Diver magazine

Cover FEB_April Cover(final) 07/01/2014 15:56 Page 1

LONDON DIVE SHOW SPECIAL EDITION

BRITAIN’S BEST-SELLING DIVING MAGAZINE

FEBRUARY 2014

divernet.com

TYPHOON DODGER

TALES OF

2

RED SEA WRECKS Nights on the Barge,

Diving in Cebu, where the show must go on

days on the Turkia

BELL BOYS!

✹

MADE IN MAHE Crowd-pleasers in

Resounding success – does it get any better?

the Seychelles

ALPHA MALES Do dive pros overdo the machismo?

ROCK STEADY IN CORNWALL

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02

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First In FEB_May First In 08/01/2014 08:33 Page 03

STEVE WEINMAN, EDITOR

FIRST IN TOILING AWAY BELOW THE PARAPET WHO SPEAKS FOR SPORT DIVERS? This question was raised in a circulated letter after Neville Copperthwaite, co-ordinator of Weymouth’s Wreck to Reef (W2R) artificial reef project, attended a marine-planning meeting held by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO).

He turned up on hearing that yachties had told the MMO that Weymouth Bay was reserved for race-sailors. “The fact that W2R has a leased seabed area of 12km in the middle of the bay would not have been taken into consideration had I not attended and put the record straight,” he said.

He also reported that the Royal Yachting Association (which had two reps at the meeting) had claimed a huge area around Portland as its own sailing territory, even though, according to Neville, it runs only one regular race every two years to the west of Portland – where diving goes on all the time.

The experience left him worried about other meetings at which legislation setting out use of the sea over the next 20 years is being forged. “It’s crucial that the diving industry has representation at these meetings… we ignore the risks at our peril,” he warned. Others have rallied to support him.

Now I was all ready to be outraged too, but as I had assumed that the main training agencies were across this sort of thing, I asked Jane Maddocks, BSAC’s Underwater Heritage Advisor, what was going on.

I’m glad I did.

MMO, a huge umbrella organisation, conducts many national and local meetings that affect divers.

THE AGENCIES FEEL IT’S IMPORTANT TO PRESENT A UNITED FRONT

Consultations on MCZs (Marine Conservation Zones) alone had been very demanding, said Jane: “BSAC was there for every steering-group meeting for two years – that’s about two and a half weeks out of each of our lives!” she told me.

At national level, meetings to determine how the Marine & Coastal Access Act 2009 affects divers’ activities (use of lift-bags currently looms large) seem to have drawn the training agencies in England closer together.

BSAC, SAA and PADI representatives always attend the main quarterly consultation meetings together in Newcastle, Steve Love of the SAA told me. They don’t have to, but they feel it’s important to present a united front. “Great progress” had been made as a result, he said.

The east coast MCZ local meetings completed, all attended by diver reps, south coast meetings have now started. It was one of those that Neville attended, and it seems to have been sheer bad luck that no official diver rep was there, according to Jane Maddocks – the result of sickness.

But she assured me that MMO staff are “very talented, very specialised and fully aware of the law and the rights of all groups of sea-users – so are unlikely to be misled by claims of jurisdiction from other groups.

“Divers are now seen as having little negative impact on marine life and to have a role to play in decision-making,” Jane told me. “They are actively invited to contribute to lots of other consultations about seabed use and marine activity. This has taken 10 years of hard, persistent work.”

So if this is ultimately a non-story, why am I writing it?

“We’re grateful that this question has been raised,” said Jane.

“It’s made us realise that divers don’t know what the diving organisations are doing on their behalf. We’re now in the process of making sure that we publicise what we do.”

If there’s a trumpet to be blown – go on, just blow it.

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GoPro (Hero3+) – 02_14_Full Page Bleed 02/01/2014 11:50 Page 1

Contents FEB_Contents_MAY 08/01/2014 08:43 Page 05

FEBRUARY 2014 Volume 59 No 2

CONTENTS

FEATURES 21 Bell Boys!

21

Finding one is a diver’s dream: have we got bells for you!

29 Rolling up to the Turkia The first of two stories about Red Sea wrecks…

35 Barge Nights Unassuming by day, this wreck comes alive after dark 29

40 Beneath High Tide A fresh look at Cornwall’s unyielding seascape

44 Armoured & Dangerous

incorporating

Published monthly by Eaton Publications, 55 High Street, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 8HA Tel: 020 8943 4288, Fax: 020 8943 4312 Email: enquiries@divermag.co.uk Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Nigel Eaton nigel@divermag.co.uk Editor Steve Weinman steve@divermag.co.uk Publishing Consultant Tony Weston tony@divermag.co.uk Technical Editor Nigel Wade divingnige@btinternet.com News Editor Paul Fenner paul@divermag.co.uk Production Manager George Lanham george@divermag.co.uk Webmaster Mike Busuttili webmaster@divernet.com

Holding a scorpionfish is a seriously bad idea!

40

47 LIDS 2014 Your guide to this year’s London Dive Show starts here

58 Tarpon Triumphs Winning prints from the annual BSoUP/divEr contest

64 Around Cebu 58

Diving before, during and after the super-typhoon

79 Marine Life in Hot Water?

Advertisement Manager Jenny Webb jenny@divermag.co.uk Classified Advertisement Sales Sara Duncan sara@divermag.co.uk Senior Advertisement Executive Alex Khachadourian alex@divermag.co.uk Advertising Production David Eaton david@divermag.co.uk Subscriptions Manager Teresa Pullen teresa@divermag.co.uk Marketing, Sales & divEr Bookshop Dorothy Eaton dorothy@divermag.co.uk

Climate change will mean winners and losers in the UK Elizabeth Puttock uwp-mailshop@divermag.co.uk

84 To the Seychelles… … with no expectations other than fears of crowding!

64

91 Licence to Kill

Financial Controller Kojo Gyamera kojo@divermag.co.uk Reception enquiries@divermag.co.uk

Lionfish: a joy everywhere but the Caribbean EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS

84

Archaeology Martin Dean Biology Dr David Bellamy Industry Dr John Bevan Law Prof Mike Williams Medicine Dr Ian Sibley-Calder Photography Saeed Rashid, Brian Pitkin Ships Richard Larn Wrecks Kendall McDonald, Rex Cowan

http://tiny.cc/b2uld

THE MAGAZINE THAT’S STRAIGHT DOWN THE LINE… HOW TO GET YOUR divEr: SUBSCRIPTION: Twelve issues, including p&p, cost £52.80 (UK); £64.80 (Eire/Europe/Worldwide surface); airmail rates available on request. Pay by Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, American Express, sterling cheque or UK Postal Order. Contact the Subscriptions Dept, divEr at the above address.

NEWSAGENT: If you prefer to buy divEr over the counter, place an order with your newsagent now? All newsagents can obtain the magazine, but in case of difficulty please notify the Circulation Manager at the above address. divEr (ISSN-0141-3465) is published monthly by Eaton Publications, Periodicals Postage Paid at Jamaica NY 11431. USPS no. 22517.

US agent: Air Business Ltd, c/o Worldnet Shipping Inc., 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. US POSTMASTER: Send address changes to divEr Magazine, C/O Air Business Ltd, c/o Worldnet Shipping Inc., 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA.

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Contents FEB_Contents_MAY 08/01/2014 08:43 Page 06

CONTENTS REGULARS First In

3

Editor’s view

Off-Gassing

8

Airline gives a reader a hard time

News

10

How diving lifted the lid on U-boat losses

Beachcomber

18

10

Best to leave unexploded munitions alone

Trewavas

43

Louise shares her to-do list

Behind the Scenes

71

Monty Halls and his team in fund-raising mode

Be the Champ!

74

Alex Mustard on cracking split-level photography

Booking Now

95

All the holiday news

Diver Tests

98

BC, bags, video light, reg – and the new GoPro

71

104 Just Surfaced New but untested diving products

106 109 110 112 112 113

Dive Holiday Directory Liveaboard Directory Classified Ads Dive Centre Directory Advertisers’ Index Subscribe Here – and get a free Apeks diving watch!

114 Deep Breath Are some dive pros just too macho?

98

Easy to see Simple to use Brilliant OLED display

Cover shot: Diver descent in the Bahamas, by Stuart Philpott The reproduction in whole or in part of any of the contents of divEr is expressly forbidden without the written permission of the Publishers.

Copyright © 2014 by Eaton Publications. divEr reserves the right to reproduce on-line any articles that it has published in print.

The views expressed in FIRST IN are not necessarily those of anyone but the Editor, and other editorial should be ascribed only to the authors concerned. The publishers accept no responsibility or liability for any errors, omissions or alterations, or for any consequences ensuing upon the use of, or reliance upon, any information contained

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104 herein. Due caution should be exercised by anyone attempting dives on any site herein described or indicated. The company does not accept liability for submitted photographs. The printing of an advertisement in divEr does not necessarily mean that the Proprietors endorse the company, item or service advertised. divEr is distributed by Seymour Distribution Ltd, 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT (tel: 020 7429 4000) and printed by Headley Brothers Ltd, The Invicta Press, Queens Road, Ashford, Kent TN24 8HH (tel: 01233 623131).

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Off-Gassing FEB_Layout 1 06/01/2014 10:18 Page 08

OFF GASSING

This month’ s selection from the divEr inbox…

EASYJET

NOT PARTICULARLY EASYJET

Our recent easyJet flight out of Pafos, Cyprus was delayed while a sick person disembarked and baggage was removed – and thanks to Captain Paul for getting us back to Manchester on time. I had a piece of diving gear confiscated by security in Pafos, which Paul promised would be couriered back to my home address at the company’s expense.

The equipment was a safety inflation jacket mini-cylinder fitted to my BC, similar to that fitted to the life-jacket on the plane, except that I was able to demonstrate that it was empty by stripping it down.

I have been a diver for some 30 years and an instructor, and this has never happened to me before. I have asked easyJet for some clarification of why it occurred so that I can share this with the diving community, as it seems to apply only to this airline, but am still awaiting a full response.

I have checked, and all other airlines allow small compressed-gas cylinders (normally less than 0.5 litres) to be carried.

The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) guidelines indicate that these cylinders are allowed in checked baggage or as a carry-on but only if the regulator valve is completely disconnected from the cylinder and the cylinder is no longer sealed (that is, the cylinder has an open end).

What’s more, we had purchased the additional allowance for small scuba equipment, and the cylinder had been declared

at Manchester Airport, where it was removed, shown to security to be empty and subsequently checked and scanned.

This would seem to imply consent. If it had been deemed unsuitable, I could have removed it and placed it back in the car, which was parked some five minutes’ away.

The cylinder had again been declared back at Pafos, where it was stripped down to its constituent parts to show that it was empty.

I have had other diving holidays with easyJet and this has never happened! Is it no longer possible to fly with easyJet and still enjoy safe diving practices?

Issues over Blue Hole Is it just me? I’m sitting here just after midnight, having watched the inimitable Monty Halls’ programme about diving the Blue Hole in Dahab (sorry – The Diver’s Graveyard) on Channel 5.

The feature was beautifully filmed and featured many, many highly qualified technical divers – so many dangly bits!

Trouble is, I was a bit bothered by some of what came out of the soundtrack.

Firstly, let me make it clear that I do not and would not advocate diving the Blue Hole arch on a single cylinder – unless said cylinder was about 50 litres and compartmentalised to carry a variety of mixes (sorry guys, just patented that idea).

However, I must take issue with Andy Torbet’s assertions about how long the at-best half-tank of gas left to the diver foolish enough even to descend to 50m would last.

Apparently the answer is two minutes, because it’s 6 atmospheres down there.

Hmm. 12-litre tank x 100 bar = 1200 litres of gas, divided by 6 (atmospheres) equals 200 litres, so two minutes gives a surface equivalent breathing rate of 100 litres per minute.

Andy, don’t you think a buddy/instructor might just notice a student who can breathe so prodigiously?

And Monty, as divers descend they get heavier – really? I always thought my buoyancy decreased.

Still, that does explain why I can no longer get into my jeans at 40m – must have put on weight!

GARRY BOLLAND, LIVERPOOL easyJet responds to divEr: “easyJet would like to apologise to Mr Bolland for the confusion around his diving equipment and we are investigating the matter to ensure that the error is not repeated.

“We appreciate that this was an inconvenience and are in contact with the customer to resolve the issue.

“While easyJet allows a wide range of sports equipment to be carried, we do not allow gas or air cylinders onboard unless they are for medical purposes.

“We would advise anyone travelling with specialist sports equipment to check the guidelines on our website or contact our customer relations team to clarify what can be carried."

And their underwater life-jackets can’t cope with the weight? Well, perhaps if they were properly weighted to start with, might not careful addition of gas into their buoyancy compensators do the trick?

Still, it’s great TV and lovely to see all you experts wearing plenty of oxygen tanks, flippers and goggles and having such fun!

PS: Don’t look in my logbook for about 2003 or you might see a series of dives on the President Coolidge, in the 45-50m range, on a single 12 of air for 50-60 minutes (including deco). OMG, I must be dead!

STEPH BUTCHER, BROMLEY, KENT

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Monty Halls comments: "The response to the programme about the perils of pushing the limits in the Blue Hole has been very interesting, and can be divided neatly into two camps.

“The first camp (who make up the vast majority) are those expressing support for the safety messages in the show, and noting that the programme was a good way of reinforcing the perils of going too deep for too long with

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Off-Gassing FEB_Layout 1 09/01/2014 11:15 Page 09

Dive

Catching them young

Diving Holidays

Worldwide

As a family-friend of the creator of this “melon shark”, I wanted to share with readers what seemed to me to be the artistic mind of an A* student biting back.

Alicia Chohan is 11 and a student at Accrington Academy. The shark was created for her first food technology project.

It was displayed throughout the school for all to see and acknowledge.

"My project was an underthe-sea fruit-bowl,” said Alicia. “I thought about pumpkins at Halloween and how they’re carved, and I was inspired to do a shark

because my mum loves sharks, and she's always supporting the charities.”

While this is all good to see, it does show how all the efforts of the shark and

inadequate gear and training.

“The second (who are by far in the minority) pour scorn on the programme, and invariably include their own feats of derring-do at depth on air in their correspondence.

“To address the other point in Steph's letter, noting the use of terms such as ‘heavier’ and ‘underwater lifejacket’, she should understand that the series is aimed at divers and non-divers alike, so certain items of kit and reactions to depth need to be described in layman’s terms.

“Sadly, and I appreciate that she may struggle to believe this, many of the viewers will not share her immense wealth of diving knowledge."

Condor moments I read with interest the letter from Bill Daysh, offering to share potential wreck locations along the east coast of Scotland that he obtained in the 1970s (Unfinished Business, January). It brought back fond memories.

As a young lad in my early teens I was captivated by the underwater world and joined the club to which Bill refers, Condor Sub Aqua Club.

It was based in a rather decrepit old part of Arbroath by the Brothock bridge, and I travelled there by bus from Carnoustie each week for the lectures and pool nights that were held in the now-defunct Arbroath pool.

The club was great for me, and the “old fellas” (I guess that applies to me now) were superb at passing on information and knowledge.

They introduced me to my first “real” dive in the sea by Auchmithie – a rather challenging scramble down and up a cliff, and all in my bare feet. Oh, such fond memories!

I’ve kept up my interest over the years and now do the tekkie thing. Returning to the UK after some

marine-conservation charities are now being passed down to our generations to come.

A good sign for the future?

MICHAEL HAIGH, ACCRINGTON

years overseas, I made a promise to myself to revisit as many old sites as I could, along with, I hope, finding some new dive-sites of interest in 2014 and beyond.

Please do pass on my thanks to Bill for opening up the underwater world for me. If he judges me suitable, I’d welcome the opportunity to become working custodian of the information he has.

A mariner by profession, it’ll be good to look back at some old Decca data!

ROB KIRKPATRICK, LITTLE YTHSIE, ABERDEEN Comment: Rob’s letter and those from other interested divers are being passed on to Bill Daysh.

Set in stone Re John Liddiard’s online article about the Runnel Stone (Secrets of the Stone, Divernet), I am in my seventies and was a pioneer diver in Penzance.

I dived on the whole area of the Runnel Stone, salvaged there for many years and know where the cannon are. It is a very dangerous place and I nearly lost my life there on two occasions!

My main point is to stress that anyone contemplating a dive on the Stone should be very careful and do their homework.

It is one of the most dangerous dive-sites off the Cornish coast, and there are few wreck sites that I don’t know, having salvaged so many! I should write a book, but never seem to find the time.

I met some divers this summer who told me about a wreck they were diving off Porthoustock.

They were so excited about it – but rather upset when I told them that I was salvaging from it in 1966, years before they were born. They were quite shocked!

JAMES WHEELER, CHICHESTER, SUSSEX

Got something diving-related you’d care to share?

Email steve@divermag.co.uk, including your name and postal address – and please confirm that you’re writing exclusively to divEr

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News FEB v3_Layout 1 06/01/2014 15:30 Page 10

DIVER NEWS

Dr McCartney lifts the lid on U-boat losses S

UBMARINES EXPERT Innes McCartney has produced a fascinating report on the history of wartime German U-boat losses, based on the observation of many wrecks over a period of some 15 years.

The report formed the basis of a PhD in nautical archaeology which the diver, archaeologist, author, broadcaster and director of the Penzance-based Periscope Publishing recently completed at Bournemouth University.

His studies were themed on modern wrecks and, in particular, submarine activities of World Wars I and 2 in the English Channel.

He thus becomes, it is thought, the country’s first university doctor of modern shipwrecks.

McCartney’s paper, The Maritime Archaeology of a Modern Conflict: Comparing the Archaeology of German Submarine Wrecks to the Historical Text, relates to work that he began in 1997, diving to investigate wrecks listed by the UK Hydrographic Office as being those of German U-boats dating from 1919 to 1946.

It had become clear from a number of diving expeditions that the whereabouts of wrecks did not always tally with official records or published histories of U-boat losses.

Putting together his thesis, McCartney has been able to draw on a remarkable body of survey evidence. Of 63 Channel wrecks recorded as U-boats, he has been able to dive on 47 and, remarkably, to identify all but three of them.

Comparisons of his findings with historical records has thrown up interesting patterns in terms of informational accuracy, and how this relates to what was going on at the time in both German and Allied intelligence, communication and operations.

“The U-boat wrecks themselves are either where the historic record says they should be or they are located in

10

positions where they reside outside of current historical knowledge,” says McCartney.

“These latter cases, termed the mystery sites, are the key to understanding how, when and why inaccuracies appear in the official histories, and they were therefore accorded the highest priority during the research and were the most challenging cases to identify.”

IT TRANSPIRED THAT 26 of the Uboats McCartney managed to identify – 41% of the 63 officially listed – were mystery sites, such that “their impact on the accuracy of the official histories is profound”.

Only 48% of the fates of U-boats recorded in 1919 are correct, for instance. And Innes McCartney found that, whereas recorded losses are 81% correct for 1944 from D-Day in June to December, accuracy drops to 36% correct thereafter.

“The accuracy of the historical record was found to be closely related to the volume of accurate intelligence on U-boat movements available at any given time and the quality of the staff work used to interpret and exploit it,” he says.

“Consequently the impact of Special Intelligence is keenly felt in 1944. Conversely, during WW1 and in 1945, U-boat movements were not

Innes McCartney: hopes to inspire other divers. clearly understood [from December 1944 U-boats largely ceased to use radios] and in both of these cases minefields emerge as the most successful weapon deployed against them, accounting for over a third of the losses.”

In a fair number of cases, survey of wreck-sites confirmed the manner by which submarines were sunk, on the basis of damage observed.

All the surveys were carried out on a non-intrusive, look-but-don’ttouch basis.

The full report remains embargoed for the next two years, after which McCartney will be able to publish it

for the benefit of marine archaeologists, historians and governments, for whom it will provide a more complete understanding of exactly what happened to Germany’s U-boats in the World Wars.

“The report reflects the real usefulness of marine archaeology, in that its results involve hard fact based on location and observation of actual submarines, whereas historical record is going to be based on contemporary reports and the potential errors they contain,” says McCartney.

He hopes that the position in which he finds himself may inspire other divers to grasp the nettle in tackling areas of interest.

“In the 1990s I was an amateur diver with an enthusiasm for, but relatively limited knowledge of, submarine wrecks and their histories.

“Through surveys that only a diver could carry out, combined with some committed research, I’ve managed to build a useful record.

“And that’s something that lies within the means of many another diver out there.” ■

U480 off Poole was identified by Innes McCartney by the rubber coating, visible in this photo. Officially it had been listed as sunk off the Scilly Isles.

✹ Innes McCartney appears at this month’s LIDS 2014 Show at ExCeL – show guide starts on page 47.

www.divErNEt.com

News FEB v3_Layout 1 06/01/2014 15:30 Page 11

DIVER NEWS

McKEE BUST TAKES SHAPE THE BIG QUESTION WORK HAS STARTED ON THE construction of a commemorative bronze bust of Alexander McKee, who found the Tudor warship Mary Rose in the Solent, for display at Portsmouth's Mary Rose Museum.

Sculptor Luke Shepherd, based at Ashburton in Devon, began work after the £6500 required for the construction was raised by a group campaigning for more substantial recognition of McKee (News, November).

The campaign has been led by Henry Yelf, a retired journalist, who dived with McKee. He has been assisted by John Towse, who was with McKee for the first dive on the Mary Rose, and by commercial and historic diving expert Dr John Bevan.

McKee, a military historian, spent years searching for the ship, ignoring doubters.

Aided by an army of British SubAqua Club and other divers, first local then from further afield, McKee eventually located the 16th century wreckage by digging trenches as deep as 15m in the Solent mud.

Professional maritime archaeologists became involved and, in 1982, the ship was raised in a highly publicised and successful project involving Prince Charles.

McKee received the OBE and wrote a book, How We Found the Mary Rose.

He died of cancer in 1992.

The bust is expected to be installed at the Mary Rose Museum by the spring. ■

Spitting in a public place With the impending on-stage reunion of the Monty Python team, it seems timely to recall the look given to Michael Palin’s bronchitic character Ken Shabby when he sits on his prospective father-in-law’s sofa and announces: ”Sorry squire, I gobbed on your carpet.”

It’s the sort of look divers may get on boats overseas when they decline bottled screenwash and instead prepare their mask using their own saliva.

The fact is that nature’s own mask-cleaner costs nothing and is effective at cleaning lenses and keeping them fog-free. Last month we asked whether you usually used spit for this purpose, and it turns out that all but 22% of you do. Saliva – it’s the British way!

NO… ”Initially or when build-up of oils occurs with toothpaste, but after that just regular soapy water and rinse with fresh water.” Paul Lightfoot ”I find commercial cleaner more effective on current mask.” Robert Porter ”I use Johnson’s No More Tears baby shampoo – it works so much better.”

Andrew Tongue ”Not since I got prescription lenses, though the anti-fogging fluid does not seem to last both dives like my trusty spit does.” Brian Tierney ”I use anti-fogging agents.” Kim Ronaldson ”Seadrops!” Neil Shone “I have a brilliant fog-proof mask!” Caroline Hardie “Used to until mould starting to grow in seal around the lens.” Paul Cannon

YES… ”Of course I am spitting in my mask, I am not going to let someone else do it!” Michiel Coenen ”I tell all the students it’s one of the best bits about diving. Amusing to see the girls baulk at such a mandatory step of diving fog-free.” Nicholas Ray ”Learned old school so yes, always, though I’m considering changing as spit causes black mould after several years, no matter how well you clean your mask.” Mark Watts ”It works and means I don’t have to carry around yet another bit of diving paraphernalia.” Jonathan Webb ”God made mouths before Sea Clear.” Eric Toft

Luke Shepherd works on the bust of Alexander McKee.

”Yes, but not to clean it, to stop it misting up. Works well and a lot more handy than the alternatives.” Alastair McCulloch ”Anti-fog doesn’t work.” Nina McLean

Air pocket saved crewman Divers have saved a crewman from a tugboat sunk off the Nigerian coast – after he had survived for three days in an air pocket within the vessel.

The tug, Jascon 4, heeled over and foundered while towing an oil tanker in Nigerian Delta waters with two other tugs. When a team of divers from the Dutch company DCN Diving descended to the wreck, lying in 30m of water, they expected to be searching for bodies only.

The divers had recovered the remains of four men when Harrison Okene, the tug’s cook, was located as they moved through the vessel. He had survived in his small air space for

www.divErNEt.com

72 hours and expert opinion was that it would not have kept him alive for much longer.

Okene was fitted with a fullface, umbilical-supplied diving helmet with communications facility before being taken out.

Twenty-nine-year-old Okene, the only survivor of 11 crew, told the Nation newspaper that he had been in the toilet when the sinking occurred, leaving him disorientated and in darkness.

He found a lifejacket with two torches and initially had a corridor cabin to move about in until the water rose, reducing his space.

Footage taken of Okene inside the wreck by one of the divers can be seen on YouTube. ■

”Yep, have tried Frog Spit and although it worked fine it was just an added complexity that isn’t needed.” Derek Bolton ”KISS (Keep It Simple, Spit)” Jean-Francois Moens ”It’s simple, personal and usually readily available.” John Williams ”In 23 years of diving I have always spat into my mask, with no problems with fogging etc. Why pay for chemicals?” Stuart Graham ”Why? Is there something better?” Ashley Reece ”Not sure why the manufacturers don’t pre-prepare the lens surface to save the toothpaste.” Ian Nixon ”It’s free, it works and it’s an excuse to do something usually frowned upon in public!” Andrew Lee Isherwood “No, I get my husband to do it – for some reason his works so much better!”

Liz Suggitt Go to www.divernet.com to answer the next Big Question and for a chance to win a £118 Luxfer 3-litre compact emergency pony cylinder from Sea & Sea. To find out more about Luxfer cylinders, visit www.dive-team.com This month’s winner is Mark Garrick.

THE NEXT BIG QUESTION Do you regularly use, or plan to use, an underwater camcorder?

Answer yes or no, and feel free to comment

11

News FEB v3_Layout 1 06/01/2014 15:31 Page 12

DIVER NEWS

Plymouth wreck likely to be naval frigate D

IVERS HAVE COMPLETED preliminary investigation off Plymouth, Devon of what they believe to be the wreck of a historic naval frigate.

The team first searched for the wreck of HMS Amethyst in 2012, as part of the Shipwrecks & History in Plymouth Sound (SHIPS) project.

Using a towed magnetometer, they located a site of interest close to shore on the eastern side of the sound, where Amethyst was known to have blown ashore in 1811 after dragging her anchor in a gale, with the loss of about 30 lives.

Light seabed surface work conducted from July last year revealed some copper sheathing, bottom timbers and iron ballast blocks, a cannonball and assorted ship’s fittings.

Some items were raised for research purposes and reported to the Receiver of Wreck.

In autumn, artefacts remaining uncovered were buried for protection from the elements and to hide the wreck’s position while protective measures are sought.

Analysis of the recovered finds has indicated strongly that the divers have indeed located Amethyst, a Penelopeclass 5th Rate frigate of 36 guns, commissioned in 1799.

The copper sheathing suggests a ship built after 1770, and a section recovered bears a broad arrow mark, indicative of a Royal Naval ship.

A copper alloy rag bolt carries the same mark.

The cannonball is a 32-pounder that would have been fired from a shortbarrelled carronade, used only by Royal Naval ships.

Meanwhile, the complete absence of cannon tallies with the fact that Amethyst was stripped of all useful materials after being driven ashore.

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HMS Penelope, sister-ship to HMS Amethyst.

MoD SET TO DUMP WASTE CAMPAIGNERS ARE OBJECTING to an application by the Ministry of Defence for a licence to dispose of dredging waste in Whitsand Bay, outside Plymouth, Devon.

The naval base at Devonport has a centuries-old tradition of using the bay as a depository for waste hauled from the beds of Plymouth Sound and the Tamar River.

It applies to the Queen’s Harbour Master in Plymouth for a fresh disposal licence every time it plans a dredging programme. The latest is for maintenence dredging over a period of two years.

“The intended location to dump this material is… just south of HMS Scylla and close to the new Marine Conservation Zone,” says local diver Dave Peake, who has campaigned against the use of Whitsand Bay as a dumping area for many years.

