Scuba Diver UK May 18 - Issue 15

WIN A LIVEABOARD FROM DIVERSE TRAVEL AND EMPEROR DIVERS WORTH £1,000!

OBITUARY: GAVIN ANDERSON

ARE YOU A GAS GUZZLER?:

WE PAY TRIBUTE TO THE SCOTTISH UNDERWATER PHOTO-JOURNALIST AND REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR

FREEDIVING GURU EMMA FARRELL OFFERS HINTS ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SAC RATE

NORWAY BY LIVEABOARD

Cold-water WRECK DIVING at its very finest

9 +

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Philippines

TAKING THE

WICK

Exploring PETTICOWICK in the ST ABBS Marine Reserve in Scotland ISSUE 15 | MAY 18 | £3.25

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EDITOR’S NOTE In remembrance of

GAVIN ANDERSON This is one of the hardest Editor’s Notes I have ever had to write. It is always difficult to write about diving fatalities at the best of times, as it is never a pleasant topic to discuss, but when it is someone you considered a good friend and had known for nearly 20 years, it is downright heartbreaking.

Gavin Anderson had started in the world of underwater photo-journalism with my predecessor at Sport Diver magazine, and his obvious talents with a camera had been spotted early on by the British Society of Underwater Photographers (BSoUP), who gave him their Best Newcomer award in 1993.

When I entered the industry in March 1999, at the tender age of 25, Gavin was one of the first people to warmly welcome me into the fold, and I will be forever grateful for his assistance, support and advice as I made the transition from newspaper journalist to magazine editor.

He was one of my stalwart contributors for several years, writing interesting prose supported by stunning images from both UK waters and more-tropical destinations, and so it was a shame when he ‘dropped off’ the diving circuit to concentrate on his commercial and wedding photography business.

I was extremely happy when he reappeared a few years back, with a newfound drive for diving, particularly within the technical disciplines, both open- and closed-circuit. He again became one of my regular contributors at Sport Diver, and when that title was unexpectedly closed in January 2017, Gavin was one of the first people to pledge his support to our Scuba Diver magazine initiative, and I will always be in his debt for the support he provided in our first year, and beyond.

In fact, he was at the forefront of what we were doing right up until that fateful dive on Wednesday 11 April, with one of his eye-catching shots gracing the front cover of our very-first Scuba Diver Asia-Pacific edition, and two articles being featured inside. He also wrote the Norway article in this magazine on page 76.

I will miss our regular chats, and the distinctive sound of his Scottish accent on the end of the phone. Gone, but not forgotten - you will be sorely missed, my friend.

MARK EVANS, Editor-in-Chief

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Mark Evans Tel: 0800 0 69 81 40 ext 700 Email: mark.evans@scubadivermag.com

DESIGN

Matt Griffiths Email: matt@griffital.co.uk

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ISSN 2514-2054

05

WIN A LIVEABOARD FROM DIVERSE TRAVEL AND EMPEROR DIVERS WORTH £1,000!

OBITUARY: GAVIN ANDERSON

ARE YOU A GAS GUZZLER?:

WE PAY TRIBUTE TO THE SCOTTISH UNDERWATER PHOTO-JOURNALIST AND REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR

FREEDIVING GURU EMMA FARRELL OFFERS HINTS ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SAC RATE

ON THE COVER NORWAY BY LIVEABOARD

Cold-water WRECK DIVING at its very finest

9 +

HIGH-END REGULATORS RATED AND REVIEWED

Philippines

p001_ScubaDiverMay18.indd 1

TAKING THE

WICK

Exploring PETTICOWICK in the ST ABBS Marine Reserve in Scotland ISSUE 15 | MAY 18 | £3.25

‣ The Next Generation ‣ Cornwall ‣ Bahamas

PHOTOGRAPHER: GAVIN ANDERSON

WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

19/04/2018 19:52

REGULAR COLUMNS

FEATURES

Tribute to the late Gavin Anderson, and Project AWARE reaches a milestone.

Dr Richard Smith explores the dive sites around Dumaguete, and finds that there is a sublime blend of reefs and walls rich for wide-angle, and areas more suited to the macro enthusiast.

8 News

28 Dive like a Pro

A panel of training agency experts offer advice on launching DSMBs and the use of reels/spools.

36 Competition: Red Sea holiday Win a liveaboard trip to the Egyptian Red Sea worth £1,000 in our prize draw.

58 Our-World UW Scholar

Mae Dorricott signs off as the 2017 Scholar with a trip to the Bahamas for some shark diving.

98 The Zen Diver

Kids Sea Camp’s Tom Peyton has some advice on how to find your ‘Zen Place’ when diving.

06

22 The Philippines

32 Cornwall

Stuart Philpott turns underwater detective when he sets out to solve a 100-year-old mystery that is connected to the shipwreck of the Anna Sofie out of Padstow in Cornwall.

38 The Bahamas

Editor-in-Chief Mark Evans selects some of his most-memorable wall, shark, reef and wreck dives in the Bahamas archipelago, which he has visited numerous times in the last 20 years.

44 THE NEXT GENERATION

Why a Kids Sea Camp holiday is suitable for even non-divers (written by a non-diving mum!), plus more Case Studies of keen kids who are proving their diving potential, and why UK diving can be hard to promote.

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CONTENTS

48 ABOVE 18m: Scotland

Lawson Wood sticks close to home to explore the underwater wonders of Petticowick in the St Abbs Marine Reserve, which is accessible both from the shore and via a boat.

52 FREEDIVING: Gas Guzzler

Are you a gas guzzler? Always use up your tank before anyone else?

Freediving guru Emma Farrell offers up some hints and advice on ways in which to improve your SAC rate by using freediving secrets.

66 Q&A: David Diley

Award-winning film-maker David Diley is in the hotseat this month, and he explains how a lot of hard work and grafting went into the creation of Of Shark and Man, and tells us what he has planned for the future.

76 TECHNICAL: Norway

The late Gavin Anderson, in one of the final pieces he wrote for Scuba Diver, joins a liveaboard trip to Bergen to visit some of the best cold-water shipwrecks in the world.

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GEAR GUIDE 82 What’s New

New products recently released or coming soon, including Fourth Element OceanPositive ‘Pioneer’ swimwear, DryTide backpack, GoPro’s budget Hero action cam, innovative KUBI card, the TowBoxV2 storage solution and the Mares Seal Skin wetsuit.

84 Group Test

The Scuba Diver Test Team heads to Vivian Quarry in Llanberis, North Wales, to test a selection of top-priced regulators (Over £400).

94 Long Term Test

The Scuba Diver Test Team gets to grips with a selection of products over a six-month period, including the Santi Diving Flex 360, the Shearwater Research NERD 2, Aqua Lung Outlaw BCD, Suunto’s EON Core, Apeks RK3s, and Fourth Element’s X-Core.

07

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 or follow us on social media. www.scubadivermag.com/news | .com/scubadivermag | @scubadivermag

Tragic diving accident claims underwater photographer

GAVIN ANDERSON T

Scuba Diver regular contributor Gavin Anderson has tragically died after a diving accident in the Firth of Clyde.

he 57-year-old Milnathort-based underwater photo-journalist and professional land photographer, who was diving on his closed-circuit rebreather, was pulled from the water unconscious around midday on Wednesday 11 April by the crew of the Argyll Ferries vessel Ali Cat, which diverted from its Dunoon to Gourock service to assist.

The Helensburgh lifeboat and a Coastguard helicopter from Prestwick responded to emergency calls, and a paramedic was lowered to the ferry from the aircraft and attempted to resuscitate Anderson, who was brought ashore at Gourock and taken to Inverclyde Royal Hospital by ambulance, where he sadly later died.

Police confirmed that inquiries into the circumstances of the accident are continuing.

OBITUARY: GAVIN ANDERSON

Gavin had been an award-winning underwater photojournalist for several years before I first met him in March 1999, bagging the BSoUP Newcomer Trophy back in 1993. I had just become the new Editor of Sport Diver magazine at the age of 25 - Gavin warmly welcomed me into the industry, and became one of my regular contributors from that moment onwards.

In 2005, I also had the pleasure of spending two weeks in Sudan on the Royal Evolution liveaboard with Gavin, and his genuine good nature, laid-back outlook on life and dry sense of humour gained him a lot of friends.

After several years working together, he dropped out of the diving scene for a while, but in the last three or four years had discovered a new-found love of the sport, particularly in the more-technical disciplines, and was getting seriously back into his writing and underwater photography. I fondly remember a recent phone conversation when he was waxing lyrical about his new camera system.

When Sport Diver was unexpectedly closed down in January 2017, Gavin was among the first of my little cadre of photo-journalist contributors to pledge his support to our new Scuba Diver venture, and I will be forever grateful for the assistance he provided during our launch year.

I last spoke to Gavin only a week before he died, and he was extremely proud and excited that two of his stories were included in the launch issue of Scuba Diver Asia-Pacific, and that one of his photographs graced the front cover of Volume 1 – in fact, on 10 April, he posted about it on his website. This magazine was received with open arms at the ADEX Singapore show over the

08

PHOTO CREDIT: SAEED RASHID

weekend of 7-8 April, and I was going to talk to Gavin the week after to congratulate him on how well his work had been received – I am deeply saddened that I will now never be able to make that phone call, or hear his excited response.

Myself and the entire team at Scuba Diver extend our deepest condolences to wife Jenny Verden-Anderson and his entire family at this difficult time. He will be sorely missed.

Mark Evans, Editor-in-Chief, Scuba Diver

WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

True exploration in the heart of Bunaken Marine Park

PHOTO CREDIT: SAEED RASHID

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Expect a state-of-the-art filling station, specialised equipment, experienced surface support and expert advisors.

Oasis Explorers will also be working on opportunities in North Sulawesi for more detailed scientific surveys, environmental awareness for deep-water marine species and the first comprehensive mapping project beyond recreational depths.

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09

INDUSTRY NEWS BATTLE AGAINST PLASTIC SEES ANNOUNCEMENT OF BOTTLE DEPOSIT SCHEME Hot on the heels of Blue Planet II, which showcased graphically the threat of ocean pollution, the government has announced plans to implement a deposit scheme on bottles and cans in a bid to boost recycling and cut down on waste.

The move also comes just days after one report stated that plastic pollution in the sea would treble in a decade unless marine litter is curbed, and another warned that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a veritable ‘island’ of plastic material twice the size of France – is thought to contain 79,000 tonnes of floating waste, which is up to 16 times more plastic and microplastic particles than was previously estimated.

The deposit scheme, which is expected to focus on single-use glass and plastic bottles, and steel and aluminium cans, will increase prices, but consumers will get the additional spend back if they return the bottle or can.

Scotland has already announced plans for a deposit return scheme, and it is reported that Wales has launched a study to consider a similar proposal.

Full details have yet to be announced, including the amount of the deposit,

as the scheme is subject to consultation, but in similar programmes in Germany and Sweden the cost is 22p and 8p respectively.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said there was no doubt that plastic was ‘wreaking havoc’ on the marine environment and discarded plastic bottles and cans ‘end up dumped on pavements and lobbed into rivers, lakes and the sea’.

The government has already banned harmful microbeads and cut plastic bag use – the number of single-use plastic carrier bags has dropped by 83 percent since the implementation of a 5p charge – and now it is targeting bottles and cans.

UK consumers apparently use around 13 billion plastic drinks bottles a year, but more than three billion are not recycled.

DUTTONS DIVERS RUN SNOWDON FOR PROJECT AWARE! On 30 June, Clare Dutton and William Tew from the Duttons Divers team at Vivian Dive Centre, Llanberis, will be taking on Snowdon to raise awareness of ocean plastic. At the same time, the dive centre will be holding a debris dive for divers to come along and take part in, while the team battles the mountain.

Clare said: “I have not even walked Snowdon for years! But, if it raises some awareness of the issues that our oceans are facing, then that is all that matters. Approximately eight million metric tones of plastic entered our oceans last year. If we can run eight miles from Vivian and up a big hill to raise awareness, then it would all be worthwhile.”

Will commented: “I always remember being in Thailand on a boat, no land in sight and a bag of rubbish was just floating in the middle of the ocean. So, being at a point now where people are becoming more aware and are wanting to act, it seems like a perfect time for us to do our part and raise funds for Project AWARE and promote the issue”.

The team will be setting off and finishing at Vivian Dive Centre, and would urge you to come and show your support by taking part in the debris dive and to cheer them on at the finish line. If you would like to make a donation, go to their fundraising page: https://www.classy.org/fundraiser/1315206. To let them know that you’ll be on the debris dive, email: duttonsdivers@gmail.com

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BUDDY DIVE PULLS OUT OF DOMINICA IN WAKE OF HURRICANE MARIA Category Five Hurricane Maria, which absolutely devastated the ‘Nature Island’ of Dominica in September last year, has claimed another victim – Buddy Dive, which had been running an operation on the island since late-2014, has decided to close its doors.

Buddy Dive, which is already phenomenally successful on Bonaire, was seeking to expand and signed a partnership agreement with the Fort Young Hotel on Dominica in 2014, opening up the dive operation in August 2015. Since then, it had been steadily growing, with three dive boats and 11 staff in residence.

Sadly, when Hurricane Maria made landfall, it savaged the Fort Young Hotel, and Buddy Dive on Dominica lost all three of its boats and has been closed down ever since. In the face of all that has happened over the last couple of months, Buddy Dive has been looking into the opportunities to rebuild what was lost. “The way the numbers added up and the way the future looked to us, we have come to the unavoidable decision to close down our business at the Fort Young Hotel. This is an emotional time for us and our employees, who have been such a big part of what has made Buddy Dive on Dominica successful,” Buddy Dive CEO Martien van der Valk said.

Buddy Dive would like to thank Fort Young Hotel for a great partnership over the past three-and-a-half years. “We are happy to see they are rebuilding and we wish them all the best for the future,” added van der Valk.

Buddy Dive will continue with all its diving services on Bonaire as usual. www.buddydive.com

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12

A global citizen-science survey in which divers around the world remove and report marine litter reached a milestone in March, with organisers announcing one million items removed from the ocean.

The #OneMillionLess milestone was announced by Project AWARE, who work to create positive change for the ocean through community action. As part of Dive Against Debris, a global marine debris survey launched in 2011, 49,188 divers from 114 countries have taken part in an effort both to clean up the ocean and build evidence to shine a light on the global marine litter crisis.

Recreational and professional divers have retrieved objects varying from sunbeds to batteries and shoes, as well as vast quantities of plastic bags, cutlery and bottles. The data collected captures essential information for scientists to estimate debris that has sunk to the seafloor.

This milestone comes at a time of unprecedented focus on the issue of plastic pollution and its impact on the health of ocean - scientists estimate some 20 million tonnes of plastic waste could enter the ocean every year.

Danna Moore, Director of Project AWARE, is asking divers to remove and report one million more pieces of rubbish by end of 2020 and help highlight the true extent of the marine debris problem.

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Eco Dive - Grenada Coyaba Beach Resort, Grenada Phone: +1 (473) 444 7777 dive@ecodiveandtrek.com www.ecodiveandtrek.com

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INDUSTRY NEWS

THINK DIFFERENT

East Cheshire SAC has co-ordinated the Menai Boat Run every year since 2007.

Originally conceived as a day for the club to test-out their RIBs before the start of the season, it has seen a steady influx of other BSAC clubs and their boats getting involved, seeing numbers swell from two vessels in 2007, to a massive 35 RIBs on Sunday 25 March.

More than 270 BSAC members and their families took to the waters of the Menai Straits in this impressive flotilla, raising £1,500 for the RNLI while enjoying fish-and-chips in Beaumaris and ice cream at Caernarfon in the stunning spring sunshine. The cheque was presented to the Beaumaris lifeboat crew during the lunchtime pit-stop.

It is estimated that BSAC clubs travelled in excess of 10,000 miles to take part in the run, coming from as far afield as Cornwall.

Event organiser Kevin Philips, East Cheshire SAC’s Diving Officer thanked everyone who took part in the day and helped to raise funds for the RNLI. He commented: “This year’s Menai Run was the best so far, with perfect conditions and a great atmosphere with everyone enjoying themselves. It was great to see so many people join in, meet friends from other clubs and make new ones from clubs from all over the country.”

To see more photographs from this event, check out East Cheshire SAC’s website: www.ecsac.org.uk and BSAC’s Facebook page.

EMPEROR DIVERS SHARM EL SHEIKH NOW OPEN FOR BUSINESS

BECOME DIFFERENT diveRAIDuk.com

14

Emperor Divers has reopened its dive centre in the iconic Red Sea dive capital of Sharm El Sheikh. Located directly in Na’ama Bay, the centre is close to the jetty and ready to take guests to dive incredible sites such as Tiran and Ras Mohammed.

“Sharm diving is at its absolute best for decades, as dive sites have had a few years to recover from the crowds.

Stunning hard and soft corals and amazing marine life encounters abound in some of the clearest waters the Red Sea has to offer,” says General Manager Luke Atkinson. “The fish schooling event of Ras Mohammed in summer is truly world-class and the chance to experience it with diver numbers similar to the 1990s should not be missed.”

Emperor is sharing with the Werner Lau/ Sinai Divers centre in Helnan Marina Hotel, where guests will have access to a house reef in Na’ama Bay and top-class facilities as well as being close to a range of hotels for convenience.

Divers’ favourite boats, Emperor Shorouk and Emperor Marcus, will be running regularly to the amazing local sites and, of course, to Ras Mohammed and Tiran. Emperor’s small instructor team will be headed up by the familiar face of Elise, an Emperor Sharm legend.

Flights from the UK are still on hold due to FCO advice concerning Sharm airport, but direct flights to the resort come from Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Austria with carriers such as TUIfly, FTI and Germania. Indirect flights via Istanbul with Pegasus and Turkish airlines are excellent for divers due to a generous baggage allowance, which is also the case with Egyptair via Cairo. www.emperordivers.com

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16

INDUSTRY NEWS DIVER PROPOSES UNDERWATER IN THE MALDIVES

Simon Plank is a keen diver, and when he met Marnie Starr through a John Lewis work trip and discovered she was a dive instructor who had spent a few years working in the Red Sea, it was a match made in heaven. Five years on from their first meeting at Nemo33 in Belgium, he decided it was time to pop the question – and in true diver-form, concluded it could only be done underwater!

With a John Lewis Partnership Venture Club trip to the Maldives, on the Blue O Two liveaboard Blue Voyager, on the cards for early 2018, it seemed the perfect moment, especially as Simon had friends Richard Steven and Hayley Eaude on board - who together run Black Manta Photography – to capture the moment.

Simon explained: “I visited Marnie’s brother to ask permission for her hand in marriage back in November 2017, and he had a friend who owns a jewellers, so I contacted them to make a bespoke ring with a theme of bubbles - I was very impressed and pleased with what they came up with.

“That was the easy bit! There were so many potential problems with proposing underwater which resulted in several sleepless nights. Should I take the ring underwater or buy a much-cheaper version?

Knowing Marnie’s attention to detail, I knew I wouldn’t get away with a cheap ring so I decided to take the real one.

“Security at both airports would be a problem as my carry-on bag always gets checked as I carry a lot of camera equipment with me, so twice I had to subtly remove the ring from pocket to hand luggage without Marnie noticing.

“When I got on the liveaboard I asked

the guides where would be the best site to do an underwater proposal - they suggested the third dive on day three, as it was fairly shallow (12m) and not much current. Day three arrived and Marnie wasn’t sure if she could dive as she was having problems with her ears! Luckily for me, she did complete the dives. I smuggled the ring (in box, the jewellers gave me two!) into my dive gear, but forgot to write the question on the dive slate! Thankfully, Richard did this for me underwater. The plan was to do it halfway through the dive, however it was at this point I lost Richard and Hayley! They reappeared, Richard handed me the slate and gave me a nod of encouragement and I went for it. Hayley went to get Marnie by signalling that she had found a turtle, the irony being just after Marnie signalled ‘yes’ to the proposal, a turtle did actually turn up and photobomb the video!”

Marnie said: “I had no idea it was happening and can’t believe he organised everything without me knowing.

I was totally taken by surprise! We then had a underwater kiss, as I realised I’d been shaking my head in disbelief and thought he might think that was a ‘no’ - the trials and tribulations of not being able to talk underwater!

“That evening on the boat Simon had arranged with the crew to have the champagne chilling. Blue O Two provided bubbles for everyone to share in the celebration and to toast our engagement (with 25 of us on the boat, that was a lot of bubbles!).

She added: “No plans for the big day yet - but we certainly have a idea of honeymoon destination now!”

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Duttons Divers and Vivian Dive Centre are proud to both announce and be hosting the first-ever Scuba Pride event, right here in North Wales on 21 July! The event is sure to be a huge success, with vast amounts of support from various LGBT groups, such as Stonewall and LGBT North Wales, as well as various other dive manufactures and organisations.

Clare Dutton, Director of Duttons Divers and Vivian Dive Centre said: “I am very proud and excited for this event, and quite honestly cannot believe that it has not been done before. It is great to have the opportunity to make a difference and support the LGBT community. Having known so many individuals that have faced issues in the past when trying to ‘fit in’ and take part in new activities, we want to show that scuba diving is open to everyone, without prejudice, and encourage those that have been reluctant to take part in scuba diving for this very reason, that they do not need to be.”

