.idckohtaothailand.com or www.saireecottagediving.com/instructordevelopment-course-idc-koh-tao-saireecottage-diving-koh-tao.

Professional Underwater Photography: https://www.instagram.com/peachsnapsphotography/

UNITED KINGDOM DEEP BLUE DIVE

55 Marden Road, Whitley Bay, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, NE26 2JW, UK T: 0191 253 6220 E: emmet@deepbluedive.com W: www.deepbluedive.com The UK’s number one diving equipment store with all the top brands, at competitive prices. Your one stop shop for diving equipment.

OYSTER DIVING

Maritime House, Basin Road North, Hove, BN41 1WR, UK T: 0800 699 0243 W: www.oysterdiving.com www.oysterdivingshop.com The UK’s premier PADI scuba diving and travel centre. Equipment sales, PADI courses from beginner to Instructor and holidays around the world.

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MARKETPLACE

Diving Medicals Nottingham

Sport Diver medicals £55

HGV/PSV/taxi medicals £55

Occupational Health Medicals

HSE commercial diving medicals £120

Oil and Gas UK Offshore Medicals £110

Discounts for students and large groups

For appointments call 0780 2850 084

or email: mclamp@doctors.org.uk

URCHIN DIVE

CHARTER

Expert Knowledge – 25+ years diving experience. Warm Saloon – Lunch & snacks provided. Wet/Dry Storage – Moon pool entry.

Accommodation available on site.

Contact: Oban Scotland | 01631 566088 www.puffin.org.uk

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THE COURSE DIRECTOR

Marcel van den Berg is a PADI Platinum Course Director working at Sairee Cottage Diving, based on the picturesque island of Koh Tao in Thailand, and here he offers an insight into recreational diver training and professional-level courses, and how these can be rewarding experiences with far-reaching consequences. www.saireecottagediving.com

BECOMING A PADI DIVE INSTRUCTOR CAN BE A LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCE PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF SAIREE COTTAGE DIVING

W

e only have one life, so it is important we find a job that we love. Becoming a dive instructor and being able to work in places like Thailand, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean or any other beautiful area of the world can be totally life-transforming.

Many people try a few different jobs before they find the job that they love, but there are also many people that end up with a job they are not happy with, which leads to a build up of frustration throughout their careers. Diving is a massively popular sport and divers can’t wait to go on their vacation to places like Thailand. It’s no surprise why many divers end up finding a job in the industry, working and living in paradise.

HOW BIG OF A STEP IS IT TO BECOME A DIVE INSTRUCTOR?

A lot of us grow up with the belief that we need to go to school, get a diploma, find a job, pay the mortgage, get a car, etc. I think most of us have dreamed about what it would be like to live on a tropical island and work in paradise… then some of us ask the question, ‘why should I pay for a holiday when I can live in a holiday and get paid for it’? It sounds fantastic, but most people think that it is too good to be true, the step seems too big to make…

That step, to become a dive instructor, is much easier then most people think. It’s very important to know that once you’ve made the choice to become a dive instructor and move to another country, it is not set in stone that you can never come back. I always recommend to at least try it out and if, after instructor training and working as a dive instructor, you realise it is not for you, then you can always go back to doing what you did before.

HOW IS IT TO LIVE IN PARADISE AND WORK AS A DIVE INSTRUCTOR?

Close your eyes for a second and try to imagine that you are walking to work on a tropical beach with white sand, palm trees and a calm turquoise sea.

After a ten-minute ‘commute’, you arrive at the dive shop and meet your customers, who are excited about learning to scuba dive. After some training in the classroom and pool, you are leading them underwater on a beautiful tropical reef surrounded by schools of colourful fish and other marine life.

When you have finished work and you are walking home, you notice that everyone you meet is smiling (because they are on holiday), which is amazing.

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I’M READY TO MAKE THE STEP, BUT WHERE DO I START?

The first thing you have to do is find a nice area in the world to complete your diving courses, then find the best place for you to do your PADI Instructor Development Course (IDC). Choosing the right dive centre, course, location and teacher is very important as it will set you up in the right direction, with the right positive mental attitude and the right knowledge and skills to be the best possible dive instructor.

Thailand, and in particular Koh Tao, is one of the best places in the world to do your dive training and your PADI IDC. Because Koh Tao is so popular, there are loads of great dive schools to choose from. Sairee Cottage Diving is one of them, and PADI Platinum Course Director Marcel van den Berg has designed a Divemaster and Dive Instructor Internship programme that goes well beyond all standards, giving you fantastic job opportunities after completion of the course. The Dive Instructor course at Sairee Cottage Diving focuses on high quality, improving dive standards, safety and marine conservation while offering some of the best training facilities on the island.

The step to becoming a dive instructor and enjoying life on a tropical island is not that hard to make, and we recommend you give it a go, especially if you ever wondered if it’s for you. You will be changing your life - and enjoying a dream job in paradise. n

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To learn more about our dive grade neoprene go to : www.othree.co.uk/neoprene-the-difference

A diamond is a lump of coal that did very well under pressure.... .... can the same be said of all Semi Dry suits?

O’Three’s NEW ‘SemiDry 65’, a diamond among semi drys, it stands-up under pressure.

Of all the semi dry suits in the world, Will Goodman chose O’Three for his world record 290m CCR Dive.

This suit can be worn from early summer through to mid September here in the UK (14°c – 18°c) and comes into its own in the the Mediterranean and winter in the Red Sea. By adding the O’Three Deep Skin Short John, this temperature range can be increased.

Available in Black and Grey with Orange Accent Graphics or Black and Blue with Blue Accent Graphics.

£249.95

Drysuits, Semi Dry / Wetsuits and Neoprene Accessories at their best. www.othree.co.uk | +44 (0) 1305 822820 | Osprey Quay Portland Dorset UK DT5 1BL

Image Credits: Luke Inman

Summer 17 collection Encouraging freedom to explore, woven with powerful messages concerning our underwater environment.

#AfterDive

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