“History shows that migration [of waste] shorewards has occurred, and this negative result is unacceptable to the users of the bay and especially its habitat.” ■

…as Navy backs conservation areas

Copper sheathing with RN broad arrow mark.

Recording timbers from the Amethyst.

Survey work is to recommence this year. The project is funded by ProMare UK.

For more on Amethyst and the site work, go to www.promare.co.uk/ ships, select “Shipwrecks” and, under “Royal Navy Ships”, HMS Amethyst. ■

THE ROYAL NAVY has announced a new approach to military exercises that should minimise their impact on the environment.

Intent on avoiding potential damage to the content of designated Marine Protected Areas, the RN has produced Environmental Protection Guidelines (Maritime) (EPG(M)).

Through interactive electronic charting, planners access advice on suitability of military activities in or around protected areas.

This covers all activities undertaken by the Royal Navy, at sea surface, under water, in the air or on land. The measure will also ensure that exercises do not contravene legal restrictions on activities within protected areas.

The RN has signed a Statement of Intent committing itself to the new guidelines, which are thought to represent a first internationally.

It is hoped that they can be applied further to Britain’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, and act as a blueprint for EU and other naval services. ■

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News FEB v3_Layout 1 06/01/2014 15:33 Page 13

DIVER NEWS Members of the HMS Pine study team receive certificates from the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace.

Duke’s award for survey divers DIVERS WHO UNEARTHED the history of a wartime minesweeping trawler have been awarded the annual Duke of Edinburgh’s Prize for the British Sub-Aqua Club.

Members of BSAC’s Guildford branch went to Buckingham Palace to receive their award from Prince Philip for their project surveying the wreck of a WW2 minesweeper, HMT Pine, which sits in about 17m of water off Selsey Bill.

The project began in 2007, when Guildford adopted the vessel as part of the Nautical Archaeological Society’s Adopt-a-Wreck scheme.

Since then they have chronicled both the wreck site – a challenge, as it is well broken – and the history of the vessel’s sinking.

HMT Pine, a requisitioned trawler, was torpedoed by a German E-boat in January 1944. It had left Southend in the company of two other minesweepers to aid a convoy of 10 merchant vessels and seven escorts.

Ten crew were lost in the explosion, which removed the vessel’s bow. HMT Pine was taken in tow but sank while headed for Portsmouth. The bow section has never been found but is believed to lie off Eastbourne.

Anne-Marie Mason and Chris Bessant, who played a key role in the study.

Twenty-nine Guildford divers have worked on the HMT Pine project, carrying out some 60 dives. The Duke of Edinburgh judged that their work had represented “an exceptionally well thought-out and executed project carried out by marine archaeological amateurs”.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Prize for the British Sub-Aqua Club is administered for BSAC by the British Sub-Aqua Jubilee Trust, the club’s official charity.

Applicants do not have to be branches or members of BSAC. Applications are sent to the Trust and the trustees, representing broad scientific expertise, select a shortlist and submit it to the Duke of Edinburgh for his final selection.

“Anyone who has done anything of a ‘research or discovery’ nature can enter for the Prize,” says the Trust, which provides grants to selected projects each year.

“You do not have to have been awarded a Trust grant to enter,” it says, “but each year we encourage the best grant-assisted projects to apply.”

The HMT Pine project received £1000.

Details about the British Sub-Aqua Jubilee Trust and application forms can be found at www.bsac.com ■

CAN YOU HELP WITH DIVING INCIDENT RESEARCH? GARETH LOCK, a PhD candidate at Cranfield University, is undertaking studies into the role of human factors in scuba-diving incidents. Part of this involves a comprehensive online survey of UK divers to determine the distribution of non-fatal diving incidents and why they occur.

Lock is hoping that divEr readers might be able to provide key information to help him in his research.

“This anonymous study isn’t just looking at the outcomes but rather factors that lead to the incident occurring, such as what decisions the divers made, whether they were experienced/ trained for the environment or whether peer pressure had any role to play,” says Lock.

To provide robustness to the study, Lock is looking for 1000 divers (covering Open-Circuit Recreational and Technical and Closed-Circuit Rebreather divers and instructors) to complete the survey if they have had an incident in the past two years.

To prevent confusion, the types of non-fatal incidents at which Lock is looking are defined in the survey, which will take about 15 minutes to complete.

The survey will close at the end of March, or when 1000 respondents have completed it.

There is also a prize draw for those divers who leave their email address in a separate, unlinked survey.

The survey link is https:// cranfielduniversity.eu.qualtrics. com/SE/?SID=SV_aVl0quHU6p dJ69n ■

FISHING BAN A ‘SIGNIFICANT’ DEVELOPMENT IN MUSANDAM ALL BUT LOCAL HANDLINE FISHING has been banned by ministerial decree in two secluded bays in the coral-rich waters of the Musandam peninsula in Oman.

The move is seen as a significant step forward in the conservation of

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this dived but relatively untouched marine area, says the research organisation Biosphere Expeditions, which has been campaigning for greater protection since 2008.

“This area has a high coral

coverage at nearly 60% of the underwater surface,” said Dr Matthias Hammer, Executive Director. “ This is greater than that of most reefs around the world, and the Musandam reefs are certainly the best in the region.” ■

Gareth Lock at Scapa Flow.

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News FEB v3_Layout 1 06/01/2014 15:33 Page 14

DIVER NEWS

WESSEX ARCHAEOLOGY

Boilers of the Iona II.

Trail plan for historic Lundy wreck E

NGLISH HERITAGE IS PLANNING to establish a dive trail around the wreck of the 19th century paddle-steamer Iona II, off Lundy Island.

The protected site sits within the Lundy Marine Conservation Zone.

Peta Knott, of EH’s contracted surveyor Wessex Archaeology, told divEr: “The Iona II Diver Trail project aims to facilitate responsible and licensed access and to provide an engaging diving

experience that allows divers to fully enjoy their visits while feeding back information about the condition of the wreck to English Heritage.”

Available as back-up information guides to complement visits to the wreck will be “interpretation materials covering a range of topics, possibly including ship design, the American Civil War, archaeology and ecology”.

The Iona II was an iron paddle

steamer, built on the Clyde in 1863 as a mail and excursion boat.

Shortly after commissioning, the ship was purchased for use as a Confederate blockade-runner in the American Civil War. It was lost while seeking shelter from a storm off Lundy in January 1864. The wreck was found in 1976 and designated as a protected site in 1990, under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. Divers can now access the site under licence only. ■

POTS FOR INDONESIA TEN PORTABLE hyperbaric chambers have been delivered by SOS Hyperlite to Basarnas, the Indonesian Search & Rescue Agency, which implements, trains, controls and co-ordinates SAR activities across the Indonesian archipelago.

The new systems are expected to be strategically located at its bases, primarily to treat divers suffering from decompression illness.

Indonesia has more than 17,500 islands spread over an area of 734,00 square miles. ■

ESSEX CLUB’S YOUTH POLICY EARNS IT £10,000 GRANT AN ESSEX DIVE-CLUB has won a grant of almost £10,000, on the grounds that it well help to encourage the next generation into the sport.

The Basildon branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club has about 40 active members, and is celebrating after hearing that it has won a £9285 Sport England grant.

The money is to be used to buy equipment and encourage more teenagers and young people to take up diving.

The club already has a track record in this regard. One of its youngest members, 14-year-old Charlotte Thorpe, is an Ocean Diver and has just passed her Sports Diver theory exam.

“It took me three months to get to my current level, which involved pool sessions, classroom theory and openwater dives at Stoney Cove and Holborough in Kent,” said Charlotte.

“I also went to the Farne Islands last August which was absolutely brilliant.

“This August I’m going with my mum, her partner and other clubmembers on a diving trip to the Red Sea, which will be absolutely amazing.

“It’s fantastic to be able to spend time with mum doing something we both really enjoy. We get to see things

14

Training Officer Terry Tarling with young Basildon SAC member Charlotte Thorpe. not many people get to witness.

“Diving has definitely been a huge benefit to me. It has made me much more confident. I’d recommend diving to any teenager.

“Basildon Sub Aqua Club is just brilliant – everyone is so friendly and you are made to feel really welcome.”

Charlotte’s mother Eileen Thorpe, an assistant instructor, met her partner and Club Treasurer Tom Palfrey on a branch dive trip.

“Charlotte has been around Basildon SAC since she was 12,” she said. “Now she is able to dive it’s

brilliant, as we can share some wonderful experiences.

“I think diving is sometimes seen as a macho sport but nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to Basildon SAC.” The grant application was led by the club’s Training Officer Terry Tarling, who said that putting together a compelling case for a Sport England grant was not easy.

“Although I took the lead so far as the application was concerned, I put together a team who could put formulate a professional business

plan. I acted more as a conduit or project manager.

“But everyone involved did a wonderful job, and the case we put forward was detailed and certainly comprehensive.

“As a club we are very pro-active and intend to get around groups such as the Sea Cadets, youth clubs and even schools, spreading the word about the sport.

“The first thing is to sit down as a committee and decide how best to attract new members to the club and to increase participation in diving.

“We need to buy quite a lot of equipment, such as BCs, masks, cylinders and so forth if we are to attract and train new members.

“We also want to buy a marine defibrillator which could, potentially, benefit all club-members.

“Luckily we have a member who is a paediatric consultant who can lead on training so every club-member will know how to use it.

“And of course, thanks to the Sport England grant, we will be supporting local businesses too, as the equipment we purchase will be sourced from local firms rather than a trawl of the Internet.” ■

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News FEB v3_Layout 1 07/01/2014 12:02 Page 15

DIVER NEWS

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Well-travelled photographer is best beginner A

RETIRED HOSPITAL DOCTOR and amateur photographer who has dived all over the world has won the 2013 British Society of Underwater Photographers’ Beginners Portfolio Competition.

Mark Drayton, 62, from the Cardiff area, took the divEr Trophy for his portfolio of six shots taken in Dominica, Egypt and the Philippines.

He also received a cheque for £100 at a BSoUP reception late last year.

Despite its name, the competition is open to all divers of any underwater photographic experience level, as long as they have never been placed from first to third in any recognised national or international contest.

The portfolios are judged as a complete collage, credit being given both to shots individually and how they combine as a set.

As such, contestants are allowed to crop and colour-adjust their images.

Drayton, originally from Yorkshire, learned to dive in 2006 and has submerged in Australia, Egypt, South Africa, Mexico, Florida, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Bonaire, the Philippines,

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Sulawesi and “very occasionally” in the UK. “Since certification, I have had a camera housing in my hands for most of my dives,” he says. He moved up a gear in 2011 when he joined the Bristol Underwater Photography Group and bought a Nikon D7000 and an aluminium housing.

“I joined BSoUP at the beginning of 2013 and was delighted when my daughter, who lives in London, also decided to take up underwater photography and joined shortly after I did,” he says. “My son also dives and frequently buddies me in the UK and on Egypt trips.” www.bsoup.org

Mark Drayton’s winning images:

1 Picasso Triggerfish on House Reef at Marsa Shagra, Egypt. Nikon D7100, 2 x Z240 strobes, 60mm Micro Nikkor Macro, 1/320 @ f8, ISO 200. “This is a substantial crop… As shot, there was a nice deep navy-blue background, but I deliberately clipped this in postprocessing to approximate the black backgrounds of the balancing shots within the portfolio.”

2 Juvenile Caribbean Reef Squid Shoal, Champagne Reef, Dominica. Nikon D7000, Nauticam housing, 2 x Z240 strobes, 60mm Micro Nikkor Macro, 1/125@f16, ISO 400.

“Their formation swimming fascinated me.

A letterbox crop seemed to suit the subject against the water surface and provided some variety to the portfolio. The blue water surface also provides a nice top to the portfolio and contrasts with the red anemone below.”

3 Ornate Ghost Pipefish, Dumaguete, Negros, Philippines. Nikon D7000, Nauticam housing, 2 x Z240 strobes, 60mm Micro Nikkor Macro, 1/320 @ f16, ISO 200.

“These beautiful fish allow quite a close approach, relying on their camouflage for protection, but it is sometimes difficult to get them clear of the weed/coral/crinoids…

There has been some cropping and the picture is presented as a mirror image to balance the composition in the portfolio.

4

Christmas Tree Worms, Dominica. Nikon D7000, Nauticam housing, 2 x Z240 strobes, 60mm Micro Nikkor Macro, 1/200@f16, ISO 200. “Christmas tree worms are very prevalent in this part of the Caribbean. This

particular shot was selected to match the colour palette of the balancing lettuce sea slug within the portfolio, and some postprocessing adjustment was made to saturation to improve the colour matching.”

5 Balled Red Anemone and Anemonefish, Negros, Philippines. Nikon D7000, Nauticam housing, 2 x Z240 strobes, 60mm Micro Nikkor Macro, 1/320 @ f20, ISO 200. “It… lent itself to the square crop and symmetrical composition needed for this position in the portfolio. The red/orange colour is intended to provide a central focus… while the green in the tentacles picks up colour from the photos on either side, and mauve tips pick up similar tones in the squid above.”

6 Juvenile Lettuce Sea Slug, Champagne Reef, Dominica. Nikon D7000, Nauticam housing, 1 x Z240 strobe and snoot, 60mm Micro Nikkor Macro, 1/320 @ f8 ISO 400.

“The photo is substantially cropped… As the slug was on a distracting sand background, it was masked in post-processing in Lightroom and the background taken down to black.

The colours and angle of crop were adjusted to match those in the balancing Christmas tree worm shot”. ■

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News FEB v3_Layout 1 08/01/2014 08:56 Page 16

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WELSH CLUB RAISES CASH FOR LANZAROTE TRIP It’s time. Treat yourself to the pampered

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A YOUNG MAN FROM WALES who was crushed and paralysed by a falling tree has just returned from a diving trip to Lanzarote paid for through fund-raising by fellow club-members.

Llwchwr BSAC branch raised the £2000 needed to take Josh Davies, 21, to the Canary Islands to achieve his second scuba-diving qualification.

The former rugby-player was only 19 when he was left paralysed from the waist down, after a tree he was helping his stepfather chop down on the farm where he lives fell on him.

He suffered severe crush injuries and his spinal cord was broken in two places. But Davies, who will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, refused to give up taking on challenges in life, and instructors at Llwchwr Sub Aqua Club stepped in to help him realise his goal of becoming a scuba-diver.

Despite gaining his entry-level qualification in British waters, the club felt he would benefit from diving in warmer waters, as lack of mobility in the lower half of his body meant that he often got very cold, and could spend only a limited amount of time honing his skills.

In Lanzarote Davies was able to do two dives a day for five days and complete all the training he required.

He passed his BSAC Sports Diver

qualification with flying colours.

Fifteen divers went on the trip. “The main thing for me was that I wasn’t treated any different,” said Davies. “I had to look after my own kit and had a little trailer for my kit which I then had to pull behind my wheelchair when we were going to and from the diving.

“And with the water being so warm I could spend an hour or more diving and not get cold, which was fantastic.

“I saw so many different fish, including angel sharks, big groupers, octopuses and millions of damselfish.

I’m definitely keeping up with the diving and want to progress.”

Instructor Dai Mathias added that Davies “did as well as many ablebodied divers. He had to complete the rescue lift of a diver against the tide, which was remarkable.

“He had to work twice as hard as an able-bodied person, yet never gave up and had the guts and determination to pull it off. That had all his fellowdivers on their feet and applauding.

“Long-term I’m sure he can go on to pass his Dive Leader qualification, it’s up to him but there is no rush.

“He is already helping new divers on club nights… he has a great, easy- going way about him and people respect that.” www.llwchwrsubaqua. co.uk ■

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Josh Davies with instructor Dai Matthias and Mark Thomas from Llwchwr SAC in Lanzarote.

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News FEB v3_Layout 1 06/01/2014 15:34 Page 17

DIVER NEWS

Manufacturer Head takes over SSI diver training agency T

HE DIVER TRAINING AGENCY Scuba Schools International (SSI) has been acquired by Head/Mares.

As divEr went to press in late December, SSI and Mares had stated jointly that an acquisition agreement had been signed, with an effective date of 1 January.

Head manufactures a wide range of sports equipment and owns Mares, a prominent producer of diving equipment.

The tie-up with SSI would, said the new partners, be a “perfect match” of companies immersed in the watersports business.

They were keen to stress that there would be no change to the way in which SSI is run in terms of service to the end-user.

While the acquisition would “trigger

various organisational changes”, the “entire SSI management team will remain in place and continue their daily responsibilities”.

SSI USA (USA and Canada) and SSI EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) “will be maintained” as they are now.

“SSI will continue to focus on its current business model: swim, snorkel and scuba. Mares will continue to build high-quality diving equipment,” they said.

Further, SSI would “continue to maintain relationships with all major manufacturers, just like Mares will with all other training agencies”.

Therefore, among scuba professionals there would be “no obligation for a Mares dealer to do business with SSI or an SSI dealer to do business with Mares”. ■

GEORGE BROWN

Rare mollusc found in Orkney

DIVERS FROM THE Marine Conservation Society’s research group Seasearch have found rare flame shell molluscs in Orkney’s Scapa Flow recently.

“These beautiful flame shells were found at a depth of 16m,” says diver George Brown, who spotted the creature.

“Interestingly, there are two other records of Limaria in Orkney, both dating back to the 1950s.

“So these could be the first finds

for more than half a century.”

The find comes just two years after a scarce giant fan mussel was recorded by divers in the same area.

It is the latest record of a Priority Marine Feature (Scottish species or habitat worthy of marine conservation action) in Scapa Flow, following finds of fan mussels and sea grass, maerl and horse-mussel beds. www.mcsuk.org ■

A POT TOO FAR: Any readers who were baffled as to why the factfile accompanying an article about Croatia (Up Against Dalmatian Walls, January) contained the line “Reykjavik has a recompression chamber” should rest assured that Croatia has emergency facilities for divers much closer than Iceland. The line should not have been there, of course – our apologies!

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RY MYSTERY DIVER MIDLANDS DIVING CHAMBER

I

T’S THE TIME OF YEAR when UK diving limits us to flooded quarries and lakes, but do our winter diving experiences have to be in the cold, rain and snow?

This month’s visit takes us away from traditional diving to the Midlands Diving Chamber (MDC) in Rugby. It’s one of a network of hyperbaric chambers that provide an invaluable service to the diving community.

I initially spoke to Spike who, despite being close to locking up for the day (it is a 24-hour facility for emergencies), offered to keep the doors open until I arrived.

I wanted to find out what a drydive would involve, and how the MDC’s service could keep a ”Mystery Group” of divers entertained for a few hours.

I was immediately struck by Spike’s passion for the work carried out at the MDC. Its core role is to provide recompression to divers who think they have or might well have suffered from some form of decompression sickness.

WE GOT CHATTING about how divers sometimes leave things too long before seeking advice, and how it and other chambers are always there, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to provide support for any treatment required. Spike was clearly committed to his role at the centre.

I was really impressed with the psychological support Spike and the rest of the team provide to divers who need to go into the chamber for several hours of treatment. I can only imagine the

fear felt by individuals as they ather. enter chamber, but with rebre An APDthe professionals like Spike on hand, I can imagine the journey seeming a lot less terrifying.

BACK TO WHY I HAD originally travelled to the MDC – Spike provided a description of how the dive would work.

This is where at first I found the language used unusual, because Spike spoke of bottom times, depths and ascent rates. But then it all became clear to me – the dry dive is the same as any other dive, except that you don’t get wet.

Once on the dive, MDC staff join you in the chamber for exercises to demonstrate the narcotic effects of a 40 or 50m dive.

For anyone who believes that they don’t suffer from nitrogen narcosis at depth, you’re wrong.

You do, and the dangerous element of your belief is that your failure to recognise it might just put you and others in danger.

This is where I believe the MDC provides another valuable service.

As well as being a fun dive for your logbook, the educational aspect might just save you from an unplanned visit to a chamber.

I ended my visit by discussing other work that the chamber carries out, such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy for burn victims and those who have had limbs amputated, where breathing ☛ oxygen under pressure can have clear ☛ medical advantages.

I was really impressed with the MDC. It’s just a shame that as the Mystery Diver I couldn’t follow through by booking a visit. ■

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Beachcomber FEB_Beachcomer 06/01/2014 10:10 Page 18

BEACHCOMBER

THE LATEST BIG BANG THEORY Have you ever noticed that there’s always somebody who wants to interfere?

Terry Long, Chairman of the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions, has just suggested to the United Nations that they might like to label any underwater munitions as hazardous chemical waste and do something about them.

Terry rightly points out that over the years thousands upon thousands of bombs, shells and other explosives have ended up beneath the sea, and may still be dangerous.

At first this seems a no-brainer. Of course all that unexploded nastiness lurking on the seabed should be cleared up. If it was an oil spill we’d be right on it, and all they do is muck up a few seabirds, whereas half a ton of high explosive suddenly going bang has the potential to completely ruin your day.

Give it a bit more thought, however, and you realise that a lot of those munitions went down with

ships, and divers like shipwrecks a lot.

Many divers see no point in getting cold and wet without a shipwreck to look at, and they won’t be best pleased if their favourite dive-site is suddenly reclassified as a dump for hazardous chemical waste.

Doesn’t matter to you? Think again. One of the world’s most frequently dived sites is the wreck of Thistlegorm in the Red Sea, and its remains are smothered in unexploded ordnance, much of it regularly prodded and poked by divers, and it still doesn’t go bang.

Submerged munitions not exploding is common.

I have yet to meet a diver later killed by an old shell going off under water, though I have known one or two that brought munitions ashore so that they could use the cordite to get the barbie going, with predictably Darwinian results.

Anyhow, Tel mate, just leave it alone, there’s a good chairman.

Flaming show-offs

Still going strong

Consider the Olympic Torch relay. A flame is kindled on the slopes of Mount Olympus in Greece, presumably in honour of a bunch of gods in whom we no longer believe, and then a series of people carry it to wherever the next Olympic Games are being held, and use it to light a symbolic flame in the stadium.

What it symbolises I’m not sure, and these days the Games are spread out around a series of venues to maximise the commercial opportunities, but you argue with tradition at your peril.

More important, from our viewpoint, is that the Russian Winter Olympics torch has been taken diving in Lake Baikal by lifeguard Nikolai Rybachenko.

Baikal is the Earth’s deepest lake, and Nikolai used a water-resistant flare to make sure that the flame didn’t go out as he swam one leg of the torch’s 39,000mile journey.

Its route will include a voyage to the North Pole on a nuclear sub, blasting off to the International Space Station and a space-walk before it eventually arrives in Sochi to light the flame on 7 February.

Ray Woolley, from the Wirral but now living in Cyprus, has just celebrated his 90th birthday with a 90ft dive.

Actually it was a 95ft dive, but that wouldn’t have suited the headline writer who labelled it 90 At 90.

The dive took place on the wreck of the Zenobia in Cyprus, which Ray first dived more than 30 years ago, within a year of her sinking.

Ray himself was dismissive of any hype. His only comment seemed to be that 90ft is a lot shallower than 90m, which made it easier.

Ray has been diving for more than 60 years. Perhaps all that nitrogen under pressure really is good for you.

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Danger? Bring it on Jacob’s Well in Texas is the most dangerous dive-site in the world according to the Daily Mail.

It ran an article headlined Texas Dive of Death STILL Attracting Thrill Seekers.

The dive starts in a natural pool with a shaft around 4m wide that leads 10m

down and into an enormous cave system bottoming out at what the Mail describes as a “massive 40m”.

Eight divers have apparently died in the caves over the years, and yet divers still want to dive there.

Of course they do. Tell some people that somewhere is dangerous to dive, and they form an orderly queue to see for themselves. It’s a diver thing.

Getting them tiddly We all know that a glass or two of well-earned decompression fluid is a staple part of any diving trip, but that alcohol and diving don’t mix. Unless, that is, you’re illegally collecting aquarium fish.

An un-named US diver has been charged under the California Fish & Game Code after being found using rubbing alcohol to catch 172 striped gobies. The fish he had taken were released unharmed, but presumably a little unsteady on their fins.

Diving with a hangover? No fun at all, or so I’m told.

Bottled and sunk Some time ago I told you that wineries were experimenting with ageing their wines beneath the sea, where temperature and light levels should be perfect, and the gentle rocking from the moving waters should help things along.

Well, the first results are now in. Winedrinking experts say the wines are quite different and easily distinguished, though no measurable differences could be detected by scientists between wines aged on the sea-bed or in a cellar.

So that’s all settled. Ageing wines on the seabed really is marketing hype and an excuse to charge more.

Phew, PFTBA! Is perfluorotributylamine, PFTBA for short, the diver’s friend? Not only can it be used to fill your lungs and allow you to breathe under water, but it’s also the ultimate greenhouse gas.

It’s more than 7000 times better than carbon dioxide at making holes in the ozone layer, and the bigger the holes the more the ice-caps melt, the more coastline is submerged and the more dive-sites we have!

Maps on the Internet show how London could be flooded by a rise in sea-levels of just a few feet.

PFTBA has one more plus – it can be used to fry chips. Do chemicals get any better?

Dissed by dolphins Everyone wants to swim with dolphins, but that might all be about to change.

Dr Denise Herzing, founder of the Wild Dolphin Project, has developed a machine that can translate what the dolphins are saying.

It’s early days, and the communication currently possible is very limited, but how long will it be before you can pop in an earpiece and listen to the dolphins chatting away as they’re circling?

I don’t imagine what they have to say will be complimentary!

www.divErNEt.com

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Bell boys_Layout 1 06/01/2014 10:00 Page 21

WRECK DIVER

BELL BOYS A ship’s bell is the prime method of identifying a lost wreck.

It’s also wreck-divers’ trophy of desire. Few are lucky enough to find one in their lifetime – others know exactly where to look. divEr’s own LEIGH BISHOP, who has a number of bells to his credit, looks into what makes them the ultimate prize

M

Y DEPTH GAUGE READS 90m. Breathing mixed gas, my equivalent narcotic depth (END) is just 35m. I know full well what I’m doing and where I’m going.

Or do I? My dive partner Mark Bullen is beside me as we swim along the starboard side of the Kingsbridge, a sailing ship sunk 131 years ago.

Our powerful torches pick out key features that we absorb subconsciously for our return in this complete darkness.

Before long, an anchor appears. How can this be? Surely we’re swimming towards the stern! We must be, because we’ve come from where I had found the ship’s bell on a previous dive – the bow! We have to be right, this must be a spare anchor, just stowed here.

Then we see another anchor, and before long a chain locker. Mark’s torch flashes like a Star Wars light

Pictured: The bell of a warship lies untouched on the seabed today.

sabre, and he begins to squeal loud into his rebreather loop. He’s excited, and Mark rarely gets excited.

There, in among a huge pile of millstones, is another bell, and it’s much larger than the one I had previously discovered!

A degree of confusion sets in, although over-ridden by excitement as I ease Mark away from his find to photograph our prize before the visibility deteriorates. A later return to the site in better visibility proves that the bell Mark had discovered was in fact the bow bell, and the one I had discovered was from the stern.

MY RESEARCH THAT WEEK revealed that sailing vessels of this vintage often had two bells, fore and aft.

During the 1990s, the heyday of the technical-diving revolution, dozens upon dozens of never-before-dived wrecks were being discovered and explored every year, and sailing ships were no exception, particularly in British waters.

I became even more excited when I thought of how many of these sailing ships we had located and not returned to since finding its bell, and thus completing our ID quest. With a long list of targets, it was time to retrace our steps.

Sure enough, as time went on more and more sailing ships began to reveal that elusive second bell.

Steamships traditionally have a single bell, though occasionally two have been discovered. The bell is normally located either directly in front of the bridge or towards the forecastle where the mast would have been – never aft of the bridge.

A good starting-point for navigation for a diver is the engine. The boilers ☛

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Bell boys_Layout 1 06/01/2014 10:03 Page 22

Diver Alan Dunster with the bell from the Ambassado r.

Diver Alan Yend with the bell from the Waitara.

Diver Mark Bullen with the bell from the Kingsbridge.

Boat skipper Tim Benetto with the bell from the Alunia.

The late Andy Smith with the bell from HMS Boadicea.

Diver Bob Hughes with the bell from the Illinois.

Alan Boness with the bell from an unidentified wreck.

The bell had no name on it.

Leigh Bishop & Chris Hutchison with the bell recovered from the Bramley.