Duttons Divers and Vivian Dive Centre have lots lined up at the event already, including the standard attendees such as guest speakers, dive manufacturers and travel operators. There will also be recreational and tech trydives, shore and boat dives, and a BBQ. Of course, it will also be a day with a difference, with things like karaoke, a jacuzzi, photo booth, rainbow face painting and much more.

Tickets can now be purchased online at: viviandivecentre.com. You can also purchase the official Scuba Pride T-shirt from the same site. A donation from all ticket and T-shirt sales will go to LGBT North Wales.

MUMBAI BEACH CLEAN-UP SEES TURTLE HATCHLINGS THRIVE

For the first time in decades, hatchlings from a vulnerable turtle species have been found on a Mumbai beach following huge efforts by volunteers to conduct a two-year clean-up on the coastline. According to The Guardian, at the end of March, ‘At least 80 Olive Ridley turtles made their way into the Arabian Sea from nests on the southern end of Versova beach, protected from wild dogs and birds of prey by volunteers who slept overnight in the sand to watch over them’. The United Nations has claimed Versova is the ‘world’s largest beach clean-up project,’ as what was once a dumping ground of litter and plastics is now a virtually unspoilt area of coastline. Afroz Shah, a lawyer and the leader behind the beach clean-up, told The Guardian that ‘he started anticipating the turtle hatchings two months ago when farmers on the southern end of the twomile (3km) beach reported seeing turtles in the sand.’

“The moment we got that news I knew something big was going to happen,” he said. Shah then telephoned the forest department, headed down to the beach with 25 others and protected the area while the baby turtles moved across the sand, ensuring that ‘not one hatchling suffered a death’.

TRAGEDY STRIKES AS SOLDIER DIES WHILE ON FINAL WEEK OF ARMY DIVER COURSE A 27-year-old trainee military diver died in a diving accident during the final week of his Army Diver course at the National Diving and Activity Centre (NDAC) in Gloucestershire at the end of March.

L/Cpl George Partridge, whose wife is expecting their first child, was at the popular inland dive site on 26 March when the incident occurred.

He was based with 26 Engineer Regiment in Wiltshire, had been deployed to Afghanistan and served in Canada, and had held a long-standing ambition to be an Army diver. His commanding officer Lt Col Simon Doyle described him as ‘quietly determined, hard-working and immensely popular’, saying ‘Lance Corporal George Partridge was an exemplary soldier. Humble but hugely capable, he was always ready to lend a helping hand’. The Military of Defence has said it is investigating how the ‘tragic diving accident’ happened.

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MEDICAL Q&A 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 had weight loss surgery a few years ago. The procedure I had was called gastric bypass. Ironically I sold my dive gear to help pay privately for the procedure, thinking I’d never need it again. But having the surgery gave me a new lease of life and I have been thinking about getting back into the water.

Is diving possible? Would there be any risks, or limits on my depth? All I’m interested in is shallow recreational dives in warm water, nothing extreme.

Hope you can give me some good news.

A: I think I can. Gastric bypass surgery has been around for nearly 60 years, so surgeons are well aware of the possible complications of the procedure.

The pleasant-sounding ‘dumping syndrome’ is the most troublesome – cold sweats, butterflies, bloating and diarrhoea after eating (particularly while watching any form of reality TV).

To avoid this, small meals which are high in protein and low in sugar are the order of the day (which makes perfect sense).

On the whole, results are good and weight loss sustained.

A newer surgical approach is to wrap a band around the stomach, the size of which can be adjusted by injecting or removing saline through a port placed under the skin. This can be done via keyhole surgery (laparoscopically) and is hence commonly called a ‘lap band’.

One charming complication of this procedure is Productive Burping, the regurgitation of swallowed food. Slower eating and more thorough mastication (that’s chewing) can normally sort this out.

Ascent from a dive can cause some acid reflux which might be an issue with either of these procedures, but this can usually be treated with antacids or similar drugs.

Air trapping is unlikely as the gut is still ‘open’ at either end for the important release of expanding gases.

So, assuming you have none of the above problems, go dive.

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Q: I’ve read that diving mammals such as whales have large amounts of body fat, which I suppose is there to keep them warm. So why don’t they get the bends? Isn’t fat partly to blame for decompression sickness?

A: This is a proper brain teaser that has taxed marine biologists for many years. We all appreciate the health hazards that excess fat can cause in humans (heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes etc.), and there is some correlation with incidence of decompression sickness (DCS) in divers.

As you rightly say, diving mammals need fat primarily for insulation, but they have quite different physiological mechanisms to deal with the associated risks.

The fattest whale is thought to be the Pacific right whale (Eubalaena japonica), which can weigh 100 tons, 40 percent of which is fat. The blubber layer on a right whale can be up to six feet thick, and their high body fat percentage means they don’t sink when they die (which is why they were the ‘right’ whale to kill).

Most of the oxygen a whale requires for a dive is stored in blood and muscle, with only nine percent in their lungs (compared with 34 percent in human lungs).

There are several explanations as to why whales don’t get bent.

Firstly, they are diving with a single breath (albeit a very big one), so they are not taking on more compressed gas at depth, as scuba divers do. To some extent this is why freedivers don’t get narced or bent as well, despite diving to depths far in excess of theoretical tolerances.

Secondly, the ribs of whales are flexible and mobile, and collapse inwards with pressure, thereby compressing the lungs and forcing the air into areas where absorption does not occur (mainly the upper airways).

Thirdly, this lung compression reduces blood flow to the lungs. The net result is that nitrogen absorption into the blood is minimal, and hence the risk of DCS negligible.

Do you have a question for Dr Firth?

Email: divingdoctor@scubadivermag. com and we’ll pass it on.

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GEAR GUIDE: BACK-INFLATE BCDS

Lawson Wood explores the dramatic dive site of Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth Stuart Philpott mounts up for an epic, exhilarating scooter dive in Malta Deeper Blue’s Stephan Whelan goes behind-the-scenes at the US dive expo

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Why the island of Barbados should be on your ‘must-dive’ bucket list RAID’s Paul Toomer chats about what the future holds for this young agency The Scuba Diver Test Team rates and reviews budget-priced back-inflate BCDs

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DIVE THE MALTESE ARCHIPELAGO

Malta and Gozo have long been a favourite haunt of British divers, with favourable conditions all year round tempting both beginners and experienced divers to make the short three-hour flight from the UK. Scuba Diver presents a potted guide to the islands.

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oasting over 300 days of sunshine annually, being predominantly English-speaking and lying just a threehour flight from the UK, the islands of Malta and Gozo offer a fantastic array of topside and underwater attractions to tempt visitors to their shores throughout the year.

These islands, nestled in the middle of the Mediterranean, benefit from a lack of any significant tidal movement and this means the calm, warm waters can deliver up to 50 metres of visibility! Even better, many of the most-renowned dive sites can be accessed straight from the shore, and this includes a diverse selection of natural harbours, bays, caves, reefs and shipwrecks.

All of these are covered in encrusting marine growth and home to a wide selection of fish and crustaceans, including barracuda, bream, damselfish, octopus, crabs and lobster.

Whether you are a raw novice or a veteran diver, there are shore-diving sites perfect for you - and and to reinforce just how good these diving hotspots are, a certain Jacques-Yves Cousteau notched several high up on his all-time ‘best dives’ list.

While Malta and Gozo have many well-regarded dive centres that can take divers to these dive sites and give them a guided tour, that is not only what makes these islands special. Rent a 4x4, load up your dive kit and cylinders, and you and your buddy will be free to explore these amazing dive sites at your own pace – a huge bonus for experienced divers and underwater photographers who prefer to ‘do their own thing’. This ethos of diving freedom – not to mention the superb value-for-money diving packages that are available - also makes Malta and Gozo the ideal location for a dive club/group expedition.

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Malta and Gozo are one of those rare holiday destinations that has accommodations that can cater for all visitors, from cashstrapped backpackers to those seeking a high-end luxury getaway.

The huge selection of cafes, bars and restaurants also means that whatever budget you are working to, you can find the perfect spot for a tasty breakfast, lunch or dinner, or a relaxing beverage after a hard day on the tourist trail. So, whether you want a long-weekend away in the sun, or plan on spending a week or two taking in the sights both above and below the waterline, Malta and Gozo has much to offer discerning visitors. n For more information about Malta and Gozo, check out: www.maltauk.com/diving

MORE THAN DIVING

While this Mediterranean archipelago is undoubtedly a dream dive destination, what makes it extra-special is the rich sense of history that the islands exude as soon as you set foot off the airplane. With over 7,000 years of history to delve into, you could spend weeks exploring and not visit the same location twice. For instance, there are no less than seven megalithic temples on the islands, including the awe-inspiring UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Ggantija Temples, which are the oldest free-standing monuments in the world – they were built a staggering 1,000 years prior to Egypt’s great pyramids. There are also intriguing underground catacombs, over 365 lavishly ornate churches, vast collections of fine art and dramatic ancient forts – the latter a lasting testament to how the islands were fought over through history, time and again, due to their strategic location. If you needed any more evidence of how well-regarded Malta and Gozo are from a historical standpoint, Valletta was named the European Capital of Culture for 2018, though if this ancient history all gets a little too heavy, you can even visit the set from the 1980 Hollywood musical Popeye!

Marine biologist Dr Richard Smith explores the bounty of Dumaguete in the Philippines PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICHARD SMITH | OCEANREALMIMAGES.COM

A

fter so many years exploring Indonesia, it has been exciting to spend some time in the Philippines over the past few years. Visiting this wonderful country, with its thousands of coral-fringed islands, proves just how rich the Coral Triangle is. Although it’s geographically very close to Indonesia, it very much has its own twists on a theme. Dumaguete, on the southeast corner of Negros Island, is a great example. As a renowned muck-diving area, you might expect to find the same animals as Indonesia’s fabled Lembeh Strait; however, the region seems to have received a different batch of magic dust that has occupied its reefs slightly differently.

The dive sites of Dumaguete sit just half an hour by car outside the city of the same name, along the Dauin coast. Here, black volcanic sand, which is always a good indicator of fantastic muck diving, occupies many miles of palm-fringed beaches. Unlike Lembeh, these sites seem relatively exposed to the open sea, but the various headlands and other islands seem to limit strong ocean currents and wave action.

Along the Dauin coast, many resorts have cropped up catering to all tastes and budgets. Access to the sites is so easy that some offer shore dives on their house reefs, but the vast majority of diving is conducted either from speedboats or Banka boats in the local style. These large and spacious wooden boats have traditional bamboo outriggers for stability, especially helpful during longer journeys out to the reefs of Apo or Siquijor.

San Miguel is one of the furthest north of the dive sites and makes for a fantastic day or night dive. In fact, it’s probably my favourite true muck site in the area. As well as the usual suspects, there are great nudibranchs here, as well as many pairs of golden pygmy gobies. These tiny fish form male-female pairs and guard a small hard surface onto which they lay a clutch of eggs.

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“One of the most-striking features of diving around Dumaguete is that different times of year have very different assemblages of critters”

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Thorny seahorses are common on muck sites

ATLANTIS DUMAGUETE RESORT

Atlantis Dumaguete is located in Dauin on Negros Island, the third largest island in the Philippines. Lying on a long, peaceful stretch of beach, surrounded by a tropical garden with some of the rarest plants to be found in the country, it is just a short trip to some of the mostrenowned dive sites in Asia - Apo Island, Siquijor and, of course, the local Dauin Marine Sanctuaries. The PADI five-star IDC centre and TDI facility offers courses from beginner to instructor level, small groups (typically no more than six guests), plus marine life presentations and dive day trips. Then there is Toko’s Restaurant, the legendary oceanfront 50 Bar, and the Atlantis Spa for those chill-out days. www.atlantishotel.com A female jaguar dottyback showing off her formidable fangs

This could be something as simple as a shell, a piece of bamboo or a beer bottle! By night, in water deeper than around 20m, I have seen several of an unusual miniature frogfish that I haven’t yet been able to identify. I also saw for the first time a large red nudibranch, Dendrodoris guttata.

Another highlight of Dumaguete’s dive sites is Secret Corner.

At the point is a quite steep slope of pebbles of varying sizes that stretch far beyond recreational diving limits. The site can be hit by quite strong currents at times, which can make it slightly awkward to dive. If you are able to get in during the late afternoon with slack tide, the site becomes a cephalopod wonderland, with the possibility of sighting all of the must-see muck site octopuses. I have seen wunderpus, many blue-rings, the rare mototi (poison-ocellate) octopus, coconut octopus and even the super rare hairy species. I have also come across a rare gurnard lionfish here too, which I have only ever seen at two sites before.

Diving around Dumaguete, it’s worth trying to hone on your critter-hunting skills. If you look closely at the sponges, soft corals, crinoids or anemones, you’re sure to find some kind of well-camouflaged little creature living hidden on their surface.

Many will be very small, so a magnifying glass might not be a bad idea to pop in your pocket (these are sold by well-known online retailers). A particularly rich area to search for critters is among the pink Xenia corals (these corals are constantly opening and closing and resemble a flower). There are a multitude of critters that mimic these polyps and are particularly abundant around Dumaguete. The radial filefish is a fish worth keeping an eye out for in large patches, as well as nudibranchs and crustaceans that resemble their host.

If muck diving everyday gets a bit much, there are coral reef alternatives nearby too. Just an hour away by boat is the well-

Several sites are good for finding blue-ringed octopus

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known marine reserve of Apo Island. The entire island is surrounded by dive sites, so guides decide your entry based on local conditions on the day. Here, hard corals are dominant. Some sites have shallow coral gardens and others are steep walls, where it’s always worth looking into the blue for something bigger to pass by. There are many turtles here, which are fairly used to divers so likely to allow a close approach.

I have seen many sea kraits at Apo, hunting between the corals for small fishes to eat. Their bold grey and black banding offers a warning to potential predators of their potent venom. Relatedness to the cobra family certainly has its benefits.

However, it’s interesting to note that some of the mainland sites at Dumaguete also has true sea snakes, which are much rarer indeed. Although superficially similar - the sea snakes are also coloured with bold black and white bands - the sea kraits much less recently made the transition from land into water-dwelling serpents. As such, they have fewer adaptations to an ocean lifestyle. Most importantly, sea kraits have to come ashore to lay eggs, but sea snakes give birth to live young and never have to leave the water. In fact, a true sea snake is so adapted to life in the ocean that without the hydrostatic pressure of being submerged, their body can’t cope with the pressure and they are unable to move on land.

Wunderpus feeding on a crab

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Margined or coconut octopus

“They are quite pugnacious for such a small fish and swim out to intimidate a diver if they linger too long or get too close” LOCAL SPECIALITIES

Nocturnal nudibranch Dendrodoris guttata

SEASONAL ABUNDANCE

One of the most-striking features of diving around Dumaguete is that different times of year have very different assemblages of critters. On one visit, I counted 11 frogfishes on the site Tires, and 50 animals during my whole stay. Some would have comfortably perched on a five-pence piece, while others were the size of a football. Another time there were seahorses everywhere, and I reached a personal best of counting 18 animals on one dive. Other animals that seem to suddenly take over the reefs are octopuses and ghost pipefishes. Whatever time of year you decide to visit, there are always some of these animals to be found. They just seem to have population explosions are different times of year.

There is something very special about the sites around Dumaguete, and I am happy that they have received some local protection. All along the coast there are small marine sanctuaries, which are roped off. Boats and fishing are prohibited within them, but divers can enter and enjoy the animals that are protected from fishing pressures, such as trawling. Trawling, as we all know, is one of the most-destructive forms of fishing due to the huge amount of by-catch that is taken, and for the damage it goes to the seafloor. So, the small marine sanctuary fee collected by the resorts are well worth it and helps to fund the continuing project.

Aside from the usual muck-diving suspects, there are several animals that are unique to this area, or at least the northern Philippines. One group that I have been observing and photographing across the entire Coral Triangle over the last few years are the fairy wrasses. The males of these fishes are the peacocks of the reef. In the late afternoon, he undergoes a dramatic transformation from pale pink to vivid and multi-coloured to show off to the gathering ladies that are ready to spawn. Because females choose to mate with the males that they find most attractive, there is some variation in female preferences. his has resulted in new forms evolving in different areas thanks to female choice.

This process is known as sexual selection.

In the Dumaguete region of the Philippines, there are a few interesting species that I have been lucky enough to find. The red-finned fairy wrasse has close relatives in the Komodo and Raja Ampat regions, but this third species is only found in this region of the Philippines. When displaying, the sail-like dorsal, anal and pelvic fins of the male turn bright scarlet red and the body tangerine orange. It is certainly something to behold. During my last visit, I was very excited to spot another fairy wrasse that I later found out to be the newly discovered Cirrhilabrus isosceles, only named in 2016. Sadly, it was at almost 30m depth and I didn’t have the time to get a nice shot. There’s always something to go back for.

Aside from the fairy wrasses, the locally endemic jaguar dottyback is worth looking for too. Pairs are found around small boulders in deeper areas with a sandy bottom. They are quite pugnacious for such a small fish and swim out to intimidate a diver if they linger too long or get too close. The bright orange male contrasts starkly with the blue-grey female.

If you haven’t yet visited the Philippines, Dumaguete is a great starting point. It has something for everyone but particularly those who enjoy the smaller animals. The dives are very easy, while being exceedingly rewarding. I have been four times already, and I’m sure I’ll be back again before long. n A turtle-headed sea snake, which feeds on the eggs of reef fish

A pair of golden pygmy gobies, with a gravid female in the foreground

A stunning displaying male red-finned fairy wrasse

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This month, our panel of industry experts focus their attention on DSMBs and discuss why they are useful, methods of deployment, and the thorny subject of reels vs spools PHOTOGRAPHS BY JASON BROWN

D

elayed surface marker buoys, or DSMBs, as they are better known, are one of the most-essential pieces of dive safety kit that can be in a diver’s arsenal. The ability to notify the surface of your location when you are still deep underwater is paramount, and so all divers should carry – and know how to deploy – a DSMB. There are many styles available, but whichever you choose, make sure you carry it with you at all times.

Mark Powell, Business Development Manager for TDI/SDI, said: “The ability to send up a Delayed Surface Marker Buoy (DSMB) is one of the key skills for any diver. There are a number of styles of marker buoy, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The traditional marker buoy with an opening at the bottom that is inflated by purging the regulator or exhaled gas is still very common, and the simplicity of the design has many supporters. However, there are a number of alternatives.

“The most common is a buoy with a small gas cylinder attached. The cylinder is used to inflate the buoy, which is intended to simplify the overall process. The diver just ‘cracks’ the bottle and the buoy inflates. This saves the effort of having to fill it manually and when it works correctly is definitely easier. For rebreather dives these are very popular as filling a

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conventional open-ended DSMB is much more complicated on a rebreather. There is no exhaled gas to fill the cylinder and the smaller size of the diluent cylinders makes purging a regulator to fill the DSMB a much-less-attractive solution. However, many divers are of the opinion that if you struggle to fill a DSMB without a crack bottle then it is better to practice your technique a bit more. It is also amusing to watch divers trying to fill a DSMB at the end of a dive after they realise that they forgot to fill the crack bottle. There is also a safety concern with these bottles.

They are rarely tested in the same way as regular cylinders as they are filled from another cylinder and there is no dive shop to enforce testing. However, they are usually very corroded due to the fact that they often get water contamination in them.

Combined with the fact that many divers purge the connector on them by hitting it with a lump of lead and you can see that care should be taken with them.

“Another option is to have a low-pressure inflator on the DSMB, similar to the inflator on your drysuit or wing. To use this system the diver disconnects their drysuit inflator and uses it to inflate the DSMB. At first most divers are wary of this idea as they think that there is a risk of the inflator becoming jammed onto the DSMB and pulling them up to the surface. In reality this isn’t a problem as the inflator, unlike the one on the suit, has no locking groove and so the DSMB just pulls off when full.

Like many things it is a case of practice.

After a few practice attempts, the whole process is very easy. This style of DSMB is ideal for rebreather divers as it doesn’t involve removing or purging a regulator or the use of exhaled gas.”

He continued: “When it comes to DSMBs, size really does matter. Smaller ones are fine for practice or as a back-up, but for long decompression stops in the open sea, a boat skipper is not going to appreciate having to keep an eye on one of these small DSMBs. A larger one will be much easier for a skipper to spot and keep an eye on.

“As well as the DSMB, there are different options for the reel. The main choice is between a reel and a spool. A spool is just a drum of steel, plastic or delrin onto which line can be wrapped. They evolved from overhead environment diving such as cave diving or wreck penetration, where they are used to ‘jump’ from one guide line to another or in the case of losing the guideline. As such they are much simpler than a reel, there is no handle, frame or ratchet, and so they are also much smaller.

Their small size is an advantage as they do not take up much room and can be stored in pockets. Reels, on the other hand, tend to be considerably bigger. There are some reels which are designed to be more compact and can fit in a pocket, but many are too big, especially if you are also carrying a back-up reel. The other differences between different types of reels and spools are the length of line that they contain.

This is particularly relevant for deeper divers, because if the reel or spool contains less line than the depth at which you are diving, then it will be impossible to send it up from the bottom.

The techniques for using reels or spools are quite different. In any case where technique differs, there will inevitably be differences of opinion as to which is best.

Supporters of reels claim that spools are fiddly, difficult to use, prone to error and

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likely to cause problems. On the other hand, supporters of spools claim that reels are fiddly, difficult to use, prone to error and likely to cause problems! Much of this disagreement stems from familiarity with one approach and the typically human reaction to change. If you have spent years using a reel and have perfected the technique, then trying to use a spool is going to cause problems. The reverse situation can also occur although is less common. It is a shame that there is this split between reels and spools because each has its own advantages.