Diver Mark Bullen with the bell discovered on the deep wreck Noya.

Alan Wright with the bell he recovered from the Empire Heritage.

om lls he recovered fr m with the two be Diver Dave Evesha the Finnborg.

John Nutting with the bell of the Franciska.

22

Ian Taylor with the bell he recovered from the Frigga.

Diver Pete Beeson with the bell from the Gripfast.

Diver Bob Hugh es with the bell from the Ill inois. www.divErNEt.com

Bell boys_Layout 1 06/01/2014 10:06 Page 23

WRECK DIVER

Mark Bullen with the bridge bell from the Wyndcliff.

Des Murray with the bridge bell from the Mountby.

Jamie Powel with the bridge bell from the ss Newbridge.

Diver Jamie Powell with the bell from the Pan.

Diver Bill Reid with the bell from the Sphene.

Craig Howell with the bell from the 125m-deep wreck Niagara off New Zealand.

Rick Waring with the bell he recovered from the ss Treverbyn.

Cornish diver Phil Austin with the bell from the ss Wilston.

Kevin Pickering with the bell he and Teresa Telus recovered from the Wyndcliff.

Tony Heartman with the bell from the Greta C. ☛

with his Author Leigh Bishop the bell recovered from . deep wreck Cyrenia www.divErNEt.com

The late Alan Dunster with the bell from the Memnon.

Wendes Boat skipper Dave covered re he with the bell ements.

Cl l ae from the Mich

Bill Reid with the bell from an unknown wreck.

Alan Boness & Jami e Powell with two ve ry different bells recovered from th e Spyros on the sa me day.

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☛

Bell boys_Layout 1 06/01/2014 10:07 Page 24

WRECK DIVER will be forward of this point, in the direction of the bridge and bow.

If you end up following a propshaft you are definitely going in the wrong direction, unless a propeller is your choice of artefact!

There’s always a special atmosphere when the dive-boat returns to port with a bell. It’s all part of those rare but great wreck-diving days.

There will however be times when the boat returns with silent and sad divers.

On more than one occasion I have witnessed a desperate effort to recover a bell on the surface in rough seas, only for it to break free from the lift-bags and plummet back to the seabed, never to be found again!

Some have referred to finding a ship’s bell as joining a special club of elite divers. So what is it about the quest for bells that makes us go weak at the knees and drives us towards insanity?

Having found a number of bells I have my own answers, but to see whether other divers felt the same I contacted a number who, while no longer active in the water, had their own unique stories about lifting what at the time felt not unlike lifting the World Cup must feel to a footballer.

WHAT MOST OF THEIR ANSWERS had in common was the unique part each bell had played in the history of its ship.

At a point in time these vessels were lost to the world. Often it was many decades before they were rediscovered by divers. Those who found the bells, the sound, heart and focal point of these once-proud ships, were the divers who effectively returned them to life by identifying their historical remains.

Only one diver has that special moment on each wreck, and for that moment it puts them a cut above their peers.

Of course, shipwrecks can be identified in many other ways, but a bell means positive identification like no other artefact. Some bear beautiful names such as Snowdrop or Marie Therese, while others are more meaningful.

The Michael Clements, a bell recovered by Lymington skipper Dave Wendes, is an example.

Researching the name, Wendes found that Michael Clements had been

24

bell was also used as a warning during fog, with a series of rapid, successive strokes and, at other times, as a signal of fire or danger from other nearby vessels.

In the case of the Titanic, icebergs!

Even if a ship is not sunk, but merely broken up, its bell can become a highly prized memento and command very high prices if offered for sale.

a chief carpenter aboard HMS Victory.

Bells can also be misleading. You might read a name but be unable to find a ship to match it. Often ships would change hands between companies, and their names would be changed, yet the original name remained on the bell.

The diver-finder then has to dig deeper to discover when the name was changed and to what.

Bells were being used on ships as early as the 15th century.

Records of epic voyages tell us how helmsmen used them to measure time in half-hour increments.

The “ship’s bell” system of chimes evolved from a crude sand clock dating back to the time of Columbus. Before the advent of the chronometer, time at sea was measured by the trickle of sand through a half-hour glass.

Watches or shifts were organised into four-hour increments, a custom still widely used. With the sandglass at his side, the helmsman would strike one bell at the end of the first halfhour, two after the second and so on until reaching eight bells, or the end of the watch.

This tradition continued for hundreds of years before the development of the mechanical clock.

A ship’s

Above: The most elegant and beautiful bell ever recovered? It comes from the ss Esles, later renamed ss Vigda, sunk by U-boat in 1917.

Above: The magnificent stern bell of the deep wreck Kingsbridge, discovered by Leigh Bishop.

Left: The bell recovered from the sailing ship British Commerce.

THE DAYS WHEN BELLS are brought to the surface are the best in any wreckdiver’s logbook. Reading through my own brings back great memories that will remain with me forever.

I have also surfaced and boarded the dive-boat to see other divers huddled round an encrusted object, its finder scraping his knife frantically across its surface to reveal the ship’s name, and thus make this mark.

I witnessed this once when first a P appeared, then an A followed by an N. There the letters ended!

The diver twisted the bell and began scraping the marine growth in front of the P, but could find nothing else.

On his knees and pausing momentarily in disbelief, he looked up at the rest of us and muttered: “I can’t possibly have

a bell with PAN written on it, can I?” “Well, you have by the look of it,” said skipper Graham Knott. And, holding a Lloyds Shipping Register, he began to read us the history of the wreck we had just discovered – the Pan. Graham was once asked by the group of divers chartering his boat where they would find the bell on the wreck they were going to dive!

Straight-faced, he told them to first locate the mast, and then swim down until they saw the crow’s nest. Directly below there was where they would find the bell, he assured them in jest.

Within 10 minutes of them entering the water, a lift-bag surfaced with a ☛ www.divErNEt.com

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Bell boys_Layout 1 06/01/2014 10:08 Page 26

WRECK DIVER

the Alan Dunster with ck in the Ambassador bell ba 1970s.

Rodger Dodds with the bell that identified the Messina.

bell on the end of it! Exiting the water, they thanked Graham for his advice.

As with Jamie and his Pan bell, Graham looked on in disbelief.

I never forgot that story. Some years later I was in New Zealand on an expedition diving the gold shipwreck Niagara in 125m depth.

An Australian diver approached me the night before a dive and asked me the same question those other divers had asked Graham that day.

“In Australia we don’t really find bells,” he declared, “you English lads all have a bunch each, isn’t that right?”

Of course, I told him exactly what Graham had told his weekend divers, somehow keeping a straight face. The following day I followed this diver on the wreck, shooting photos as we went.

He actually located the mast, then, much to my amazement, a crow’s nest, before flashing his torch on the seabed below – where the ship’s bell turned out to be laid to rest!

He bought me a beer later, and that bell now resides in an Auckland museum. Next time perhaps I’ll keep quiet!

In the UK the

26

Des Murray with a bell from an unknown wreck discovered in 100m depth.

Nick le Grass recovered this bell from the Pangani.

Jamie Powell with the Listrac bell.

Diver Simon Spence r with the bell of the Wallsey .

Military Remains Act of 1986 makes it an offence to enter or tamper with any such listed wreck lost in wartime.

Military wrecks must always be treated with respect, and if their bells are discovered they must be simply photographed, filmed and documented.

Below: A team effort was required to recover this bell from the wreck of the sailing ship Waitara.

A BELL MIGHT BE A PRIZED TROPHY for divers, but the find has to be declared to the Receiver of Wreck, and the vessel’s owners could still be in business and want their property back. Often this is undertaken with a reasonable fee granted to the diver in lieu of salvage.

Don’t assume, however, that your bell will be taken from you the moment you report a find.

The chances are that the owner is no longer alive or the shipping company defunct, and it will be your job to look after that piece of maritime history.

Many people argue that these finds should be on display in museums for all to see, although the fact is that the average museum lacks the space to display everything it has in storage, let alone every recovered bell.

There is a downside to discovering a ship’s bell, especially if you are diving from a Weymouth boat. In

Ade Gorse with the bell brought up from the Marie Thereses.

Jamie Powell with the bell from the deep wreck Rabbi.

Weymouth tradition demands that if you find one while diving and the diveboat skipper recovers your prize successfully to the deck, in return you have to kiss his arse!

There will be a ritual gathering of everyone on the boat after surfacing to watch as the skipper lowers his jeans and allows the finder to ease his lips against those often hairy cheeks!

I’ve witnessed this on many occasions, and hear that the ritual is spreading to other coastal ports. So beware - you may have become King of the Wreck-Divers, but your dignity may be about to be permanently compromised.

Many readers will believe that artefacts should be left on the wreck for all to see, and it’s a debate where agreement seems impossible.

Shipwrecks fall apart and will eventually become little more than ironore deposits on the seabed. Each year nature degrades and covers the wrecks we explore.

The bells pictured in this feature would never have been seen by this readership had they not been recovered.

Has beauty any value if it can’t be seen?

And lastly, if you’re wondering, the answer is yes, I have kissed arse! A number of times!

Let’s leave it at that. www.divErNEt.com

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Turkia_Layout 1 06/01/2014 09:54 Page 29

RED SEA WRECK 1 MARINE LIFE

I

ROLLING UP TO THE TURKIA The northern Red Sea wrecks itinerary is familiar, but head way north up the Gulf of Suez and you’ll find a rarely dived WW2 wreck casualty that has been compared with the Thistlegorm. SUE DALY wanted to see whether that claim held water, but the passage was hardly smooth sailing

LIE IN MY BUNK, trying not to think about food. The boat heaves and rolls, and the more violent lurches are accompanied by the thuds and crashes of unsecured doors and stuff being thrown around in cupboards.

A few hours earlier we had left the usual Red Sea cruising grounds between Hurghada and Sharm after a couple of shakedown dives. Now we’re heading north into a brisk Force Five.

Along with half of the other guests, I had skipped supper and, while some were struggling with their seasickness on deck, crawled to my cabin in the vain hope of sleeping through my queasiness.

The occasional container ship looms past in the darkness, huge and slab-sided, heading south from the Suez Canal. Orion, one of the few constellations I can identify, is bright and perfectly framed in my window.

Best of all, when everything around me is moving, it stays absolutely still – it’s now my favourite constellation!

I WONDER WHAT SORT of passage the crew of the cargo ship Turkia had endured more than seven decades earlier, as it headed the same way.

Most of all, I question whether the wreck is going to be worth this 14-hour passage.

I had been promised something “a bit like the Thistlegorm”, but could this smaller ship really be compared to the best-loved wreck in the Red Sea? The Turkia was built in 1909 on the Humber by Earle’s Shipbuilding and Engineering Co Ltd, and was originally called the Livorno, the second of three ships built by Earle’s to bear that name. ☛

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Turkia_Layout 1 06/01/2014 09:55 Page 30

Left: Electric torpedo ray among the tyres in one of the holds.

Below: Yellowbar angelfish among the coils of wire.

Bottom: The propeller.

Bottom right: Divers explore the holds.

She was clinker-built and schoonerrigged, 91.4m long with a beam of 12.8m.

Her single-screw triple-expansion steam engine powered her along at 9.5 knots. She had an elegant cruiser stern and, in common with many cargo boats of the era, the bridge and accommodation structure was just forward of amidships, with two main holds forward and two aft.

Two masts, one between each pair of holds, supported the ship’s cranes.

The Livorno belonged to the Wilson Line, and plied the waters between Britain, Turkey, the Ukraine, Latvia and Russia carrying coal and general cargo.

She survived World War One, but in December 1923 collided with a slightly smaller cargo ship, the Rose Marie, near Haisborough Sands off the coast of Norfolk. The Rose Marie was lost.

In 1935 the Livorno was sold to the Hellenic Line and renamed Turkia.

She continued shipping general cargo until the outbreak of WW2, when the Greek government contracted her to carry war supplies.

In spring of 1941 she loaded up with cargo in New York and headed for the port of Piraeus in Greece. Her holds were filled with tyres, coils of wire, ingots, vehicles and general stores, as well as ammunition and explosives.

Military action in the Strait of Gibraltar meant going the very long way round – south around the Cape of Good Hope, then back up the east coast of Africa to the Red Sea and north through the Suez Canal.

It was a voyage of almost 13,000 nautical miles, and was uneventful until the ship was about two-thirds of the way up the Gulf of Suez.

Then disaster struck, as the casualty report from Lloyds describes: “17 May 1941 she had a fire in no 3 hold where explosives were stored (she was carrying explosives and general cargo) and the fire was beyond control so the vessel was abandoned. 10 minutes later there was a large explosion and the vessel sank in 12 fathoms.”

The cause of the fire is unknown. One report suggests that the Turkia was bombed during an air attack (the fate of the Thistlegorm and Rosalie Moller some five months later) but the Lloyds report makes no mention of enemy aircraft.

Neither report lists any casualties.

The ship now sits on a sandy seabed about 2.5 miles south-east of the Zafarana Lighthouse, in 24m depth.

A LOUD KNOCKING on my cabin door wakes me after a fitful night’s sleep. The sea has calmed, the sun is rising in a blaze of deep orange and we are tied up to the wreck of the Turkia.

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RED SEA WRECK 1

After a quick cup of tea, it’s time to dive. Heading down the line I expect to see the old ship from the surface, but the visibility isn’t quite as good this far north, and the strong winds of the past couple of days haven’t helped.

I’m 7 or 8m down before the wreck looms into view a few metres below, but it’s the shoals of fish as much as the reduced vis that make it hard at first to work out exactly where on the ship I am.

Swirling clouds of silvery-blue fusiliers part to reveal the stump of a mast between the two forward holds and

THE TURKIA IS SITTING UPRIGHT AND PRETTY MUCH INTACT

a jumble of winches and coils of wire, long since fused solid in a concretion of rust and encrusting marine life.

The Turkia is sitting upright and pretty much intact, its masts broken off and leaning over the starboard side to the seabed. The bow is swathed in hessian net, and other fishing-lines and nets snagged on the wreck mean that we must take care while exploring inside.

Within the first two holds there are more heaps of coiled wire, and hundreds of tyres are stacked on shelves and scattered on the floor along with the remains of rectangular boxes – batteries?

Peter Collings, who discovered the wreck in 2006, describes finding vehicles in the depths of one of these holds, possibly trucks for transporting tanks, but the amount of silt down there makes me reluctant to venture too far into the darkness.

WHAT I DO SEE IN ONE OF THE aft holds are stacks of mortar shells, still packed 20 to a case. It’s here that I expect to see evidence of the explosion that sent the ship down, but the hull is intact apart from a few holes here and there, where time and salt water have taken their toll.

There are easy swim-throughs along the companionways and down into the engine-room, with turquoise shafts of sunlight illuminating the way out.

I drop over the side and swim along the hull just above the seabed, passing beneath the masts to where the propeller and rudder lie in the shadow of the beautifully shaped stern.

Frothy pink and purple gorgonians have grown on the propeller, thriving in

Top left: The Livorno, renamed the Turkia in 1935.

Above: Gorgonian growing on a mast.

the gentle current that flows over the wreck. There are more of these large fan corals between the decks, in the holds and on the masts, the lack of damage to them an indication of just how little this wreck has been dived.

There is plenty of other marine life on the Turkia. As well as shoals of smaller fish there are the usual grouper, lionfish and wrasse and more of the big, purple yellowbar angelfish than I’ve seen on any other wreck in the Red Sea. An electric torpedo ray waddles around in one of the holds among the tyres, and pencil-slate urchins and anemones with resident clownfish, have also made themselves at home.

The wreckage itself is encrusted with mussels and the pinky-orange stubs of tubastrea, the coral that blooms with huge yellow polyps at night.

The highlight of diving the Turkia for me comes on the third dive of the day, as the sun is sinking quickly and shadows inside the wreck are growing deeper.

As I peer into the darkness of what I later learn is the captain’s cabin, my torch picks out a large seahorse, its tail wrapped around a cable hanging from the centre of the room. Its pale yellow ☛

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RED SEA WRECK 1

Above: Bow of the Turkia.

colouring gives the impression that this most charismatic of fish is almost glowing in the gloom, and seeing it is the perfect end to my day of diving on the Turkia.

Later that evening we slip our lines from the wreck and head south down the Gulf of Suez. With calmer seas and the wind behind us, we all enjoy a much better sleep than the previous night.

32

explore. The seahorse was a magical bonus but to me another point in the Turkia’s favour is its remote location.

We had the wreck to ourselves all day and didn’t even see another dive-boat, let alone other divers. In contrast, the next day ours was one of eight liveaboards on the Thistlegorm, with day-boats arriving through the morning.

For those who feel they have “done” the wrecks of the Red Sea, I would say that the Turkia is definitely worth a visit.

After three dives on the wreck, I would love to dive it again. Next time, however, I’ll remember to pack some Stugeron! ✹ Golden Dolphin Safaris runs Red Sea wreck trips that include the Turkia, www.golden-dolphin.net. Book with GDS or through its UK agents – Ultimate Diving, The Scuba Place, Olympic Holidays and Planet Travel Shop.

● Turkia

EZ SU OF LF GU

OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS our trip continues with the Thistlegorm, Rosalie Moller and the wrecks at Abu Nuhas – a classic Red Sea wreck safari.

So was the long passage north to the Turkia worth it? The ship certainly isn’t as impressive as the Thistlegorm. It’s smaller, the cargo is less interesting and the visibility is generally poorer further north. Having said that, poor vis in the Red Sea is still 7 or 8m, so this is not really a hardship.

Care needs to be taken not to stir up the silt in the holds but the depth of the wreck, from 10 to 24m, makes it sunlit, and accessible to the less-experienced diver as well as to a hardened wreckie.

Whether you’re using nitrox or air you get masses of bottom time.

Although the Turkia is about twothirds the size of the Thistlegorm, at more than 90m long, there is plenty to

Left: Mortar shells, packed in their boxes, in the aft hold.

SINAI

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● Sharm

wreck

50 MILES

RED SEA

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RED SEA

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Barge Night_Layout 1 06/01/2014 09:49 Page 35

RED SEA WRECK 2 MARINE LIFE

Is the Barge the best night dive in the world? Photographer RICHARD ASPINALL chronicles his love affair with this Red Sea treasure

S

“

O WE’RE GOING TO DIVE A wreck, it's quite shallow,” says the guide in response to a question.

“Penetration, er, no,” he says to another.

“What’s the boat’s history?” somebody asks.

“Well, not sure really…” says the guide, looking a bit dejected by this point, despite the amber glow of the setting sun. The guests enjoyed the Thistlegorm the day before, and if there isn’t a hold to explore, mutiny might be on the cards.

He looks a little flustered: “There’s loads of fish,” he says. This boatful of eager divers is wondering what on Earth they’re getting for their £1000 trip.

Then a quiet voice at the back pipes up: “This is the best night dive in the Red Sea, you’re going to love it”, and the guide looks very relieved. The intervention seems to do the trick.

I’m talking about the Barge Wreck. If you’ve ever been on a northern Red Sea safari, the chances are that you will have dived this unprepossessing and, in the daytime at least, very boringlooking collection of steel plates, spars and rivets.

If you have a trip booked and are heading out this year, and you see the Barge on the itinerary and wonder what’s in store, read on. This is one truly remarkable dive.

I first dived the Barge around 10 years ago, back when neoprene seemed to

stretch a little more and lead had more weight to it – I certainly needed a lot less of it.

The weather was typical for the Red Sea in winter and our captain had chosen a route slightly different from the standard safari-boat circuit.

We’d had a fairly choppy crossing from the reefs and wrecks of the Sha’ab Ali area. We had been sailing into a fairly strong wind from the south, and by the time we passed Shadwan Island to port, there were a number of green faces among my shipmates.

Hefty waves kept us rolling and pitching. The deck was wet with spray,

☛

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and the loud cries in Arabic from the galley could have been curses.

And then, within minutes, the sea calmed and we were moving into the lee of a small island. As the crew busied themselves with mooring up, we marvelled at the clear shallow waters, feeling smug that our boat was larger than the other one moored into what was left of the wind to our port side.

As the engines were shut off, some of the less-fortunate guests emerged, looking pale and crumpled, to see what was occurring. Then the bell sounded, and it was time for the briefing.

On the north-eastern tip of little Gubal Island, a sharp promontory of rock juts out into the deeper water of the western edge of the Gulf of Suez. This is Bluff Point. A five-minute inflatable ride will take you from the mooring and,

Top: The bow of the Barge.

Above: A Napoleon wrasse.

Below: Parrotfish.

if the currents are right, you’ll be able to drift gently back towards your boat.

Bluff Point is a great reef, ideal for spotting Napoleon wrasse and the odd pelagic such as larger jack and trevallies.

My buddy and I decided we’d take the challenge of returning to the liveaboard after being dropped on the point.

When Alan had first seen my camera he had been a little concerned that he’d be drifting along while I paid him no attention, but when I had spotted a hammerhead at Tiran but had to show him what all the fuss was about on my camera’s screen, I could hear him swear through his reg. We have dived together many times since.

WE KEPT TO A SHALLOW PROFILE of around 10-15m to enjoy the rich growths of purple and orange soft corals thriving in the nutrient-rich current and to help with the next day’s diving, when we would be at 40m for the Rosalie Moller wreck.

As we clocked the mooring lines for our boat, we realised that we were doing well. At that moment we became aware of dolphins, and within seconds we were surrounded by the island’s resident pod, which checked us out, declared us far too boring and sped off.

I’ve met members of that pod several times since, and seen them behaving in some rather risqué ways.

Thrilled by this experience, we carried on finning under the looming shadow of our boat, which had collected small shoals of fusiliers and cornetfish under the props. We were keen to find this wreck we’d heard about, but when we did we were a little disappointed.

The 30m-or-so long, 6m-wide barge,

which sits at around 14m with its bow pointing east, is not an exciting-looking dive-site. It always reminds me of a huge shoebox, plonked on a pretty dulllooking reef – plenty of rocks and small bommies but no lush coral growth.

The wreck consists of the remains of a hull in the process of slow collapse, its plates and spars lying on the seabed. This is a very open structure – you don’t so much penetrate as float into it.

If the Barge ever had a name, it is lost to history. One suggestion is that it was sunk in 1973 during the Arab-Israeli War, and lost when under tow.

I remember thinking as my buddy and I completed our safety-stop that I wouldn’t bother about the night dive here, despite the encouragement from some. I’d have a beer and brag about dolphins instead.

As the sun went down and the dolphins returned to pootle about the boat, I changed my mind. As my fellowdivers took to the water there was an amazing play of light from various torches flicking around just under the boat, different colours indicating different bulb types.

I slipped below the surface and finned towards the light show. I had fitted a macro lens and made sure I had two torches with me.

We all need redundancy, but if you find yourself on a similar dive-site, do as I do and use your powerful main torch to show you where you’re going and to explore the structure, and then use a smaller, less powerful light to observe marine life.

Animals such as featherstars, brittlestars, slipper lobsters and hermit crabs will scuttle away or in the case of

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RED SEA WRECK 2

the stars will furl up to avoid your unwanted attention. If you are going to take photos, make sure to use your focus light as little as possible.

That first night-dive on the barge was quite something. I couldn’t believe the thousands of snapper, in shoals that would break apart when we turned our torches onto them.

Under and among the deck-plates were countless critters, from large hermit crabs carrying several anemones, boxer shrimps, nudibranchs and the first Spanish dancer I’d ever seen.

It was the greatest concentration of life I’d ever seen on a dive. Even the reef came alive, with hunting lionfish, octopuses, reef squid and fusilier shoals resting amid the rubble.

SINCE THEN THE BARGE HAS BECOME my favourite night-dive. My camera has been upgraded and I think of the Barge as my favourite site for macro photography. Every time I dive there my buddy and I will either try to be the first on the site or enter last to ensure that we get it to ourselves as best we can.

The truth is that this relatively small wreck takes a pounding every time a boatload of divers gleefully descends upon it. I’ve seen the fins of careless divers dislodge crocodilefish, knock lionfish out of the way and scrape against the hull, dislodging what life manages to colonise it.

A friend likened the site to a game of Hungry Hippos, where each player has a plastic hippo’s head that scoffs marbles until none are left.

Yet time after time I visit and find the life still there, hanging on and resistant to the attentions of us ungainly visitors.

Some hull-plates have collapsed since my earliest visit, but the Barge is still a gem.

I now know what to expect, and where to look. One of the largest morays you are ever likely to see can be found under a jumble of deck-plates towards the bow.

George is often joined by a smaller yet still humongous cousin.

Around the exterior of the hull you

www.divErNEt.com

Clockwise from above: Hermit crab carrying an anemone; Spanish dancer; giant moray eel; banded sole.

can find great macro subjects such as sea urchins, various wee polyps and encrusting corals and, if you’re lucky, a Spanish dancer or two.

My own favourite fish I always look out for here is the banded sole. This wonderful little fellow has, through the wonders of evolution, come to resemble a colourful yet toxic flatworm.

Often when I’m photographing them, as they move away with a sinuous wormlike movement, they look up with their big round eyes and I can almost believe they’re thinking: “I’m a worm, honest, yes I am, I taste nasty…”

Loads of snapper, goatfish and fusiliers shelter here for the night.

Lionfish relish the disturbance divers make and all the smaller prey fish we disturb and force into the open.

Macro photographers should also look out for scorpionfish, because several rest on the remaining deck spars.

They are remarkably camouflaged and, seemingly convinced that they are invisible, allow divers to approach them for a photograph.

I HAVE DIVED THE BARGE about a dozen times, but you have to experience it for yourself. It is of course a novice’s ideal first night dive, easy to locate and navigate around and quite a hard place in which to get yourself into trouble.

Most guides will ask you to limit your dive to around 45 minutes but you can easily get an hour here if it doesn’t compromise the next day’s diving.

Just make sure you haven’t put your camera in its housing with the lens-cap on – Alan laughed his head off.

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Egypt T.A. (DPS) – 02_14_DPS 19/12/2013 11:36 Page 2

We’re magical

Photo: © Nigel Wade

We’re serene

divEr

’12

AWARDS Destination of the Year Egypt

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We’re Egypt

Join us by the Red Sea DAHAB - SHARM EL SHEIKH - HURGHADA

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BENEATH Geological diving can offer more than might at first appear. DAVE PEAKE enjoys a Cornish seascape that never changes – it’s the light that does the work

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UK DIVER

I

N WHAT IS KNOWN AS “Cornwall’s forgotten corner”, you’ll find the twin villages of Cawsand and Kingsand. They’re on the Rame Peninsula, on the west side of Plymouth Sound.

Between Kingsand and Fort Picklecombe, along a rocky shoreline, is a Site of Scientific Special Interest (SSSI). The rocks there are hundreds of millions of years old, and the geology is of extreme importance.

Walking east along the rocks from Kingsand towards a small beach called Sandway reveals interesting geological features.

These include the longest stretch of Rhylite lava rocks, from the Permian Age. Holes in the rocks show where gas bubbles emerged during extreme volcanic activity.

At Sandway Beach there are many examples of beautifully coloured shingle, sands, mudstones, gritstones and areas of conglomerate that appear as lumps of concrete containing stones and pebbles fused together by extreme volcanic heat and pressure.

The best time to see all this is at low tide, which is when geologists and students come to study the rocks. This is one of my favourite areas for a walk to admire the natural features.

Beautiful as these rocks are, it struck me as a diver that they would look even better when “varnished”, and that meant taking a look beneath high tide with a camera.

There are no roads, so the three ways to reach this remote area are to walk from Kingsand, which takes 15-20 minutes; kayak from Kingsand/ Cawsand (about 10 minutes); or else to go by boat.

Last July was hot and sunny, with the sea warmed to 18°C in the shallows – ideal for a snorkel dive.

I walked from Kingsand carrying basic gear and camera. It was about an hour before high tide, which would give me about two hours in the water.

Maximum depth would be about 4m.

The sun danced off the sea and the vis looked fantastic.

I entered this other world, finned around and became mesmerised. ☛

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UK DIVER

The sun’s rays danced and flickered over the rocks, producing an endless variety of shapes and colours. This was much better than at low tide when walking around the mostly dry rocks and beach – a fantastic light show.

I started to take photographs. Natural light was the order of the day – I had no strobes and used the sun at my back.

Being shallow and well-weighted, I could dive down and get into the right position for composition.

To freeze the sun’s rays required shutter speeds of between 160th and 250th, and apertures of between F11 and F22, which also helped with a bit of camera shake.

The ASA/ISO was at 400 or 800. I was using a Sony NEX5 in a Nauticam housing with a Nikonos adapter and 15mm lens. This camera also has Panoramic Sweep mode, and I experimented by taking several images.

I know where to go the next time I want to chill out and observe a natural spectacle. The rocks won’t move – they will always be there. All that’s needed is the sun.

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TREWAVAS NEW-SEASON RESOLUTIONS THE EARLY MONTHS OF THE YEAR are a tough time to be a diver in the UK. Daylight is in short supply, the weather is complete bobbins, and even when you do get a dive, the vis is woeful.

All those hopeful New Year’s resolutions – getting fit, losing weight, and not getting so drunk that you leave your keys, wallet and mobile behind in the taxi – are long-forgotten or well and truly broken by now.

But what about your diving resolutions? February brings the London International Dive Show, and if your resolution is to do more diving, then 15 February is effectively the New Year’s Day of the diving calendar. It’s the opening event of the new diving season.

Many of us are still in a state of bewilderment at the bizarre array of diving-related gifts that turned up in our Christmas stocking from wellmeaning but non-diving friends and relations.

Being a scuba-diver is the present-receiving equivalent of being into cats or small glass animals. You might have been hoping for a rebreather, but the closest you came was a small plastic model of a hardhat diver encased in a snow globe, or a fluorescent green snorkel with a selfsealing bobble. Surreal.

If your hopes were thwarted in December, now is the time to invest in some proactive education and lure your nearest and dearest along to ExCeL. Perusing the exotic holiday opportunities, saving the dolphins, tinkering with fascinating gadgets, or just the promise of rubbing shoulders with Andy Torbet – there’s something there for everyone.

Having the right attitude (as in learning to be gracious when the shot misses the wreck) is always number one on my list of new-season resolutions. Here are some of the others: Visit the Diving Diseases Research Centre at Derriford: Not as a casualty, but to take part in one of its amazing courses. Hopefully the one featuring a 40m chamber dive. A great opportunity to get a bit giggly with your diving colleagues while learning valuable lessons about how not to get bent or lost at sea.

Dive a New Wreck: I'm very excited about the lifting of restrictions on diving the new wreck in Lyme Bay. I can’t wait to get some underwater footage of the Emsstrom – I just hope Teign Diving Centre isn’t too booked out already.

Which reminds me – I must organise my photos and videos; before the start of the 2015 dive season.

And finally, I Resolve to Be on Time: After all, “time and tide wait for no man”. Getting the club RIB stuck on the sandbar on the way back into Littlehampton will soon reinforce that one (along with the furious reaction of the diving officer – he really should resolve to chillax a bit this season).

Ah yes, time and tide. I finally need to learn that you can't fight with unstoppable forces.

That isn’t the diving officer, that’s divEr deadlines.

A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO GET A BIT GIGGLY WITH DIVING COLLEAGUES

LOUISE TREWAVAS www.divErNEt.com

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ARMOURED AND DANGEROUS It’s a long time since JAMIE WATTS would play with a scorpionfish as it rested on his hand – he knows much better now!

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MARINE LIFE

I

T’S INTERESTING HOW MANY things you meet under water that could kill you. Few people would crawl around voluntarily with cobras, centipedes or scorpions, but under water we seem to delight in cosying up to potentially lethal critters.

I had a lovely time photographing a group of striped reef catfish in Lembeh the other month, backing away chuckling as they swarmed over and tickled my knuckles, trying to pull away far enough to focus on them.

Later I remembered something about them having venomous spines, so I looked it up on Google.

Apparently those lethally toxic spines were millimetres away from my fingers.

Most people who swim in the sea are familiar with the business end of jellyfish, some with their even more dangerous cousins the siphonophores and box jellies. Sea-snakes and blueringed octopuses can, with the tiniest of bites, paralyse and cause death by asphyxiation. Cone shells and certain sea urchins can be lethal. Steve Irwin was famously killed by a sting ray – and there are many more.

These potent venoms, spines, stings and teeth have very specific uses, however. You have to be trying quite hard or doing something extremely foolish, or just have really bad luck to earn a dose of these poisons.

Most of the toothed, spiny and incredibly venomous marine animals we regularly encounter are not even vaguely interested in using their lethal armaments, other than as a last-resort defence.

Pictured: Dendrochirus brachypterus, Bali.

One group of venomous animals is more familiar to, and indeed actively sought out by, large numbers of divers, particularly photographers.

Scorpionfish and their relatives make superb photo subjects. Not only do they habitually lie still, but the textures and colours they use as camouflage, the flaps and algae growing on their skin, their large, upturned mouths, their fanlike fins and spiky cheeks, even their reflective eyes, add up to some of nature’s most spectacularly decorated – and photogenic – art forms.

Scorpionfish are heavy-headed and heavy-chested bottom-dwelling fish, with characteristic broad fanlike pectoral fins and a tapering tail.

They are characterised by a broad bony plate on the cheeks, usually with thornlike spines on it, giving the group the name “mail-cheeked fishes”.

Their heads tend to be platearmoured and often spiny, their bodies covered in heavy scales.

They predate on a variety of nearbottom fish and invertebrates, usually caught by lying in wait and slurping the prey into their cavernous mouths.

WHAT WE THINK OF AS “classic” reef scorpionfish and lionfish are mostly members of only one of around 30 closely related families and more than 1200 species that make up the order Scorpaeniformes.

Most fish, scorpionfish or not, have spines on their fins, and almost all have skin glands that produce protective skin mucus, some of these glands associated with the fin spines.

This mucus is often an irritant, if not an outright dangerous toxin. Push onto the spine of any fish and you’ll probably crack the skin sheath to the spine and inject a certain amount of mucus, often earning yourself a local infection.

I’ve never been able to find a comprehensive list of exactly which fish have “overdeveloped” the spine glands specifically to produce injectable venoms, but the reef scorpionfish group is the classic example.

A handful of families, most of them tropical – notably the scorpionfish, waspfish and stonefish families, but also the flatheads and some sculpins – have developed their venom glands on the dorsal, anal and pelvic fins to act as syringe-like deliverers of potent venom.

On gurnards and most of the coolwater members of the scorpionfish group, the mucous and spine glands are a somewhat milder irritant.

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MARINE LIFE

Caribbean I inadvertently played with fire. One of our dive-sites had a huge resident scorpionfish. So extremely relaxed was he that I tickled his chin and had him sitting on my hand. At the time I didn’t know that the pelvic fins he was resting on also carried toxic spines.

I didn’t get stung, but I wince at the memory. Not only did I deserve a nasty sting, but approaching any animal that close is an ignorant and negative way to dive.

the same – of excruciating, agonising pain caused by the neurotoxins.

Apparently lionfish and scorpionfish venom is every bit as painful as that of stonefish. I suspect the reason stonefish are more deadly is simply that their spines and glands are much fatter, and inject larger quantities of poison.

With stonefish stings deaths have been recorded, and recovery from a nonfatal sting may take months, leaving permanent tissue damage.

The purpose of the toxin is to force potential predators to be overwhelmingly shocked by the agony of trying to bite, swallow or sit on the scorpionfish, and to either die or leave such fish well alone in future. Raising the dorsal spines, a posture beloved by photographers, is a threat, a warning, a preparation against a potential attack.

In my young and foolish days in the

46

Clockwise from top left: leaf-fish (Taenianotus); St Helena; one of the biggest scorpionfish, the ling-cod.

Below left: Rhinopias.

Below right: longspine waspfish (Tetrarogidae).

CORAL REEFS ARE A SUPERB foraging ground for camouflaged, lie-in-wait predators. Nowhere else on Earth do so many small fish seek shelter in the reef structure and so inadvertently offer themselves as prey.

Stonefish and “regular” scorpionfish simply sit still, look like reef and wait for prey to move into slurp range, while lionfish are simply scorpionfish with large, fluttery fins that spend their evenings hunting rather more actively, sometimes herding and corralling prey ahead of them into the “slurp zone” by fanning out their fins.

At some point in the past 20 years, lionfish were accidentally introduced to Florida’s seas. This Indo-Pacific group had no natural enemies in the Atlantic and Caribbean, and have become a rather successful invasive species.

In the past few years particularly they have spread through the Caribbean, as far north as New York and as far across

as the Azores, and possibly the Mediterranean. Large grouper and other potential predators have been largely fished out of these areas, so there seems to be little to stop the spread of lionfish.

We know the reef scorpionfish because reefs are where most diving takes place, but numbers of individuals are relatively low, and members of the scorpionfish group are far more abundant and successful in temperate and polar reefs, particularly in the northern hemisphere.

Dozens of species of sculpin dominate rocky and kelp reefs, particularly in the North Pacific. Many resemble scorpionfish, normally without such camouflage, but the most abundant group, the rockfish, are more grouperlike in appearance and habits.

Redfish are deepwater rockfish that shoal in huge numbers in deep, cold seas, and are probably the most successful scorpionfish of all.

A bizarre offshoot is the lumpsucker family, found all around the cold waters of the northern hemisphere.

THE MOST IMPRESSIVE of the scorpionfish group are found in the cold North Pacific. Diving off Vancouver Island, I came across a few ling-cod, the biggest well over a metre long, sitting on rocks waiting for a meal – a huge, smooth, somewhat sleek and poorly camouflaged scorpionfish.

The ling-cod, sablefish and skilfish have all been recorded as big as an adult human, and are generalist reef predators of almost anything slow enough for them to catch and small enough to fit into their cavernous mouths.

They fill niches similar to those that large “true” cod used to fill, and look more like cod than what we think of as scorpionfish.

Still, the heavy plated cheeks, the broad fan pectorals and the hefty build give clues that these are cousins to the photographers’ friend, the humble, strangely beautiful reef scorpionfish. www.divErNEt.com

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DIVE SHOW PLANNER

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SHOW PLANNER

FOUR CHEERS FOR FEBRUARY! The London International Dive Show at ExCeL is just a few weeks away now, and the line-up is looking a bit tasty. But why so soon?

C

2014

OR BLIMEY, GUV’NOR, LIDS ain’t arf early this year!

Yes indeed, the London International Dive Show is almost upon us, taking place at the splendid ExCeL Centre in the capital’s East End over the weekend of 15/16 February.

And there are four good reasons for making an early start: 1) Let’s face it, February is so dull that Valentine’s Day had to be invented just to make a break. When it comes to diving, we reckon we’ve found a much better way of brightening up the month.

2) Unless the winter weather’s unusually kind, you’re less likely to have to choose between diving into ExCeL and a trip to the seaside.

3) There are three other great activity shows on at ExCeL at the same time, and we know that many of you like to combine your diving adventures with other popular pursuits. What’s more, the sport always needs new recruits, and we hope to welcome a number of visitors crossing over from the other shows to see what scuba is all about.

4) Nearly 90% of 2014 still lies ahead – so you can get in at the ground floor when it comes to sorting out your kit and planning the year’s diving trips and training courses.

You’ll rarely find so many divers gathered in one place as you will at LIDS, and there’s a fair chance you’ll know more than a few of them.

If not, you’ll soon get to know them – and some may be turn out to be future buddies!

Whether you want to buy, buy, buy; use your visit to scope future transactions; concentrate on the galactic array of star speakers; or simply waft about and soak up the atmosphere, divers and divers-to-be alike will find LIDS 2014 a fulfilling day out.

Or perhaps two days out…

GET A LOAD OF THESE SPEAKERS… THE divEr STAGE JACK INGLE

10.00

MARK POWELL

11.15

BE A BETTER WRECK-DIVER

DIVING MYTHS

Technical diver Jack Ingle leads popular wreck expeditions all over the world, from Malta to Malaysia and from the UK to Norway. With so much experience under his belt, if anyone knows his way around a shipwreck it’s Jack. His kit-configuration workshops were for years a mainstay of the Dive Shows, and in similar vein we’ve asked him to put together a presentation on wreck-diving technique, helping you to hone your skills and put your questions. If you’re into wrecks, don’t miss it.

One of the most consistently popular speakers at the Dive Shows, TDI/SDI Instructor Trainer Mark Powell will reveal more examples of what he calls diving mythology – some of the most widely believed and, in some cases, most dangerous legends passed down about our sport. Some of these practices are still commonly taught by training agencies, so prepare for a measure of controversy, but Mark’s talks are never less than thoughtprovoking and entertaining.

☛

LIDS 2014 tickets cost £12.50 – but only £9.50 in advance. Book now at www.diveshows.co.uk

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SHOW PLANNER ANDY TORBET

12.30

MORE EXTREME DIVING Andy’s brand of derring-do, which involves high places, low places, usually cold water and dives few other people would get beyond talking about, has quickly made him a Dive Show favourite. After his work with the Monty Halls team last year he is also in demand with TV programmes such as The One Show as the go-to guy for taking viewers on vicarious trips to scary places. Find out about his latest hair-raising exploits at ExCeL.

INNES McCARTNEY

1.45

WRECK DIAGNOSIS Is there a doctor in the house? The latest addition to our roster of presenters is a diver who hasn’t appeared at the shows for a little while – he’s been busy becoming Britain’s first Doctor of Nautical Archaeology. Yes, Innes McCartney, renowned expert on sunken submarines, is about to get a unique doctorate to his name, and he’ll be talking about his latest projects and how the work of amateur divers can reshape historians’ understanding of the military past.

PAUL ROSE

3.00

MAN OF MYSTERY?

series such as The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Life. Doug works with the latest technologies to find solutions in the most challenging situations. Recent work includes shooting in the Red Sea on the BBC Natural History Unit’s first 3D feature film Enchanted Kingdom. His talk sounds intriguing – we hear tell that it has to do with killer whales.

PAUL ‘DUXY’ DUXFIELD

2.30

TWO INTO ONE WILL GO First it was digital compacts, now it’s the ubiquitous GoPro-type camcorder that is revolutionising how we record our dives. And you don’t need to dither between taking stills or video, either – expert Duxy is at LIDS to show us how to get great results using both approaches on a single dive!

CHRIS JEWELL

4.10

THE HUAUTLA EXPEDITION Talented British cave-diver Chris led an historic expedition to Mexico’s Huautla system last summer, establishing the cave as the deepest in the Western hemisphere. The seven-week adventure involved towing camping supplies through a 600m underwater tunnel, sleeping underground for up to 10 days at a time and making deco dives at a point once called the “most remote yet reached inside the Earth”. What is it like to organise an expedition on this scale?

2014

All we know this time round is that explorer, broadcaster, Vice President of the Royal Geographical Society and serial Dive Show star has two big projects underway and would love to tell you all about them if he gets clearance. We’re betting that extremely cold water and infectious enthusiasm is involved – but in the end there’s only one way to find out!

THE divEr AWARDS

4.15 (Sat)

THE LONDON STAGE Located close to the PhotoZone, this is where you’ll find a stimulating mix of guest presenters, many of whose work revolves around underwater imagery

DOUG ANDERSON

1.40 (Sat)

A FAMILY THAT SLAYS TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER LIDS 2014 is delighted to welcome for the first time to its stages this leading underwater film and video cameraman, responsible for sequences in awardwinning BBC

STEVE JONES

3.20 (Sat)

FRONTIER PHOTOGRAPHY: DEEP WRECKS “Taking a camera on a deep, dark wreck-dive may appear at first to be a total waste of time,” says Steve, but in this presentation he explains how, by altering existing techniques and pushing your camera’s limits, you can succeed even in the most challenging conditions. Expect invaluable tips and techniques, including post-processing methods that will really bring out the colour.

FERGUS KENNEDY

12.50 (Sun)

UNDERWATER VIDEO: NEW PERSPECTIVES, NEW CHALLENGES That’s the title of a talk to be delivered by this marine biologist, photographer and film-maker who specialises in nature, wildlife and underwater photography. By new challenges, he could be referring to his experiments with 3D stereoscopic filming, timelapse and 360° interactive panoramas – or perhaps of how we find the time to edit all that GoPro footage?

LIDS 2014 tickets cost £12.50 – but only £9.50 in advance. Book now at www.diveshows.co.uk

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SHOW PLANNER SAEED RASHID, MARTIN EDGE & NIGEL WADE

11.20

THE DIGITAL CLINIC Saeed Rashid, underwater photographer, postproduction guru and organiser of the PhotoZone, is bringing back the always-popular interactive Digital Clinic, giving you the chance to pick up vital tips and compare notes in an informal setting. While Saeed’s advice is hard to beat, he is going belt, braces and more braces with his special guests. As author of the diver’s “bible” The Underwater Photographer, Martin Edge is one of the most influential practitioners around, while Nigel Wade was making a name for himself as an underwater photographer long before becoming divEr’s Technical Editor. Martin Edge will also be giving a separate presentation called “Popular Opportunities” at 1.40 on Sunday.

NICK ROBERTSON-BROWN

3.20 (Sun)

FAST FRAME! SHOOTING UNDER PRESSURE Photographers should never forget that the demands of observing diving limits outweigh the need to get that shot, which is what Nick’s talk is about. A full-time professional underwater photographer and environmental biologist, he has just published a new u/w photography guide, and will be happy to sign copies!

SIMON ROGERSON

ALEX TATTERSALL

12.50 (Sat)

MAKING MINIATURE MASTERPIECES: MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY His wide-angle photo Lionfish Bait (below) recently earned him the Runner-up spot in the Underwater Worlds category of the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, but at LIDS Alex, known for his patience in waiting for the right shot, is musing on closer encounters as he considers the challenges of macro.

9.40 (Sun)

It’s easy to shy away from the trickier underwater photographic challenges and stick with what we know, but attaining new goals is always satisfying. Simon’s chosen topic is The Wary, the Lairy & the Downright Scary, so expect sound advice on how to raise your game and take on the top 10 challenging photo subjects.

RICHARD SHUCKSMITH

10.30

FRAME OF MIND: FROM THE SLUGGISH TO THE FRANTIC

THE OCEAN THEATRE

If you have read any of his articles in divEr you’ll have noticed that this award-winning Shetland-based photographer is most likely to be found diving in the north of Scotland, and that marine life is his special interest. From capturing images of diving gannets to exploring diverse habitats, different photographic approaches are required to get the most out of each opportunity.

There is a third way to enjoy great audio-visual presentations – the OCEAN THEATRE. It’s here that LIDS exhibitors share their wares in depth, especially diving destinations. So whether you already have somewhere in mind or are simply trawling for ideas, keep an eye on the daily speaker line-up.

PICTURE THIS The PHOTOZONE isn’t all about talks on the London Stage, compelling though they are. On the walls you’ll find 60 shortlisted entries from the divEr Red Sea Photocall Competition, and you’re invited to vote for your favourites. The British Society of Underwater Photographers (BSoUP) is overseeing the display and carrying out final judging on the Sunday.

The overall winner gets a week’s

Red Sea diving holiday with Emperor Divers on Emperor Asmaa, with flights provided by the Egyptian Tourist Office.

Need a little personal photographic guidance? If the Digital Clinic and after-talk Q&A sessions are too public a forum, BSoUP members and camera-

2014

THE WARY, THE LAIRY & THE DOWNRIGHT SCARY

equipment suppliers are always on hand to offer one-to-one advice. The suppliers will have a lot of tasty kit for inspection and sale, too. ☛

LIDS 2014 tickets cost £12.50 – but only £9.50 in advance. Book now at www.diveshows.co.uk

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SHOW PLANNER

SEVEN STEPS TO DIVING HEAVEN HOME FRONT

SANDY GREENWELL

The BRITISH ISLES EXPERIENCE is purpose-designed for UK divers getting ready to embark on a great summer of home-waters diving – talk to dive-centre staff and skippers about your best options to make 2014 a memorable year.

The area is sponsored by Suunto, which will be pressing free computers upon a certain number of lucky divers over the course of the weekend. Add in hearty British food and drink and it’s almost as if you’re already at the dive-site!

SAFE WITH LSD

GEAR ASSEMBLY

The NEW PRODUCTS SHOWCASE does exactly what it says on the box – it’s a chance for the equipment suppliers at LIDS to set out their new premium products and tempt you to find out more about them on their stands!

SKILL SETS The major training agencies will all have a presence at LIDS, offering a wide range of courses from entry-level to instructortrainer, expeditions and holidays.

Check out the PADI VILLAGE, the BSAC area with its individual BRANCH PODS, and the stand of SSI, which recently became the first major training agency to be taken over by a dive-kit manufacturer. If you have questions for any of the agencies, here’s your chance to get them answered by those in the know.

MIND, BODY, SPIRIT & 3D SIMULATION Most scuba-divers can benefit from mastering breath-hold techniques. At LIDS 2014 you can enjoy a free one-hour course covering three specific aspects of apnea, under the expert guidance of MARCUS GREATWOOD and his NoTanx freediving team The MIND-BODY-SPIRIT PROGRAMME is a one-hour session aimed at adventurers, scuba-divers and freedivers of all levels. Small groups are led through yoga and meditation techniques and exercises in three specially designed rooms.

Then it’s time to put new-found abilities to the test on the NOTANX 3D SIMULATOR, enjoying the virtual experience of freediving as you breath-hold while watching a point-of-view film in widescreen HD. You’ll be surprised!

The separate TOTAL IMMERSION FREEDIVE EXPERIENCE is a shorter but no less exciting interactive attraction in which you take part in a 10-minute relaxation and breathing lesson before taking on the simulator.

To progress further – much further – you could also apply to take part in this year’s NOTANX ZERO 2 HERO programme. The idea is to take nine people with no freediving experience and train and test them during two club pool sessions and some intensive training at LIDS. The winner, chosen on the basis of instructability, safety, progression and natural ability, gets a diving holiday to Egypt – and the chance to compete at international level!

If you’d rather stay on the sidelines for now, you can watch the NoTanx pool team and Zero 2 Hero entrants in action and take part in poolside competitions.

For more information and advance booking, go to notanx.com

BUBBLE-FREE

SUNNY SIDE

Midlands Rebreather Diving, otherwise known as MR DIVING, is running the REBREATHER POOL once again, and will bring a mixture of the latest recreational as well as technical makes and models for LIDS visitors to sample.

Its experienced staff can fill you in on everything you need to know, and advise on future training if it is required.

Expect to get your hands on new-generation closedand semi-closed-circuit rebreathers from the likes of APD, Oceanic (Hollis), Poseidon and VR Technology – including the new Poseidon Se7en.

The sunny side has to be the CARIBBEAN VILLAGE, where the lilting sounds of the steel band and the occasional aroma of rum towards the end of the day put visitors in the mood for colourful reef and wreck diving under tropical skies. The diving offerings of the various islands and some mainland destinations vary enormously, as does their accessibility, so this is a good chance to weigh up the possibilities.

2014

We all know how important first impressions are, and that’s especially true of diving – it’s easy to be put off by a careless introduction to the sport.

That won’t happen at the LONDON SCHOOL OF DIVING (LSD) TRY-DIVE POOL, a favourite hang-out for youngsters ready to find out what it’s like to breathe under water.

Parents needn’t fret about their safety, because they will be overseen by wellqualified, experienced divers – but there may be cost implications in the future…

☛

LIDS 2014 tickets cost £12.50 – but only £9.50 in advance. Book now at www.diveshows.co.uk

www.diveshows.co.uk

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SHOW PLANNER

2014

EXHIBITOR LIST & FLOORPLAN 4th Element Diving 250 AP Valves 610 Aggressor Fleet & Dancer Fleet 354 Ambient Pressure Diving 610 Andark Diving & Watersports 820 AquaMarine 730 AquaMarine Silver 104 Bahamas Tourist Office CV8 Barbados Tourism Authority CV12 Bauer Kompressoren UK 570 Billy Shiel/Farne Islands Diving GB40 blue o two 415 Bonaire Fun Travel & Caribbean Fun Travel CV6 British Society of Underwater Photographers - BSoUP P20 British Sub-Aqua Club B100 Buddy Dive Bonaire & Galapagos (Bonaire Hospitality Group) CV5 Cameras Underwater P25 Caribbean Tourism Organisation tba Central Compressor Consultants 552 Chris Brown Technical GB10 Cloud (pop-up spas) tba Coral Cay Conservation 412 Custom Divers 700 DAN Europe (Divers Alert Network Europe) 260 Deck Shoes Unlimited tba Deep Blue Diving Fuerteventura 202 Deptherapy tba Dirty Divers 720 Dive Ability 560 Dive Master Insurance 562 Divequest 352 divEr Magazine 212/630

The ExCeL Exhibition Centre is easy to reach, wherever you’re coming from!

Divers Emergency Service 280 Divers Warehouse 270 Diverse Travel 400 Dive Worldwide 200 Dominican Republic Tourism Board 106 Egypt 520 Euro Divers Worldwide 740 Grenada Board of Tourism CV16 Hammond Drysuits 492 H2O Divers 561 Health & Safety Executive 498 Historical Diving Society tba Intova 540 Light & Motion 540 Lochaline Boat Charters tba London & Midlands Diving Chamber 420 London School of Diving 214 M & M Diving Technology 114 Madison (GoPro) 440 Manta Trust 654 Marine Conservation Society 264 Metalsub 540 Mexico Tourism Board 411 Nauticam UK / UnderWaterVisions P15 No Tanx Apnea 390 Ocean Leisure Cameras P35 Oonasdivers 340 Original Diving 320 O'Three 230/240 PADI EMEA 750 Philippines Department of Tourism 310 Professional Diving Academy 550

Project Aware Foundation 744 Red Sea Diving College 742 Regaldive Worldwide 410 Robin Hood Watersports 620 Royal National Lifeboat Institution 380 RSPB, The / Working for Wildlife 651 Safari Diving SL 331 ScubaClick LTD (LivaboardsRus) 322 Scuba En Cuba 496 SCUBApursuits 430 Scuba Travel Worldwide Holidays 480 Sea & Sea 640 Sea Serpent Fleet Management 334 Sea-Zones Boat Charter (Newhaven) GB40 SeeDive 540 Sinai College 262 Sovereign Diving GB10 Sport Diver Magazine 734 & 100 Sport Storage Solutions 102 Sportviz 300 Suunto Prize Draw GB30 TUSA 540 Underwaterworld at Stoney Cove 580 Underwater World Publications 630 Velaa Private Island Maldives 746 VooDoo Divers Limited 564 Wakatobi Dive Resort 350 Waterproof Wetsuits 540 Westfield Sub Aqua & Marine Insurance 344 Working for Wildlife Woodland Trust 282 World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) 354

3 WAYS TO GET TO EXCEL

ROAD: ExCeL enjoys direct access to a dualcarriageway link with the North Circular (A406), M11 and M25. Journey time from the M25 is only 20 minutes, via J27 and M11, A406 or J30 and A13. Follow the ExCeL signs. Over 5000 on-site parking spaces are available.

RAIL: Docklands Light Railway (DLR) – Custom House, immediately adjacent to ExCeL. Tube/Jubilee Line – Canning Town (only 700m from ExCeL), connect to the DLR. Journey time from the West End is only 23 minutes. Mainline – London terminals all connect to the tube network and hence the DLR. AIR: London City Airport is less than a mile away and receives flights from 22 European cities, including Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Zurich.

For travel updates over the weekend, check the Dive Shows website, www.diveshows.co.uk

LIDS 2014 tickets cost £12.50 – but only £9.50 in advance. Book now at www.diveshows.co.uk

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SHOW PLANNER

The divEr Stage

Freediving Feature

OCEAN THEATRE

The divEr Red Sea Photocall

British Isles Experience and “Blue Holes” Bar

PhotoZone Dive with friends

LONDON STAGE

PADI Village

divEr

Rebreather Pool

Caribbean Village

divEr

➧➧

NEW PRODUCT SHOWCASE

The London School of Diving Try-Dive Pool

ENTRANCE

LIDS-PLUS: 4 ways to enjoy the outdoors indoors!

THERE’S MORE TO LIFE than just diving.

No, seriously! Make a real weekend of it at ExCeL this year with a choice of outdoor activity shows: THE TELEGRAPH OUTDOOR ADVENTURE & TRAVEL SHOW: Whether you enjoy travelling, photography, climbing, exploring the British countryside or are in the market for some new gear, you’ll find everything you need to whet your appetite.