“My own preference is to use a reliable reel with 65m of line and a large DSMB as my primary, and then use a spool with 30m of line and a smaller DSMB as my backup. The simplicity and reliability of my primary reel removes one potential source of stress during the ascent and the size of the DSMB makes it easy for the boat skipper to keep track of me. Then the compactness and simplicity of the spool is ideal as a back-up, the small DSMB is already attached to the reel and can be quickly sent up if required. This is an ideal set-up for me and is becoming more common.

However, it is interesting to see how many people adopt this approach but have never practiced sending up the back-up DSMB using the spool. As we have seen spools are great, as long as you have practised with them. The worst time to practice the

®

correct technique for using a spool is just after your primary reel has jammed and shot to the surface. So my advice would be that if you have a spool as a back-up, use it occasionally instead of your primary so that when you need to use it for real, you are just as familiar with the spool as with your reel. In addition, it is important to be able to practice sending up your DSMB while neutrally buoyant and in mid-water.

If there is a problem with your main SMB, then you may need to send one up part way through the ascent and if you know you can do this easily while maintaining

your buoyancy, it will significantly reduce the stress of the situation.”

Garry Dallas, Director of Training for RAID UK and Malta, said: “How many of you would drive your car an epic distance without a spare wheel on board? Even if you had that spare wheel, would you know how to fit it?

“Whether you call them blobs, markers, tubes or DSMBs, they are tools to provide you with the element of safety, not just underwater but also above. There are many uses for these tools and every diver should own and know how to use one.

The BDSG recommendations concerning the use of surface marker buoys are shown below:

Divers using surface marker buoys should clearly label buoys with the full name of their owners. Avoid nicknames as these may not be known to the dive marshal. If using the delayed surface marker buoy for decompression, the buoy should be clearly marked with the words ‘Decompression’ in addition to the diver’s name. To avoid confusion it is recommended that the colour of a single DSMB should be orange or red, but not yellow.

When carrying two DSMBs on a dive, the general European consensus is that an orange or red buoy is deployed under normal diving conditions. In an emergency, or when assistance is required, a yellow buoy should be deployed.

When using a yellow buoy clearly mark on the buoy the word ‘Emergency’ together with the diver’s name. Once a yellow buoy is seen the support team and or boat can then initiate the standard emergency protocols depending on the situation. www.bdsg.org

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“So, you might think there’s a good reason not to need one - because my best buddy I always dive with has one… and that’s exactly the mentality that could get you into difficulty if you get separated.

Times have changed and it’s time to think about being safer and enjoy every dive.

Interestingly, RAID don’t have a separate DSMB course, every dive we practice deployment.

“Yes, they come in all shapes and sizes, but choose the right one for you that suits your environment. Orange/black, orange and black, pink (for the well-used ones) or yellow for emergencies only.

“There are also various methods for inflating them - oral, low pressure inflator attachment, open ended, crack bottle or disposable canister – and these can be used to ensure they are nice and erect on the surface. Each to their own, but there are always pros and cons for each, so get good advice before purchasing one.

“As a cave diver, my preference is spools, they are simple to use and give more control of the line. Cold-water spools, with larger finger holes, are best all round (ha ha) for every environment. Reels should be compact and sturdy. Cheaply made plastic ratchets crack and break, definitely not the ideal situation to be in as you’re releasing the DSMB. Since braided line stretches during use, over spooling of the line is also a common problem. So, soak your line in water, reel out the entire length around a couple of posts. Then check the end of the line is secure around the spindle and reel it back in firmly and evenly.

Finishing off the loose end is a requirement for a specific use, but usually a large aperture loop is best.

“Again, each to their own, reel or spool no matter which type you choose, mastering using it is of paramount importance.”

Emily Petley-Jones, PADI Regional Training Consultant, said: “Delayed Surface Marker Buoys and reels are essential piec-

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es of kit for diving, particularly in choppier seas and if diving from a boat. For your DSMB, size really does matter! As far as which one to choose, the question you should always ask yourself is ‘Which one will be the most visible?’. If you are a UK diver, you might wish to consider taking the RNLI Diver Sea Survival course, which is available as a PADI Specialty. This contains some useful information, and brings home the message about the importance of staying visible at the surface.

“You should always check your DSMB and reel before every dive, even if you are not planning on using it. You should ensure the line on the reel will feed out smoothly and not snag. A good way to get your reel set properly is to unravel it, then secure the end of the line to something sturdy. Then keep tension on the line as you reel it back in. You should also ensure that the line is long enough for the depth of the dive. Putting up a DSMB takes practice, so if you have a new DSMB and reel take it to the pool or shallow water to ensure you get your technique sorted so you don’t end up fumbling with it at 20m, ideally wearing the same gloves you might be using on the dive. Don’t forget, there are also courses which you can take which will help you to learn this skill, such as the PADI Delayed Surface Marker Buoy Specialty.”

Jason Sockett, PADI Quality Management Consultant, commented: “DSMBs and

reels I believe are one of the underestimated pieces of kit to be purchased, especially for divers early on in their adventures as divers. It is important to get the correct type of reel and DSMB for the type of diving that you are doing. Let’s also add a knife when purchasing a DSMB and reel.

I for sure never dive without a DSMB and reel. For me, it is reassuring to know that on my ascent, especially on a drift dive, when there are other boats in the area or when the conditions are far from perfect, that the boat captain(s) can see where I am. If I have one piece of advice to offer with using DSMB and reel is, practice, practice, and practice. Try to get to the stage where you can deploy your DSMB almost without thinking and especially without any buoyancy issues.” n

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The spare prop on the Anna Sofie

THE UNKNOWN

SOLDIER Stuart Philpott seeks to solve a 100-year-old mystery when he dives the wreck of the Anna Sofie out of Padstow, Cornwall PHOTOGRAPHS BY STUART PHILPOTT

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T

he lure of a 100-year-old mystery was just too much to ignore. Steve Hutchinson - aka ‘Hutch’ - the owner of Harlyn Dive School, had invited me along for a day’s diving on the Anna Sofie, lying off Padstow in Cornwall.

The World War One wreck recently hit local news headlines due to an unmarked gravestone at the local cemetery, so this is where my story begins…

Obscured by the more-ornate head piece of Private William Moore’s grave was another smaller, insignificant grave of an ‘unknown’ soldier. For nearly a century, the headstone inscribed with ‘a Royal Marine of the Great War’ has been a complete mystery.

But after some nifty detective work, Padstow Museum Chairman John Buckingham and Sussex-based historian Peter Smith have unravelled the true identity of the dead man.

On 23 July 1918, the 97.5-metre-long, 2,577-ton armed merchantman Anna Sofie was returning to Wales ‘in ballast’ (not carrying any cargo) when, without warning, she was torpedoed by U-boat U55, commanded by the infamous Kapitan Leutnant Wilhelm Werner. The crew of around 70, including critically wounded marine gunner Private William Moore, managed to escape in the lifeboats and were picked up at sea. Some 19 days later, an ‘unknown’ soldier washed up on the beach at Padstow, but the badly decomposed body could not be formally identified and was buried next to Private Moore without a name on the gravestone.

John and Peter waded through historical archives, military records and local reports compiling enough evidence to prove that the ‘unknown’ soldier was 42-year-old Lance Corporal William Whitmore, who was also on board the Anna Sofie when she sank.

After 100 years of speculation, the descendants of his family finally knew the full story. Since this discovery, a new gravestone has been placed in the cemetery engraved with his actual name.

As for the fate of Wilhelm Werner, from July 1916 to November 1918, his U-boat U-55 completed 14 successful patrols, sinking a total of 64 mostly unarmed vessels, including hospital ships (133,742 tons). During the Leipzig war crimes trials at the end of World War One,Werner was accused of many atrocities, including murdering the entire crew of SS Torrington, except for the Captain, who was taken hostage.

It was alleged that the captured crew of 32 were lined up on the U-boat’s foredeck before he gave the order to submerge, undoubtedly drowning them all. But before the trial concluded, the unscrupulous Nazi fled to a coffee plantation in Brazil. Years later he returned to Germany and died in May 1945, aged 57.

It seems that the wreck itself was also causing a stir. Hutch said there were conflicting reports regarding her true identity.

Many divers thought the Anna Sofie was cargo steamer SS Poldown. Hutch carried on searching for evidence and in April 2011, he found the serial number 1275MC stamped on a steam valve, confirming that she was indeed the Anna Sofie. Hutch reported his findings to the hydrographic office (UKHO) and the records have now been updated.

Even though the Anna Sofie is steeped in history, she was not a popular choice with local divers, Hutch said: “The wreck is seen as an ‘in-between’ wreck, it’s a bit deep for most divers. Scooby Doo’ers prefer 30m or less, and it’s too shallow for most techies”. Hutch has clocked up more than 100 dives on the wreck since the early 1990s. Finds have included a substantial number of brass shell cases, port holes and engine components. But the prized four-inch deck gun manned by marine gunner Corporal William Whitmore has yet to be found.

Private William Moore’s gravestone

Part of the Anna Sofie

“We ended up back at the boilers, which was the highest point of the wreck standing five metres proud of the seabed” Searching for clues on the wreck

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The wreck is located in the middle of Padstow marine conservation zone. Hutch said: “It sits right next to a reef wall, so it’s difficult for boats to find and then if they do find it a lot of divers don’t go to the end of the shotline and drop down onto the reef, missing the wreck”. We made plans to do two dives at the site on the same day, which meant catching both slack tides. This gave me about six hours to off-gas between dives. Harlyn Dive School’s eight-metre RIB fitted with a single 250hp outboard covered the eight-and-a-half mile journey from Rock Beach to the wreck in about 20 minutes flat. I was kitted up and rolling back into the sea by 10.45am.

My first dive with Andrew St John Ricks was at high water, maximum depth 43m. We had agreed to start amidships and then move forward towards the bow. I was disappointed with the visibility which topped out at around four to five metres. High tide is usually better than low water so this didn’t bode well for my second dive in the late afternoon (Last time I visited Rock and dived on SS Sphene, we had ten metres plus).

Hutch had dropped the shotline roughly amidships on the port side. I followed Andrew down to the reef wall and caught sight of a long, elongated, bomb-shaped object that turned out to be a heating element of some kind. The outer casing had rotted away, and I could clearly see a helical shape inside. We passed by two large boilers, paused at a four-bladed prop for a picture or two (this must have been a spare prop stored in the cargo hold), and then headed for the bow. My camera lights illuminated a huge rusty red metal plate loaded with colourful starfish. Lobster and conger eels were peering from the darker recesses. There definitely wasn’t any shortage of marine life. We investigated some winches, a bollard with a spider crab lurking on top and a length of anchor chain. The pointy bow shape had totally collapsed, as had much of the surrounding superstructure. We ended up back at the boilers, which was the highest point of the wreck standing five metres proud of the seabed. The dive lasted 38 minutes.

There had been plenty of interesting bits and pieces to keep my camera occupied. The only downsides were the time restraints and the low-ish visibility.

The pace ramped up considerably on my second dive at low water, maximum depth 38m, this time with Hutch as guide. On the plus side, underwater visibility was much better than expected but at 5pm in the afternoon, there was less ambient light to play with. I wanted to re-trace the areas already visited with Andrew before heading off to the stern, rudder and the propeller.

But trying to do the whole length of the wreck and compose pictures in 20 minutes was being slightly too enthusiastic.

Posing on the Anna Sofie

Hutch said: “I like the impressive engine”. The massive triple-expansion engine manufactured by Blair and Co towered above us. I managed to compose a nice atmospheric silhouette of the block and pistons with Hutch in the foreground. After making a quick detour to the donkey boiler, we crossed over the prop shaft and headed for the stern. I was hoping that the giant prop would make a nice wide-angle shot, but as prop shots go this wasn’t going to be easy. There was no room for me to wedge behind the prop and shoot out towards the light, so I had to make do with a dark background shot which just lit up all the silt particles like a snowstorm. Hutch had been shifting along at a lightning pace and I was starting to feel slightly nauseous with the over-exertion.

We passed close to the reef wall on our journey back to the shotline. Hutch pointed to a row of protruding antennae which turned out to be crawfish and they all looked to be a good ‘edible’ size. This was the first time I had seen this species in UK waters. Unfortunately, there was no spare time for pictures as my deco was already starting to mount up. Some 44 minutes later we broke the surface.

On both Anna Sofie dives, I used a nitrox 28 mix. In hindsight, a weak trimix fill would have probably been a better option for a clearer head. I really enjoyed spending the day with Harlyn Dive School, based at Rock in Cornwall. Hutch and Andrew proved to be the perfect guiding and modelling combination. So, no complaints from me, although I think my pictures could have been better, but what’s new! From a historical background perspective, the ‘unknown soldier’ angle had made the dives far more interesting, although I was slightly disappointed we didn’t find the deck gun. At least the 100-year-old mystery had finally been solved and Corporal Whitmore’s family got some closure. In passing, Hutch mentioned there were a number of German U-boat wrecks lying off Padstow, one with a very photogenic deck gun still intact.

Temptation can be a terrible virtue! n

“I managed to compose a nice atmospheric silhouette of the block and pistons with Hutch in the foreground” 36

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THERE ARE LOTS OF HAND SIGNALS IN DIVING WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR HEART, THIS SHOULDN’T BE ONE OF THEM Book an appointment with a healthcare professional or diving doctor and check that your heart is up to it.

FIND OUT MORE AT RNLI.ORG/SCUBADIVER The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a charity registered in England and Wales (209603) and Scotland (SC037736). Registered charity number 20003326 in the Republic of Ireland.

WIN! A RED SEA LIVEABOARD TRIP WORTH £1,000 COURTESY OF DIVERSE TRAVEL AND EMPEROR DIVERS!

Scuba Diver magazine has teamed up with Emperor Divers and Diverse Travel to offer one lucky reader the chance to enjoy a glorious Red Sea liveaboard holiday.

To be in the running to win this fabulous prize, simply visit our website www.scubadivermag.com/competition and fill in your contact details.

It’s as easy as that.

NB: The closing date is 15th June 2018. The editor’s decision is final.

PRIZE DETAILS. Departure date - Choose from Thursday 17 January 2019 or Thursday 7 February 2019, flying from London Gatwick direct to Marsa Alam on Thomas Cook Airlines. South and St John’s Safari - Sailing to the southernmost reefs, you’ll depart from Ghalib Port in Marsa Alam. Dive Sha’ab Sharm with its wall dives and whitetip reef sharks. At Fury Shoals, dive Sha’ab Claude with its famous swim-throughs and huge porite corals. Abu Galawa Soraya has a fantastic coral garden and the wreck of a private sailing boat populated with glassfish. Zabargad Island lies along the western margin of the Red Sea rift with walls abundant with soft coral and spectacular coral pinnacles. Rocky Island, just four nautical miles south of Zabargad, has a fringing reef, sheer walls covered with beautiful soft corals, gorgonians, fans, sponges, black coral trees and vast drop-offs. Here you may be lucky enough to spot hammerheads, grey reef and whitetip reef sharks. St John’s is a vast collection of small reefs offering some of the most-remote and rewarding diving in the Red Sea. This incredibly beautiful reef lies a short distance north of the Sudanese border. MV Emperor Asmaa - This custom-built motor yacht was designed with the diver in mind and comfortably accommodates 20 people in ten twin-berth, air-conditioned en-suite cabins. As with all Emperor fleet boats, you are guaranteed a minimum of two dive guides and free nitrox. THE PRIZE INCLUDES: Return direct flight from London Gatwick to Marsa Alam on Thomas Cook Airlines; 20kg hold baggage allowance; seven nights’ accommodation in shared cabin*; six days’ diving with guide, 12-litre cylinders and weights**; local transfers; full board; soft drinks; red wine with dinner; environmental tax; Marine Park fees; port departure fees; free nitrox**; ATOL protection. Not included in the prize: Visa; diving equipment; cylinders other than 12-litre; alcohol.

* last night either on board or in a hotel. ** This is a 21-plus dives itinerary. You must be a PADI Open Water Diver or equivalent to do this trip.

You are expected to be able to complete each dive with your buddy, or following the guide. The guides may not enter the water and remain onboard as surface support for some dives. We recommend that you hold a minimum of 30 logged dives to get the best from this trip, and you should be comfortable with drift dives. Currents can be strong. All your diving is made from zodiacs to give precise entry and exits points.

Experienced divers can dive in a buddy pair unguided. *** subject to availability. Nitrox-certified divers only.

Diverse Travel is no ordinary travel agent, acting more as a personal holiday consultant with a seamless service guaranteed. They’re a Member of the Travel Trust Association and offer ATOL-protected holidays worldwide. Award-winning Emperor Divers has provided top-quality diving holidays in the Red Sea since 1992.

Quality customer care is their aim, and you can relax knowing all your diving needs will run smoothly thanks to their professional and enthusiastic guides. www.diversetravel.co.uk | www.emperordivers.com

Best of the The islands of the Bahamas are a diving paradise, offering a plethora of colourful reefs, dramatic walls, stunning shipwrecks and in-your-face pelagic action. Mark Evans recalls some of his most-memorable moments.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARK EVANS

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he sprawling archipelago of the Bahamas is quite rightly regarded as one of the Caribbean’s top diving spots, and with a sublime blend of abyssal walls dropping to well over 2,000m, vibrant reefs swept by sometimes fierce currents, artificial and ‘genuine’ shipwrecks and other sunken attractions, and several bucket-list shark species in regular attendance, it is not hard to see why it has built up such a stellar reputation.

The islands hold a special place in the heart of Editor-in-Chief Mark Evans, who has made several trips to the Bahamas over the past 20-odd years, visiting the capital island of Nassau several times, as well as enjoying stays in Grand Bahama and the Out Islands of Eleuthera, San Salvador, Andros and Abaco, and he has notched up some stand-out dives along the way.

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Bahamian shipwrecks are covered in marine growth

Dropping down, my buddy Larry Speaker and I left the rest of the divers in our group swimming around the upper portion of the ‘bottom’ of the bow with the dive guide, and then once we reached the reef, we started finning along the wreck, heading steadily deeper towards the stern. For the first time in my life, I experienced a ‘dark narc’ – I had tunnel vision, my heart was pounding in my ears, and I had an eerie feeling of dread – but just as I was at the point of thumbing the dive, we dropped over the edge of the drop-off and as soon as I saw the overhanging superstructure and focused on that, I suddenly regained clarity, relaxed, and snapped off a series of photographs with Larry alongside the wreck for a sense of scale. This wreck might not have ended up on the bottom as it was intended, but it made a great dive site in its own right, and it is such a shame it is now long-gone into the deep.

SHIPWRECKS

The Bahamas have a long list of shipwrecks and other sunken attractions to explore, and most of them have been sunk on purpose as artificial reefs for divers, or for feature films. Nassau is the hotspot for wrecks, though there are a few on some of the other islands as well. The dive operators are now well-versed in sinking ships, but occasionally, even they get things wrong… The Anne was supposed to land upright on the very edge of the drop-off, with the bow poking out into the blue, so divers could do a ‘Titanic’ for a photo op, but it ended up turning turtle with the rear superstructure hanging over the wall, meaning all but the very bottom of the hull was beyond the reach of most recreational divers. For more-experienced deep divers, it offered a stunning dive, and it was extremely dramatic hanging off the wall looking at the upturned superstructure, but alas, a series of storms moved its position, and it plummeted over the drop-off and disappeared into the abyss, meaning this became a dive that can only live on in memory.

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REEFS

Many of the Bahamian islands have some nice reefs to explore, but as Mark found out, hidden in plain view off the west end of Grand Bahama is a reef system of truly god-like proportions Mount Olympus. Most visitors to this area are there for one thing – Tiger Beach, and its resident tiger and lemon sharks – but they are missing out on one of the healthiest, most-visually stunning coral reefs in the entire Caribbean, never mind the Bahamas.

Th reefs can be extremely healthy and colourful

Rolling off the monster RIB into the warm Bahamian waters, I dropped quickly down to 5-6m and then turned around to be greeted by the most-phenomenal reef scene I have ever witnessed in the Caribbean.

Honestly, the riot of colours, and the heady blend of soft corals, hard corals, sponges, seafans and encrusting marine growth, would not have looked out of place in the Indo-Pacific. Deep crevasses, gullies and swim-throughs were just liberally blanketed in a thick coating of growth. And it was not just the coral that caught my attention. The whole place was absolutely teeming with marine life, from all of the usual reef dwellers to barracuda, moray eels, trevally, grey reef sharks and eagle rays. I could have spent several dives just exploring this one location, there was that much to take in, and it is just unbelievable that more divers don’t have the pleasure of exploring this fantastic site.

Spadefish

Grouper relaxing on a shipwreck

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WALLS

Wall diving is one of the Bahamas’ undoubted highlights, and you have sheer drops into thousands of metres from Nassau and several of the other islands, but one spot that has cornered the market in ‘extreme’ wall diving is Andros, which sits on the very edge of the so-called Tongue of the Ocean, where depths can exceed 2,500m.

It was safe to say we had one very excited bunch of divers ready to jump off the boat into the calm waters off Andros. A dive site called Over the Wall awaited us. Descending on to the reef, we made our way steadily deeper until, at a depth of around 1820m, the coral just stopped and a truly abyssal drop opened up in front of us. Dropping down this wall, we passed 30m, then 35m, then 40m, and as we sped past 45m, we saw a relatively narrow ledge materialise below us. Hitting the brakes by pumping air into our BCDs, we ‘touched down’ on this sandy plateau – the so-called ‘prehistoric beach’ – at 52m. Peering over the edge revealed nothing but inky black below us.