The On The Water zone should be of special

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interest – and the show also boasts the world’s longest indoor zip wire!

THE TRIATHLON PLUS SHOW will provide a complete experience spanning the worlds of swimming, cycling and running, to help prepare you for your next triathlon.

THE LONDON BIKE SHOW is the UK’s largest cycling exhibition. Whether road-cycling, mountain-biking, BMX, cycle-cross, family cycling or commuting to work is your thing, you’ll find plenty of interest.

Add LIDS – advance FOUR-SHOW TICKETS cost only £16, instead of £20 on the door.

If you have time only for LIDS 2014 (and there is a lot to see), don’t forget that if you book at the advance price of £9.50 you’ll save £3 per ticket AND get a FREE Show Guide worth £2.50.

All ticket-holders can enter the GRAND PRIZE DRAW, with a chance of winning the trip to Thailand for two (overleaf). To order tickets, go to www.diveshows.co.uk

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SHOW PLANNER

Win a £7500 two-week trip for 2 to THAILAND!

2014

I

MAGINE – ALL YOU HAVE to do is buy one ticket or more to LIDS 2014 in February, and you could suddenly find yourself with a pair of tickets for exotic diving experiences in Thailand.

The experience comes courtesy of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, Sea Bees Diving, Zeavola Resort and tour operator Dive Worldwide.

Thailand’s world-class dive sites include the Similan and Surin Islands, Burma Banks and the Merui Archipelago, best accessed from Khao Lak, says Dive Worldwide.

Phuket, Krabi, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Lanta and Koh Racha are also great bases for diving and snorkelling. On the east coast, Samui’s neighbour Koh Tao is good for learning, with Pattaya offering wreck-diving.

The LIDS 2014 Grand Draw prize starts with flights for two from the UK to Phuket with Thai Airways, with an optional two-night stopover in Bangkok at the Grande Centre Point Hotel Ratchadamri (grandecentre pointratchadamri.com), said to be Centre Point’s finest hotel with

service to match.

Then you have a choice, depending on whether you prefer shore-based or liveaboard diving.

You can either spend eight nights at the Palm Garden Resorts at Khao Lak or Phuket, home to Sea Bees Diving, or two nights on land and the other six aboard Sea Bees’ flagship boat, the mv Marco Polo.

This 23m liveaboard regularly takes divers to see the reefs and marine life around the Similan

Islands, manta rays at Koh Bon, the coral gardens at Koh Tachai and the whale shark magnet and macro-haven of Richelieu Rock.

Then feel the warm Thai hospitality in a setting of white sands and “barefoot luxury” with a further five nights at the “Small Luxury Hotel of the World“, the all-suite Zeavola Resort. This boutique property on Phi Phi Don has its own 5* PADI dive centre and provides a “five-star experience” for divers exploring the Phi Phi National Marine Park.

Daily boat trips allow divers to discover a spectacular underwater world only minutes away, including turtles, ghost pipefish and leopard sharks.Six dives are included in the Phi Phi Marine Park.

All transfers are included in the prize.

Sea Bees has won many awards for quality of service in the 20 years it has operated in Thailand. Zeavola offers luxury, relaxation and great Andaman Sea diving.

Visit www.diveshows. co.uk to book now for LIDS 2014 and a chance to win this great prize!

TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY

It Begins with the People...

LIDS 2014 is a divEr Group event in association with Egypt Tourism and Oonasdivers

LIDS 2014 tickets cost £12.50 – but only £9.50 in advance. Book now at www.diveshows.co.uk

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TARPON TRIUMPHS The annual British Society of Underwater Photographers DIVER Print Competition was staged at DIVE 2013 at the NEC – BRIAN PITKIN reports on the outcome

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PHOTOGRAPHIC DIVER

E

IGHTY OF THE BEST PRINTS in four categories were mounted for display and judging by the visiting public at DIVE 2013, with a panel of three judges, Alex Mustard, Martin Edge and Nigel Eaton, selecting the overall winner of the BSoUP/divEr Print Competition.

That winner was Belgian Ellen Cuylarts, whose spectacular image Tarpon Hunting Silversides was taken in the Cayman Islands with a Nikon D800.

Cuylarts moved to Grand Cayman in 2009 and took up scuba-diving only in mid-2011. “Every year tarpon, jack, grouper, divers and snorkellers await a feast with the return of the silversides in summer,” she said.

“The mass movement of the school makes the silversides less vulnerable and their synchronised evasion tactics are a joy to the eye and a photographer's dream.

The massive schooling behaviour of the little fishes in the grottoes inspired me to capture the symbiosis of all the elements.”

Cuylarts won the Grand Prize of a week in Tobago, including flights, transfers, seven nights’ B&B at Toucan Inn and 10 dives, courtesy of Oonasdivers.

The panel selected as overall runner-up another Belgian, Dennis Vandermersch, with his print Manatee and Her Child, taken in Florida while breath-hold diving in a corner of a spring with a Nikon D300.

“Somehow they always sneak up on

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you,” he says. “It was done with my trusted 10.5 FE Nikon and a couple of sub-strobes (diffused of course, and not too bright – those are the rules).”

The panel awarded Highly Commended to Alex Tattersall’s Duelling Tompots, taken under Swanage Pier using an Olympus OMD-EM5 with the 1250mm lens in macro mode. “The battle went on for half-an-hour and was quite brutal,” he said. Also Highly Commended was Fireworks Anemone and Large-Clawed Lobster by Trevor Rees.

“We picked out images that stunned us visually, were technically well-composed and lit and also well printed,” commented judge Alex Mustard. “We did give credit for innovative techniques and rare captures of species or behaviours, but these were less highly valued than the overall impression of the image.

"Overall, there was very strong agreement between the judges. We felt the standard of all the prints on display was high. The standard of printing and Photoshopping was also significantly improved over a few years ago.

“Separating the top two photos took considerable debate and both would have been worthy winners of the grand prize. But once decided, all three judges were very happy with the choice of winner."

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BRITISH & IRISH CATEGORY

PHOTOGRAPHIC DIVER

in a Subal housing and twin Inon Z-240 strobes.

“As soon as I pressed the shutter button for this image, I knew it would be my entry for the BSoUP/divEr competition,” she said. “I knew the cute factor would help my cause.

“The visibility on the day was actually very poor indeed, so me and my buddy

OVERSEAS CATEGORY

THE BRITISH & IRISH CATEGORY, for underwater photographers who have never before won a national or international competition. was won by Caroline Robertson-Brown with her print Waving Seal.

The photograph was taken off Puffin Island in Anglesey, North Wales with a Nikon D200 with a Tokina 10-17mm lens

stayed shallow and just waited for the seals to come to us.

“This seal fell in love with my buddy, Tom, so I was lucky that it wanted to come close and stay around for the whole dive.” Robertson-Brown was awarded the Calumet Photographic Trophy.

Runner-up in this category was Christian Van der Nest with a print of a Hermit Crab taken at Selsey Lifeboat Station pier with a Nikon D300 in a Sea&Sea MDX housing, a Nikon 60mm macro lens and an Inon Z240 strobe.

“My camera settings were ISO 200, f20 and 1/250,” said Van der Nest. “This was actually only my second time out with the camera since I bought it, and this was my very last shot of the day before I surfaced.”

THE OVERSEAS CATEGORY is also for underwater photographers who have never won a national or international competition. The winner was Nicholas More with his print of Turtle and Divers taken at Jackson Reef, Egyptian Red Sea.

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More used an Olympus OMD EM5 Micro 4/3rds camera with 8mm fisheye lens in a Nauticam housing with dual Sea & Sea YS-D1 strobes.

The shot was taken at the end of a driftdive, when the friendly turtle “posed” for

pictures. “The divers were about to do their safety stop and in an ideal position to add interest to the background,” said More, who won the Cameras Underwater Overseas Print Trophy Runner-up Terry Steeley took his print Sea-Lions last summer in the Inside Passage, Alaska with a Canon 5D Mk II with EF8-15mm f/4L fisheye lens.

“The diving was challenging, visibility often poor and water temperature 4˚C at best,” he reported. “However, when the elements came together, the opportunities were rewarding.

“This particular dive saw us mobbed by a gang of playful Steller sea-lions.

Their curiosity and energy will stay with me forever.” ☛ www.divErNEt.com

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“NITROX FOR FREE” IN ALL DIVING CENTERS WORLDWIDE

RED SEA / EGYPT

Sharm el Sheikh – Naama Bay Prime location at the Helnan Marina, 2 min. from the jetty, poleposition to the top spots of the Sinai: Ras Mohammed, Tiran, Thistlegorm. Weekly Excursions to Dahab’s famous Blue Hole and Canyon. Free pic up service from all hotels in Sharm. Look for the specials at www.wernerlau.com

WERNER LAU WORLDWIDE MALDIVES Bathala · Nord-Ari-Atoll · top dive sites Filitheyo · Nord-Nilande-Atoll · wrecks on the housereef Medhufushi · Meemu-Atoll · spectacular diving Kuda-Funafaru · Noonu-Atoll · exclusive diving MY Sheena · unique diving safari in the unexplored south

EGYPT / RED SEA

BUDDY WEEKS DISCOUNT Helnan Marina · Sharm el Sheikh: Dive Sinai‘s world100% class reefs The Oasis · Marsa Alam: BUDDY Charming divers‘50% hotel, house reef WEEKS DISCOUNT

BALI / INDONESIA

WEEKS 50% DISCOUNT Siddhartha Ocean Front Resort & Spa · BUDDY Kubu/Tulamben BUDDY WEEKS 50% DISCOUNT Alam Anda Ocean Front Resort & Spa · Sambirenteng/Tulamben Matahari Beach Resort & Spa · BUDDY Pemuteran/Menjangan WEEKS 50% DISCOUNT Pondok Sari Beach & Spa Resort · Pemuteran/Menjangan BUDDY WEEKS 50% DISCOUNT

CYPRUS / MEDITERRANEAN SEA

WEEKS 50% DISCOUNT Aldiana · Alaminos · BUDDY Wreck of the Zenobia

FUERTEVENTURA / ATLANTIC OCEAN Aldiana · Morro Jable · BUDDY Big fishWEEKS 50% DISCOUNT

FRENCH POLYNESIA Fakarava · probably the best sharks places worldwide Offered by several tour operators as well as through different Internet booking portals!

Book your great value diving package online:

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ADVANCED BRITISH & IRISH CATEGORY

PHOTOGRAPHIC DIVER

& Sea YS-D1 strobes in full manual mode.

“The 2013 cuttlefish season was one of the best in terms of numbers for many years,” said Bolt.

“Despite Babbacombe being heavily potted by fishermen to export the cuttlefish to Europe, many adults made it into the breeding grounds of the shallow

the smaller members of the school,” said Colley. “It could have been predatory or just aggression, but the school was nervous, wheeling into different shapes as the bigger fish circled around it.

“The reef, the bigger fish and a fellowphotographer helped to frame the school, while myriad smaller fish nearer the reef were exhibiting equally nervous behaviour.” Colley won the Mike’s Dive

Store Overseas Print Trophy.

Runner-up was Harlequin Shrimp by Michael Gallagher, using a Canon 5D3 in a Hugyfot housing while night-diving in Lembeh, Indonesia.

Winners and runners-up received BSoUP glass trophies. Oonasdivers, divEr, Cameras Underwater, Calumet Photographic, The Wildlife Trusts and Fifty Fathoms donated prizes.

ADVANCED OVERSEAS CATEGORY

THE ADVANCED BRITISH & IRISH category is for previous winners of national or international competitions.

Winner Dan Bolt took his Cuttlefish picture at Babbacombe, Devon with an Olympus E-PL5, using a Panasonic 8mm fisheye lens in an Olympus PT-EP10 housing with an Athena dome, and 2 Sea

bay, where they stayed for about six weeks.

“This attracted a good number of the UK’s best photographers, so competition to get a good image was intense. There was plenty of mating and fighting action throughout the month-long period.

“I was lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time, and with reasonable vis, when I witnessed this tussle between a large male and a number of smaller cuttlefish.”

Bolt won the Ocean Leisure Cameras Print Trophy.

Runner-up in this category was Trevor Rees with Fireworks Anemone and LargeClawed Lobster, taken in Loch Goil in Scotland with a Nikon D90 in a Sea&Sea housing. This print was also Highly Commended.

THE ADVANCED OVERSEAS category, again for previous competition winners, was won by Paul Colley with Barracuda School and Diver, taken in the Egyptian Red Sea at Ras Mohammed with a Nikon D300 in a Subal housing, using twin Inon Z240 strobes on manual power settings.

“This school was behaving unusually, with a lone, bigger and slightly emaciated-looking fish seeming to harass

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Your Maldives adventure starts here!

DIVE RESORTS

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Itineraries include: • Local Island Guesthouses • Liveaboards • Resorts • Diving • Meals • Airport Transfers • Charters • Excludes international flights

Email: sales@secretparadise.mv

7 nights FB dive local stay from

£650 pp

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AROUND CEBU BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER

THE SUPER-TYPHOON Most dive destinations have a good and bad time to visit, but even visiting in the middle of a typhoon need not curtail your diving in the Philippines, as NIGEL MARSH and HELEN ROSE recently discovered.

P Opposite: Head up, tail down – a common position for the whale sharks of Oslob.

Below: Damage at Malapascua, shown in a photo taken by Thresher Shark Divers staff two days after the typhoon.

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LANNING YOUR DIVE HOLIDAY around the best time to visit a location is usually sound advice, but from our experience this is not always the case.

There are plenty of destinations where it is wise to follow recommendations, because it is either too rough or too murky, there is nothing to see or the dive shops shut up in the off-season.

But there are other locations where you have to take pot luck going out of season (and sometimes in season).

You would think one of these would be the Philippines in typhoon season, especially after the recent devastating super-typhoon Haiyan, but in fact most typhoons have little impact on this island-nation or its diving.

We arrived in the Philippines on 1

November, at the tail-end of typhoon season, which officially runs from June to November. Numerous typhoons (19 on average) form around the Philippines each year, but only a handful make landfall, and mostly in the north.

The southern islands, where the majority of dive destinations are located, are rarely affected. The only spot that isn’t dived in typhoon season are the Tabbataha Reefs, which can be reached only by liveaboard.

Our holiday plan was to dive the main locations around the island of Cebu – Moalboal in the south and Malapascua in the north, where we were booked for the first week.

Malapascua is at the top end of Cebu, about three hours’ drive by car and then 30 minutes by boat. We arrived on the island to perfect conditions – flat seas, blue skies and no wind. So much for the typhoon season, or even the wet season!

We were booked to dive with Thresher Shark Divers (TSD), and were staying at one of the newest resorts on the island, Tepanee Resort, and both proved very good choices.

We had wanted to visit Malapascua for years, ever since we first heard about the thresher

sharks there, but had also heard reports of lovely reefs, great critters and some good wreck dives.

Malapascua Island is unlike any other dive destination in the world, as everyone is up and about at 4.30am, every day, for the sunrise dive.

These early rises can be a bit of a shock to the system for those who enjoy a lie-in on holiday, but if you don’t rise early you’ll miss one of the best shark dives in the world.

Boarding the dive boat at 5am we headed 30 minutes east towards Leyte, where the first beams of sunlight were struggling to peek over the rugged mountain ranges. We jumped into the dark waters and were very happy to discover that the visibility was at least 30m as we descended to the top of the famous Monad Shoal.

This sea mount rises from 200 to 14m.

Once settled on the top of the bare rock we looked down the sloping rubble reef before us, praying that a thresher shark would appear.

Our prayers were answered quickly.

After only a minute a large shape materialised from the depths – a 4mlong common thresher shark.

It was an impressive sight, with its huge eyes (because of its deep, darkwater preference), small mouth and elongated tail, more than half the sharks’ total length. It was here to get its earlymorning clean, serviced by a team of cleaner wrasse.

The thresher paraded in front of us for a few minutes before it was joined by two others of the same length. By the www.divErNEt.com

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PHILIPPINES DIVER

end of our 50-minute dive we had seen half a dozen sharks, plus pelagic fish and two pygmy devil rays.

Each morning we did the sunrise dive it was different. Some days the sharks would come in very close, to check out the bubble-blowing alien visitors; at other times they were shy and stayed on the edge of the visibility.

We even had one swim around the mooring-line with us, and saw another do a spectacular breech!

This is one incredible dive experience that appears to have grown better and better over the years with the good management of the dive operators on Malapascua. More sharks are now seen than ever before, due to nightly patrols to stop fishermen targeting them.

If we had come to Malapascua just for the thresher sharks we could have left very satisfied after the first day, but the sunrise dive is just the start of a very long day on this island. Each day TSD does a morning and afternoon dive on the local sites around the island or a two-tank day trip to nearby sites – all were wonderful.

The local dive sites vary in depth from 6 to 30m and feature pretty hard and soft corals, abundant reef fish, not a lot of large fish but some incredible critters for those who like the small stuff.

The local dive guides proved invaluable for finding this ☛

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small stuff, and treated us to Coleman shrimps, zebra crabs, nudibranchs, pipefish, porcelain crabs, orang-utan crabs, mushroom coral pipefish, cuttlefish and many other species.

The day trips were just as good. At Calanggaman Island we explored a sheer wall festooned with gorgonians, sea whips, sponges and black-coral trees. Pelagic fish were more common here, including barracuda and trevally, but the highlight was again the critters, including ghost pipefish, blue-ringed octopus and pygmy sea horses.

GATO ISLAND PROVED to be a favourite. This small island is surrounded by pretty corals and even has a 30m-long cave that cuts right through it.

We missed the whitetip reef sharks, but did see some wonderful nudibranchs, sea snakes, pipefish, cuttlefish and quite a few seahorses.

If you still have any energy left, TSD also does a daily sunset dive to Lighthouse Reef to watch the mating dance of the tiny mandarinfish. These fish were a joy to watch, but not the highlight, as this site is home to dozens of delicate seahorses.

During our stay we experienced the odd shower and storm, but calm conditions and blue skies quickly

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returned. So we were quite surprised to learn from Dino, TSD's operations manager, that Super Typhoon Haiyan (known as Yolanda in the Philippines) was heading our way.

We got daily updates, expecting to hear news that it had swung north or dropped in strength, but it didn’t.

The projected path would bring it right over Malapascua.

Dino also informed us that the island had been hit at the same time in 2012, for the first time in years, resulting in several boats being sunk or washed up onto the beach, but added that the centre was back in business in days.

However, he was far more concerned about this typhoon, because it was a lot bigger and more powerful.

We had a reminder of the power of typhoons when we dived the Dona Marilyn shipwreck, a 90m ferry that sank in 1988 after getting caught in a

Top: Thresher shark on morning patrol at Monad Shoal, near Malapascua.

Above: Seahorses are a feature at Gato Island and at Lighthouse Reef, Malapascua.

typhoon, with the loss of 389 people.

Though born of a terrible tragedy, this wreck is now a very colourful artificial reef. The ship rests on its side in 33m, covered in corals and fish, and makes for a fascinating dive.

Our week at Malapascua Island over, we left the morning before the typhoon was due. Preparations were underway; boats were beached or moved into the creek, trees were trimmed and everything was being tied down.

All tourists were advised to leave, although some decided to stick it out.

We said our goodbyes and wished everyone the best, not knowing what was going to happen on the island.

We headed across choppy seas to the mainland and back to Cebu City for two nights.

We had hoped to tour the historic sites around the city, but by the time we arrived the rain and wind had already started building.

On 8 November, we switched on the television in the morning to discover that the typhoon had made landfall at Samar and Leyte, and was due to hit northern Cebu next. It was the most powerful storm to make landfall ever recorded, with winds of up to 195mph, and had a front more than 650 miles wide, covering almost the entire nation.

We were bunkered down in our

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hotel, and even with large cracks in the wall from a recent earthquake we felt pretty secure.

By mid-morning Cebu City was getting hit by strong winds and driving rain. The power was soon cut off. The hotel had a generator, but no television signal and very poor Internet reception.

WE JUST WATCHED THE STORM from our hotel window, observing the fierce winds shred trees and demolish the pergola roof on a nearby building. It went on for hours.

By late afternoon the typhoon had passed Cebu City and everyone was out cleaning up. We later learnt that the eye

Top: Lovely nudibranchs are found on the reefs of Moalboal.

Above: A pair of Coleman shrimps on a fire urchin at, North Wall, Malapascua.

Below right: A giant frogfish hides behind a sponge on the house reef at Moalboal.

Malapascua Island

25 MILES

Tacloban

●

LEYTE NEGROS

CEBU Cebu City ●

●

Moalboal

●

Oslob

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BOHOL

PHILIPPINES

passed around 50 miles north of us – almost right over Malapascua.

With 10 days left in the Philippines, we didn’t know if we should head home or continue the holiday.

From the snippets of news we gleaned from the Internet it didn’t sound too bad at first, but it was hard to confirm which areas were affected.

We were booked to dive Moalboal, 50 miles south, for the next six days, but thought it may have been damaged.

However, an email from Cebu Fun Divers informed us that it had barely been affected by the typhoon, and would pick us up the next morning.

We woke to blue skies and no wind.

Apart from streets littered with branches and leaves, and the odd bit of structural damage, you wouldn’t have known that a super-typhoon had just passed.

At Moalboal we checked into Love’s Beach & Dive Resort, where Cebu Fun Divers is based, to find calm blue seas lapping the front of the resort.

The afternoon dive had been cancelled the previous day, but it was back in business already.

We had a lovely time diving at Moalboal, which offers incredible wall dives along the Copton Peninsula and nearby Pescador Island. Brilliant corals decorated these walls, which are cruised by pelagic fish and often swarming with immense schools of sardines.

Turtles are a feature here, and we saw them on every dive, but like many spots in the Philippines it was the critters that were the real highlight.

We saw ghost pipefish, sea-snakes, seahorses, frogfish, leaf scorpionfish, stargazers, snake-eels, razorfish, pipefish, sea moths, moray eels and a great variety of nudibranchs, shrimps and crabs.

The clarity on the first two days was a bit stirred up from the rough seas, but soon cleared to 20m visibility.

A little broken coral was evident, but it was mainly the hard corals in the shallows, which quickly regrow.

As the days passed we were stunned by the news that up to 10,000 people might have been killed by the typhoon, and that Tacloban had been virtually flattened. We also started to get news from TSD about the damage to Malapascua Island.

We were greatly relieved to hear that no one had been killed or seriously injured, but the photos posted on its Facebook page showed a scene of devastation – buildings demolished, roofs missing, trees uprooted and rubbish everywhere.

TSD, like all the resorts and dive operators on Malapascua, employs a large number of local staff, including their incredible dive guides, and

many of these had lost their homes.

With the Philippines Government slow to act and overwhelmed by the disaster, TSD and the other dive operators swung into action, bringing food, medicine and supplies to the island.

Media reports back home had everyone thinking that the entire Philippines had been wiped out – we had to keep posting updates on Facebook just to reassure people that we were fine, that it was sunny and that the great majority of the country had been unaffected by the super-typhoon.

Some of our friends wondered why we didn’t come home, but as our dive guides at Moalboal told us: “Why would you go home? We need your money spent here more than ever.”

A few days later we experienced another typhoon warning, and this gave us more of an idea of what a normal typhoon is like in this part of the Philippines.

We had planned to dive with the whale sharks at Oslob, about a two-hour drive from Moalboal, on the day this typhoon was due to hit. We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to go, but were told not to worry.

THE SCENIC DRIVE AROUND THE southern coastline of Cebu was very pleasant, if a little wet and windy, but the seas were still flat.

All the inter-island ferries had been cancelled as a precaution, and after diving the Dona Marilyn we could understand why, even though there was barely a ripple on the sea.

We arrived at Oslob to find sunny skies, no sign of a typhoon, and signed up for our whale shark dive.

We had seen whale sharks in other parts of the Philippines, but knew that the experience at Oslob was going to be different because they are fed there – ☛

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which has caused some controversy.

Local fishermen began hand-feeding these giant sharks two years ago, much to the concern of scientists, and the site is now a major tourist attraction.

We were briefed before entering the water on the rules and regulations – no touching, no flash photography and keep 4m away from the sharks.

You can snorkel or scuba with them, and we decided on scuba, thinking that it would be easier for photography, although the experience would have been just as good on snorkel.

Having eight whale sharks cruising around you in 8m of water was the most amazing experience.

Most had their head up and tail down, gobbling down mouthfuls of tiny shrimp fed to them by local fishermen, who now work as whale-shark wranglers, from their canoes.

It was good to see that no one was touching the whale sharks, even though it was hard to keep your distance at times with sharks all around you.

IN THE WATER WITH US WERE researchers from the group Physalus, studying the sharks and the impact the feeding and tourists are having.

They would like the feeding to stop and a more natural eco-friendly encounter to take place, as in other areas of the Philippines.

They also have concerns that the sharks will associate boats with food, leading to boat strikes or fishermen killing them, and also that the feeding

Above: Tenders in the calm waters at Malapascua, shortly before the typhoon.

Right: The mast of the Dona Marilyn, a ferry sunk in a typhoon near Malapascua.

Below: Green turtles are found at all the dive-sites at Moalboal.

is disrupting their normal migration and feeding habits.

It will be interesting to see whether the government allows the practice to continue or if it spreads to other areas, but at the moment it is one of the most surreal and unforgettable diving experiences on the planet.

The whale sharks of Oslob topped off an incredible two weeks around Cebu.

By the time we left the Philippines we had heard the good news that Thresher Shark Divers and Tepanee Resort had

reopened, plus reports that the local reefs had suffered little damage and the thresher sharks were still coming each morning for their daily clean.

If you have booked a holiday to the Philippines, GO. If you are planning a holiday to the Philippines, GO. It needs tourist and divers to inject money into the economy now.

You will not regret the decision, as you will help to rebuild this island-nation and enjoy some incredible diving at the same time.

FACTFILE GETTING THERE8 Most international flights arrive in Manila, but some operate directly into Cebu City. Internal flights from Manila to Cebu City are available with Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific. Road transfers to both Malapascua and Moalboal can be organised by the dive operator or resort with which you book.

DIVING 8 Thresher Shark Divers, Malapascua, www.malapascua-diving.com.

Cebu Fun Divers, Moalboal, www.cebufundivers.com ACCOMMODATION8 A wide range of accommodation is available on both islands.

Tepanee Resort, Malapascua, www.tepanee.com. Love’s Beach & Dive Resort, Moalboal, www.lovesbeachresort.com WHEN TO GO8 Year-round.

Water temperatures range from 26-29°C, and the climate is driest and warmest from November to May. MONEY8 Philippines peso.

HEALTH8 Cebu is malaria-free. Deco chamber in Cebu City.

PRICES8 Dive Worldwide offers two-centre Cebu packages from £1945pp. This price includes flights with Cathay Pacific (40kg allowance), five nights’ B&B in Malapascua at Tepanee Resort, 12 dives with Thresher Shark Divers, five nights’ B&B at Turtle Bay Dive Resort, Moalboal with six dives and a half-day snorkel tour to Oslob, and airport transfers, all based on two sharing, www.diveworldwide.com FURTHER INFORMATION8 www.wowphilippines.co.uk

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070_DIVER_0214_DIVER_2014 07/01/2014 10:30 Page 070

★

TYPHOON HAIYAN UPDATE Thank you to everyone who contributed so generously to TSD's relief efforts for the locals, it has helped enormously.

TSD is 100% fully functional, shark sightings remain incredible and the best thing anyone can do to further aid recovery is to come and dive!!!

LIDS 2014 – COME SEE US ON THE PHILIPPINES STAND

Monty FEB_Layout 1 03/01/2014 15:29 Page 71

BEHIND THE SCENES the start of the process it was really all we had.

But with certain things, that’s really all you need. Well, that and a tremendous group of friends, colleagues, contacts, a firecracker of a missus, and a wondrous Operations Manager (thanks Suze, you are, genuinely, a legend).

We also had the dive community, in all its multi-faceted, multi-disciplined, kaleidoscopic glory. It would prove a potent combination.

‘GRADUALLY THE BEAST THAT WAS GO WILD GREW IN STATURE’

I

JANE MORGAN

F YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME.” This saying is probably Kevin Costner’s greatest contribution to the spheres of diving / expeditions / general derring-do.

But surely, I hear you say, what about Waterworld? Then, after a moment’s pause to reflect, you will abruptly realise that Waterworld was a terrible, terrible pile of poo of a film, and that’ll be the end of that…

Anyway, the “If you build it, they will come” analogy has stood me in good stead again and again. It works when you are facing an impossibly tight time-scale with an impossibly ambitious project and a myriad of reasons why it won’t happen.

It’s a kind of “Oh, go on, let’s give it a bash anyway” sort of approach.

The real moment of truth with so many projects is not the time when suddenly the first sponsorship comes in, or when you have the first

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team meeting, or even the first dive.

It’s actually the moment when you take the first step of organising the thing, the moment when you commit yourself to making it happen.

It’s been the same with every expedition I’ve ever conceived – that moment when you commit your first funds and announce to the world that it’s going to happen.

But even with that somewhat Corinthian approach, this was daunting. A massive event, at a huge venue, four weeks from the date of having the idea in the first place.

It was prompted by the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and inspired by memories of the gentle, kind, hospitable local people who had so little but gave so much when we filmed an episode of Great Ocean Adventures out there so many years before.

“Go Wild for the Philippines” was the name of the event, which was a cracker of a title, but at

GRADUALLY THE BEAST that was Go Wild grew in stature. Steve Backshall was one of the first on board, swiftly followed by Doug Allan.

Ben Fogle got in touch, demanding to help out (“We’re going to need a bigger boat” was Suze’s one-line email to me when she heard the news).

Right on cue, Bristol University donated a huge theatre. Fourth Element and Suunto (those great stalwarts of any charitable diving event) donated T-shirts and small, heavy boxes filled with wondrous bits of electronics to offer as raffle prizes.

Then Miranda Krestovnikoff and Ellie Harrison joined us, then Dr Alice Roberts, then suddenly we were only two weeks away.

By now we had the wildlife equivalent of Live Aid on our hands, so we gingerly launched ticket sales on the website. They sold out in 36 hours.

“Well, do another show that evening, old boy” bellowed Mr Backshall down the phone, as if it was the most obvious thing in the whole world (which it probably was).

So we did. And, miraculously, amazingly, I suddenly found myself standing nervously behind a curtain in said theatre, with the house lights dimmed, and a mighty, booming, celestial voice saying: “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please welcome your host for the evening, Monty Halls!”

BY THIS STAGE, even your esteemed Editor had chucked boxes of books reviewed by divEr into the boot of his car and was noisily in the process of flogging them in the lobby.

Go Wild was a live, fire-breathing, irresistible monster, surfing a wave of goodwill and carrying us all along with it.

Seven hours later, we all had crazy eyes and stunned expressions, but we also had nearly £16,000 donated towards the disaster relief effort.

There are two ways to close the column this month. The first is to say that the alchemy of a reasonable idea, a tremendous bunch of mates, a bit of social media, and plenty of belief means that you really can do anything you choose.

Invent a new species of squirrel? Invade Wales? No problem, it’s merely a tweet and a convincing sales pitch away.

The second thing is – of course – a series of massive thank yous. Thanks to everyone involved, thanks to the volunteers, the speakers, to Steve Weinman for personally driving a 250mile round trip to bang out books like some balding Del Trotter and raise £200 for us, and most of all, thanks to you for spreading the word and getting behind it all.

See you in December 2014 for the next one!

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Oonasdivers (Advertorial DPS) – 02_14 v2_Oonasdivers DPS 08/01/2014 15:02 Page 2

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

Twin centre heaven … in Lembeh and Manado

from the wife I was on the phone to T WAS THAT time of the year again, Oonasdivers to see what they suggested, the sit down with the wife to choose and to get an idea of the prices. My timing the following year’s diving couldn’t have been better, as a couple of destination. days before the Birmingham Dive Show Over the years we have tried to meant I could bag a great offer, book 6 alternate a long haul with a mid haul nights and stay 7 at either resort. It doesn’t Egypt, just to try and experience as much sound much, but when that additional habitats diversity as we can, within our time and night also includes your food and diving, is essential. Our guides were always keen budget constraints. On this particular that saved around £295 each over the 2 to try and find new, smaller and ever more occasion it was the turn of the long haul. weeks. obscure species for us, and often it took a I’m a keen amateur photographer, and We started our first 7 nights of our 14 few moments to realise just what we were although the wife isn’t, she is happy to night trip at Eco Divers Lembeh, a lovely being shown. Hairy shrimps bimble along with me at my were extremely popular, these pace, and actually makes an “We loved our time in Lembeh! It was amazing, were incredibly small, even excellent spotter. more so than a pygmy seahorse!

On a recent photographic and completely different to anything we had (If you need a fix of pygmy workshop with Mark Webster, done before, very rewarding” seahorse there are three types we started chatting about commonly seen here). Mimic destinations where we could and wonderpus octopuses are other must small boutique resort, with just 12 rooms, both enjoy a different experience. The last see critters if you are visiting Lembeh for but 4 lounges and 4 camera rooms. This couple of long hauls had been the first time. was a really nice and intimate location Mozambique for the manta and whale We loved our time in Lembeh! It was that gave you both private and social time.

Sharks, then South Africa for some serious amazing, and completely different to My first impression of Lembeh was that shark action. Mark suggested a some dive sites appeared dark and lifeless, anything we had done before, very combination of Manado and Lembeh, rewarding. When you have been diving for but it wasn’t long before I quickly some stunning wall and reef diving, some time it’s always exciting to see discovered that there were numerous coupled with the weird and wonderful something new, but then it was time to critters to be found with the help of a world of muck and macro … move on to something a little more good guide. A guide, with a sharp eye and Well the thought of muck and macro familiar … or was it ? an understanding of the critters and their did it for me, and after gaining permission

I

Oonasdivers (Advertorial DPS) – 02_14 v2_Oonasdivers DPS 08/01/2014 15:02 Page 3

Manado is around a 2hr drive from Lembeh. Here we stayed at Eco Divers Manado Minahasa Lagoon, slightly larger than Lembeh with a total of 23 rooms, but the same personal service, wonderful food, beachfront location, and of course excellent diving.

With the many extinct, sleeping and active volcanoes in the region, Bunaken Marine Park has some spectacular underwater scenery, heavenly!

The wall dives are as you would expect from a healthy coral reef. The shallow wall tops are dominated by hard corals which are in superb condition, whilst the walls themselves are decorated with large sponges, stunning sea fans, numerous sea whips and vividly coloured soft corals. The poor wife didn’t know where to point at first, choices choices! Gobies on sea whips to herds of grazing bumphead parrot fish in the shallows …

If your taste is for bigger blue water cruisers then there is a chance to see all the usual suspects - schools of barracuda, trevally jacks, turtles, several species of shark, and apparently the occasional whale can all appear from the blue or

Our 14 nights came to an end far too soon, it was time to go home, so, what did we think?

Manado has many attractions for both the photographer, and those who simply enjoy spectacular reef diving. Muck lovers will find all they need in the Lembeh Strait, with some reef sites close

from the depths off the walls. We weren’t that lucky this time around, but as we doubt it will be our last visit here who knows for the future.

Closer to the coast off Manado there are numerous shallow water reefs. These reefs are excellent for night diving, and a whole new cast of characters emerge to dance around in your torch light, twin spot and dwarf lion fish, juvenile cuttlefish and squid, crabs and squat lobsters in soft and hard corals, stargazers, the list is endless!

at hand if you need them. If that is not enough then there are jungle trips, volcanoes, waterfalls, white water rafting, or simply island hopping to enjoy.

Mark was spot on recommending us this twin centre heaven, and Oonasdivers came up trumps with their choice of resort, and price.

Thanks guys, this is one we will never forget!

To book this tour or to discuss your next diving holiday, contact Oonasdivers on (01323) 648924 Email: info@oonasdivers.com www.oonasdivers.com

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BE THE CHAMP!

We see them, we marvel at them, but when we try to take splitlevel photographs the results can be disappointing. It isn’t that difficult, says ALEX MUSTARD, but you need the right equipment and to know how to use it

’Split-level photos must be worth 2000 words’

I

F I ASKED WHETHER you’d ever taken an underwater photo that was impossible to see at the time, you’d think I was crazy. But if you have ever tried split-level photography, then you can answer that question: yes!

It isn’t something we think about often, but the only way you can see a split-level image is through an underwater camera.

Half-and-half images are among the most compelling underwater photographs because, in addition to showing the impossible, they also transport viewers under water.

They wow land-loving audiences because they show them the world with which they are familiar and introduce them to ours all in one image.

They say that a photo is worth 1000 words. Split-level photos must be worth 2000.

Taking a split-level is not difficult – the challenge is producing a good one.

We need the right equipment, the right conditions, the right technique and, the most often overlooked, the right subject matter.

The equipment is relatively simple.

We need our widest lens and our biggest dome-port. The wider the lens, the more above and below we can show compared with the meniscus line at the surface.

If you don’t own a really wide lens, shoot in a vertical format to give yourself the widest-possible view.

A large dome-port helps on two fronts. First, it makes it much easier to control the surface of the water.

In a swimming pool, lake or on an extremely calm day, we can shoot splits with small domes (4-5in), but in more normal conditions larger domes (6-9in) make everything much easier.

Second, the larger the dome port, the easier it is to get both the above and below halves in focus.

Understanding why means grappling with dome-port optical theory, so simply remember that size matters!

CONDITIONS ARE CRITICAL to success. A successful split requires reasonably calm water, to allow us to manage the surface on the dome.

The classic prime time to shoot split

Right: We need lots of depth of field to keep both halves in focus, so we must stop down our lens more than usual.

Taken in the Cayman Islands with Nikon D4 and Nikon 16mm fisheye. Subal ND4 housing and Zen 230 dome.

No strobes. ISO 320, 1/160th @ f/20.

Below: We can use flash in certain situations, especially when shooting towards the sun.

Taken in Canada with Nikon D700, Sigma 15mm fisheye.

Subal ND700 housing, Zen 230 dome. ISO 640, 1/320th @ f/16.

levels is when the sun is out and high in the sky. High sun ensures the maximum light penetration into the water, and the most even exposure above and below the surface.

Sunshine also means that we can shoot without strobes, which makes the process much simpler and the housing easier to manoeuvre at the surface.

A low sun can be used for more dramatic lighting, incorporating silhouetted scenes above the water and/or beautiful sunsets, and calls for the use of flash to light up the underwater section.

In very shallow water, such as in rivers, we may want to position our strobes out of the water, but aimed down. In more typical conditions, we can just position them under water.

Some photographers swear on using 45° viewfinders for splits, but for me it really depends on the situation.

If we are standing in the pool or lying half out of the water in a shallow river, then an angled viewfinder is ideal.

If we are swimming in deep water, a straight viewfinder is preferable.

Of course, few of us own both types of viewfinder (I don’t) and even fewer would go to the effort of changing over for a specific shot.

However, I always remove the rubber viewfinder eye-cup on my 45° viewfinder when shooting splits, to stop this retaining water that will obstruct the viewfinder when I lift the camera out of the water to shoot. ☛

STARTER TIP Wide-angle accessory wet lenses that fit on the front of compact camera systems are not suited to split-level shooting. Their problem is that they get a split at both ends.

We need to keep the space between the lens and camera either wet or dry. Some photographers seal up the join with electrical tape to keep the water in or out.

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PHOTO TECHNIQUE

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PHOTO TECHNIQUE

MID-WATER TIP Droplets on our dome can ruin a shot. Everyone has their favourite cure: licking the dome, dipping it just before shooting and so on.

The best solution is never to get the dome wet in the first place.

Impossible if we try to shoot splits at the end of a dive, but easy if we get in the water specifically to make this type of image.

JUST LIKE ANY OTHER type of photo the essentials of focus, exposure and composition remain. In general we should always focus on the underwater part of a split level, and rely on depth of field to keep the above-water section sharp. I’ll come onto why in a moment.

We can either use an off-centre focus point (in the lower half of the frame) to achieve this, or focus on the underwater subject and then lock the focus.

Locking the focus is preferable in rough conditions, when the movement of water up and down the dome will certainly confuse any autofocus.

To understand the reason why we must focus on the underwater section of the image, we need to consider how a dome-port works in water.

In air a dome has no optical effect on

76

Above: Successful splitlevel images require the right equipment, correct technique and, most importantly, interesting subject matter that extends on both sides of the surface.

Taken in Raja Ampat with Nikon D4 and Nikon 16mm fisheye. Subal ND4 housing and Zen 230 dome. No strobes. ISO 400, 1/100th @ f/22.

your lens, but under water it acts as a negative lens. This means that under water the camera has to focus much closer than the true distance of the subject.

If we take a split of a buddy standing waist-deep in a swimming-pool through a dome-port, his legs will require a much closer focus than his chest. To get both in focus, we need lots of depth of field.

With any lens, depth of field extends twice as far behind the subject as in front. So for an under-over image we must focus on the closer (in terms of focus) underwater subject, and use depth of field to keep the more distant above-water section sharp.

If we focus above the water, the underwater scene will usually be blurred.

And even when we correctly focus on the below-water section, we must still stop down the aperture to secure as

EXPERT TIP Split levels look best with as many layers at possible. We can actually increase the interest in the image by including the attractive reflection and refraction patterns on the surface (or underside of the surface).

If the underwater subject is a bit deep to fill the frame, lift the camera slightly and fill the empty space with more surface.

much depth of field as possible.

Exposure is usually a compromise.

Even in ideal conditions the above-water part will be brighter than the underwater part, so we need to find an exposure that works for both.

I tend to aim to slightly over-expose the above-water half, knowing that I can pull it back in post-processing and can also brighten up the underwater part.

THE FINAL INGREDIENT for success is a winning composition, and for a splitlevel image this means that there must be a visual reason for the split – subject matter or a narrative that requires an image of two halves.

Great split-level images have goodquality subject matter above and below the surface.

Just as an example, in the Red Sea, where you won’t find palm trees or fluffy clouds, most splits taken in the middle of the day are empty in the top half.

In this destination we’re best shooting splits at sunset, when the sky is transformed from monotonous blue to attractive hues.

Split levels are among the most eyecatching underwater images, but creating winning shots relies on us catching perfect conditions, identifying compelling subject matter and executing our technique precisely. www.divErNEt.com

077_DIVER_0214_DIVER_2014 07/01/2014 10:35 Page 077

Best of Above & Below Water Travel Equator to the Poles

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Fourth Element (Choose Life) – 02_14_Fourth Element 19/12/2013 15:53 Page 1

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UK DIVER

IS OUR IN

O

URS SEAS ARE GETTING WARMER. OK, don’t get the shortie wetsuit out just yet but, largely as a result of human activities, scientists expect sea temperatures around the UK to increase between 1.5 and 4°C over the next century.

This might mean only the difference between donning your thick gloves or your thin ones, but is it likely to have a significant impact on our marine wildlife?

How species are affected depends on their life-style. Sedentary coldwater species such as corals and anemones may not be able to adapt quickly enough and may die out in southern areas if water temperatures exceed their comfort range.

Mobile species such as crabs and fish (or those with a mobile larval stage, such as sea squirts and sponges) are likely to take the opportunity to relocate further north.

UK and Irish waters are an ideal living laboratory to study these changes, as our marine life contains examples of both northern “Arctic-boreal” species

MARINE LIFE

HOT WATER? Climate change means there will be winners and losers among British Isles marine life, and divers are well-placed to monitor the changes, as CLAIRE GOODWIN explains

at the southernmost extent of their range on our north and east coasts (think of those sea loch specialities such as the straggly white seafan Swiftia pallida and the chunky deeplet sea anemone Bolocera tuediae) and southern “Lusitanean” species on our south-west coasts (for example the sunset cup-coral Leptopsammia pruvoti and pink seafan Eunicella verrucosa).

While simple shifts in distribution may not sounds too serious, these can have a knock-on effect on other species in the food chain.

For example, studies of plankton have shown how one copepod (planktonic crustacean) species in the Atlantic has been replaced by a warmerwater one that peaks in numbers later in the summer. ☛

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Cod juveniles preyed on the colder-water species but the other one does not grow in time for when they need food.

The result? Hungry, less-successful cod, which in turn impacts on species that feed on them higher up the food chain (including fish–and-chip-munching humans!).

The whole appearance of our seabed could potentially change, because the humble kelp is extremely sensitive to small increases in water temperature.

There are no studies indicating that kelp is currently being affected in the UK, but scientists in Tasmania have observed dramatic declines in their kelp forests, and in some areas only 5% of the original amount remains.

While the thought of swimming around our shores unhindered by a jungle of clinging kelp fronds is initially appealing, anyone who has paused during their battle (try it on your next dive) will see the diversity of life that kelp forests support, from sponges creeping around the holdfast to curious wrasse frolicking in the canopy.

Any loss in important structural species such as kelp would have a dramatic effect on our marine environment.

CHANGES CAUSED BY INCREASES in our sea temperature have already been observed in marine organisms including plankton, algae and intertidal species.

Fish have responded particularly quickly, with the southern species red mullet, anchovy and pilchard newly reported in the North Sea, and the Marine Biological Association’s Marine Biodiversity & Climate Change (MarClim) programme has found that shore species are creeping northwards and eastwards along British coasts.

There are fewer studies on the marine life we encounter as divers, because large data-sets are harder and more expensive to collect.

However, in my day job as marine biologist at National Museums Northern Ireland we’ve just completed a study, with Northern Ireland Environment Agency, comparing data collected on our recent dive surveys with the baseline

survey for Northern Ireland, which was conducted in the 1980s.

Over just 20 years (in fact the working lifetime of Curator of Marine Invertebrates Bernard Picton, who participated in both the 1982-86 and 2006-2009 diving surveys) we found significant changes.

Species at the edge of their bio-geographic ranges in their study area were the groups primarily affected. There were increases in the frequency and areas in which 19 extreme southern species were recorded and three species, the sponge Hexadella racovitzai, the nudibranch Caloria elegans and the crab Maja brachydactyla, appear to have recently colonised Northern Ireland.

Changes in northern species were less pronounced but there were declines in, for example, the brittlestar Ophilopholis aculeate, which Bernard remembers being very abundant on some sites. It was not recorded in recent surveys of any the three study areas, even at sites where it was formerly common.

These changes are similar to those predicted

by Keith Hiscock of the Marine Biological Association. “Divers should not expect to see major changes in native seabed marine life as a result of warming for many years,” he says.

“Species in British waters tolerate wide temperature variations, are often long-lived, and are slow to extend their range, as many have very short-lived larvae that do not go far from their parents. Nevertheless, there are species to look out for as ‘no longer seen’ or ‘new kids on the block’.”

This provides a great excuse to go critterspotting. In recent years several exotic southern beauties have appeared around our coasts, and other northern rarities have retreated.

While some species are expected to gradually change distribution, others that repopulate less well may jump rapidly into new locations.

As divers, we all know our local patch and are best placed to spot, snap and report any unusual sightings. Several schemes welcome records of climate-change winners and losers from divers.

These go into national databases and help scientists studying climate-change effects around our coasts.

These pages contain our handy guide to some of these species – happy spotting!

CLIMATE1 BLACK-FACED BLENNY (Tripterygion delaisi) The male has a jet-black head and bright yellow body. It was first recorded in the UK in 1977 at Portland Harbour, Dorset.

Seasearch has been recording its spread along the south coast of England. Now present along the south coast of England from the Lizard to Brighton and recorded in 2010 in the Llyn peninsula, North Wales.

2 RED OR PORTUGUESE BLENNY (Parablennius rubber) Early records of this species from the UK and Ireland were mistaken for the tompot blenny Parablennius gattorugine (even by fish experts). It can be distinguished by its red colouration and the two white stripes extending from its eye to its mouth. The first confirmed record is from the west coast of Ireland in 1982 but it has now been recorded along the entire west coast of the British Isles from the Scilly Isles to St Kilda.

Likely to spread up the English Channel and Irish Sea.

3 ANEMONE PRAWN (Periclimenes sagittifer) This tiny prawn lives in the tentacles of snakelocks anemones and requires some careful spotting. It has distinctive blue stripes on its legs. First recorded in the UK at Swanage Pier in Dorset in 2007, it has so far been recorded mainly in that vicinity.

The westernmost record is from Devon’s Babbacombe Bay and this year it was recorded in Selsey in Sussex, the most easterly record yet, so it may be spreading.

4 GOLDEN KELP (Laminaria ochroleuca) This kelp can be distinguished from our normal forest kelp Laminaria hyperborea as it has a distinctive yellow area at the junction of the stipe (or stem) and blade.

Unlike forest kelp its stipe is not covered in overgrowing plants and animals. Currently mainly found in south-west England including Lundy, the Isles of Scilly, and south Devon and Cornwall, though there is one record from the Shetland Isles.

5 SPINY SPIDER CRAB (Maja brachydactyla) This large spider crab’s body can measure up to 20cm across. As the name suggests, it has distinctive spines. Researchers have recently changed the taxonomy of our UK species and in most ID guides it will still be listed as Maja squinado. Found on west and south-west coasts including Scotland, this is one of the species we found had recently moved into Northern Ireland.

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UK DIVER Species likely to spread further north and/or be spotted more frequently

CHANGE WINNERS

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6 YELLOW STAGHORN SPONGE (Axinella dissimilis) This yellow branching sponge has a velvety texture.

It is common in the south-west and Wales and there are scattered records from Northern Ireland and the west coast of Scotland.

caught in a day. There seem to be at least three breeding areas around Devon and Cornwall. Our local ones have striking white tips to the tail.

American and Caribbean fish of the same species, known as red porgies, lack these.

10 GREY TRIGGERFISH 7 AMBERJACK (Seriola spp) Before 1990 only two of these warmwater jack had been recorded in Britain. Now around 50 Almaco jack (Seriola rivoliana) or greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili) have been seen. They can grow to more than 1.6m, but none seen in our waters has been bigger than 60cm. Amazingly, between July and September 2007 divers photographed these rare fish off Lundy, in Pembrokeshire, and County Kerry, Ireland.

8 GILTHEAD BREAM (Sparus aurata) This large sea bream was first seen in Cornwall in 1846, but was very rare until the 1970s. However, it is increasingly common in the south-west, south Wales and Ireland and turning up in commercial catches, with large numbers of young occurring in suitable estuaries. Those increasingly found in British fishmongers and supermarkets are farmed in Greece or Turkey.

9 COUCH’S SEA BREAM (Pagrus pagrus) Like a rosy version of a gilthead, these bream are greatly prized by anglers. Before 1997 only four had been caught, yet now twice this number can be

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(Balistes capriscus) With its oval flattened body and beak-like mouth, the form of this brown-green-to-grey fish, reaching up to 60cm long, will be familiar to anyone who has dived in warmer waters, where the family is common. Breeding in warmer Atlantic waters and the Mediterranean, this once-rare visitor is now spotted increasingly frequently on our coasts, mainly between August and November, and can be seen in large numbers at hotspots such as

RECORDING SCHEMES Seasearch is a project in which volunteer divers can get involved in recording marine species and habitats, www.seasearch.org.uk Marine Biological Association has a recording scheme and can help with identification if you have pictures, www.mba.ac.uk/ recording

10 Pembrokeshire. As spawning occurs in waters above 21°C, however, it is likely to remain a visitor until our seas get considerably warmer – perhaps just as well, given their aggression to potential predators (including divers) while nest-guarding.

…AND LOSERS ☛

Porcupine Marine Natural History Society runs a sightings scheme, pmnhs.co.uk/foundsomething-unusual

ID ASSISTANCE

UK Marine Fish Recording Scheme – email records to douglas.herdson@ btinternet.com

Facebook group Seasearch Identifications can help with ID from photos

BSAC’s new app Sealife Tracker involves divers in recording climate-change indicators and invasive species, www.bsac.com

Seasearch publishes a variety of ID guides for UK and Irish divers, www.mcsuk.org/acatalog

Encyclopaedia of Marine Life of Britain & Ireland, www.habitas.org.uk/ marinelife

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UK DIVER

CLIMATE-CHANGE LOSERS 1 NORTHERN SEAFAN (Swiftia pallida) This white or greyish seafan forms straggly colonies with little branching. It can reach up to 20cm tall.

Found on the west coast of Scotland and in the Kenmare River, Ireland. Can usually be distinguished from the pink seafan by colour (though beware white pink seafans on Ireland’s west coast!).

2 DEEPLET SEA ANEMONE (Bolocera tuediae) This pale pink to orange sea anemone can reach a massive size – up to 30cm across its tentacles. It has been recorded on all coasts of Britain but is rare in the south and found north to the Arctic Circle. Most commonly spotted by divers in Scottish sea lochs.

3 PURPLE SUNSTAR (Solaster endeca) This large purple starfish usually has 9-10 arms.

Unlike the common sunstar Crossaster papposus it has no bands of white. Found from southern Ireland to the North Sea, but far more common in Scotland.

Species disappearing from southern parts of their range

the north of the British Isles. As our waters warm it is likely to retreat back into deeper water or further north.

5 NORTHERN STONE CRAB (Lithodes maia) This brown or orange crab has a pear-shaped body up to 11cm long. Both body and legs are covered in distinctive conical spines and its rostrum (long projection) splits into two at the end. Most frequently spotted in the British Isles in mainland Scotland and the Orkneys and Shetlands, its wider range is as far north as Svalbard and Greenland.

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4 ATLANTIC WOLF-FISH (Anarhichas lupus) This ferocious-looking fanged fish is unlikely to be mistaken for anything else by any diver lucky enough to encounter it. With its long single dorsal fin it is rather like a giant blenny, reaching up to a metre in length. While it is found all around Britain and Ireland in depths of 60-300m, it ventures into shallower waters where divers are likely to encounter it only in

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Simply Scuba (FP) – 06_13_Full Page Bleed 22/04/2013 10:02 Page 1

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TO THE SEYCHELLES WITH

NO EXPECTATIONS Not that JOSS WOOLF expected anything less than decent diving when she reached her Indian Ocean destination – it was just that, in the nicest possible way, she had her reservations about the company…

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T’S NOT OFTEN THAT I CHOOSE to go away with my dive club these days.

Since my passion for underwater photography took hold, nine or so years ago, the idea of being part of a mixed-ability group led at a pace impossible for taking anything but snapshots fills me with horror.

So I now prefer to join dedicated underwater photography trips.

However, when, earlier this year, one of our club instructors decided to organise an affordable trip to the Seychelles, where I had never been, the opportunity was too good to miss.

Right: Diver with emperor angelfish.

Opposite page: Snapper and bigeyes at Shark Banks.

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To manage my own expectations, I told myself that this would not be the photographic opportunity of a lifetime but a chance to chill out with old friends – perhaps even go diving without a camera occasionally, hmm…

We have a couple of trainees in our group who have so far only braved the icy waters of Stoney Cove and Wraysbury Lake and are keen to notch up their qualifying dives in the luxury of the Indian Ocean. I hope they will realise just how lucky they are.

All I know about the Seychelles is that it was the setting for the 1979 rom-com

10 starring Bo Derek and Dudley Moore, and Castaway, that other film starring Tom Hanks and his football friend Wilson.

It is also the home of that bizarrelooking coconut species coco de mer, endemic to the Seychelles, of which both males and females exist as separate plants, the latter of which looks spectacularly like a lady’s bottom.

THE 115 ISLANDS that comprise the Seychelles exchanged hands between the English and French on numerous occasions before becoming a crown colony in 1903 and, finally, an independent state in 1976.

A couple of things quickly warm me to the place; they drive on the same side of the road and they use the same threepin plugs.

We are staying at the Hotel Berjaya on Mahe, just 15 minutes’ drive from the airport. After spending what seems like an eternity sorting out the rooms (second floor with no lift) we toddle along to meet gorgeous Scottish Glynis who runs the PADI dive centre there, conveniently situated in the grounds of the hotel, working alongside her husband David Rowat.

I have no idea until almost the last day that David was responsible for setting up the Marine Conservation Society in the Seychelles and initiated a programme to monitor whale sharks in 1996. They initially bought the dive centre with a two-year plan – and 30 years later they’re still here.

AS WITH ALL FIRST DAYS of any diving holiday, they like to try you out with shallow, unchallenging dives.

Ours is no exception. What is unusual is that our dive-guide Simon turns out to be the Vice Consul.