After a minute or so, just as most dive computers were clicking over into deco-mode, we started heading back slowly up the wall, and by the time we were going back on to the reef top we were back into no-deco mode. A truly memorable dive, and even better, once you did it during the day, you were allowed to go ‘Over the Wall’ at night...

Over-friendly turtle

Caribbean reef shark

SHARKS

You cannot write about diving in the Bahamas without talking about sharks. This island nation is one of the world’s hotspots for shark diving, and enthusiasts can take to the water with everything from majestic Caribbean reef and lemon sharks to mighty oceanic whitetip, tiger and great hammerhead sharks.

Nassau and Grand Bahama are great locations to see Caribbean reef sharks, both on regular wall, reef and wreck dives, and on specific shark-feeding dives. Grand Bahama is also the place for tiger sharks – the afore-mentioned Tiger Beach area is a regular hangout for tiger and lemon sharks in just a few metres of water.

Cat Island is renowned for its oceanic whitetip encounters, while Bimini is rapidly making a name for itself in shark-diving circles with its great hammerhead dives. However, one of Mark’s earliest memories of a shark encounter in the Bahamas occurred off the wall on San Salvador, when he was diving with Paralympic Gold Medallist Danny Crates. n 44

Danny was ahead of me as we descended down the wall into deeper water. The drop-off was very steep, and narrowed to a gully before plunging into thousands of metres. As we neared 35m, I noticed Danny gesticulating wildly, waving his one arm (he lost the other in a nasty car accident in Australia) like mad and then pointing below us. At first I couldn’t see what he was getting all worked up about, but as I closed on his position, I could just make out a strange blue-grey shape beneath us, moving fast in a weirdly hypnotic side-to-side motion. I glanced at Danny and he had his straightened hand up against his forehead, and then moved it into a fist on the side of his head.

He was right – it was a hammerhead shark. Looking back down at the shark, it was now much closer, and suddenly dramatically speeded up, rocketing up out of the deep directly towards us. I hastily tried to bring my camera – back then, a good old film Sea&Sea Motormarine II – to bear on the rapidly approaching predator, and at the same time glanced at Danny. His reaction nearly made me drop my regulator out of my mouth, I was laughing so much – he was busy stuffing his one arm inside his BCD! Later he told me ‘I’ve only got one left, can’t be too careful!’

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THE NEXT GENERATION

Kids Sea Camp is the undoubted world leader when it comes to children and diving - more than 7,000 youth certifications and counting! - and founder Margo Peyton has painstakingly crafted a series of unique itineraries with unparalleled adventures, allowing families to bond, interact with local cultures, learn history, engage with wildlife and meet like-minded families from around the globe.

www.familydivers.com

KIDS SEA CAMP

EVEN FOR A NON-DIVING MUM! Janet Martins has been to Kids Sea Camp with her family (husband Tim, and children Isaac and Allie) twice, but what makes her different is that she is a non-diver. Here she reveals what she enjoys about the unique KSC experience

S

o, I wanted to tell you about two things that happened to me today that reminded me of Kids Sea Camp. To be truthful, there is really not a day that goes by that someone in our family doesn’t speak of Kids Sea Camp.

It is 15 August. This morning, when I woke up and went downstairs to the kitchen to make coffee, I looked out the window and saw the subtle changes of the season. The colour of the water was different, the wind was blowing the trees differently and, when I opened the door, the air had a crispness to it and it smelled different — it smelled like autumn! Ahh! I love autumn, but it means winter is just around the corner. I am not a fan of winter. I try to embrace it, but my thoughts always return to Kids Sea Camp. I think of Kids Sea Camp and I’m a non-diver, that’s how amazing the weeks are.

The second thing that happened was with my son. We went to get the mail, and he received an envelope from PADI. He was beyond excited. Enclosed was his PADI SEAL Team card. His smile will be in my memories forever. He is a PADI SEAL because of Kids Sea Camp. Kids Sea Camp is special to us. Perhaps that is why we think of it often. Our children now can explore and experience things in life that before they would not have had the opportunity to do.

My name is Janet Martins. My husband, Tim, and our two children, Isaac (8) and Allie (5), would like to tell you about our experience with Kids Sea Camp. It has taken me a long time to focus on describing what Kids Sea Camp truly means to me. I have had a lot of thoughts run through my head, but I keep coming back to the word ‘peace’. Kids Sea Camp means peace to me. Sort of silly, I know, because you would not naturally put these two things together.

Our journey with Kids Sea Camp began with a desire to get back into traveling. After the long winters everyone had endured on the Northeastern coast of the USA, we were looking for a vacation where we would be happy, comfortable and, of course, Tim had to dive.

I often read my husband’s dive magazines (being a non-diver) to see what is happening in the dive world. I came across a Kids Sea Camp advertisement and asked Tim, ‘What do you think about this? Should we call and see what this is about?’ (Keep this in mind, this is not something we would ever do.) Curious and desperate to find a solution, he called (I believe several times). We had a lot of questions. The Martins are thoughtful and practical decision-makers; we fail horribly in the ‘quick decision’ department.

So in July 2013, the Martins did something we have a hard time doing - we took a leap of faith and went to the Cayman Islands at

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Cobalt Coast for the Kids Sea Camp experience. In return, we got peace... we finally got peace. Kids Sea Camp literally changed our lives forever. It was one of those ‘ah ha’ moments, or for some, one of those handfuls of moments that have forever affected them. Corny, I know, but it’s true.

I still remember the feelings I had on the first morning when I arrived in Grand Cayman for the first time. I was in awe. All that was going through my head was the fact that all of these kids do this with their families - and they are happy, they get along and these kids can dive! I want this for my children. I want Tim to dive with Isaac and Allie. I was getting more excited by the moment.

It amazes me still that kids can dive! I wanted this for my children so badly that I was somewhat obsessed with it. I spoke of diving and Kids Sea Camp to Tim all year. I know he was tired of me talking about it. But, I felt Isaac and Allie had found their ‘thing’. Really, I was so happy. We live in a small, rural area with limited opportunities.

We essentially have to create opportunities for our children, and this is an opportunity that I am glad we chose.

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Kids Sea Camp’s goal is to take care of you, and everything was taken care of. They provide a safe diving haven for families.

Everyone at Kids Sea Camp had the same goal for their families.

This is something that we really appreciated. We were so happy with the Cobalt Coast vacation that we have returned every year.

Tom and Margo Peyton relieved our worries, which ultimately led to peace.

Kids Sea Camp was run like a well-rehearsed orchestra. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was a beautiful weeklong masterpiece. Everything just worked. Every beat and note was perfectly in place. Tom and Margo constantly made sure everything was perfect.

At the end of the latest Kids Sea Camp trip in St Lucia at Anse Chastanet, Isaac, only eight, was able to participate in his first 4m dive with his instructor and his father. Wow! The thought makes me speechless, and happy tears come to my eyes. Allie was in the SASY unit looking at and swimming with the resident reef fish. Her week in St Lucia allowed her to find her ‘inner fish’ and become even more passionate about animals and sea life. Her happiness gives us peace.

Kids Sea Camp has become (in our lives) this thing you do every year. People need to go to the dentist, eye doctor, hairdresser, get new shoes. The Martins need to go to Kids Sea Camp.

For us, like everyone, time is precious. Vacation time for us is hard to get, so planning a vacation with our precious time

is stressful. Kids Sea Camp has given us peace about our time.

Peace, for our family, has come on many different levels. Tim is able to go diving and not have the worry of me or the kids - I’m at peace. He is under the water, escaping his mind and responsibilities - he’s at peace. I know where my kids are and who they are with. Tim is diving, the food is great, the place is great - I’m at peace. The kids can come and go, eat and drink, meet new friends, dive, play and learn - we are all at peace.

Sometimes it is big moments that change our lives - births, deaths, marriages. Sometimes it is people or situations. I can honestly say Kids Sea Camp is one of those moments for us. The people we have met and the experiences we’ve had all have contributed to the peace we desired for our precious time. Peace… it’s important, it will change your life… and it is good for you. n

Kids Sea Camp 2018 Summer Break Family Vacations ROATAN: Mayan Princess, June 16th – 23rd ST. LUCIA: Anse Chastanet, June 23rd – June 30th ST. LUCIA: Anse Chastanet, June 30th – July 7th BONAIRE: Buddy Dive Resort, July 7th – 14th GALAPAGOS: Galapagos Sky, July 15th – 22nd *private charter liveaboard*

PHILIPPINES: Pura Vida Homes; Dauin (7 nights) & Ocean Vida Cabilao (5 nights), July 10th – 22nd Fully escorted with Tom & Margo Peyton

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PALAU: Sam’s Tours, and Palau Royal, July 21st – 31st (10 nights or 14-night option) July 21st – August 4th Kids Sea Camp Thanksgiving Family Vacation (NEW) BONAIRE: Buddy Dive Resort, November 17th – 24th New Years Trip 2018-19 Family Vacation (NEW) SOCORRO ISLAND: Rocio Del Mar Liveaboard, December 27th – January 4th, discover the little Galapagos.

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OUR MISSION: Kids Sea Camp’s mission is to inspire families to dive, travel and explore environmentally and culturally diversified destinations, and thus we have created family-friendly resort packages, activities and tours designed to provide safe, fun and educational vacations to children and their families.

www.familydivers.com

UK DIVING

A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK?

M

aryse Dare, a PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer from Ocean Diver dive school and club, which caters for customers in South London and Surrey, is a part-time teacher, and her passion for introducing children to new experiences is compelling her to really focus on younger divers.

She currently has some 15 youngsters working their way through the PADI SEAL Team Aquamissions, and even does mini club sessions prior to the main club night, but she is also keen to bring the joys of UK diving to the older members of the club.

As Maryse said: “UK diving can be a hard nut to crack for an overseas trained diver - at least, it was for me. So I’ve taken that experience and tried to overcome it in how I plan courses and run the club. We use every opportunity to link up training and club dives.

This could be using club divers as buddies on the last dive of the Open Water course, while other club members are diving together, and also by running weekend trips to inland sites such as NDAC, where both students and club members come along.

“Sometimes club members come along on training dives for a refresher where there’s space; other times we have lunch and dinner

CASE STUDY

GRACE WESTGARTH, 15, BECKENHAM, KENT

At the age of 15, Grace Westgarth has achieved more than many divers with more years under their belts. She is currently a NASE Master Diver, having worked her way through a range of training, including Navigation, Rescue Diver and First Aid. Grace’s entry dive training was through a PADI Junior Open Water Diver course at 10 and she recently celebrated her 15th birthday by completing her PADI Deep Specialty at NDAC, Chepstow.

Grace’s achievements, however, lie not in her cert cards, but in her general diving ability, and her goals are not just more training courses, but rather diving different dive sites, and any future training goals are linked to opening up new dive and employment opportunities. Grace’s favourite dive to date is the Blue Grotto in Florida; Ian France’s club talk in December inspired Grace to move forward with her overhead training, now she is old enough to take the next step.

Grace joined Ocean Diver, alongside her dad, just over a year ago. She was one of the youngest divers in the club at that point, but Maryse and her colleagues were at the start of building their junior dive club and she rapidly became a leader among the younger divers who came on board. Grace transitions, however, between the two sections of the club, and regularly joins the adults on club dives. Her long-term goal is to instruct, so she’s getting as much diving in, in as many locations as she can, to improve her dive skills and just have fun underwater!

In her own words: ‘It’s cool being a junior club member! You get the chance to meet a lot of professional divers, such as Ian France, Alex Griffin and Paul Duxfield. I get to talk to people with the same interest as me, which is good as there aren’t many people at school that are into diving. Being able to talk to more-experienced divers gives me something to aim for in the future’.

together and chat between dives. The Rescue Diver course is when the partnership between club and school really comes into its own. Day one is skillsbased; day two is scenarios.

Members take on different scenarios and in doing so, recap their own rescue skills. It means we can offer rich and deep learning. By offering free refreshers to all divers who have trained with us, we keep skills fresh, and increase confidence and competence.

“Linking up creates a feeling of belonging where new divers are immedi-

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ately part of a group. It means they can come along to a club night and know people beyond their instructor and Divemaster. More importantly, it means that they feel like they’ve already attended a club event.

“We are working with Mulberry Divers, Defiance Dive Charters and South West Diving to plan in more linked diving opportunities, with both students and fun divers on the boat. By training divers in the sea, we’re increasing the chance they will return to enjoy the vibrant opportunities available in UK diving.” n

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18m

ABOVE

Lawson Wood, the co-founder of the St Abbs and Eyemouth Voluntary Marine Reserve, takes readers on a tour of Petticowick in Broadhaven Bay, St Abbs PHOTOGRAPHS BY LAWSON WOOD

Exploring through the kelp

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P

etticowick, or the ‘Wick’ as it is known locally, is a small protected bay to the north of St Abbs on the northern side of the massive cliffs of St Abbs Head on the southeast coast of Scotland. Petticowick is just one of a large number of very impressive and superbly photogenic dive sites within the St Abbs and Eyemouth Marine Reserve. Once a salmon-fishing outpost during Victorian times, an old slipway still exists which is reached by road from St Abbs village and runs all the way to the lighthouse across Scottish National Trust land.

The bay is ringed by ancient cliffs (in fact, some of the oldest cliffs on the planet) when Prof Hutton redefined Earth’s history by examining the stratified rock at Siccar Point, which displays astonishing contortions, just to the north of the bay.

Known as Hutton’s Anomaly, the weirdly shaped ancient rocks show a slice of the formation of our planet that dates back 65 million years.

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ARRIVAL AT THE SITE

Much of the early diving at the ‘Wick was from the shore.

The entry was down a steep grassy bank before reaching the old lighthouse slipway and, as always, entry and exit is always better at high water, as the seaweed-covered rocky shoreline is perilous to negotiate at low tide. Now the lower part of the banking has collapsed and despite various repairs to the footpath over the years, access onto the small pier is very difficult. Despite this, when the dive boats are unable to leave the protective harbours of Eyemouth and St Abbs, a hardened few will take the trip and dive the ‘Wick’ as a shore dive as the end result of a superb dive is always worth the effort.

DIVE BRIEFING

“When the sea is too rough; or the current too strong; or when the wind is in the wrong direction; or even as a special request! Then Petticowick Bay is the place to be!”

Archive image of ‘the Wick’

The centre of the bay is a wide, flat sandy space with gravel edges and wave-sculpted drifts. To the north are the remains of the Ringholm, and to the south are the rocky reefs which stretch around St Abbs Head. The 1,756-ton, 60-metre-long Ringholm, often referred to as the Odense (after her home port), is referred to locally as the ‘Peanut Boat’ due to its lost cargo of peanuts, which were washed up all along the Berwickshire coast for weeks after its total loss. Much of her salvaged cargo was sold at Berwick market. She is spread over a wide area off a large wedgeshaped rock called Wick Gaut. Attacked by a German submarine on 15 May, 1917, the U-boat surfaced next to the stricken vessel and the crew were ordered to abandon ship.

Shrimps make colourful subjects

Sunstar

Decked out in fullface gear

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PETTICOWICK, BROADHAVEN BAY, ST ABBS, BERWICKSHIRE WHAT TO EXPECT TYPE OF ‘DIVE’

This has always been classed as a shore dive, but with the deterioration of the footpath down to the slipway, the dive is usually done as a boat dive (or second dive) as it is safe, confined and shallow enough with tons of marine life.

DEPTH

Expect to get around 12-15m on the sandy centre and an average of 9m around the remains of the Ringholm.

MARINE LIFE/WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR

Weirdly, but no less surprising, are the number of west coast species which are found here. This sandy bay appears to be the perfect habitat for long-clawed squat lobster, sea mouse (Aphrodite aculeate); pale bristle worm (Lepidonotus squamatus), feather starfish; brown swimming crabs and circular crabs. Tiny Atlantic cuttlefish are common, as are queen scallops, which are a total surprise to find as I have never found them anywhere else along the Berwickshire Coast in such shallow water.

SEABED

There is a wide sandy patch in the centre, surround by a rocky reef; ship’s wreckage as well as rock walls with plenty of seaweed and kelp.

HAZARDS

When the weather is particularly off, there may be a few dive boats in the bay, all trying to keep an eye out for their errant dive groups who wander all over the bay.

There is little or no tidal flow or any current inside the bay, but please be aware that once you exit the bay and continue towards the east and St Abbs Head, the tidal current can be very strong and divers have been caught unawares by this when they surfaced in the wrong area, so remember your DSMB before coming back to the surface. Shore divers will just return back to the starting point at the jetty.

Returning from a boat dive

Dead man’s fingers and sponges

THE DIVE

When approaching the bay from the shore, you will come across a different habitat of a seaweed called oarweed, which is home to small shrimps and snake pipefish (Entelurus aequorus) and when you look closely, you should also be able to find the very rare stalked jellyfish (Haliclystus auricular). The beauty of the sandy area is that it is only around 12-15m max, allowing plenty of bottom time as it is fairly well self-contained. Dayboat divers rarely get the opportunity to explore these shallow algae beds.

Nowadays, most of the dive boats will endeavour to get divers up to the ‘Wick’ and despite a fairly rough passage, they will soon reach the safe waters of the bay and get everyone underwater.

The remains of the Ringholm are mostly scattered among the kelp-covered shallows, her large boilers sit on their own on the sand and most of the larger parts are found below 9m, where the largest sections can be found piled up against a large rocky ridge in 18m.

The rock reefs surrounding the bay are covered in kelp, with sea urchins on the top and wherever there is more shade or under an overhang, there are dead man’s fingers and plumose anemones. Small sunstars are found, and soon enough you start to get the carpets of brittle stars.

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Pipefish

Aerial shot

Petticowick at St Abbs Head is now a well-established dive site on its own merits, not just as a fall-back plan when the weather is bad. Available as a boat or shore dive, make sure it is on your list when you visit the St Abbs and Eyemouth Marine Reserve. n

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FREEDIVING HINTS & ADVICE

ARE YOU A GAS GUZZLER? Always the first one running low on air on a scuba dive? Freediving guru Emma Farrell offers some hints and advice to scuba divers on ways to increase your SAC rate and extend your dive time PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF SIMON REID

Y

Emma on a warm-water freedive

ou know you’re a gas guzzler when you use a twinset for a 40-minute dive, or when you’re always the first one out of air. Men tend to be gas guzzlers more than women, and newbies more than experienced divers. However, it is possible to teach people how to use less air on a dive, and the benefits extend far beyond a longer dive time.

I’ve been teaching scuba divers my Gas Guzzler course for the past 15 years, taking the methodology, techniques and exercises that apply to freediving, and teaching them to scuba divers. Best of all, the course is in the classroom, so perfect for scuba divers who have no intention of ever trying freediving!

The course not only looks at how to breathe more efficiently, it helps you analyse all aspects of your dive, preparation and kit set up to help you see that using less air is not simply about breathing less. And when you tweak all aspects of your diving, the dives not only become longer, but much more comfortable and enjoyable. Scuba divers can significantly reduce the amount of oxygen they use during diving. The main focus is on slowing your breathing and relaxing your body. By learning to breathe deeply you will calm your mind and body, meaning your dives will be longer and more enjoyable. So let’s look at how you can reduce air consumption on a scuba dive.

KIT SET UP

Giving your kit set up an overhaul can make a huge difference to your air consumption.

Ditch the weight - The biggest issue I’ve come across with scuba divers is being over-weighted. The more weight you wear, the more difficulties you can have with buoyancy, and the effort of maintaining a position is a sure-fire way to use more air.

Another thing to consider is what kind of weight system you are using and where it is on your body. If you’re wearing a weightbelt then chances are it is around your waist. This is the absolute worst place for it to be as it stops you being able to breathe correctly and abdominally (more on that below!). If you wear a weightbelt then buy a rubber one. They are cheap and it means you can tie it tightly around your hips, leaving you free to belly breathe.

Leave the toys at home - If you’re determined to have a longer dive then look at your gear and decide if you’re walking into the water looking sleek and ready for action, or like a Christmas tree with too many ornaments. Get back to basics. The more bits and bobs you have to worry about, the more your attention will be on them and not the dive. The worst offender for this is your new snazzy camera. So much to learn and deal with while you’re under

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Freedivers use the anchor line as a guide

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the water fish wrangling for that perfect shot. My advice is to get the diving right first, then bring the camera into play.

How hard is your bite? - Take a look at your mouthpiece and regulator. Do you have to clamp down to keep it in your mouth?

Does your jaw ache after a dive? The more tense your jaw is, the more stress there will be in your body as you will be activating the sympathetic nervous response and breathing more. Look into an orthodontic mouthpiece and adjust the regulator so it is easy to breathe through it.

Does your mask fit properly? - The bigger your mask, the more air you will use to equalise it. Granted this is a small amount of air, but if the mask doesn’t fit well then you will be using a lot of air clearing it. A common problem also with scuba divers is that when they equalise, they are used to having such a lot of air to play with that they lose air from their mask with every equalisation. Get your buddy to keep an eye on how much extra air you are using dealing with your mask and when you equalise.

Wetsuit, drysuit or straightjacket? - If you are warm you use less air. If you are comfy you use less air. Did you buy your wetsuit years before middle-age spread set in? Is it time to upgrade your kit? Is your BCD working for you? It’s always worth trying a new set up and seeing if a different style of gear set up could make all the difference.

Finning fast and furious - How efficient and effective is your finning? On a freediving course, we are constantly teaching style, technique and efficiency of movement. If you bicycle kick or fin too fast then you’ll use more energy for comparatively less results. Stiff fins are also more difficult to use, so look at your fins and try some other ones out if you think this is an area of your kit set up that could do with looking at.

WHAT GOES IN…

It isn’t rocket science but it goes against the grain for some scuba divers when asked to adjust certain aspects of their diet and lifestyle. If this is you, then I suggest this is the point you skip forward to the bit about breathing!

Dive reflex and metabolism - When you dive, the digestion process slows and foods ferment, causing heartburn, indigestion, burping and nausea. Food in the stomach also restricts full and easy belly breathing. Try to eat at least one-and-a-half hours before the dive.

Can I eat a burger? - Not ideal… A heavy meal that mixes proteins, fats and sugars can take much longer to digest and cause the problems mentioned above. Eat something light that you know you can digest quickly and save your blow out for when the dive is over.

Can I have a pint before I dive? - Of water? Yes. Dehydration makes the blood thicker, the heart work harder and you’ll breathe more. The mammalian dive reflex also means that you lose more water than you can take in through immersion diuresis. Therefore, it is very important to drink plenty, but not caffeine and other stimulants, which increase the heart rate; fizzy drinks also alter the PH of the blood. Alcohol dehydrates and impairs judgement.

Smoking is alright though? - The biggest issue for smoking in terms of air use is that carbon monoxide binds much more strongly to haemoglobin than oxygen, therefore you deprive your body of oxygen and have to breathe more to compensate.

Emma and some of the pupils

DID YOU

KNOW?

More and more re and technical div creational ers are using freediving techni qu improve their div es to e and general unde times rwater well-being

HERE ARE THE FIVE MOST-IMPORTANT THINGS FOR ALL GAS GUZZLERS TO REMEMBER: • Count your breaths and extend the exhalation • Never start a dive until comfortable. Take it at your own pace • Take an inventory of your kit and check it is working for you, not against you • Dive frequently with a buddy you trust • Relax and enjoy yourself!

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FREEDIVING HINTS & ADVICE Freedivers exploring a shipwreck

PSYCHOLOGY

Every aspect of your dive has the potential to turn on your fight or flight reflex, your sympathetic nervous response. By identifying the triggers and setting a plan to reduce or remove them, you can keep your body and mind in a relaxed and comfortable parasympathetic response.

An example of this is on a dive holiday. You’re lining up on the back of the boat and the seas are rough. They want you into the water and under it as fast as possible. You’re hurried, not ready, and subtle stress sets in. Your heart and breathing rate goes up and before the dive has begun, you’re gulping for air.

On my Gas Guzzler course, we deal a lot with the psychology of a dive and how to create a routine to reduce stress. Here are my tops tips when you’re being literally pushed into the water: • When lining up and standing still, close your eyes and focus on gentle, relaxed, abdominal breathing.

• In the water, don’t leave the surface until your breathing is under control and you are calm.

• On the way down, pause every 5-10m and check your breathing. Are you relaxed? Is your jaw tense?

• From time to time, close your eyes for five to ten seconds and focus on relaxed and calm breathing.

• Always keep your buddy close for reassurance and safety.

WHY HOW YOU BREATHE REALLY MATTERS

The biggest way scuba divers become gas guzzlers is the way they breathe. They breathe too fast and usually too big a volume.

Not only does this affect their buoyancy and a vicious cycle of needing more air because they are breathing more rapidly, but often leads to hyperventilation. Breathing a smaller amount of air in and out in a relaxed way will prevent hyperventilation and the associated health risks associated with it. Chronic hyperventilation in my experience is extremely common, and instrumental in over 200 medical problems and diseases, including asthma, arthritis, heart disease, high blood pressure, stress and more.

When we inhale correctly, the diaphragm flattens, drawing air into our lungs. On exhale, it relaxes back up into the chest cavity. The diaphragm should be responsible for 75 percent of our breathing, helped by the intercostal muscles between the ribs. It is a misconception that low levels of oxygen are what triggers our body to breathe. It is actually the high levels of carbon dioxide.

Emma chilling on a shipwreck

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BREATHING FOR SCUBA DIVING

To breathe naturally is to breathe with our whole body, the way a baby or animal does. For this to occur, we not only need a flexible, unconstricted ribcage, but also a supple belly. Our belly needs to be able to expand on inhalation and retract on exhalation.

The most-efficient way to breath for scuba diving is as follows: • Breathe deep into the abdomen - belly breathing • Relaxed, gentle and slow • Calm, controlled, conscious of your breathing • Passive inhale and passive exhale • Pause slightly at the end of the exhalation • Extend the exhalation • Six to eight breaths a minute • No skip-breathing • Relax - don’t over-breathe. The more you over-breathe, the more gas you guzzle.

WHERE CAN YOU LEARN MORE?

My Gas Guzzler course is a classroom-based course, designed specifically for scuba divers who want to not only reduce their oxygen consumption, but wish to improve their dive experience.

The course involves understanding the body and how it works, provides specific exercises that will improve your breathing and unlearn bad habits, covers safety issues and buddy information.

Throughout the course you also be able to identify what is specifically causing your excessive oxygen use and how that can be reduced. The course will teach you how to breathe correctly, how to use visualisation and relaxation techniques and will also build confidence in applying these techniques to future dives. Taking a freediving course is also a fantastic way to learn these breathing skills, as well as equalisation, finning and better movement through the water. Here are the four best ways to improve your breathing as a scuba diver: • Take my Gas Guzzler course to improve air consumption and improve your dive experience.

• Freediving courses. These can help you learn to relax in the water, improve equalisation, be more hydrodynamic and build confidence. Go to: gofreediving.co.uk for more details.

• Rescue Diver courses – To give you the skills and confidence to rescue you and your buddy if anything goes wrong.

• Yoga classes. These can help improve the flexibility of your body, particularly your diaphragm and rib cage and will improve your breath control. If you are just starting with yoga, take a beginner’s class. Iyengar teachers are very good. Be prepared to shop around until you find a style or teacher that works for you. n

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Kuredu

This month, we look at the house reef off Kuredu Island Resort in the Maldives, which is absolutely teeming with marine life of all shapes and sizes PHOTOGRAPHS BY RAY VAN EEDDEN

T

he Maldives consists of 26 atolls and each of them has something unique to offer ocean and marine life enthusiasts. Kuredu Island Resort is situated at the most-northern tip of the Lhaviyani Atoll and has quite a few unique experiences to discover.

Before we immerse ourselves on Kuredu’s house reef, it is well worth mentioning the magic one can experience before you even get to the reef.

Just while walking on the beach you can have sightings of an abundance of marine life. You could spot the dolphins breaking the surface as they come through the close-by channel, or turtles popping their heads up to get a breath of air.

The nature-made nursery offers sightings of juvenile stingrays, blacktip reef sharks, lemon sharks and many other fish species using it as a safe haven while they grow bigger.

As the house reef is 200 metres away from the beach, this allows one a chance to view the marine life attracted there by the seagrass and shallow lagoon. Not only does the seagrass create oxygen, but it offers a feeding ground for the great number of green sea turtles. The other forms of life you can find in the seagrass are stingrays, blacktip reef sharks, ghost pipefish and a variety of fish species, including snapper, parrotfish, surgeonfish, triggerfish and special species of nudibranchs. The Kuredu Prodivers Marine Centre, headed by the Olive Ridley Project Marine Biologist and Educator, is the go-to venue for information on turtles, as well as a research institution whose findings will feed into the important work of protecting the sea turtles. Here you can do tours to meet and experience snorkelling with the turtles, and learn how to identify and photograph them. The marine biologist will let you know if the turtle is already known to the database, or if it is new to science. If it is new, you have the opportunity to adopt and name the turtle.

Once you immerse yourself in the ocean on the house reef of Kuredu, you will be impressed by the abundance of marine life just before your eyes. Schooling fusiliers, sergeant majors and unicornfish keep your attention until you get to the reef, which slopes down from 5m-20m. Every coral block is home to a plethora of beautiful reef fish, from damselfish to nudibranchs, shrimps, crabs, pipefish, lionfish, surgeonfish,

58

scorpionfish, parrotfish, moray eels and butterflyfish. The list goes on and on…

After looking into the various nooks and crannies for small critters you then get to the shipwreck. After 16 years of being on the ocean bed, the marine and coral life which have taken over is a delight for those who like macro diving.

As the house reef is close to a channel, there are often sightings of grey reef sharks, mantas in the right season, eagle rays and the very rare ornate eagle ray have been spotted on more than one occasion. In the right season you could even come across the very peculiar-looking guitar shark.

At night time, the house reef transforms to a place where predators roam, the corals bloom and wondrous macro life pop up. You can see fish hunting, witness the magical colour changes of the octopus as it hunts or mates, parrotfish in a bubble for protection made of their own mucus, nurse sharks, eagle rays, stingrays, turtles and when you get to the shipwreck there are thousands of small crab eyes reflecting in the torch light. A family of humphead parrotfish make the shipwreck their home at night alongside Napoleon wrasse.

In the early hours of the morning, just as the sun is rising, the family of humphead parrotfish are off to the cleaning station on the house reef. If you stay at that cleaning station or move on to one of the other cleaning stations, you can witness some remarkable things.

If you look closely at the surgeonfish, you will notice that they turn light blue while they are being cleaned by the cleaner wrasse. When they are done they go back to their dark blue colour. If you get close enough, the cleaner wrasse will start to clean you too. As the sun’s rays come through the ocean surface, the reef again transforms into the busy bustling place as a new day begins. There are many highlights of diving in the Lhaviyani Atoll. When you join the boat dives you can experience the out-reefs, the underwater islands called Thilas or the many small channels called Kandus. While crossing these channels, your jaw will drop at the amount of grey reef sharks around you, as well as schools of eagle rays. This is a definite additional highlight to experience in the Lhaviyani Atoll, with many a diver leaving the Maldives vowing to return. 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

MAE SAYS ‘GOODBYE FROM THE BAHAMAS’ PHOTOGRAPHS BY MAE DORRICOTT

I

have come to the end of my Scholarship year. What a crazy ride it has been, filled with some of the most-epic experiences I think I will ever have. Yet, I still wanted to finish off the journey with a bang.

How about finish off a scuba diving Scholarship with a big diving challenge? Previously never wanting to enter overhead environments, Cristina Zenato gave me the cavern bug by guiding me through my Cavern Diver certification in the Bahamian caves.

I was scared of the dark as a child. But now, there is something eerily comforting in the darkness of the cavern. There’s so much to see and discover in the crystal waters. Fossilised corals from a reef from time ago, and stalactites and stalagmites to carefully navigate your way around. There is so much beauty with every corner turned, especially with the layering of salt with fresh water. The haloclines almost looked like something from The Matrix tempting me into another world, a world I willingly would enter. The idea of exploring new paths in unmapped caves is so enticing, and definitely a path I am going to continue to pursue.

Cristina, though, is more commonly known for her conservation work with sharks. Known as a shark whisperer, she has a unique relationship with the Caribbean reef sharks in the waters of Freeport, Grand Bahama. Wearing a chainmail suit, she descends to the sandy bottom of the reef and the sharks come in. The dive is a famous attraction as the feed brings divers closer to wild apex predators of the sea.

Cristina calls her chainmail a ‘barrier to break down barriers’.

“When you’re feeding sharks, know you’re going to get bit”, she

Mae Dorricott

says. But this form of protection enables her to get closer to these animals, which has built up trust. So much so that if the sharks are in the right mood she can put them to sleep. As they sweep past a gentle touch on the nose can cause the shark to gently fall into her lap. The shark calmly lays and allows itself to be stroked until it’s had enough or Cristina moves away. The barrier of the chainmail allows others to see the gentle nature of the shark, removing any notions of fear.

And after the feed, it’s time for Cristina to remove the hooks.

Many of the sharks have hooks, lines and trailing lures digging to their mouths. Just like a thorn in a dog’s paw, Cristina tries to remove as many as possible to relieve any pain and hindrance. It is quite something seeing her hand in the shark’s mouth pulling out the hook. Jaw dropping and awe-inspiring.

And there we have it. What an amazing last stop for me during a year filled with being inspired by amazing people doing their part to preserve and understand our blue dot. After all of this, I am getting closer to understanding where I fit in. Maybe I won’t be a shark whisperer or discover new cave systems, but I have a part to play and I’m enjoying finding out what that is. n

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RAMPION OFFSHORE WIND FARM:

ARRAY CONSTRUCTION LARGELY COMPLETE • Turbine installation complete, with turbines now connected to grid • Array cable works complete, but divers should remain 100 metres from turbines and substation • Export cable route works to continue until full operation in Autumn 2018 • Caution and vigilance must always be maintained in respect of high-speed traffic Sea-user safety remains of paramount importance to the Rampion Team as construction nears completion. While we recognise the Sussex coast is a popular area for diving with a number of sites of interest, it is strongly recommended that diving is avoided on the export cable route and within 100 metres of turbines and the substation, until construction works are complete.

CONSTRUCTION WORKS Construction of Rampion has continued apace, with the last of 116 turbine installations completed in September 2017, just six months after the first turbine was installed. All the turbines are now connected to the grid and operational, but they may not be turning from time to time due to ongoing testing and commissioning works throughout the site. This process will continue for some months before full operation, expected this Autumn.

The inter array cables – those connecting the turbines to the offshore substation – were all installed in 2016 and 2017. However, due to some harder ground in parts of the site, a small proportion of these were shallow buried, which meant the area had to remain closed to diving activities. We have now completed our rock placement operations so they are safely buried to within a radius of 100 metres from each turbine.

The cables are connected to the turbines through two holes, situated at the bottom of each foundation close the seabed. In order to make this connection, the cables need to be raised as they approach the foundation location, such that they become shallow buried or exposed when close to the turbines. A more-robust cable protection solution, known as ‘rock bagging’, is required in these locations to ensure the cable cannot become exposed, and a large construction vessel will be undertaking these works in May. Divers are advised to remain at least 100 metres from turbines and the substation, and 500 metres from the construction vessel, while we complete the rock bagging works. Beyond this restriction, we are pleased to announce that divers are now free to dive within the windfarm array. However, it remains your responsibility to be aware of all admiralty charts and associated navigation advice in relation to windfarm installations and buried subsea cables.

Construction continues on the export cable route, which will need to remain closed for diving until Autumn 2018, as there are too many operations happening over the next six months. Those considering diving in this area later in the year must keep themselves properly informed of up-to-date Notices to Mariners as we come to open up sections of the cable route.

HIGH-SPEED CONSTRUCTION TRAFFIC Divers’ attention is drawn to work boats and high-speed crew transfer vessels (CTV), transiting between the windfarm site and Newhaven Port, Brighton Marina and Shoreham Port. The chart, right, shows the area in which high-speed CTVs are operating. For your own safety, if you are an independent diver planning a local dive trip within the Area of CTV Operations using your own vessel, you are requested to familiarise yourself with the risks and follow the communications protocol set out in our ‘Guidance for Third Party Vessels on Rampion CTV Operations’, which can be found at rampionoffshore.com. In particular, vessels are requested to communicate in advance their passage plans and activities to the Rampion Marine Coordination Centre (MCC) on 07816 648 082 / leadmc@rampionoffshore.com You should also contact the MCC upon departure from port or prior to the dive itself, ensuring you communicate the following: • Name of wreck or location of the site you are planning to dive; • Expected time of arrival and departure; • Vessel name and Call Sign; • Number of divers expected in the water.

If the MCC cannot be contacted, the Rampion Guard Vessel should be contacted on VHF Ch.16. If you do go diving in the Area of CTV Operations, please be extra vigilant, especially for fast-moving CTVs. Following completion of construction in the Autumn, we will review the Area of CTV Operations when we expect there will be a reduced area for a limited number of operational CTVs transiting from Newhaven only. If you are seeking to charter a vessel in the local area for your dive trip, the dive charters listed on the right are co-operating with the Rampion Construction Team. They are kept regularly informed of construction activities and associated hazards contained in our Weekly Notices of Operations and Notices to Mariners.

They have an obligation to implement the communications protocol and keep us updated on diving activities. Please note this is neither a positive nor negative endorsement of any particular dive charter by Rampion.

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BUCCANEER

Contact: Chris West Telephone: 07802 571056 Email: chris.bucc2@gmail.com Contact: www.buccaneer-diving.co.uk

CHANNEL DIVER

Contact: Steve Johnson Telephone: 07970 674799 Email: steve@channeldiving.com Contact: www.channeldiving.com

BRIGHTON DIVER

Contact: Paul Dyer Telephone: 07901 822375 Email: paul@brightondiver.com Contact: www.brightondiver.com

DEFIANCE

Contact: Paul Jackman Telephone: 07711 325986 Email: brightonboat@btinternet.com Contact: www.brightonboat.co.uk

OUR W

Contact: David Ronnan Telephone: 07764 585353 Email: david.ronnan@btinternet.com Contact: www.dive125.co.uk

Should you wish to receive our Weekly Notices of Operations and Notices to Mariners, please email: info@rampionoffshore.com

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UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY

BEYOND

‘FISH ID’ Paul ‘Duxy’ Duxfield gives some sage advice on ways to lift your images above the ‘norm’ and give them a bit more creative impact PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAUL DUXFIELD

T

his month’s piece is for those people who want to change things up a bit and inject a bit more ‘oomph’ into their shots. Ok, so now you’re fully conversant with the basics of underwater photography. And let’s say you’ve got the hang of juggling your shutter speeds, apertures, ISOs and flash output, to get the exposure and overall look of the pictures sorted, but what next?

A lot of people get stuck at this juncture, and reach a bit of a plateau with their aquatic imaging escapades. Producing perfectly good pictures but somehow missing that vital element that will elevate their shots into something with more impact than straightforward fish ID shots.

How do I know this? Well, people tell me all the time, on the workshop trips, and I also see the evidence too.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing whatsoever against a beautifully exposed and lit fish ID picture. I take lots of them myself truth be told, but whether or not they’re my shots or someone else’s, they rarely give me cause to remember them.

So what practical steps can you take to avoid falling into the ‘Fish ID’ doldrums? I’m also using the term ‘Fish ID’ here slightly loosely, as I’m including all types of underwater photography from wreck pictures to shots of fellow divers that have a slight creative twist to them.

I’m going to look at a selection of pictures that I’ve taken that for one reason or another I feel I have raised the stakes to move my own personal bar a little higher, and I’m going to explain my thoughts and thinking behind the shots.

You may or may not agree, but the important thing is that you start thinking and experimenting more, as coming out of your comfort zone will inevitably result in you learning new tricks over time.

For my first choice I’m actually going to pick a very common type of shot of a very common Red Sea subject and explain what I think makes this a little different from the norm.

A humble but definitely not dull lionfish. So what was my thinking behind this very simply and centrally framed shot, that could quite easily be deemed to be a fish ID shot?

Setting the scene, I was on one of my favourite dives of the day, at dusk. That lovely time when the blues of the background water are getting deeper and darker minute by minute, but which allows you to start to experiment with your shutter speeds and make them longer in duration. This will mean there will come a point in the dive when the sun has actually set, so getting any sort of background exposure at all, your shutter speeds will be very long.

In this case, I was shooting at around a second duration, and it was still resulting in the background being quite dark in the gloomy crepuscular light. For practical reasons, shooting like this means you can’t place the camera upon a tripod. I needed a hint of background reef and surface, so I was pointing straight up. This long exposure meant the blurred surface and reef was the perfect background, not quite inky blue black, to place my lionfish upon.

Of course, if you’ve dived the Red Sea before you’ll be very aware of how prolific these pretty fish are, so finding your subject shouldn’t be too difficult. In this case the greedy beast had decided to follow me about as my focus light was providing great conditions for it to hunt. Getting it framed, front on, was much easier than it is chasing them around during the day.

You may be wondering why the long exposure hasn’t resulted in the lionfish becoming all blurry? My two strobes placed close to the dome of my fisheye lens either side are providing the main illumination from the front, and strobes provide a very brief burst of light measured in milliseconds, which will freeze anything in the foreground, but if you look around the edges of the fish you’ll see a slight silhouette as the fins of the fish and my movement has resulted in some shadowy blurring, but this just adds to the end result, of a bitingly sharp foreground object against a contrasting soft deep blue background, in my opinion.

The final touch in this case was the eye contact of the fish looking straight down the lens, and placed on the bottom third line for composition. which came about by taking a few pictures to make sure I got the final result I wanted.

Ok, then for our next shot we will revisit the long exposure combined with flash technique, but for a totally different reason and end result.

This picture was taken at the other end of the day from the last shot, and my buddy Adel and I had planned to get up super early to get in the water just before sun up.

Like dusk, this gloomy light can mean one of two things from a technical standpoint, you can either lengthen your shutter speeds or you can increase your ISOs to compensate for the low light.

I’d initially planned to use Adel to model around the stern of this famous old girl, to give a bit of scale and context, and we’d tried a few places for him to be, as this is an angle of this wreck that has been shot many times before and I wanted something a bit different from the norm.

Shooting with my fisheye lens I knew that I could get away with longer shutter speeds than normal, down to around a 15th of a second, and still keep myself steady enough not to get any camera shake. And using the fisheye I was very close to the stern rails so I was able to provide a burst of flash enough to give a bit of colour.