Much of the underwater topography is of large granitic boulders formed eons ago by volcanic activity. There are swimthroughs and gullies, and many are plastered with red, orange and purple corals and sponges.

I’m a sucker for overhangs because, likely as not, there will be one or more whitetip or nurse sharks lurking underneath, either being cleaned or resting from a hard night’s work.

In our own Beau Vallon Bay, a ☛ www.divErNEt.com

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INDIAN OCEAN DIVER

CORAL GARDEN STRETCHES AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE 85

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coral garden stretches as far as the eye can see (of course, on a bad-vis day, this might not be very far at all!), densely populated with pale green and blue reeffish and the very prettily spotted longnose filefish, wafting around in small gangs of five or six.

After a second day of boulders and brown coral (the result of El Niño) things suddenly seem to get better, improved not least by the presence of the lovely Juliane, an escaped GP who has spent the past three years here.

In a conversation about anthias, or rather the surprising lack of them in these parts compared to the Red Sea, I mention that usually there are about 10 females to every male.

Juliane, a very attractive woman in her early 50s, tells me that the situation is pretty much the same on Mahe.

AFTER A FABULOUS MORNING DIVE at Concepcion, we prepare for our second dive back at Grouper, a boulder site we have already visited and which some have called less than spectacular.

However, while waiting for our rather crowded boatload of 13 guests to kit up

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Above: Swimming octopus.

Right: Two turtles are happy to play at the start of the dive – and depart only when they need air.

Below: Shark in a cavern.

(exactly what I had wanted to avoid) buddy Alan and I decide to go down and wait at the bottom.

Almost immediately, four large rays swim by really close and we feel privileged to have seen them alone.

Then Alan starts swimming off into the blue, and I can vaguely make out the shape of a large turtle.

I decide not to follow, as it is usually a waste of time chasing stuff into the blue, so hang back a while.

When Alan doesn’t come back to the

reef, I relent and go to join him.

My reward is an amazing encounter with not one but two large hawksbill turtles, interacting with each other and with us. Apparently it is mating season, and these two are clearly interested in each other’s nether regions.

We later learn, however, that they were both males – I suppose there’s no accounting for taste. But what an opportunity for us, and one that we would have missed had we held back and waited for the group.

The turtles are loving it, ducking and diving. One goes right up to fellow-diver Simon and wants to bite the blue lanyard of his camera around his wrist.

Several times I have to back away from a turtle determined to eat its own reflection in my dome port.

It is a good 10 minutes before the rest of the boat-load slowly trickles down to join in the spectacle. Even then, the turtles make no attempt to leave, until finally they have to go up for air.

I only hope our two novices aren’t too spoiled by the event, because this sort of encounter is far from normal.

You know it is going to be a heavy dive as soon as the boat departs, not least because of the presence of Tony, an expert shark-spotter, who will lead the dive together with Finn from Ireland and

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INDIAN OCEAN MARINEDIVER LIFE

Michael with the finely honed body of a praying mantis.

As we leave the relative tranquillity of Beau Vallon Bay the wind is up, a current running and a bail-out plan has already been conceived.

After a vote, we stick to the original plan and are soon plunging in and climbing down an eternal shotline. It is heavy going and we are like wind-socks, pulling hand over hand.

It is especially difficult for me as I have to hold onto my cumbersome camera rig with one hand.

By the time I get to the bottom I am quite out of breath, and a quarter of my air has gone. I take my metaphorical hat off to the guides who have got us here, but at least at the bottom it is calm.

After spending time with several thousand yellow snappers, we make our way stealthily between the nowcustomary granite boulders to a special

Above: Diver above glassfish in a gully.

Above right: A trio of peppered morays on the Twin Barges wreck.

Below: Hingeback shrimp at the same site.

place where half a dozen or more rays of various species and size are hanging out in the current. Magical. Sadly, we are allowed only a few minutes there before we have to start back.

Thanks to Tony’s navigational skills, the shotline reappears as if by magic, to my enormous relief, and we waft onto it to make our stops.

While I’m enjoying pretending to be a flag, a housed compact camera, clearly on an independent mission to the surface (unknown to its Russian owner down the line) floats by, and I grab it.

What shall I do? I ponder teasing her for a while and keeping it until she notices it’s gone once back on the boat but no, her enormous relief when I hand it back while still on the line is reward enough.

THE RETURN TO THE SURFACE of others on the dive is far more exciting.

Finn, having spotted what later turns out to be “the wrong shotline”, leads his charges onto it.

Our friends, who happily survive the event, later describe the feeling as similar to underwater water-skiing.

It didn’t take rocket science for them to decide to jump off and ascend naturally to the surface.

A great site for both macro and wideangle photography is the Twin Barges.

Deliberately sunk to create an artificial reef not far from shore, the passage of time has allowed a rich mixture of coral

and marine life to develop there. You will find peppered morays in threes and stonefish – another ménage a trois - on the deck at the lower end of the deeper barge, along with a delightful collection of hingeback shrimps.

After a relatively short visit, as a result of the time we have clocked up at Shark Banks, we waft up to the relative shallows of the coral reef. Eventually I come across the carapace of a dead crayfish – and then its head and legs.

To while away the remainder of the dive-time (there is little else to see or do) I carefully reassemble the still brightly coloured components and lay the poor creature to rest on a small table coral. A gentle current even makes it move slightly, adding to the reality.

Philip, whose name has been changed to save further embarrassment, and not usually the first to spot items of interest on dives, is most grateful when I point it out to him, and takes several photos from various angles. How my mask leaks with laughter!

I know I should leave it at that but can’t resist telling him on the surface.

“But it was moving”, he says in his defence. Doh – as if crayfish sit out in the open!

If I were to tell you all the secrets that lie in store for you off Mahe, there’d be no point in visiting, but for big stuff – sharks, shoals and surprises – it takes some beating.

FACTFILE GETTING THERE8 Joss Woolf’s group flew with Etihad via Abu Dhabi, making use of its 30kg baggage allowance plus 15kg extra for dive gear.

DIVING & ACCOMMODATION8Dive Seychelles Underwater Centre based at Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Resort, Mahe, www.berjayahotel.com WHEN TO GO8 March-May and September-November. Joss went in early November and the sea temperature was 29°C. CURRENCY8Seychelles rupee, but sterling, euros and US dollars accepted.

PRICES8 Return flights from £600. Dive Seychelles (www.diveseychelles.com.sc) arranged a group package for 11 nights B&B (two sharing) and 10 dives for around 950 euros per diver. A standard 10-dive package usually costs 380 euros.

TOURIST INFORMATION8 www.seychelles.travel

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SOUTH AFRICA Ξ ůĞdž ^ĂĨŽŶŽǀ͕ ^ĐƵďĂ ĚĚŝĐƚƐ

South Africa Žī ĞƌƐ Ă ŚƵŐĞ ĚŝǀĞƌƐŝƚLJ ŽĨ ůĂŶĚƐĐĂƉĞƐ ĂŶĚ ƐŽŵĞ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ďĞƐƚ ǁŝůĚůŝĨĞ ǀŝĞǁŝŶŐ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ǁŽƌůĚ͘ hŶĚĞƌǁĂƚĞƌ ŚŝŐŚůŝŐŚƚƐ ŝŶĐůƵĚĞ ƚŚĞ ƚŚƌŝůů ŽĨ Ă ŐƌĞĂƚ ǁŚŝƚĞ ƐŚĂƌŬ ĚŝǀĞ͕ ĞŶĐŽƵŶƚĞƌƐ ǁŝƚŚ ŐƌĂĐĞĨƵů ŵĂŶƚĂ ƌĂLJƐ ĂŶĚ ƚŚĞ ƌĂƌĞ ŽƉƉŽƌƚƵŶŝƚLJ ƚŽ ƐƉĞĐƚĂƚĞ ŽŶĞ ŽĨ ŶĂƚƵƌĞ͛Ɛ ŐƌĞĂƚĞƐƚ ĞǀĞŶƚƐ͕ ƚŚĞ ^ĂƌĚŝŶĞ ZƵŶ͘ FƌŽŵ ƚŚĞ ĐŽŽů ƚůĂŶƟ Đ ǁĂƚĞƌƐ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ tĞƐƚĞƌŶ ĂƉĞ͕ ĂůŽŶŐ ƚŚĞ 'ĂƌĚĞŶ ZŽƵƚĞ ĂŶĚ ƵƉ ƚŽ ƚŚĞ ƉƌŝƐƟ ŶĞ ƚƌŽƉŝĐĂů ƌĞĞĨƐ ŝŶ ŶŽƌƚŚĞƌŶ <ǁĂ ƵůƵͲEĂƚĂů͕ ƚŚĞ ^ŽƵƚŚ ĨƌŝĐĂŶ ĐŽĂƐƚůŝŶĞ ŚĂƐ ƉůĞŶƚLJ ƚŽ Žī Ğƌ ĚŝǀĞƌƐ ŽĨ Ăůů ĂďŝůŝƟ ĞƐ͘ TŚŝƐ ŝƐ ĂŶ ĂŵĂnjŝŶŐ ĚĞƐƟ ŶĂƟ ŽŶ ǁŚĞƌĞ LJŽƵ ĐĂŶ ĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞ ĨĂƐĐŝŶĂƟ ŶŐ ĐƵůƚƵƌĞƐ͕ ŶĂƚƵƌĂů ǁŽŶĚĞƌƐ͕ ƉƌŝƐƟ ŶĞ ďĞĂĐŚĞƐ͕ ĐůŽƐĞ ǁŝůĚůŝĨĞ ĞŶĐŽƵŶƚĞƌƐ ĂŶĚ ĞdžĐĞƉƟ ŽŶĂů ŚŽƐƉŝƚĂůŝƚLJ ĂƐ LJŽƵ ĞdžƉůŽƌĞ ƚŚĞ ƉƌŽǀŝŶĐĞƐ ŽŶ ĂŶ ƵŶĨŽƌŐĞƩ ĂďůĞ ũŽƵƌŶĞLJ͘

t ^d ZE W tŝƚŚ ĂŶ ĞdžĐĞůůĞŶƚ ĐŚĂŶĐĞ ŽĨ ƐĞĞŝŶŐ ŐƌĞĂƚ ǁŚŝƚĞ ƐŚĂƌŬƐ͕ LJŽƵ ĂƌĞ ŝŶ ĨŽƌ ĂŶ ĞŶĐŽƵŶƚĞƌ ŽĨ Ă ůŝĨĞƟ ŵĞ ŚĞƌĞ ĂŶĚ LJŽƵ ĚŽŶ͛ƚ ĞǀĞŶ ŶĞĞĚ ƚŽ ďĞ Ă ƋƵĂůŝĮ ĞĚ ĚŝǀĞƌ͘ 'Ğƚ ƵƉ ĐůŽƐĞ ĂŶĚ ƉĞƌƐŽŶĂů ǁŝƚŚ ƚŚĞƐĞ ĂƉĞdž ƉƌĞĚĂƚŽƌƐ Ͳ ǀŝƐŝƚ LJĞƌ /ƐůĂŶĚ ĂŶĚ ^ŚĂƌŬ ůůĞLJ ĚƵƌŝŶŐ ƚŚĞ ƐƵŵŵĞƌ ŵŽŶƚŚƐ͘ &ĂůƐĞ ĂLJ ŝƐ ŚŽŵĞ ƚŽ ĂŶ ŝŶĐƌĞĚŝďůĞ ŵĂƌŝŶĞ ĚŝǀĞƌƐŝƚLJ ĂŶĚ ƉŽƐƐŝďůLJ ƚŚĞ ŽŶůLJ ƉůĂĐĞ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ǁŽƌůĚ ǁŚĞƌĞ LJŽƵ ĐĂŶ ǁŝƚŶĞƐƐ ŐƌĞĂƚ ǁŚŝƚĞ ƐŚĂƌŬƐ ďƌĞĂĐŚŝŶŐ ĂƐ ƚŚĞLJ ŚƵŶƚ͘

ŝǀĞ ƚŚĞ ŬĞůƉ ĨŽƌĞƐƚƐ ĂŶĚ ĚŝƐĐŽǀĞƌ ƚŚĞ ƐĞǀĞŶ Őŝůů ĐŽǁ ƐŚĂƌŬ͕ ƐŶŽƌŬĞů ǁŝƚŚ ĂƉĞ ĨƵƌ ƐĞĂůƐ͕ ŚĞĂĚ ŝŶƚŽ ƚŚĞ ďůƵĞ ĨŽƌ ŵĂŬŽ ƐŚĂƌŬ ĞŶĐŽƵŶƚĞƌƐ Žƌ ĚŝǀĞ ŽŶĞ ŽĨ ŵĂŶLJ ǁƌĞĐŬƐ ĂůŽŶŐ ƚŚŝƐ ŵŝŐŚƚLJ ĐŽĂƐƚ͘

above: Sardine Run feeding frenzy right: African penguins on Boulders Beach

džƉůŽƌĞ ĐŽƐŵŽƉŽůŝƚĂŶ ĂƉĞ dŽǁŶ͕ ǀŝƐŝƚ ƚŚĞ tŝŶĞůĂŶĚƐ͕ ŽďƐĞƌǀĞ ŚƵŵƉďĂĐŬ ǁŚĂůĞƐ ŝŶ ,ĞƌŵĂŶƵƐ ĂLJ ĂŶĚ ĨƌŝĐĂŶ ƉĞŶŐƵŝŶƐ Ăƚ ŽƵůĚĞƌƐ ĞĂĐŚ ʹ ƚŚĞƌĞ͛Ɛ ƉůĞŶƚLJ ƚŽ ĚŽ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ tĞƐƚĞƌŶ ĂƉĞ ƉƌŽǀŝŶĐĞ͘

<t h>hͳE d > ^ŽƵƚŚ ŽĨ ƵƌďĂŶ ƚŚĞ ƐĞĂƐŝĚĞ ƚŽǁŶ ŽĨ hŵŬŽŵĂĂƐ Žī ĞƌƐ ĞĂƐLJ ĂĐĐĞƐƐ ƚŽ ůŝǁĂů ^ŚŽĂů ĂŶĚ WƌŽƚĞĂ ĂŶŬƐ͕ ŚŽŵĞ ƚŽ ǀĂƌŝŽƵƐ ƐƉĞĐŝĞƐ ŽĨ ƐŚĂƌŬ ǁŝƚŚ ƐŝŐŚƟ ŶŐƐ ŐƵĂƌĂŶƚĞĞĚ ƚŚƌŽƵŐŚŽƵƚ ƚŚĞ LJĞĂƌ͊ ŽŶ͛ƚ ŵŝƐƐ ƚŚĞ ƐƉĞĐƚĂĐůĞ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ^ĂƌĚŝŶĞ ZƵŶ ʹ ŽŶĞ ŽĨ ŶĂƚƵƌĞ͛Ɛ ŐƌĞĂƚ ĞǀĞŶƚƐ ǁŚĞŶ ŵŝůůŝŽŶƐ ŽĨ ƐĂƌĚŝŶĞƐ ŵŝŐƌĂƚĞ ŶŽƌƚŚ͕ ĂƩ ƌĂĐƟ ŶŐ ŵĂƌŝŶĞ ĂŶĚ ĂǀŝĂŶ ƉƌĞĚĂƚŽƌƐ ŝŶ ƚŚĞŝƌ ƚŚŽƵƐĂŶĚƐ͘ dŚĞ ǁĂƌŵ ǁĂƚĞƌ ĂŶĚ ĐŽůŽƵƌĨƵů ƌĞĞĨƐ ŽĨ ^ŽĚǁĂŶĂ ĂŶĚ ZŽĐŬƚĂŝů ĂLJƐ ĂƌĞ ĨƵůů ŽĨ ůŝĨĞ͕ ĨƌŽŵ ĐƌŝƩ ĞƌƐ ƚŽ ŵŝŐƌĂƟ ŶŐ ŚƵŵƉďĂĐŬ ǁŚĂůĞƐ ĂŶĚ ĞǀĞƌLJƚŚŝŶŐ ŝŶ ďĞƚǁĞĞŶ͕ ŝŶĐůƵĚŝŶŐ ŶĞƐƟ ŶŐ ůŽŐŐĞƌŚĞĂĚ ĂŶĚ ůĞĂƚŚĞƌďĂĐŬ ƚƵƌƚůĞƐ͕ ŵĂŶƚĂ ƌĂLJƐ ĂŶĚ ƌĂŐŐĞĚ ƚŽŽƚŚ ƐŚĂƌŬƐ͘ dŚŝƐ ĨĂƐĐŝŶĂƟ ŶŐ ƌĞŐŝŽŶ ŝƐ ŚŽŵĞ ƚŽ ƚŚĞ ƵůƵ ƚƌŝďĞ͕ ŐŽůĚĞŶ ďĞĂĐŚĞƐ͕ ƌƵŐŐĞĚ ŵŽƵŶƚĂŝŶƐ ĂŶĚ ,ŚƵůƵǁĞͲŝDĨŽůŽnjŝ 'ĂŵĞ ZĞƐĞƌǀĞ͕ ǁŽƌůĚ

ƌĞŶŽǁŶĞĚ ĨŽƌ ŝƚƐ ǁŚŝƚĞ ƌŚŝŶŽ ƉŽƉƵůĂƟ ŽŶ͘ dŚĞ ƉƌŽǀŝŶĐĞ Žī ĞƌƐ ĂŶ ŝŵŵĞŶƐĞ ĚŝǀĞƌƐŝƚLJ ĂŶĚ ƉůĞŶƚLJ ŽĨ ƵŶŝƋƵĞ ƚŽƵƌŝƐŵ ĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞƐ ʹ ĂŶ ŽƉƉŽƌƚƵŶŝƚLJ ĨŽƌ Ă ĚŝǀĞ ĂŶĚ ĚƌŝǀĞ ƐĂĨĂƌŝ͘

DWhD > E' dŚŝƐ ŝƐ ŽŶĞ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ďĞƐƚ ůŽĐĂƟ ŽŶƐ ƚŽ ƐĞĞ ĨƌŝĐĂ͛Ɛ ͚ ŝŐ ϱ͛ Ăůů ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ƐĂŵĞ ƉůĂĐĞ͘ dŚĞ <ƌƵŐĞƌ EĂƟ ŽŶĂů WĂƌŬ ŝƐ ǁŽƌůĚͲĨĂŵŽƵƐ ĨŽƌ Žī ĞƌŝŶŐ Ă ǁŝůĚůŝĨĞ ĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞ ƚŚĂƚ ƌĂŶŬƐ ĂŵŽŶŐ ƚŚĞ ďĞƐƚ ŝŶ ĨƌŝĐĂ͘ dŚŝƐ ŝĚLJůůŝĐ ƐĂǀĂŶŶĂŚ ƐĞƫ ŶŐ ǁŝƚŚ ŝƚƐ ŽƵƚĐƌŽƉƐ ŽĨ ĂĐĂĐŝĂ ƚƌĞĞƐ ŝƐ ŚŽŵĞ ƚŽ Ă ǀŝƌƚƵĂůůLJ ƵŶŵĂƚĐŚĞĚ ĚŝǀĞƌƐŝƚLJ ŽĨ ǁŝůĚůŝĨĞ͖ ƚŚĞƌĞ ĂƌĞ ŽǀĞƌ ϭϰϬ ƐƉĞĐŝĞƐ ŽĨ ŵĂŵŵĂůƐ͕ ϱϬϬ ƐƉĞĐŝĞƐ ŽĨ ďŝƌĚ ĂŶĚ ϭϭϬ ƐƉĞĐŝĞƐ ŽĨ ƌĞƉƟ ůĞ͘ tŝŶƚĞƌ ŝƐ ƚŚĞ ďĞƐƚ Ɵ ŵĞ ƚŽ ǀŝƐŝƚ ĨŽƌ ŐĂŵĞ ǀŝĞǁŝŶŐ ďƵƚ ƐƉƌŝŶŐ ďƌŝŶŐƐ ĐŽůŽƵƌ ĂŶĚ ŝƐ ƚŚĞ ďŝƌƚŚŝŶŐ ƐĞĂƐŽŶ ĨŽƌ ŵŽƐƚ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ǁŝůĚůŝĨĞ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ƌĞŐŝŽŶ͘

/s tKZ> t/ >K'͗ &ĂŵŽƵƐ ĨŽƌ ŝƚƐ ƐŚĂƌŬ ĞŶĐŽƵŶƚĞƌƐ͕ ƚŚĞ ǀĂƐƚ ĐŽĂƐƚůŝŶĞ Žī ĞƌƐ ƉůĞŶƚLJ ŽĨ ĐŚŽŝĐĞ ĂŶĚ ĂŶ ŝŶĐƌĞĚŝďůĞ ĚŝǀĞƌƐŝƚLJ ŽĨ ŵĂƌŝŶĞ ůŝĨĞ ĨŽƌ ƐŶŽƌŬĞůůĞƌƐ ĂŶĚ ĚŝǀĞƌƐ ŽĨ Ăůů ĂďŝůŝƟ ĞƐ͘ ĞůŽǁ ĂƌĞ Ă ĨĞǁ ƉŽƉƵůĂƌ ĚŝǀĞ ƐŝƚĞƐ͕ Ăůů ĨŽƵŶĚ ŝŶ ŵĂƌŝŶĞ ƉƌŽƚĞĐƚĞĚ ĂƌĞĂƐ͘ ůŝǁĂů ^ŚŽĂů Ͳ ĂƚŚĞĚƌĂů dŚŝƐ ŵĂƐƐŝǀĞ ƐŝŶŬ ŚŽůĞ ŝƐ ŚŽŵĞ ƚŽ ƉĂƉĞƌĮ ƐŚ͕ ƐƟ ŶŐƌĂLJƐ ĂŶĚ ƌĂŐŐĞĚͲƚŽŽƚŚ ƐŚĂƌŬƐ͘ DĂƉƵƚĂůĂŶĚ Ͳ WŝŶĞĂƉƉůĞ ZĞĞĨ DĞĞƚ ŽƌŝƐ ƚŚĞ ŐƌŽƵƉĞƌ ĂŶĚ ĚŝǀĞ ǁŝƚŚ ƚŚĞ ƵŶƵƐƵĂů ƉŝŶĞĂƉƉůĞ Į ƐŚ͘ ^ŽĚǁĂŶĂ ĂLJ Ͳ ŝŬŝŶŝ ZĞĞĨ ZĞŐƵůĂƌ ŵĂŶƚĂ ƌĂLJ ĞŶĐŽƵŶƚĞƌƐ ĂŶĚ ƉůĞŶƚLJ ŽĨ ŵĂƌŝŶĞ ůŝĨĞ ĨŽƌ ƚŚĞ ĂǀŝĚ ƉŚŽƚŽŐƌĂƉŚĞƌ͘ ĂƉĞ dŽǁŶ Ͳ WLJƌĂŵŝĚ ZŽĐŬ dŚŝƐ ƵŶŝƋƵĞ ĚŝǀĞ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ƐĂŶĚLJ ĐŚĂŶŶĞůƐ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ŬĞůƉ ĨŽƌĞƐƚ ǁŝůů ďƌŝŶŐ LJŽƵ ĨĂĐĞ ƚŽ ĨĂĐĞ ǁŝƚŚ Ă ƐĞǀĞŶ Őŝůů ĐŽǁ ƐŚĂƌŬ͘

DID YOU KNOW…

d < D d, Z

f zŽƵ ĐĂŶ ƐƚƵĚLJ ŐƌĞĂƚ ǁŚŝƚĞ ƐŚĂƌŬƐ ŝŶ &ĂůƐĞ ĂLJ ƚŚƌŽƵŐŚ ŽƵƌ :ƵƐƚ ŽŶƐĞƌǀĂƟ ŽŶ ƉƌŽŐƌĂŵŵĞ͘ f /Ŷ ϭϵϵϵ ƚŚĞ ǀĂƐƚ ŝ^ŝŵĂŶŐĂůŝƐŽ tĞƚůĂŶĚ WĂƌŬ ďĞĐĂŵĞ ĨƌŝĐĂ͛Ɛ Į ƌƐƚ hE ^ K tŽƌůĚ ,ĞƌŝƚĂŐĞ ^ŝƚĞ Ͳ ŝƚ͛Ɛ ŚŽŵĞ ƚŽ ĞůĞƉŚĂŶƚ͕ ŚŝƉƉŽ ĂŶĚ ƚƵƌƚůĞƐ͘ f ^ŽƵƚŚ ĨƌŝĐĂ ŝƐ ŽŶĞ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ Į ŶĞƐƚ ǁŝůĚůŝĨĞ ĚĞƐƟ ŶĂƟ ŽŶƐ ŝŶ ƚŚĞ ǁŽƌůĚ ĨŽƌ ďŽƚŚ Į ƌƐƚ Ɵ ŵĞ ǀŝƐŝƚŽƌƐ ĂŶĚ ƐĞĂƐŽŶĞĚ ǁŝůĚůŝĨĞ ĞŶƚŚƵƐŝĂƐƚƐ͘ tĂƚĐŚ ƐŚĂƌŬƐ ŽŶĞ ĚĂLJ ĂŶĚ ůŝŽŶƐ ƚŚĞ ŶĞdžƚ͊

^ŽƵƚŚ ĨƌŝĐĂ Žī ĞƌƐ Ă ǀĂƌŝĞƚLJ ŽĨ ĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞƐ͕ ĂĚǀĞŶƚƵƌĞ ĂŶĚ ǁŝůĚůŝĨĞ ĞŶĐŽƵŶƚĞƌƐ ƚŚƌŽƵŐŚŽƵƚ ƚŚĞ LJĞĂƌ͘ dŚŝƐ ŝƐ ĂŶ Ăī ŽƌĚĂďůĞ ĚĞƐƟ ŶĂƟ ŽŶ Žī ĞƌŝŶŐ ŐƌĞĂƚ ǀĂůƵĞ ĨŽƌ ŵŽŶĞLJ ĂŶĚ ŝŶĐƌĞĚŝďůĞ ŵĞŵŽƌŝĞƐ͘ ĂŝůLJ Ň ŝŐŚƚƐ ĂƌĞ ĂǀĂŝůĂďůĞ ĨƌŽŵ Ă ŶƵŵďĞƌ ŽĨ ĂŝƌƉŽƌƚƐ ƚŚƌŽƵŐŚŽƵƚ ƚŚĞ h<͘ dŽŐĞƚŚĞƌ ǁŝƚŚ ŽƵƌ ĞdžƉĞƌƚƐ͕ LJŽƵ ĐĂŶ ĐƌĞĂƚĞ LJŽƵƌ ŽǁŶ ŝƟ ŶĞƌĂƌLJ ĂĐƌŽƐƐ ^ŽƵƚŚ ĨƌŝĐĂ͘ /ƚ Ăůů ĚĞƉĞŶĚƐ ŽŶ ǁŚĂƚ LJŽƵ ĂƌĞ ůŽŽŬŝŶŐ ĨŽƌ ĂŶĚ ǁŚŽ LJŽƵ ĂƌĞ ƚƌĂǀĞůůŝŶŐ ǁŝƚŚ͘ ŝǀŝŶŐ ŚŝŐŚůŝŐŚƚƐ ŝŶĐůƵĚĞ ƐŚĂƌŬ ĞŶĐŽƵŶƚĞƌƐ ĂŶĚ ŚĞĂůƚŚLJ ƌĞĞĨƐ͕ ďƵƚ ƚŚĞƌĞ͛Ɛ ƉůĞŶƚLJ ŽĨ ĐŚŽŝĐĞ ĚĞƉĞŶĚŝŶŐ ŽŶ LJŽƵƌ ĂďŝůŝƚLJ͘ dŚĞ ǀĂƌŝĞƚLJ ŝŶ ĂĐĐŽŵŵŽĚĂƟ ŽŶ ŝƐ ũƵƐƚ ĂƐ ǀĂƐƚ Ͳ ĨƌŽŵ ƐĞůĨ ĐĂƚĞƌŝŶŐ ŐƵĞƐƚ ŚŽƵƐĞƐ ƚŽ ŝŶƚĞƌŶĂƟ ŽŶĂů ůƵdžƵƌLJ ŚŽƚĞůƐ͘ dĂŬĞ Ɵ ŵĞ ƚŽ ĚŝƐĐŽǀĞƌ ƚŚĞ ƚŽƉƐŝĚĞ͘ tĞ ƌĞĐŽŵŵĞŶĚ Ă ĨĞǁ ĚĂLJƐ ŽŶ ƐĂĨĂƌŝ ŝŶ ŽŶĞ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ ŶĂƟ ŽŶĂů ƉĂƌŬƐ Žƌ ĞǀĞŶ Ă ƉƌŝǀĂƚĞ ŐĂŵĞ ƌĞƐĞƌǀĞ͘ KďƐĞƌǀĞ ůŝŽŶ͕ ƌŚŝŶŽ͕ ĞůĞƉŚĂŶƚ ĂŶĚ ƉůĞŶƚLJ ŵŽƌĞ Ͳ ƚŚĞ ǁŝůĚůŝĨĞ ĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞ ŝƐ ŝŶĐƌĞĚŝďůĞ͘

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Lionfish_v1_Layout 1 03/01/2014 15:20 Page 91

CARIBBEAN DIVER

LICENCE TO

Fish-lover ALEX MUSTARD isn’t exactly thrilled to watch lionfish after lionfish being killed by divers, but a trip to the Cayman islands makes clear the necessity for their actions

T

HWUUCK! THE HAND SPEAR shoots forward and the lionfish writhes, momentarily, before being finished with a second stab through the brain. Blood oozes out.