What happened next though was totally unplanned and the shot was just my reaction in the circumstances, as we found ourselves surrounded by a big school of fusiliers, swarming over us in an instant and then gone as swiftly as they’d appeared.

Some things you can’t plan for, but the gods of good fortune shone down on us, as I checked the screen and realised that the slow shutter speed, and the brief burst of flash, had delivered this result as the fusiliers were rendered as frozen but with blurred ticks highlighting their motion as the shutter speed stayed open for longer than the flash.

For this shot taken at Jackson Reef in Tiran, I’d a few considerations to think of. The subject was my friend, and dive buddy Bertie Gregory, who has his own show on the Nat Geo Wild channel,

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140 DEGREE WIDEANGLE WITH NO DISTORTION

about a variety of wildlife topics that he films and presents. So I wanted a shot of him that shows his lively personality and that also had a wee bit of product placement from a number of his sponsors with the kit he wears and uses.

Getting a shot of your buddy is made easier and less distracting if you can place the person against the blue background of the water, and in this case I was shooting straight up the reef, so I had to be mindful of my bubbles not showing in frame, so timing was critical.

As was getting good eye contact from Bertie, it’s helpful if your buddy is aware of what’s going on too and what you’re trying to achieve, so a bit of prior communication is a good idea as well.

I had half a mind that the shot may be used in an advert, so I shot vertically but I covered myself by taking a few alternative framings and angles, which is important.

I mostly shoot wide-angle, but it’s nice for me to occasionally break out the macro lenses for a refreshing change. And this is

BLUE DUCK PHOTOGRAPHY

Duxy and his business partners Phil and Anne Medcalf are now selling underwater photo kit and equipment alongside training and on-land workshops. If you’d like to make some kit enquiries, then contact: info@blueduckphoto.com - you’ll always get the very best advice.

And if you like the sound of a trip that incorporates a multi-day stop at a dive site like the Barge, we will be doing just such a trip with Emperor Divers on MV Emperor Superior on 25 May this year. We will be doing a similar style of trip but based in the south of Egypt on Emperor Elite in late-November - contact Diverse Travel for further details: info@diversetravel.co.uk Duxy also has some long-haul trips to SE Asia with Dive Safari Asia in 2019 - email: info@divesafariasia.com. And if you belong to a dive club and would like Duxy and the gang to give you a talk or workshop, then please get in touch.

EXTRA POWERFUL IN LOW LIGHT CONDITIONS

A CAMERA BUILT FOR A LIFE UNDER WATER

UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY shot available light without strobes, and with my fisheye lens which gives it the clarity and contrast as I am so very close to the top of the reef, because it nearly comes up all the way to the surface.

something that you can do to keep things fresh, so if you find yourself predominantly shooting with one type of lens, then do yourself a creative favour and push yourself to shoot with what you don’t regularly pick, i.e. if you’re a macro shooter then go wide-angle, and if like me you tend to see the wider view, then start looking for the titchy stuff as an alternative.

For this shot of a nudibranch out in Indonesia I used a snoot, which is a device that narrows the beam of your strobe down, in this case to about as wide as a pencil, allowing you to light up only the creature. It’s quite hard work, and needs patience, but allows you to isolate your subject without including a messy background. I also framed it completely head on to increase the drama of this tiny creature making it seem much more dominant, but as I’m shooting macro, only the horns of the slug are in focus, concentrating your attention to its head end, and you can still faintly see its gills way out of focus to the rear of the shot.

Timing was important too, taking the shot as the nudibranch reared up showing some of its underside.

This pinnacle is one of my little secrets in the Northern Red Sea, and is a place I like to visit when I can. It’s very small, is not in the guide books and it will only allow around four divers at a time before it’s overcrowded, so I tend to dive it in shifts with small groups spending around half an hour at a time. It may be small but it’s jam-packed with fish and corals hard and soft, but I wanted a shot that was a little different that showed it whole, like a tiny planet. So before getting back on the RIB, I shot straight down from the surface, waiting for a diver from the next group to swim into frame to give it some scale and context. I know they say you should try and shoot upwards when you can, but sometimes it’s good to break the rules. It was

BIOGRAPHY: PAUL DUXFIELD

Here I wanted to show the early morning beauty of a coral pinnacle washed over by the sun’s beams. This is all about positioning once you’ve found your pretty coral pinnacle. There are numerous pinnacles you’ll encounter on a typical Red Sea dive, but the best ones for this type of shot are usually around a metre or two from the surface. Shooting into the sun is often a problem, but the trick to getting beams like this is to only just keep the sun just out of shot, and to underexpose on the background by raising your shutter speeds as high as they will go, and then adjusting your strobes to provide a burst of foreground light to balance the scene.

If you make a sharp noise, the orange anthias will all dart into the reef in the same direction as you take the picture. n

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 as @takeiteasyduxy and Facebook as Take iT Easy.

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Lighthearted profile of dive centres or clubs from all over the United Kingdom. This issue, it is the turn of Anglesey Divers in Holyhead

Who is in

CHARGE?

Name: Martin Sampson Rank: Owner, Chief Instructor and Tea Boy Date of first certification: 1983 Number of dives to date: Well over 5,000. Not got an exact figure as my experience of early electronic dive logs didn’t go well, I lost hundreds of dives when a hard drive crashed!

WHAT’S YOUR STORY? I got my first ever trydive with the BSAC branch attached to BP’s Research Centre in Sunbury On Thames in 1981. Within ten seconds of submerging for the first time I lost my balance and turned turtle. Lying on my back with arms and legs akimbo, I stared at the surface of the pool from the other side and thought this is amazing. I had just crossed a portal, albeit with the grace of a hippo. When I graduated I got involved with Bristol No.3 BSAC and the regional coaching team. By 1988, I was being asked to help out and teach in dive schools such as Fort Bovisand and Poole Di-ve Centre, so in 1989 I took a gap year and went full time. It’s been a very long gap year – 29 years and counting.

Q&A with Martin Q: How would you describe your team at your dive centre?

A: Patient!

Q: What is your most-embarrassing teaching moment?

A: As a newly appointed BSAC Instructor Trainer, I taught on one of the first BSAC Extended Range Instructor Workshops held at Stoney Cove. My trainee instructors were all very capable and I let them get in the water before me. I stood there in twinset and stage cylinders looking down at them; they floated calmly looking up at me. Then I said: “I’ll be back in a moment, my fins are in the car”!

Q: What is your favourite place to dive in the UK? A: Tough question! I love UK diving, there is so much to see but if pushed I would say the Menai Strait.

Q: What is your favourite place to dive abroad?

A: Another tough one! Probably the Brothers in the Red Sea. Q: If you could change one thing about diving, what would it be?

A: Make it more accessible to young people and ignite their passion afor exploration as opposed to one-off adrenalin thrills. Diving has been my life for over 35 years, but I fear that there are not enough younger divers following on.

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Q: Who is the biggest wimp out of the lot of you, and give a recent example.

A: No wimps on this team! Then again, Samantha Clarke doesn’t do cold and she owns just about every type of drysuit undergarment known to man, including a heated vest. Not that I’m green with jealousy, just blue with hypothermia (Okay, I admit it, I think her KUBI DryGloves are awesome).

Q: Who attracts the most attention, good or bad?

A: Bailey the team border terrier.

Q: If you could teach a celebrity to dive, who would it be and why?

A: Ronan Keating – I spent some time in his company in 2011 when he took part in The Swim, a relay swim across the Irish Sea. We had a craic and it would be great to show him more of the underwater world.

Q: What’s been the biggest fear factor in your diving career to date?

A: One summer’s afternoon in 1995, I spent 20 minutes on the surface drifting away from the dive site with the dive boat looking for me in the wrong direction. Despite having a bright SMB, the skipper couldn’t see it. I learnt a lot about different surface location aids for different sea states.

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Why you should

JOIN OUR CLUB BRITISH DIVING TRIPS We aim to run trips that suit a wide range of qualification and interest. Favourites have been Scapa Flow, Oban, Isles of Scilly, Channel Islands, Farne Islands and, of course, Anglesey.

FOREIGN DIVE TRIPS For many years, the Maltese island of Gozo has been a home from home – we have run 14 trips there in the last 20 years or so. The Red Sea, Gibraltar, Elba, Tenerife, South Africa, Cuba, and others have also featured.

Some shore based, and some liveaboard – especially with the excellent Blue O Two crew. As with the UK trips, we appeal to a wide range of abilities, but perhaps with a bit more emphasis on the between-dives relaxation and top-side exploration.

TRAINING FACILITIES Dive shop, workshop, classroom, wet room and kit store, compressed air to 300bar, nitrox by ar-rangement.

DIVE CENTRE factfile Contact details Tel: 01407 764545 Mob: 07917 619221 Address: Anglesey Divers, 1 Church Terrace, Holyhead, Anglesey, LL65 2HP Opening hours 9am – 5.30pm Tues – Sat / Other times by arrangement.

Courses available SSI and PADI from beginner to pro.

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Rental kit and brand Full kit hire available with modern Mares / Aqualung / Apeks gear.

Shop Main brands as above.

Gas mixes Air to 300 bar / nitrox to 232 bar.

Servicing Over 20 years experience of servicing most brands of gear.

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DAVID DILEY 68

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Q: You are best known for Of Shark And Man. How did the concept of this film come into existence in the first place?

A: Originally it was intended to be a chapter in a book I wanted to write. I had no film-making experience at the time, despite always wanting to be a film-maker one day. I figured I’d start by writing a book, then use it as a launch pad to start making documentaries, and this particular chapter always stood out to me as being a story which would make a great film. I was already in the process of trying to raise the finance to make the book happen when Jim Standing at Fourth Element said I should just go ahead and go directly into making a film. I thought about it, figured it’s what I had always wanted to do in the first place, so thought ‘why not?!’

I quit my job a few months later with no money or safety net, with the frame of mind being to make the situation so desperate, failure was not an option.

Another key element in the film’s conception was the fact that nobody was making the shark documentaries I wanted to see any more, so I just decided I may as well go and do it myself. It really was that simple. I quit my job with zero film-making experience and one year and ten days later, I was on day one of production in Fiji. I worked so hard at it and wanted it enough that I knew I was going to make it out there, and I ultimately learned how to make films by making an ambitious and quite-complex feature documentary. It’s the best film school you can ever attend - learn by throwing yourself in at the deep end, commit to your vision, have faith in yourself, deliver and exceed expectations. That’s the condensed version of the story - if you want the full story, you’ll need to watch the film!

Q: Filming in close proximity to extremely large bull sharks must have been quite daunting at first. How did you get yourself into the right frame of mind to complete these dives?

A: Honestly, not really. It wasn’t my first time around large sharks and I have a good understanding of sharks and shark behaviour, so for me, it was all about excitement. There is nothing in the world I enjoy more than filming big, potentially dangerous sharks as closely as possible, but that’s not an adrenaline thing, it’s more about a sense of fulfilling a childhood dream. I can’t really describe how it makes me feel, I guess I can only really say it’s the closest to that mythical zen-like state of absolute happiness I get, the act of experiencing that privilege just seems to connect with me.

In regards to how I get into the right frame of mind, it’s the same as every other dive. I consider what I’m doing, look at the details - including worst-case scenarios - and act accordingly. I treat every dive as a professional dive and perhaps, because of that, I’ve never had any accidents. I’m quite methodical when it comes to my work, so that when I am in a position to get the footage I want, I can allow that sense of creativity to not be inhibited by bad preparation or practical performance.

Q: What were the main challenges in getting the film made, and then picked up by distributors?

A: The main challenge was the same as any creative endeavour which you take seriously - money, or rather an abject lack of it.

Coming up with good ideas is never easy but when you do, you have to convince someone else to pay for it to happen, unless

Film-maker David Diley hit the big time with the release of his award-winning, highly acclaimed documentary Of Shark And Man. Scuba Diver talked to him about this film, and what the future holds for this videography visionary PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF DAVID DILEY

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“I think the last time I did a dive without a camera in my hands was probably ten years ago - I can’t do it, I have to have the capability to film or the dive would feel weird to me!”

you’re a millionaire, which unfortunately I’m not. It actually didn’t take that long, just less than ten months, to go from absolute zero to confirmation I was going to Fiji to shoot the film, but that’s because of the hours I put in - 14-16 hour days, every single day, thousands of emails, hundreds of hours of phone calls, travelling up and down the country... I focused my entire life on this one thing and it paid off. Film-making is not a 9-5 job, it’s a ‘do it for as long as it takes or don’t bother’ job and I’m fine with that - and if it means making sacrifices in other areas, then so be it.

It’s a privilege to do what I do and when I get opportunities to do more of it, I’m not going to turn them down.

With distribution, that was tough. Before the film screened on the festival circuit I was cold calling and spec emailing sales agents and distributors with no success, but when the film started winning awards I started getting interest. I went to the Nice International Film-maker Festival and came back a week later to five offers for the film. It was a tough slog to get to that point, but again, if you commit and put in the time and effort, the rewards are more likely to come. Only around two percent of independent films get a distribution deal and I believe for documentary, the success rate is even lower, so you really have to do your due diligence and have a good product.

Another challenge is being visible in an oversaturated market.

The availability of film-making equipment and opportunities to make low budget independent documentaries makes actually making a film easier than ever, but making a good film is as hard as it’s always been. There’s some good shark films out there right now, but there’s a lot of very bad ones, including within the factual genre. How do you convince the man on the street to pay hard-earned money for yours, especially when you don’t have a marketing team spending thousands a month on promotion? It’s a never-ending challenge, but it’s immensely flattering to know that people are watching the film, they like it and they’re talking about it.

Q: Of Shark And Man got you into the limelight, but let’s go back to the beginning. When did you first get into diving?

Were you a diver first, then a film-maker, or the other way around?

A: I was certified in 2007, but before that I did try-dives whenever I could just to learn the basics for when I was finally able to start my journey to becoming a professional diver. I’m a working-class lad and I think one of the biggest issues within the dive industry is that it can be an incredibly expensive sport, which precludes a lot of people from actually pursuing it. When I signed up for my open water course, I told them I was starting the process to become a professional working diver and underwater cinematographer, so I took it extremely seriously.

I still enjoy the process of diving, everything about it, but I see it more now as a way to film what I want to film. I think the last time I did a dive without a camera in my hands was probably ten years ago - I can’t do it, I have to have the capability to film or the dive would feel weird to me!

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UNDERWATER VIDEOGRAPHY

David Diley has agreed to be Scuba Diver’s videography guru on www.scubadivermag.com, so keep an eye out for upcoming vlogs, how-to videos, behind-the-scenes shoots and much more.

Q: What camera, housing and lighting are you currently using for your projects?

A: If I’m commissioned by a broadcaster or production company, I’ll use whatever camera and housing they want me to use with the caveat that I am able to advise or suggest set-ups to get the best out of the situation and budget. Personally, I’m still using my Canon 7D however, I am hoping to upgrade to be a minimum of 4K RAW capable as soon as possible this year. My housing is a Nauticam and it’s brilliant, absolutely rock solid and I can tell you from personal experience that it is bull shark proof with it having been in a few mouths during my time in Fiji and it’s never let me down once. My lighting set up is two Big Blue 15000P Professional Underwater Video Lights and I love them - hands down the best lights I have ever used. I also have a rear-mounted GoPro for cutaways and I’ve just got my hands on a Paralenz as well, so I’ll no doubt be adding that into my set-up also.

Q: Looking to the future, can you give us the scoop on what the coming months hold for brand David Diley?

A: I’m working on the sequel to Of Shark and Man. This time around I’m approaching the film in a much-more-professional manner - we have the production crew, a much-bigger budget and an incredible story to tell. I am working with my Development Executive to raise the finance and we already have some interest from networks and broadcast channels, so a lot of my time at the moment is spent working on that. I can’t really say much about the film itself other than it’s an incredible story being told by some amazing people, and made by a team of talented, dedicated professionals who it will be a privilege to work with. The idea is to ultimately be in a position where we are making one of these every year until I run out of shark stories to tell!

Aside from the feature documentary, I have a commercial underwater shoot coming up in the Middle East soon, I’m just waiting on the dates to be finalised and I’m in Egypt in the southern Red Sea for three weeks in June filming some promotional material for Red Sea Diving Safari.

I also work as a Digital Colourist so I have some cool projects coming up - short films, commercials, branding videos, you name it! On top of all that I have my next Underwater Film-maker Workshop in Marsa Shagra in mid-November, which is oceanic whitetip season, so I’m really looking forward to that!

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Q: You run workshops aimed at taking raw novices and making them into mini film-makers. What words of advice have you got for any aspiring underwater film-makers out there?

A: Story, story, story. The best camera in the world is the one you have available to you, what is infinitely more important is what’s in front of the camera and who is behind it. Find a different angle to a story and if you give it a personal edge, it will engage viewers and could make them look at the world in a different way.

If your viewer is asking questions of themselves or their opinions, you’ve got them in the palm of your hand.

If you get out there and do it and really take it seriously, you might surprise yourself with how good your film turns out and if you can, learn from people with more experience than you but never let anyone convince you not to try things differently. If you want to go down your own path and do things totally differently, try it, it might end up being terrible but you’ll still learn a whole lot along the way. Another underwater cinematographer once told me ‘you can’t be a film buff if you didn’t go to film school’, which is complete nonsense. Take influences from anywhere you can think of, the two main influences on Of Shark and Man are Blue Water, White Death and a documentary about Diego Maradona called Hero! Finally, when you think you’ve finished your film, you probably haven’t. Put the ‘finished cut’ away for at least two weeks, don’t watch it then go back to it and see if you still think it’s the best it can be. More often than not you’ll end up cutting it down until 3am the following morning!

Q: What has been your most-memorable moment when diving/ filming?

A: It has to be being alone in among 60 feeding bull sharks close enough to touch, life doesn’t get any better than that! I’m also one of the only people on earth to film an all-black manta ray in the eastern Atlantic, I’ve had oceanic whitetips chasing a manta ray around Elphinstone, I’ve done a drift dive in a raging current in the open ocean with a group of mobula rays in the Azores there’s been loads but the bull sharks will take some beating.

Q: On the flip side, what has been your worst moment when diving/filming?

A: Thankfully there’s only one I can really think of, when on a filming trip about five miles from shore in rough seas our very small boat was on the verge of sinking. We were joking about it at first, not too concerned but then about 20 minutes later we were in our wetsuits ready for the inevitable impromptu swim, but thankfully, the skipper got the engine working again and we got back to shore as quickly as possible. There’s no doubt in my mind that if we had gone over, six people would have gone in the water but there’s no way all of us would have made it back.

Beats working in an office though - the worst day on this job is infinitely better than the best day in a job you hate, so I’ll take sinking boats over sales targets any day of the week! n

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When diving in Malta YOU KNOW YOU ARE BREATHING PURE AIR WITH A B-SECURUS FILTER MONITOR when diving with top notch dive centres MALTA: See shells dive cove Paradise diving Bezz Dive centre Dive life Orange Shark Maltaqua Scubatec Octopus Garden New dimension Scuba Buddies Dive Deep Blue Dawn diving Plongee Malte Dive on Malta Neptunes Abyss Divewise Tec Wise Cresta dive centre Starfish Dive Malta Malta Blue Water colours Diveshack

Mellieha Mellieha Mellieha Mellieha Mellieha St Pauls bay St Pauls bay St Pauls bay St Pauls bay Bugibba Bugibba Bugibba Bugibba Bugibba Bugibba St Julians St Julians St Julians St Julians St Julians St Julians Sliema Sliema Sliema

GOZO: Comino hotel Blue Waters Bubbles Calypso ScubaKings Technical diving St Andrews cove Dwejra Divers Gaulos

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.

TEL: +356 21 585 065 EMAIL: INFO@MANDAMALTA.COM SIR LUIGI PREZIOSI STREET, BUGIBBA, MALTA

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

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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

Congratulations to Grant Cooke from Cobalt Diving, who has recently qualified as TDI’s newest Intro to Tech, Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedure Instructor. Grant has been an SDI Instructor for a couple of years and has now made the move into teaching tech.

The sign-up process for eLearning has been completely revamped to make it much quicker and easier for students to sign up for a course. Take a look at the new sign-up screens at www.tdisdi.com/elearning/ SDI growth has continued at the same incredible rate.

We are still the fastest-growing recreational agency in the world with 15 new international (outside the US) dive centres in March alone, including centres in Australia, Brazil, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Panama, Philippines, Russia and Thailand. Dive centres and instructors throughout the world are recognising that there is an agency that values their business and works with them. www.tdisdi.com

Regional Manager conference In April, PADI Regional Managers from Europe, Middle East and Africa reunited in Malta for the bi-annual Regional Managers Conference. They were accompanied by PADI Territory Directors, Marketing Managers and a few special guests from the United States, Drew Richardson (CEO) and Kristin Valette (CMO). The conference gives PADI managers the chance to discuss in great detail industry initiatives, strategy and share feedback from out in the field. During the three days of meetings, presentations and workshops, PADI Regional Managers also did their part for Project Aware with a Regional Managers’ Dive Against Debris! www.padi.com

Mercia Sub-Aqua Club Andy Seals and Martin Long of Mercia Sub-Aqua Club have recently qualified as Open Water Instructors.

C-Divers – Central Scotland Dive Club Although the weather hasn’t been the warmest of late, SAA divers north of the border have continued their dives and training, with a good turn out recently at Loch Long.

Aquarius Sub Aqua Club Allan Bromley and Richard Carpenter completed their Club Diver skills at Stoney Cove recently and are now Club Divers.

North Wales Sub Aqua Club This diving club attended the Surf Snowdonia’s Great Outdoors event to showcase scuba diving in the area. Although a cold and dismal day, the team were committed to showing off the appeal of our wonderful sport. www.saa.org.uk

Special congratulations to Wayne Allen Technical, back in the water after some ‘spinal reworking’ over the winter. Congratulations also to John Shaw, qualifying as Trimix CCR instructor on the RedBare CCR, after a gruelling evaluation from Phil Short – only hard work and preparation gets you through that. IANTD was also proud to support the European Conference on Scientific Diving at Heriot Watt Stromness, with Kieran Hatton and Tim Clements presenting on CCR for scientific diving and training for scientific divers.

IANTD UK is proud that the skills gained from high-quality instruction can be turned toward data gathering for professionals and citizen science divers. www.iantd.uk.com

From the start of RAID, the agency was designed to meet ISO standards and be compliant with any independent audits. Last year, RAID achieved this milestone with our core recreational courses found to be compliant to ISO standards through an independent audit by the EUF. We hope that all our members and future members feel confident in that fact.

The data protection protocols within the RAID system were also very considered as the agency was being built, resulting in a secure system that works in favour of our members. The three-step authentication for qualifying divers also means that dive centres have complete control over issuing certifications, meaning standards are kept high and well controlled. RAID General Diving Standards v55 incorporates small but important changes within the RAID system to meet the new GDPR EU regulations. This year we are also launching the RAID Connect calendar throughout the UK and Malta. If your dive centre has an event that you would like supported not only by RAID UK and Malta, but also other RAID centres, please connect Robyn: robyn@diveraiduk.com. Find out more about the upcoming events on our Facebook page and our blogsite: www.diveraiduk.com. We hope through the RAID connect events to get divers diving and enjoying what the UK has to offer as well as getting dive centres working together and supporting each other, something the industry desperately needs. www.diveraid.com

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BIOGRAPHY: DR RICHARD SMITH

Richard Smith, a British underwater photographer and writer, aspires to promote an appreciation for the ocean’s inhabitants and raise awareness of marine conservation issues through his images.

A marine biologist by training, Richard’s pioneering research on the biology and conservation of pygmy seahorses, led to the first PhD on these enigmatic fishes. Over the past decade, Richard’s photographs and marine life focused features have appeared in a wide variety of publications around the world. Richard organizes and leads marine life expeditions where the aim is for participants to get more from their diving and photography by learning about the marine environment: www.OceanRealmImages.com

A pair of golden pygmy gobies inhabit a fizzy drink can

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INSIDE OCEAN: MARINE POLLUTION This month, Richard Smith takes a look at the issue of marine pollution, which is currently receiving lots of mainstream media coverage PHOTOGRAPHS BY DR RICHARD SMITH / OCEANREALMIMAGES.COM

M

any of us have seen Blue Planet II and know some of the statistics around marine pollution. I was recently asked if the situation is as bad as is being reported and was depicted in the series. With my experience from over 20 years of diving around southeast Asia, I can sadly confirm that it is. Some of my personal experiences have included diving in Marine National Parks and being surrounded by clouds of plastic as thick as a snow storm, having to negotiate through a layer of rubbish to get back to the surface at the end of a dive and walking on deserted beaches with great dunes of flip-flops and other debris. I have pulled plastic from the mouth of a choking fish, collected two huge sacks of litter on one dive, and commonly seen animals using rubbish as a make-shift home.

A study in 2014 estimated there to be over five trillion individual pieces of plastic afloat across the world’s oceans. This plastic is being strewn across the Earth’s most-remote locations by prevailing winds and surface currents. Furthermore, it is believed that more than half of the plastics winding up in the ocean are negatively buoyant, so sink upon entering. Even the Mariana Trench, 10km below the waves of the west Pacific, has extraordinary levels of toxic pollutants that have simply sunken from the surface.

Our impact on the planet is such that scientists now believe we have moved into a new geological time period, which they have termed the ‘Anthropocene’. Radiation from nuclear testing, plastic deposits and sediments from burning coal can now be found in sediments globally to such an extent that this ‘new age of man’ has unequivocally and irreversibly stamped our presence on the planet.

Besides the physical contamination of the ocean, there are other implications for humankind. Many of the chemicals accumulating in the ocean are harmful to us, but we are only just starting to understand exactly how. There are hormones entering the oceans, even tiny levels of which may alter our biology. Arsenic has been found in wild fishes in such high concentrations as to cause us cancer. Some chemicals accumulate through the food chain, so are being passed onto us through the consumption of higher-level predators such as tuna. Mercury, for example, is one of the most wellknown, and can have neurological effects in humans including as memory loss, hearing and vision impairment, as well as a compromised immune system. Due to the dangers, research in Canada recommended that pregnant women and children eat no more than one meal of tuna, swordfish or shark per month.

The conservation movement sometimes struggles with sharing only bad news, leaving people feeling powerless and overwhelmed. Luckily, there are real and tangible actions that we can all take to make a difference when it comes to reducing our own plastic consumption. Avoiding single-use plastics, such as shopping bags, water bottles, razors, straws and coffee cups certainly makes a huge difference. Compared to the 1950s, annual plastic production is almost 200 times higher now. Around the world, 1,000,000 plastic drinking bottles were bought each minute of 2016, with only half of these estimated to have been collected for recycling. Those bottles that don’t make it to a recycling facility will take around 450 years to biodegrade. Encouragingly, in Norway, 97 percent are recycled thanks to incentive schemes, which may be adopted by the UK too. By doing something as simple as taking reusable shopping bags to the supermarket, drinking from reusable bottles and coffee cups, you could make a huge difference to the conservation of our ecosystems. n

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A GREAT PLACE FOR NEW AND OLD TECH DIVERS Gavin Anderson was so entranced after his first visit to Norway that he couldn’t wait to make a return trip to this cold-water wreck paradise PHOTOGRAPHS BY GAVIN ANDERSON

www.narkedat90.com

“The last time I also enjoyed exploring above the engine room, checking out her anti-aircraft guns and looking into her holds further up the wreck” Ship’s wheel festooned in marine growth

The wrecks are in remarkable condition

J

ust a short flight from the UK, Norway is really right on our doorstep, yet how many of us have visited or dived there? With its spectacular fjords created as ancient glaciers retreated, gauging out deep trenches as they went, people from all over the world visit for its topside wonders, but not nearly so many for those underneath the water. With loads of amazing shipwrecks and some pretty awesome visibility, you have the potential for a pretty awesome dive experience.

Many of the wrecks found within Norway’s sheltered fjords date from World War Two and protected from winds and hordes of divers, they are still in amazing condition. Most of the wrecks are in fairly deep water, but not so deep that you need to be a seasoned tech diver. Many of the wrecks in Norway are often at the edge of the fjord, starting in as little as 6m. Some do

then drop away down to depths approaching 75m, but you don’t need to go all the way to the bottom of them, you can choose a depth suited to your own qualification. On my first trip here back in 2016, when I was a relatively new rebreather diver, I joined Bushey Divers from Bushey and Borehamwood BSAC for a week on the Halton. I found that there was a real mix of experience, from rebreathers and twinsets with bail-outs to 15-litres with a pony bottle. I really enjoyed diving with the Bushey and Borehamwood BSAC club, I loved the wrecks and scenery, I learned loads and gained more experience, and decided I’d love to go back, so much I made a return trip last year with some of my own friends from my local dive group, the Fife Renegades. We tend to dive deep sites in the North Sea where the visibility can be unpredictable, so we were all looking forward to diving on the wrecks

The topside scenery is stunning as well

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Divers dwarfed by a huge bow

Wolf fish

“Our attention soon changes to something on deck up ahead and blue in colour, it’s a wolf fish, one of those stand-out fishes, grotesque and beautiful at the same time”

Porcelain hand basin

where we could see complete bows, sterns and much of the bits inbetween too!

The Halton was booked up, but another of our favourite boats, the Karin, had space and there was a rumour this might be a special trip! Running a boat charter in Norway is not easy, with much red tape and regulations, and our skipper was declaring this to be his last year here. So we were going to be some of the last few divers diving off the Karin into the gorgeous fjords.

Flying from Aberdeen to Bergen on a Friday, we overnighted in the local YMCA bunkhouse before lugging our dive gear next morning to the Karin. There was lots to do, assembling rebreathers and sorting out bail-out bottles, etc, by the time we left and headed up to a place called Kraemerholmen.

Diving in Norway, even in mid-summer, is best done in a drysuit. Although the gulfstream and long hours of daylight and sometimes sunlight heat the top 6m-15m of water up to a balmy 13 degrees C, at depth it drops to around 9 degrees C. Our shakedown dive was on the wreck of the Hakon. This is a small wreck in about 35m, which you can easily swim right around.

Close to the side of the shore, it’s sometimes a bit dark and it can take your eyes time to adjust. Moon jellyfish pulse in the cold dark water like little flying saucers and with the lights of divers piercing through the water, it was a surreal start to diving in the fjord. As the wreck wasn’t huge and everybody was trying out their dive lights, I felt like I was in some simulator laser tag game.

Diving on the darker wrecks in Norway does give you that feeling. Like most of Norway’s wrecks, this one is still totally intact and sitting upright on a sandy rock bottom with a slight list to one side. Sea squirts and anemones cover sections of the wreck, which is all fairly open and accessible, so we were able to see the engine and the remains of the ship’s wheel. The odd piece of kitchenwear and wine bottles lie inside the wreck and as well as the engine block, ship’s toilet and steering gear, we come across the spare prop on our way back from the wreck’s weird pointed bow. The dive on the Hakon is good, but it was our afternoon dive that really excited most of us.

The Tyriford’s wheel given a weird glow

The Frankenwald is legendary, an amazing dive. She was a German cargo vessel which hit rocks in January 1940, sinking to 40m and remaining perfectly upright to this day. Descending down on her for first-timers and even a returning diver like myself is an awesome experience. An impressive 122 metres long, there’s a huge amount to see on this wreck, from her eight impressive deck inches to her impressive triple-expansion steam engine, her main superstructure including her accommodation block, bridge and, of course, the bow and stern. Her deck is in 30m, where the light is often quite good. The shot line normally takes you midships and just in front of her enormous bridge, which is still a magnificent sight despite having collapsed in the last couple of years.

As we descended down the line, I was pleased to find better conditions with a light current and good visibility somewhere around 20 metres, which was much improved on the previous year when an algae bloom down to 12m cut quite a bit of light.

After a brief stop at her engine room (we decided not to descend inside), we cruise by the most-enormous white dahlia anemone, possibly the biggest one I’ve every seen. Our attention soon changes to something on deck up ahead and blue in colour,

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The wrecks can it’s a wolf fish, one of those stand-out fishes, grooften be explored tesque and beautiful at the same time. in great vis...

We reach the bow in about ten minutes but don’t hang around it for too long, as we were hoping to make haste and swim back to take in the rest of the wreck in the fantastic visibility and gentle current, we feel up to exploring the whole wreck in one go.

Past the bridge, swimming through a companionway and out past the other winches and arms and eventually we reach my favourite part of the wreck, her stern. Swimming though an open room which houses the ship’s massive auxiliary steering quadrant and a series of tall gas cylinders, we wind our way carefully through to the end of the wreck. Swimming off the wreck a bit and down a little deeper, I take in the impressive sight of the wreck’s massive rounded stern.

Moving back up and along her deck level, the current takes us back past her lovely masts and over her bridge once more. From above we can see right into the top superstructure, the wooden roofs long since rotted away. Swimming through between a large water tank and the top deck, in front of us is our shot line. Slowly we rise, watching our computers and then the wreck slowly disappears from view as we pass the 15m mark. What an awesome dive!

That afternoon we head further north to Flora and dive the Tyriford, a Norwegian cargo ship sunk by the RAF in September 1944.

She had been on her way back to pick up a cargo of iron ore from Northern Norway to take back to Germany. The ship was badly damaged especially towards the bow, but her stern is still totally ...but greenish water intact in 37m and includes a beautiful 12-spoke auxiliary steering can give them an eerie feel wheel covered in sparkling soft corals. Forward of the rear accommodation only the hull remains reasonably intact. sheer size of her, and second time round she’s just as impressive.

In the afternoon we dive on the Svanholm, a Norwegian She was a German cargo vessel enroute from Bergen to Alesund steamship which was carrying wood when torpedoed in 1917 by with coal and general supplies when she was torpedoed by a a German U-boat. The crew were ordered off before the sub sent the Svanholm to the bottom, where she lies today in close to 50m. Norwegian MTB in 1944. She sunk on her side between 12m-70m of water. Her bow is extremely colourful with many anemones and Being in the middle of a wide fjord, the visibility is normally exsoft corals, while the stern is dark and deep. Her massive bridge cellent and we enjoyed great views of her bow. When I dived this and superstructure are very impressive. wreck in 2016, I found it dark and eerie - this time, conditions are After a night in Flora, our final day of diving starts on not one totally different, with good light down at 40m and 25-plus-metre but two wrecks which make up one classic dive. During World War visibility. The wooden roof over the main superstructure midships Two, the Norwegian-owned Ferndale was under German comhas rotted away so we could easily drop down inside to look at mand, being used as a transport ship when on 15 December 1944 bits and bobs in the main accommodation block, including a lovewhile leading a convoy from Bergen to Ålesund under the cover of ly wash hand basin, possibly from the captain’s quarters. darkness, she ran on the Seglsteinen reef in the Krakhelle Strait. A Day three sees us dive a wreck we missed the previous year, tug, the Parat, came to assist first thing in the morning, but both the Helga Ferdinand. She was a Norwegian cargo ship originally it and the Ferndale were discovered by British Mosquito bombers built in Sunderland, part of a convoy of ships heading up the and sent to the bottom. The 30-metre Parat sank first, settling at Norwegian coast on 8 November 1944. They had sought cover in a depth of 45m-60m followed four hours later by the giant 116-methe Midtgulenfjord but were still spotted by a British reconnaistre Ferndale, which missed hitting the smaller vessel by just four sance plane and shortly afterwards, a group of British Beaufighters, from 404 Squadron, showered the convoy with rockets, sinking feet! Today, the twin wrecks lie between 60m and just 7m, the Ferndale on a slope and the Parat on the sandy bottom. it and another ship, the Aquilla. Today, the wreck of Helga FerdiThe Parat is totally intact with its winching gear pumps and nand stands on her keel intact at a depth of 45m-60m. She’s a big little cabin. The Ferndale stern and holds are pristine and intact wreck and sits at an angle with her bow in 40m and her stern in too, but as you swim past her midships towards shallower water, 60m. We make two dives on her and she is so vast and deep, we it all becomes a bit more broken up due to extensive salving. still didn’t see all of her. Highlights are her enormous masts, her engine room, and the anti-aircraft guns still on the bow and stern. There’s not a huge amount of fish life but the Parat is all about Day four sees us up the tempo and ease up a notch with a dive its intactness and being able to see the whole wreck, with the larger Ferndale overshadowing it in the distance. An epic way to on the Wilheim. A hugely impressive wreck at 5,545 tons and 127 metres in length. I remember first diving her and gulping at the end the trip. n

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SANTI DRYSUITS FAMILY

What’s New

DRYTIDE BACKPACK (SRP: €99.95)

The DryTide backpack is made from heavy-duty and 100 percent waterproof material, with high-frequency welded seams, and no stitches in all vital areas. It has a 50-litre waterproof main compartment, with an internal removable laptop pocket with mesh pocket for small items, a big back pocket with rainproof zipper, and two side mesh pockets for water bottles.

The comfortable shoulder straps and back are both padded with non-water-absorbing foam, and there is also a bottom loop for drying the backpack.

It measures 60cm x 34cm x 25cm, so is suitable for your carry on backpack if you are traveling by plane – and it has been designed so that it floats on water. www.drytidegear.com

TOWBOX V2 (SRP: £699)

Where to put wet dive kit for the journey home? In the boot, you get that lovely scent of wet neoprene and steamed-up windows. The best bet is to keep it outside the vehicle – and that’s where the TowBox V2 comes in. The TowBox V2 is the perfect external storage solution and because it mounts directly onto the towball it will fit any towbar, including detachable swan-neck towbars. It clamps easily onto the towball using a simple handle system that can be securely locked on with a key.

The TowBox V2 has two large side-opening doors that can both be securely locked with a key. This allows for opening even when the rear of the vehicle is in a tight parking space, yet it still boasts 390 litres of space and a load capacity of 66kg. It also includes a set of fold-down roller wheels making moving and manoeuvering the box an easy task.

The TowBox V2 carrier system allows the box to slide rearward on a number of set positions for easier mounting and dismounting, or to clear obstacles such as spare wheels or high-mounted bicycle racks The final position also provides a slight tilt to aid boot access. www.inbtowbars.co.uk

FOURTH ELEMENT OCEANPOSITIVE ‘PIONEER’ SWIMWEAR COLLECTION (SRP: £24.95 - £84.90)

KUBI STAINLESS STEEL CARD (SRP: £4)

As well as being a seriously nifty piece of industrial-looking design, this stainess steel card has a genuine use – it is perfect to assist in removing O-rings using the long, flat sides. A handy little accessory for the active diver. www.kubistore.com 82

Fourth Element’s new swimwear collection is inspired by some of diving’s most-inspirational waterwomen, including ‘Her Deepness’ Sylvia Earle, record-holding freediver and environmentalist Hanli Prinsloo, and one of the first female scuba divers, Zale Parry. Using ECONYL® - recycled Nylon from Ghost Fishing Nets and other post-consumer waste, the swimwear is also packaged without single-use plastic as part of fourth element’s MISSION 2020. Available in stores and online at life.fourthelement.com from early May. Prices range from £44.90-£84.90 for bikinis and swimsuits. Men’s swimshorts from £24.95. www.fourthelement.com WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

GoPro HERO (SRP: £199.99) GoPro, Inc has added a new Hero action camera to the family.

On sale now, HERO is a £199.99, go-anywhere, capture-anything camera that makes it easy to share experiences that would be difficult to capture with a phone.

The HERO features a two-inch touch display, has voice control, shoots high-definition video, is waterproof to 10m and is extremely durable, making it the perfect GoPro for kids, adventurous social sharers and travel lovers.

Sharing cool experiences with HERO is simple. It offloads your photos and videos to the GoPro App, which creates fun, shareable videos for you – automatically. No more fumbling with your SD card or plugging your camera into a computer. HERO makes it simple. HERO is available today at retailers around the world and on GoPro.com www.gopro.com

MARES SEAL SKIN (SRP: £318)

SZANTO VINTAGE DIVE WATCH RANGE (SRP: £214.95 - £224.95) Want to show you are a diver but want a bit of traditional flair? Then check out the Szanto range of ‘vintage’ dive watches, which combine high-quality workmanship with classic styling and heritage-inspired designs.

The watches feature a 43mm 316L brushed strainless steel case, unidirectional 120-click rotating bezel, screw-down locking crown, screwcase back, thick Swiss Superluminova Lume on the hands and dial numbers for long-lasting visibility, Japan Quartz three-hand and date movement, hardened mineral crystal and are water-resistant to 200m.

Available with both a black or a blue face in a stainless-steel case (various platings including antique bronze or antique silver can be selected), and then tan, brown or black waterproof (treated for use in water) leather strap. www.sea-sea.com

OMS IQ LITE CB SIGNATURE PACKAGE (SRP: £515)

Mares state in their promotional literature that the Seal Skin is a ‘revolution in cold-water suits’, and they base this statement on the fact that the suits utilise 6mm ultrastretch neoprene with s-seal technology, and Glideskin seals on the wrists and ankles (as well as zippers on the latter). Mares reckon this is the perfect suit for summer-time UK diving. Other features include Supratex protective kneepads, instrument grip areas on both wrists to keep your computer where it should be, plus an integrated buckle on the leg for attaching the hood (included in the package) when you are topside. This area can also be used to mount the dedicated Flexa Smart Pocket, which is an optional extra. Available in male and female versions in a wide range of sizes. www.mares.com WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

The IQ Lite Cummerbund can be paired with the Performance Mono Wing (27lbs or 32lbs) in a wide choice of colours - Black, Red, Red/Black, Pink/Black and Grey/Black.

The IQ Lite paired with the Performance Mono Wing is super-lightweight - perfect for the travelling diver, with a no-fuss setup. The wing and harness are already paired together and is easily adjustable to fit each individual diver. From the built-in tank stabiliser bars to the weight-release system, this thoughtful design is the perfect go-anywhere BCD. The ready-to-use package includes IQ Backpack Cummerbund, Perfomance Mono Wing, cambands and Vertical Weight System. www.fathomdiving.com 83

Gear Guide

THIS ISSUE: REGULATORS OVER £400

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.

HIGH-END REGULATORS (OVER £400) This issue, we round out our three-price-band review of regulators by looking at the top-of-the-range units from a selection of manufacturers. It was great to see some new regs in the group test, like the OMS Evoque, Halycon Halo and Apeks MTX-R, as well as old stalwarts like the Atomic Aquatics Z3, Aqualung Legend LX Supreme and Mares Fusion.

The waters at Vivian Dive Centre in Llanberis were still a chilly 6 degrees C, the perfect conditions in which to test the regs, which we rated for comfort, looks, performance - especially when pushed to their limit. If they can handle what we do with them, they can cope with normal UK diving.

ON TEST THIS MONTH: • APEKS MTX-R • AQUA LUNG LEGEND LX SUPREME • ATOMIC AQUATICS Z3 • HALCYON H-75P/HALO • MARES FUSION 52X • OMS AIRSTREAM EVOQUE 84

• SCUBAPRO MK25EVO/ S620TI • SHERWOOD SCUBA SR2 • ZEAGLE Location: Tested at Vivian Dive Centre, Llanberis www.viviandivecentre.com WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

APEKS MTX-R | SRP: £579 The Apeks MTX-R is the ‘civvie’ version of the military-spec MTX (it was developed in accordance with the United States Navy Experimental Dive Unit’s extreme cold-water test), and this regulator - which can perform in almost-freezing waters at a depth of over 60m - looks super-smooth in its classy iPhone white and matt-silver with engraved stencilling.

A first-of-its-kind over-moulded first stage end cap and environmental diaphragm prevent ice build-up, and the forged body, which has five low-pressure ports (on a swivel) and two high-pressure ports, gives maximum thermal performance. The second stage has no dive adjustment controls, has a patented heated exchanger surrounding the valve mechanism, and is equipped with a double-swivel braided hose.

At this price point, you’d quite rightly expect all the regulators on test to perform well, but the MTX-R managed to shine brightly even in this thoroughbred field. All of the Test Team were very complimentary about the construction and looks of both the first and second stages, and positive comments were made about the lack of controls - it just works well out of the box, there is nothing to fiddle with - and the comfort of the ComfoBite mouthpiece. It breathes well in all positions. www.apeksdiving.com/uk

CHOICE

TECH SPECS & VERDICT WEIGHT: 1.25kg | HOSE: Braided | VENTURI: No VERDICT: Good-looking, very well-made cold-water regulator that stands out from the crowd and gives a silky smooth breathe in all positions.

SCORE

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AQUA LUNG LEGEND LX SUPREME | SRP: £513 The Aqua Lung Legend LX Supreme is an eye-catching cold-water-approved regulator that features some nifty styling and performance points.

The chunky but compact environmentally sealed, over-balanced diaphragm first stage has two high-pressure and four low-pressure ports, and is equipped with Aqualung’s Auto Closure Device (ACD), which keeps any corrosive water out of the first stage inlet by automatically closing as it is removed from the cylinder valve.

The pneumatically balanced second stage has a heat exchanger to help dissipate the cold, Comfo-Bite mouthpiece and Aqualung’s Master Breathing System (MBS), which sees both the cracking resistance level and venturi positioning controlled with one knob.

The Legend LX Supreme scored highly with all the Test Team members, who were impressed by its smooth, dry breathe, comfortable mouthpiece, efficient purge and slick good looks. The single control knob, which simultaneously adjusts the cracking resistance and the position of the venturi, was easy to use even with thick gloves on, though the effects on the performance were not that noticeable - it just breathed well all the time. Well-priced, well-built regulator with a proven history. www.aqualung.com/uk

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TECH SPECS & VERDICT WEIGHT: 1.01kg | HOSE: Braided | VENTURI: No VERDICT: Attractive set-up benefitting from some neat design features, comfy mouthpiece, smooth performance and solid build quality.

SCORE

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ATOMIC AQUATICS Z3 | SRP: £460 Atomic Aquatics are renowned for producing high-end, high-performance regs, but with the Z3, they have managed to bring all this workmanship and technology into a well-priced package.

The Zirconium - that’s what the ‘Z’ stands for - delivers corrosion-resistance apparently three to four times that of conventional chrome plating, and the second stage lever, orifice and spring are titanium, as with the higher-spec (and price) models. It is equipped with a factory sealed first stage, huge purge button, comfort swivel, and no less than seven low-pressure ports and two high-pressure ports. As with all Atomic products, the reg benefits from a limited lifetime warranty - not contingent on proof of service and boasts a two-year/300 dive service interval.

The Z3 scored very highly with the Test Team and at £460, it is a keenly priced way to get on the ‘Atomic’ ladder. It looks good with the chrome second stage surround, is extremely well made, boasts a silky smooth breathe and has some neat features like the Automatic Flow Control (AFC), which does away with a manual venturi lever, and a black PVD-coated comfort swivel on the hose. www.atomicaquatics.com

CHOICE

TECH SPECS & VERDICT WEIGHT: 999g | HOSE: Rubber | VENTURI: AFC VERDICT: The Z3 performs extremely well, has eye-catching looks and is backed up by that tremendous twoyear/300 dive service interval.

SCORE

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HALCYON H-75P/HALO | SRP: £400 As we saw in last month’s Group Test, Halcyon Dive Systems are back in the UK market with their regulators. As with last issue’s Aura, looking at the H-75P and Halo combo, it is not hard to see the similarity with certain Scubapro regs, but as I said before, fair play - if you are going to launch regs, why not use time-proven technology and work with a well-respected brand.

The first and second stages are sold separately so you can mix and match, but we paired the H-75P first stage with the Halo second stage.

The H-75P is based on the MK25, and so you get a compact air-balanced flowthrough piston design featuring two high-pressure ports and five low-pressure ports on a swivel. The balanced downstream Halo is reminiscent of the G250/ G260 and has a cracking resistance control and a venturi lever.

The retro-looking Halo certainly harks back to a golden age of diving, and while it looks simply massive compared with the others here, there is no doubting the smooth breathe it provides.

The venturi and cracking resistance control are easy to operate, though a little fiddly with thick gloves on, but they do make a difference to the performance.Phenomenally good value for money. www.halcyon.net

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BEST VALUE

TECH SPECS & VERDICT WEIGHT: 1.08kg | HOSE: Rubber | VENTURI: Yes VERDICT: Retro-looking second stage and time-proven first stage combine to make a supremely efficient package, which is extremely well priced.

SCORE

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MARES FUSION 52X | SRP: £454 The Fusion 52x is a good-looking regulator that has some notable design features.

The first stage is solid but compact, equipped with two high-pressure ports and four low-pressure ports, and thanks to ACT (Advanced Coating Technology) has massively increased durability.

The all-metal second stage has a unique pivoting purge valve, lightweight braided Superflex hose, and a neat ‘twist’ control to boost the flow rate from natural breathing to power breathing.

Mares have always turned out great regulators, which previously were just set up to breathe well out of the box and didn’t have any diver-adjustable controls.

That all changes with the Fusion, which boasts a neat ‘twist action’ over the hose to set the delivery rate of the gas - it is not hard to see that the designer was maybe influenced by motorcycles! To be honest, we didn’t notice a huge difference with this control, as the reg breathes so efficiently anyway, but everyone liked the huge purge, which pivots rather than presses fully inwards and worked very well. Smooth breathe in all positions, and surprisingly lightweight for an all-metal reg. And at just over £450, it represents astonishing value for money. www.mares.com

TECH SPECS & VERDICT WEIGHT: 995g | HOSE: Braided | VENTURI: Yes VERDICT: The unique design of the Fusion combined with its great performance and excellent price-point makes it a seriously good package.

SCORE

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OMS AIRSTREAM EVOQUE | SRP: £435 OMS have long been kicking around the technical-diving world, and are well-known for their robustly built backplate-andwings, etc, but now they are making a push into other areas, including more-recreational equipment, and regulators.

The Airstream Evoque is certainly a reg that stands out among its rivals, thanks to a neat balanced second stage that incorporates bold red and black colours with a slick chrome surround and insert (and large cracking resistance control and venturi lever), and an innovative over-balanced, environmentally protected diaphragm first stage, with four low-pressure ports and two high-pressure ports, which has been designed with hose routing first and foremost.

OMS are not a name you think of when it comes to regulators, but that is all set to change with the Airstream Evoque. It is nice to see a manufacturer doing something different, and the first stage is certainly that - the steeply angled ports seek to send the gauges closer to the diver’s hips at 45 degrees, and the reg, drysuit and BCD hoses over or under the shoulders at 30 degrees. It makes for a streamlined set-up. It breathes well in all positions, and the large controls are easy to use with thick gloves.

This is a well-priced package that will put OMS on the reg map. www.fathomdiving.com

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TECH SPECS & VERDICT WEIGHT: 1.10kg | HOSE: Braided | VENTURI: Yes VERDICT: Lightweight, well-priced, innovatively designed regulator which performs well and has several eye-catching features, including a funky coloured Miflex hose.

SCORE

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SCUBAPRO MK25EVO/S620 TI | SRP: £619 The S600 was always one of Scubapro’s best-performing second stages, and recently it was reborn as the S620 Ti, which boasts an improved work of breathing in a smaller and lighter package. The second stage also has a corrosion-free titanium barrel inside the tough technopolymer case, and venturi and cracking resistance controls that have high-grip rubber co-molded into them.

For this test it was paired with the proven MK25EVO flow-through piston first stage, which is fully insulated from the environment by the XTIS (Extended Thermal Insulating System) and has numerous innovative design features to aid cold-water performance.

Scubapro regulators have always faired well when put into group tests, and the S620 Ti/ MK25EVO combo does not disappoint. The exclusive new mouthpiece is very comfortable, and the breathe is smooth and dry in all positions. The venturi control didn’t seem to make a huge difference, but dial the cracking resistance control right down and you can almost stop the air flow. The purge, set into the chrome facia and with a chrome logo embedded within, is efficient. Good-looking but built to withstand diver abuse, a solid cold-water regulator. www.scubapro.com

TECH SPECS & VERDICT WEIGHT: 965g | HOSE: Rubber | VENTURI: Yes VERDICT: Well-built, good-looking regulator, with efficient controls (especially that cracking resistance), dry breathe and several neat design features.

SCORE

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sSHERWOOD SCUBA SR2 | SRP: £599 Sherwood Scuba has been in the diving market for many years, but they have been sadly absent from the UK for a while due to distribution issues. This has now been rectified, with them joining the ranks at Fathom Diving, and it is good to see the SR2 back in the mix on Group Test.

Sherwood regs have traditionally been solid workhorses but their design left something to be desired. That all changed with the SR1, and the SR2 continues on from where its predecessor left off.

The SR2 reminds me of an Atomic Aquatics regulator, and the second stage has a single control for the cracking resistance and venturi, and a large purge, while the environmentally sealed balanced flow-through piston first stage has five low-pressure ports on a swivel, and two high-pressure ports The SR2 is light years away from the rest of the Sherwood reg range, and it is compact and lightweight. The soft purge works well, as does the single control knob, and it breathes nice and smooth in all positons. The only slight negative is the small mouthpiece, which seemed to sit quite forward in your mouth and requires you to grip it with your teeth.

Overall, decent bit of kit that places Sherwood in the upper echelon. www.fathomdiving.com

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TECH SPECS & VERDICT WEIGHT: 950g | HOSE: rubber | VENTURI: No VERDICT: Compact, efficient regulator with a smooth breath, innovative single control knob, just let down by a very small mouthpiece.

SCORE

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REGULATORS

Quality Beneath The Surface

T3 The ultimate; lightweight and corrosion free, designed with the travel diver in mind.

ST1 The world’s first “Green” regulator.

M1 Extreme Performance without compromise.

B2 The perfect combination of comfort, performance, and style.

Z3 Exclusive Atomic features at a mid-range price.

Atomic Aquatics Europe GmbH www.atomicaquatics.co.uk

ZEAGLE F8 | SRP: £576 Zeagle have worked with Atomic Aquatics to produce a solidly constructed regulator.

The F8 has an environmentally sealed balanced diaphragm first stage made from durable brass, and featuring a precision-machined neoflon seat.

The second stage has a tough nylon case and has a seat-saving orifice, zirconium-plated inlet tube and heat sink for superior corrosion resistance, and a new inhalation diaphragm. The redesigned front cover and cracking resistance control use co-molded components that provide high levels of grip.

Zeagle have long been producing top-quality BCDs and wings, and now they are making a strong push into the world of regulators after teaming up with Atomic Aquatics. The first stage of the F8 is a small but well-made unit, but the second stage, to be honest, doesn’t match up to its price point and the cheaper sibling, the Onyx II (which nabbed the Choice award last month), is more eye-catching with its chrome surround. No doubting the performance, though - the breathe was nice and smooth in all positions, the cracking resistance control is large and easy to use, as is the venturi lever, and the mouthpiece is comfortable. www.zeagle.com

TECH SPECS & VERDICT WEIGHT: 1.05kg | HOSE: Rubber | VENTURI: Yes VERDICT: Overall a decent regulator, with a smooth breathe, comfortable mouthpiece and efficient, easy-to-operate controls.

SCORE

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VERDICT

The high-end reg test is always interesting. When you get to this price point, you know that the units are going to perform well, and so it gets increasingly difficult to pick a Choice and Best Value winner.

The Best Value was the most straight-forward. Last year’s winner, the Mares Fusion 52x, was in the mix again, but this time it had strong competition from the Halcyon H-75P/Halo and the OMS Airstream Evoque. All three performed very well, and each had some neat design features, but in the end, the Halcyon took the title. While it won’t be to everyone’s tastes, we liked its retro-looks, and at £400, this represents exceptional value for money.

The Choice award was a different matter. All the above had a shot at the title, but in the end it came down to a battle royale between the Apeks MTX-R, Aqua Lung Legend LX Supreme, Atomic Aquatics Z3 and the Scubapro MK25EVO/S620Ti. It was extremely difficult to pinpoint a winner, and eventually we opted to give two regs a joint title - the MTX-R and the Z3 - as they just edged ahead of their rivals. Safe to say, though, all of these regs put in a sterling performance.

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Long Term Test MARES QUAD AIR

APEKS RK3

Mark Evans: The Quad Air NEW ARRIVAL has a monster display with jumbo-size digits, and features hoseless tank data integration for up to three transmitters.

The three-row layout comprises all relevant data, including tank pressure, and there are two customisable fields for ancillary information.

The four buttons provide an intuitive user interface, it is multi-gas capable, and there is a decompression dive planner with user-adjustable surface INFORMATION interval. It features a long Arrival date: May 2018 battery life, and when it Suggested retail price: £318 does run out, it is user-reNumber of dives: 0 placeable.

Time in water: 0 hrs 0 mins www.mares.com

SHEARWATER RESEARCH NERD 2 Mark Evans: The Shearwater Research NERD 2 is a very compact dive computer - as it needs to be, being mounted on your regulator and sitting right in front of your mask. However, despite being relatively dinky, navigating around the intuitive menus by operating the two buttons which are much the same as on the wrist-mounted Perdix AI - is very easy, even wearing drygloves or thick neoprene gloves. www.shearwater.com 94

INFORMATION Arrival date: December 2017 Suggested retail price: £1,427 Number of dives: 8 Time in water: 7 hrs 15 mins

Mark Evans: Well, in some excellent news for Apeks Marine Equipment - but lousy news for me - I am having to wait until the end of May to get hold of my orange RK3s! They have proved so immensely popular that the first two deliveries have already sold out! I presumed that the orange and yellow versions in particular would go down a storm with instructors wanting to stand out for their students when the vis gets a little iffy, but it appears that INFORMATION the general diving public Arrival date: April 2018 have also been drawn to Suggested retail price: £120 these bright editions. Orange Number of dives: 0 - it’s the new black!

Time in water: 0 hrs 0 mins www.apeksdiving.com/uk

AQUASKETCH MINNO 1 Mark Evans: I have always found carting a slate around a bit of a pain in the rear. Fair enough, in a drysuit, you can stash it down the back of a thigh pocket, so it is out of the way but there if you need it.

However, when you are in a wetsuit, it isn’t so easy to store one when it is not being used, and I don’t like stuff dangling.

With its thick, chunky strap, the Minno 1 comfortably mounts on your forearm and is there when you need it. www.aquasketch.co.uk

INFORMATION Arrival date: February 2018 Suggested retail price: £35 Number of dives: 4 Time in water: 3 hrs 20 mins WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

SANTI DIVING FLEX 360 Mark Evans: We have been in the midst of our group regulator testing, and so the Santi Diving Flex 360 has really been put through its paces. It is warm, comfortable - I often don it for the hour-and-ahalf drive to the dive site, it is so comfy - and lightweight.

The panels built into the chest areas are one of the nifty design features that help retain body heat - when you are in a nice trim position, these mesh inserts help keep a barrier of warm, insulating air across the front of your chest. www.santidiving.com

INFORMATION Arrival date: January 2018 Suggested retail price: £419 Number of dives: 15 Time in water: 14 hrs 40 mins

AQUA LUNG OUTLAW Mark Evans: The Outlaw has been clocking up some more UK diving in the past few weeks, and I am still pleasantly surprised at how well such a small, compact back-inflate BCD handles cold-water diving and all the paraphenalia that comes with it.

It is in its element in warm waters, for sure but it is more than capable of putting in a good INFORMATION show when teamed up with Arrival date: February 2017 a drysuit - and the additional Suggested retail price: £338 weight requirements that Number of dives: 23 come with that.

Time in water: 22 hrs 20 mins www.aqualung.com WWW.SCUBADIVERMAG.COM

SUUNTO EON CORE Mark Evans: One of the better changes in the world of dive computers recently has been user-changeable batteries - there was nothing worse than having to send off your computer for a battery change and be waiting for it to come back.

However, as well as user-changeable, more and more computers are now being rechargable, and the EON Core falls into this category. Charging it is an absolute doddle, too - you simply pop the charging unit near the back of the computer and a strong INFORMATION magnet holds it in place on the charging points, while the Arrival date: March 2018 Suggested retail price: £599 other end is a standard USB Number of dives: 6 connector.

Time in water: 5 hrs 55 mins www.suunto.com

FOURTH ELEMENT X-CORE Mark Evans: The X-Core could not END OF TERM have come into the Long Term Test stable at a better time - while it has been going through its six-month run, we have had sub-zero temperatures, snow, ice, hail and freezing rain. It has proved to be very adaptable, being used not only for diving but also a spot of winter mountain biking and out on my RIB when the wind chill was decidedly vicious.

It is amazing how much additional warmth this vest provides - it is not bulky, I only had to add a couple more pounds to my INFORMATION weights to compensate, and Arrival date: November 2017 yet my thermal comfort was Suggested retail price: £99.50 very noticeable, especially Number of dives: 19 during long test dives.

Time in water: 18 hrs 15 mins www.fourthelement.com 95

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THE ZEN DIVER

Tom Peyton, Vice President of Kids Sea Camp and Family Dive Adventures, is called ‘the Zen Diver’ by his wife, and here he offers some hints on how to use diving to create the ultimate ‘chill-out zone’ www.familydivers.com

FINDING YOUR ‘ZEN PLACE’

Kids Sea Camp’s resident Zen Diver Tom Peyton offers some hints and advice on ways in which you can relax, calm down and find your ‘Zen Place’ on holiday PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF KIDS SEA CAMP - BRAD HOLLAND AND ALLARD VAN DER GRAAF

V

acations can be tough, because of all the work voices in your head. Finding some way to ‘slow down’ and let go on the normal life you are trying to escape from is not easy. In fact, research says that most people take three full days to experience any relaxation on a holiday.

So, if you are only taking a week for vacation then almost half your holiday is listening to the terrible, workaholic voices in your head. The question then begs; how can you speed up your de-stression rate so you have peace of mind and decompress?

Nudibranchs know how to live life in the slow lane

HOW COULD YOU FIND YOUR ‘ZEN PLACE’?

Slow down now. Don’t wait to find your Zen on vacation.

Practice mediation before and after your trip. Don’t wait to ‘slow down’ until it is easier sitting on the beach at Anse Chastanet Resort in St Lucia.

Watch your breath. When you are diving pay attention to your breath more. One Zen breath exercise is to count to four, pause two, then exhale four, you can practice this while diving. Diving is an active mediation, so the experience of being underwater and surrounded by Caribbean blue should be a process of finding that empty-headed zone of peace.

Become a land shark. Experience truly unique land activities on vacation that gets you out of your head, like zip lining, river rafting, blow carting in Bonaire or even jumping out of an airplane.

Not only is Bonaire great for diving, it is amazing on the windy side of the island for blow carting. And flying around on a threewheel aluminum racing vehicle with a sail as the engine really puts you in the moment.

Do some muck diving! My mind goes completely blank when I’m muck diving in the Philippines with Sea Explorers. The slow-moving underwater treasure hunt for a pea-size frogfish or a baby nudibranch brings my mind to a single focus of awareness.

I’m not thinking about the next dive or what I’m going to have for lunch. I’m only thinking about the next inch of dirt that could host these alien-type underwater creations.

Caribbean reef shark

Go big! You want to forget about your job, your wife and kids when your diving? Go to the Galapagos or Socorro Islands and dive with big pelagic fish. Jump start your mind and body into extreme awareness when you roll off a zodiac into a school of hammerheads. Watch your mind disappear into the wonder of having giant oceanic manta soaring through blue water. If you want to have even more mind-emptying awareness, dive with whalesharks in the Philippines.

Since we are a doing culture, activity can be a way to an empty head. But the reality is we are human beings, not human doings and the best and simplest way to a Zen state of mind is daily practice in all things. Multi-tasking is not Zen. Doing one activity with complete awareness of focus is Zen. The old saying ‘Chop wood and carry water’ means that when chopping wood, only chop wood.

I guess us divers need a Zen saying, maybe ‘Just breath’ or ‘One breath at a time’, or maybe ‘One fin at a time’. Most divers dive because they intuitively know that feeling of peace that the ocean brings to our wellbeing.

The trick is to carry the ocean with us through our everyday life - that, or you could do a helluva lot more diving! n

‘Zen is everywhere… But for you, Zen is right here’ - Shunryu Suzuki 98

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