It is not overly gory, but I still reel from the kill and, while I am distracted, my buddy Mark Tilley, English boat captain with Ocean Frontiers dive centre on Grand Cayman, flips the spear around in his hand and in one movement dispatches the dead fish into his collecting tube.

Death is dealt with metronomic efficiency. Before I’ve even lifted my camera to take a picture, Mark is off scanning for the next lionfish.

While I understand the reasons for this kill, I can’t say I am enjoying the dive. I am a certifiable fish-lover! I travel all around the world to see different species and have long abstained from eating them. Fish are friends, not food, after all.

So why am I subjecting myself to watching them speared? I am here in the Caribbean Sea to get a better understanding of the lionfish problem and what divers are doing to combat what scientists have called “the most disastrous marine species invasion event, ever”.

Anyone who has dived in the IndoPacific, from the Red Sea right around

to the central Pacific Ocean, will have seen lionfish in their native habitat.

They were first seen in the Atlantic in the 1990s, when a few individuals escaped from aquariums in Florida (in some cases probably aided by owners who no longer wanted to keep them).

It took them a few years to get going, but by 2001 they’d become established on the eastern seaboard of the USA. Like many reef fish, lionfish spawn regularly through the year. A large, well-fed, female will produce two large sacs filled with thousands of eggs every three or four days. She can produce 2 million eggs per year.

The eggs are spawned into open water, where they hatch and grow in the plankton for about four weeks, before the young fish look to settle down on the reef. Millions of eggs riding the ocean currents for a month gives huge potential to spread fast and wide.

Lionfish were widely established in the Bahamas by 2006, Cuba by 2007 and continued spreading south, seen throughout the Caribbean by 2009.

In 2011, scientists classified them as abundant throughout the whole region.

SO WHERE IS THE PROBLEM? Lionfish are one of my favourite fish; isn’t it good news that we can now see these handsome hunters on ☛

Lionfish count among Alex Mustard’s favourite fish, but his experiences in the Cayman Islands taught him why culling is necessary. His background picture shows some of the fish caught by six divers in one day.

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Caribbean dive trips too?

Unfortunately, the facts make scary reading for the future of Caribbean reefs. First, lionfish are voracious hunters and seem to do particularly well in the Caribbean, where the resident fish just don’t know what’s hitting them.

In the Bahamas, scientists watched a single lionfish polish off 20 small wrasse in just half an hour, and over two years measured a 65% decline in native fish numbers on a reef colonised by lionfish.

“It is something I have noticed our guests commenting about,” Patrick Weir of Deep Blue Divers tells me.

“They come up saying there aren’t as many fish as they remember from their last visit. And once I tell them about the lionfish problem, it’s impossible for them not to make a connection.”

The lionfish are especially bad news in the Caribbean because nothing seems to want to eat them, and their numbers

92

Above: Mark Tilley and Stephen Broadbelt surface from a successful hunt.

Dead fish are placed in the collecting tubes, but there were so many on this site that the extras were carried to the surface on the spears.

Below: Arrow blennies are a favourite Caribbean critter for divers to see, but after hundreds of dives Mark Tilley has yet to see one in Grand Cayman. Are lionfish to blame?

grow unchecked. Once lionfish are dead, many larger Caribbean species will feed on them, including reef sharks, sting rays, grouper, eels and snappers. Mutton snapper, in particular, have learned to follow divers carrying hand spears in the hope of snatching a dead lionfish.

But none of these species seems to be willing to hunt living lionfish.

The result is lionfish living, eating and spawning in much larger numbers than you’d ever see in the Indo-Pacific.

In the Bahamas, scientists have measured between five and 177 times more lionfish for any given area than are naturally found on Indo-Pacific reefs.

LIONFISH ARE OPPORTUNISTIC hunters and take a wide range of prey. In the Caribbean they’ve been observed feeding on more than 50 species of native reef fish and invertebrates.

Several favourite fish of divers seem to be struggling particularly badly. Mark Tilley tells me that he hasn’t seen an arrow blenny since he started working in Grand Cayman. And having dived with him, I know few people with sharper eyes for a critter.

“Several of us divemasters have spoke about the lack of diamond blennies,” says Patrick Weir. “I’ve been looking for over two months and not seen one. I’m beginning to think something very bad is happening to them. Maybe lionfish are eating them or the food they eat?”

While there is a risk of blaming lionfish for everything including the credit crunch, I have not finished with

the bad news. The scientists have a final stark warning that lionfish are here to stay, and “eradication is not likely”.

SO WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? Containment using a two-pronged approach. First, create a market for lionfish. Few things will reduce fish populations faster than humans discovering a taste for them!

Fortunately lionfish are delicious, and the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) has even published a lionfish cookbook. In Bermuda they’ve coined the phrase “Eat ’em, to beat ’em!”

The other advantage of a tourist choosing to eat lionfish is that the snapper or grouper that they would have ordered swims free. It’s win-win for the reefs. Shops and restaurants are being very supportive. Everyone likes the idea of actually helping the reef by eating a certain fish.

The second prong is to encourage divers to hunt them, not as a one-off, but regularly, like mowing the lawn to keep the lionfish population low and therefore their impact on the reef to a minimum.

In the Cayman Islands spearfishing is illegal; even importing or owning a speargun is prohibited. But the Department of the Environment (DoE) has imported a stock of short lionfish hand-spears to sell to licensed lionfishhunters, mainly dive staff and resident divers, who are permitted to hunt lionfish even using scuba.

The spears are about 50cm long, with

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Lionfish_v1_Layout 1 03/01/2014 15:22 Page 93

CARIBBEAN DIVER

a trident of spikes at one end and a bungee at the other.

The diver simply grips the shaft of the spear, just behind the trident, stretching the bungee, then moves his or her hand almost within touching distance of the lionfish, aims and releases.

A second stabbing spear is used to quickly kill struggling fish, and a large tube is used for transporting the catch to the boat.

THE FOLLOWING DAY I join Steve Broadbelt, co-founder of Ocean Frontiers, who is providing one of his dive boats for six lionfish hunters (all either dive staff or resident divers) to compete in an island-wide lionfish tournament organised by the DoE. The contest is a good excuse to target reefs that aren’t usually dived and so not culled. I’m armed only with my camera and generally in the way, but despite having to stop to pose for the odd photo, the team catches an amazing (and record-breaking) 252 lionfish on the days’ three dives.

It is a graphic indication of how many lionfish there can be on Caribbean reefs.

Between the dives, Steve fills me in on how his dive centre is handling the problem on the ground. “At Ocean

Frontiers we started culling lionfish in February 2011, and by the end of 2012 we’ve removed 6,436 lionfish from our reefs,” he says. “This really seems to have made a difference, and lionfish are now scarce at all our 55 regular dive sites at the East End.” In other parts of the island, dive centres are doing the same, and dive masters usually carry a spear when guiding. It works. Many divers now come to Cayman without even seeing a lionfish.

“The majority of our culling now happens on our weekly hunt, which we do with customers every Thursday afternoon,” continues Steve.

“This trip targets two sites in areas that we don’t normally visit, typically between existing moorings or dive-sites.

This helps with what I call the ‘conveyor belt’ effect, where surrounding areas keep delivering new lionfish to dive-sites that have already been culled.

“Our customers are teamed up with a licensed spearer, usually one of the dive staff, and serve as spotters. The average haul for this half-day trip is approximately 45 lionfish. After the trip, we cook up the fresh fish on the barbecue for the customers to enjoy.

“It’s always very popular, I think it

Above left: The stomach of this lionfish was filled with reef fish, and she was also full of eggs, ready to turn this protein into the next generation.

Above right: Lionfish is served up as a tasty postdive snack – and one that is good for the reefs.

Below: The winning team in a DoE-organised lionfishculling tournament.

appeals to the ‘hunter-gatherer’ instinct, plus there is a feelgood factor that comes from helping the environment.”

I ask Steve about negative reactions, because while my brain understands the need to cull, my heart didn’t exactly leap at seeing lionfish speared.

“Perceptions have changed from a couple of years ago,” he replies. “Most keen divers are aware of the situation and want to see their dive operator taking action. A few people have taken offence, to the point of cancelling all their dives with us and getting a refund.

“There is no denying that lionfish are among the most beautiful fish on the reef. They just aren’t supposed to be on our reefs. So building awareness is important, so that culling is accepted as the norm.

“I believe that divers should be expecting their dive operator to be playing their part. Our weekly culling trip is now booked out in advance.”

Scientists have implicated invasive predators as a dominant reason for loss of species and extinctions.

Of course, the most destructive invasive species of all time is a certain Homo sapiens but, in the Caribbean at least, we’re seeing that species taking positive steps to help protect the reefs.

FROM EDUCATION TO BEER MONEY OTHER POSITIVES HAVE COME from the lionfish hunts, explains Steve Broadbelt. “First, we’ve learned a lot about lionfish. I can easily tell males from females now, from the patterns in their stripes, and behaviour. The males grow a bit larger and are more confident and territorial.

“We’ve also uncovered a handful of new dive-sites, and we’ve discovered old and historically significant anchors at two different locations. These

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anchors have been there for centuries.

They are encrusted with corals and are now part of the living reef.

“Many dive staff and residents are continuing to take advantage of the new ‘Lionfish Economy’ that has been created by putting this fish on the menu. The market price needs to edge up a little more before they could quit their day jobs, but selling the lionfish certainly provides plentiful extra income, aka beer money.”

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13–16 FEBRUARY 2014 EXCEL LONDON

BOOK NOW! Visit London International Dive Show (LIDS 2014) at ExCeL on 15 or 16 February, PLUS: The Telegraph Outdoor Adventure & Travel Show - Whether you enjoy travelling, photography, climbing or exploring the countryside, you‘ll find everything you need to whet your appetite.

The Triathlon Plus Show will provide a complete experience spanning the worlds of swimming, cycling and running.

The London Bike Show is the UK’s largest cycling exhibition, covering road cycling, mountain biking, BMX and cycle cross.

Advance 4-Show Tickets cost £16, instead of £20 on the door.

Alternatively: Book your LIDS 2014 tickets at the advance price of £9.50 to save £3 per ticket AND get a free Show Guide worth £2.50.

Book your tickets today at www.diveshows.co.uk LIDS 2014 is a DIVER Group Event in association with Oonasdivers & Egypt Tourism

Booking Now FEB v2_Bubbling 06/01/2014 10:20 Page 95

HOLIDAY NEWS

BOOKING NOW…

YOUR TAKE ON MONTY’S BLUE HOLE Inspired by the recent Monty Halls TV series on underwater mysteries, and in particular the episode Monty Halls and the Divers’ Graveyard (yes, we know this is supposed to be a happy holidays page), tour operator Regaldive has put together a package giving you the chance to explore the Blue Hole in Dahab, often referred to as “the most dangerous dive-site on Earth” (OK, OK).

For divers who resist the temptation of greater depths and remain within their training and limitations, the Red Sea divesite probably remains no more dangerous than any other, says Regaldive. The Blue Hole drops to 130m but the entrypoint is a pool of clear blue water from 7-30m rich in marine life, so it can cater for recreational and technical divers alike.

Seven nights’ at the Nesima Hotel in Dahab costs from £479pp including flights, transfers and seven nights’ B&B (two sharing). A three-day shore-dive pack costs from £110pp while a one-day boat-diving trip (two dives) costs from £33.

If you prefer a two-centre trip you can combine a Nesima stay with one at the Falcon Naama Star in Sharm el Sheikh for £451 on the same basis. Six-day dive-packs cost from £206.

8www.regaldive.co.uk

Greek parks by summer

SAME-SEX MALDIVES Want to book solo on a liveaboard, but put off by the possibility of having to share a cabin with a diver of the opposite gender? It happens, but Scuba Tours Worldwide is now offering guaranteed “same-sex” cabin share on its Maldives liveaboard mv Sea Queen.

It promises that if it can’t “room” you with a diver of the same sex, it will give you a cabin to yourself without charging a single supplement.

8 www.scubascuba.com

SECRET PHILIPPINES The diving carries on in the Philippines, and UK tour operator Hidden Depths is doing its level best to make sure it does. Its Philippines Secrets Dive Safari is based on the fact that some 70% of the 7100 islands remain “secret to the world”.

The tour takes in Donsol, known for its whale sharks and Ticao Island, connected with manta rays, though thresher and hammerhead sharks also appreciate the strong currents there.

Also scheduled is thresher shark capital Malapascua and various uninhabited islands along the way.

The next trips are in April and May and start from £1735 (eight days) and £1999 (12 days) including flights, accommodation and diving.

A £50 donation to the DEC Philippines Typhoon Appeal is to be made for every booking.

8www.hiddendepths divetours.com

It was divEr in an interview with Greece's Tourism Minister a few years ago that revealed plans to install a chain of diving parks, finally allowing divers to explore the country's archaeological treasures – albeit under controlled conditions.

Amid the country's extreme economic woes, we thought the plans might have been shelved.

Not so – the first two parks are set to open this summer, we’re told.

Of almost 4 million divers in Europe 70% choose Mediterranean destinations for diving, according to the European Recreational Scuba Training Council. Greece has taken note and reckons it will pay to develop its diving tourism.

The diving parks are to be near the historic coastal town of Pylos in the south-western Peloponnese islands, where a number of ancient shipwrecks can be found.

We’ll provide dive-centre contact details when we have them.

Ultimate gateway in Fiji Ultimate Diving has added what it describes as “the ultimate gateway” in northern Fiji.

Paradise Taveuni will suit divers interested in exploring the Great White Wall and other sites in the Rainbow Reef in the Somosomo Strait, it says, and is “the only deepwater frontage resort in Fiji” . Guests can dive or snorkel from the lava-flow edge into warm tropical waters at any time of day or night.

The reefs are unspoiled and only minutes

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from shore, or accessible by dive-boat with Pro Dive Taveuni, says Ultimate. The resort takes a maximum of 20 guests, and a sevennight all-inclusive stay starts from £3499pp this April and May, including flights, transfers, and five days' diving.

Book before 30 January and you can get an additional £100 off per person by quoting “Dive Taveuni” when you call.

8 www.ultimatediving.co.uk

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Booking Now FEB v2_Bubbling 06/01/2014 11:13 Page 96

HOLIDAY NEWS

BOOKING NOW…

REUNION PASS the west coast is said to feature more than 3500 species of marine life, including rays, turtles, and moray eels, with the further possibility of snorkelling with humpback whales. The reserve covers 25 miles of coastline.

Packages including flights are hard to find, but Connections Reunion is offering a six-day diving pass with a seven-night B&B stay at the 3* La Nautile Beach Front Hotel and eight days’ car rental for 995 euros pp (two sharing). Air Mauritius has flights from London.

8 www.connections-

L BECHE

Reunion, the French tropical island in the Indian Ocean south-west of Mauritius, has not enjoyed a high profile among UK divers, but it is hoping to change all that and show off its underwater world with the introduction of a special diving pass. This gives access to all the 13 dive centres that belong to GPP, the local dive association.

Various tariffs are available, with six dives costing 226 euros (302 euros with guide) and 10 dives 360 euros (490 if guided).

The passes are valid for a year on dives taking in Reunion Natural Marine Reserve sites.

The biodiverse coral reef along

reunion.com

Diving with the Queen Research expeditions with “Queen of Mantas” Andrea Marshall get booked up fast but there may still be places on her September shore-based trips to Ecuador's Island of Silver to promote the conservation of the world’s largest population of giant mantas rays.

If not, you can always put your name down for next year!

After three years’ work, Andrea's Ecuadorian database now stands as the world’s largest identified population of Manta birostris, and the tagged rays have been tracked as far afield as Peru and Galapagos.

Data gathered has helped to raise the species' protected status.

Volunteers assist researchers by collecting samples, taking laser measurements, collecting photo-ID pictures, setting camera traps, performing visual transects and so on.

US $2050pp covers eight nights' ocean-front B&B accommodation at the Pacifico Hotel (two sharing), a 14-dive package with Exploramar Diving including rental gear, lunch plus whale-watching and park tax.

You also get PADI Manta Ray Speciality Course certification and presentations by marine biologists, and the price includes a $200 donation to the Mantas Ecuador research programme.

8 www.marinemegafauna.org

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SWELL PARTY

EMPEROR WARMS UP WINTER Emperor Divers in the Egyptian Red Sea is offering diving packages at the Zabargad Berenice Resort in Hamata until the end of March that include seven nights’ half-board with transfers and five days’ house-reef diving for £271.

Also now open is Emperor’s new dive centre in Port Ghalib at the 3* Resta Club Marina View hotel (above), where seven nights’ B&B with three days’ boat diving and transfers can be yours for £206.

During this period prices on the liveaboards Emperor Elite, Superior or Asmaa start from £411 for the Fury & Elphinstone itinerary.

Worth noting is that if you fly into Hurghada on a Friday you can take advantage of free return transfers to Marsa Alam.

For divers looking for training in Egypt, Emperor has added SSI to the PADI training it has previously offered. “There is very little difference between SSI and PADI as they both follow the diving standards set by the governing body – the Recreational Scuba Training Council,” says Emperor's Mike Braun. Certifications are also interchangeable, which “gives our guests a wider choice of which agency suits them best.”

8 www.nautilusexplorer.com

Tahiti discount

blue Voyager and blue Fin, from £627, and the new Maldives vessel blue 'Honors Legacy', from £1443, including flights. There is also a chance of winning your trip outright if you're lucky in a prize draw.

Tahiti offers world-class diving and can be expensive, but competitive offers are available.

Netflights.com is offering a seven-night holiday in Tahiti from £2369pp for travel in a narrow window between 14-23 April, which it says represents a saving of £1370 per couple.

The price includes seven nights' B&B at the 5* Bora Bora Pearl Beach Resort in a garden pool bungalow.

Flights are with Air New Zealand and Air Tahiti, and transfers but not diving are included.

8 www.blueotwo.com

8 www.netflights.com

8 www.emperordivers.com

…AND SO DOES BLUE O TWO Blue o two is offering 10% off Red Sea and Maldives liveaboard holidays until the end of March.

In fact that’s 5% off plus 5% moe with blue o two Loyalty Club or BSAC membership.The deal applies to its liveaboards blue Horizon, blue Melody,

Nautilus Swell is, says its operator Nautilus Explorer, the only liveaboard dive-boat operating in British Columbia – and it adds that in its 19year experience BC offers some of the best coldwater diving in the world in terms of colour and biodiversity, from giant pacific octopus and wolf-eels to nudibranchs.

It promises giant kelp forests and “vertical walls so densely covered in life that there isn’t even a square inch in which you can touch the wall”.

Nautilus Swell is the latest in a long line of dive boats owned and operated

by Captain Mike Lever. Most trips are out of Port Hardy on Vancouver Island and last eight days, with drysuit dives planned around slack tides.

Prices start from Canadian $1795pp (about £1030) for a double cabin.

www.divErNEt.com

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S D N E I R F H T I DIVING W MALDIVES INDONESIA EGYPT THAILAND S PA I N OMAN M AU R IT I U S JA PA N C R O AT I A

B E S P EC IA L - DIV E S P EC IAL !

INFORMATION A ND B OOKING AT:

www.euro-divers.com

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WELL AND TRULY

TESTED

A super-light wing-style BC from Poland grabs NIGEL WADE’s imagination among the new test gear this month. If only the dive-bag could match its lack of weight

BC

XDEEP GHOST YOU KNOW THE ACRONYM KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)? Well, the Polish divingequipment manufacturer XDeep has incorporated this philosophy in the design of its Ghost BC. I asked the UK importer Blue Orb to send me an example so that I could give it a thorough going-over on a shark-diving trip to Cuba.

The Design The Ghost is a wing-style BC suitable for singletank diving. It features a solitary bladder with a durable 1100 dTEX Cordura skin coated with less than a 0.25mm thickness of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) to render it lightweight, reliable and hard-wearing.

The bladder has been styled to eliminate dead zones where the air can get trapped and make dumping it a problem. It is reckoned to be so good at its job that only two dumps are needed, one on the top placed centrally, and one kidney dump to the left at the front.

The inflator hose is of a traditional design but doesn’t incorporate an elbow. It comes straight out of the bladder right in the middle and there is no pull-dump as found on most traditional BCs. Instead you have to lift the hose above your head while in a vertical position. A plastic tubed loop on the shoulder-harness keeps it in place.

The backplate is made from aerospace-grade alloy and has large cut-outs to reduce weight.

The harness and slim alloy tank-mount are fixed to the backplate to provide security where it’s most needed. Twin cambands attach the tank to help eliminate slippage.

Minimal padding in the form of a 3D mesh has been added only where it’s most needed, at the shoulder-blade and in the lumbar regions.

The harness comes in two configuration:; one with a single piece of webbing with no breaks or padding, and the other with Fastex breaks and harness padding. I chose the latter.

A substantial crotch-strap is incorporated in the system, and this is essential because the waist-belt is fitted to the backplate around the middle rather than off the ends of the hip-plate, as you might expect.

When the crotch-strap is attached and the waist-belt tightened and secured, it forms a stable and surprisingly comfortable fit.

I’m not a big fan of crotch-straps when I’m using a weight-belt, because they make it too awkward to dump the belt in a hurry. XDeep

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supplies integrated weight-pockets that fit to the Ghost’s waist-belt as an alternative, though at extra cost.

Only three D-rings are fitted, one on each shoulder-strap and one on the left side of the waistbelt. These are of 6mm stainless steel and adjustable using a small buckle. The waist-belt is secured with a stainless weightbelt-style buckle.

Weight Are you sitting down? You might want to be as I tell you that the whole BC weighs in at a meagre 2.8kg. I couldn’t believe it myself, so I stuck it on my digital scales and yes, with the deluxe (plus breaks) harness and padding it really does weigh that.

The standard version weighs even less, at 2.3kg!

Add this to your travelling dive kit and you might have enough allowance left to be able to pack more than one pair of undercrackers!

In the Water I opted for a 15-litre steel tank on all my Cuban dives, enabling me to stay under water with the ”guys in the grey suits” for a minimum of 90 minutes at a time, so I didn’t need a weight-belt.

The Ghost was as comfortable as it gets in this configuration, the harness and waist-belt along with the crotch-strap providing me with what I felt was exceptional stability.

SPECS PRICES 8Standard harness £469, Deluxe harness (featured) £499

The wing-style bladder held me in a perfect horizontal position, and didn’t flap around causing drag as I scampered between coral bommies.

The whole set-up was so streamlined and neat, it felt as if it wasn’t there. No wonder they call it the Ghost.

Dumping air was a chore at first, because I’m used to pulling on a shoulder-dump rather than lifting the corrugated hose above my head.

I hadn’t done that since my instructor days, but I got back into the habit, and I suppose it’s not that big a deal.

While horizontal the kidney dump is the way to go, and it’s in just the right place on the left to locate quickly. It worked like a charm. The design of the bladder means that there are no trapped air-pockets, so I didn’t have to wriggle about or contort my body to get all the air out.

BACKPLATE SIZES 8S (for divers under 5ft 9in) and L

WEIGHTS 8Standard 2.3kg, Deluxe 2.8kg CONTACT8www.xdeep.eu DIVER GUIDE ★★★★★★★★★✩

Drawback There is one drawback, and it won’t affect most divers who dive with wing-style BCs, but it drove me nuts. I like to take split-level photos, and ☛ www.divErNEt.com

Diver Tests_FEBRUARY_v1a_Q8_Layout 1 03/01/2014 15:14 Page 99

DIVER TESTS wearing this wing that was an impossible task unless in water shallow enough to stand up in.

Every time I lifted my camera when on the surface I was quickly tipped over face-first.

I handed my heavy camera rig to the boat crew and tried again. The Ghost held me in position nicely, with virtually all the bladder submerged but my head well above water.

A weight-belt to adjust my trim might have

helped with the camera rig, but I didn’t get a chance to try it out, because only the heavy 15-litre tanks were available on our skiff.

Conclusion The XDeep Ghost is a fantastic tool for travelling minimalist diving fans – robust, streamlined and very stable under water. Its simple design and

good-quality materials make it a joy to use.

The weight is an eye-opener – a BC with a metal backplate, stainless waist-belt clip and D-rings at under 3kg is ground-breaking.

The Ghost looks the business too, with its shiny metal spider’s-web design and embroidered livery. For everyone but photogs who take split-level shots in deep water the Ghost is a simple solution built to perfection. ■

BAGS

STAHLSAC HD CAICOS CARGO PACK & HD DUFFEL IF YOU THOUGHT baggage-handlers conveyed your bags to the cargo-hold as if they were carrying their own first-born child, think again.

I used to work with an ex-baggage-handler for one of the big airlines at Heathrow, and the stories he would tell me were horrifying.

Your precious luggage gets thrown around and kicked with abandon, then buried under a mountain of other bags before being hurled from conveyor to conveyor, where the bags are rubbed and chafed along the route. They are then forced into small cargo bins before being hoisted into the aircraft’s hold.

When you arrive at your destination they go through the same ordeal again, then twice more on your way home. If you want a bag to survive this brutality, it has to be robust.

Enter the Stahlsac Heavy Duty range. My baggage allowance on a recent Caribbean trip meant that I could take two bags, so I opted for both the wheeled Caicos Cargo Pack to take my dive-kit and the smaller HD Duffel to take some clothes and toiletries.

The Design Both bags are constructed to very high standards, using a rugged tarpaulin fabric. The tarpaulin is water-resistant, so when those guys at the airport sneak off back to their card game while your luggage is left on the tarmac in the rain, the contents won’t get soaked.

All the joints are double-stitched with thick yellow nylon thread, creating an eye-catching contrast that’s instantly recognisable as the bags come trundling around the final conveyor at baggage reclaim.

The HD Caicos is a twin-wheeled bag with a robust hard plastic bottom frame incorporating a lifting handle.

A retractable pulling handle is positioned at the top and locks in the extended position until released using a push-button. Carrying handles are also provided at the top and side.

A lightweight alloy frame fitted internally to the rear of the bag adds rigidity and strength. A rucksack-style harness is tucked inside a zipped pocket at the rear, and when deployed you could comfortably yomp to your destination. www.divErNEt.com

built in, and an adjustable, removable padded shoulder-strap completes the package.

In Use

Two long external zipped pockets either side of the bag are the right size for fins, and at the front a further two zipped pockets are fitted, padded to protect your gear from those atrocious handlers.

Inside the 120-litre main compartment some compression straps keep everything in place, and there is a zipped mesh pocket on the inside of the top flap to store paperwork.

The smaller HD Duffel uses the same heavyduty tarpaulin with extra webbing reinforcement cross-stitched at the stress points. The bottom of the bag is also reinforced.

Access to the interior is via a fully zipped opening which has an overlap to protect the premium YKK zipper. Two carrying handles are

SPECS PRICES 8HD Caicos £212, HD Duffel £54 WEIGHTS 8Caicos 5kg, Duffel 1kg DIMENSIONS 8Caicos 74 x 36 x 48cm, Duffel 60 x 30 x 30cm

CAPACITIES 8Caicos 120 litre, Duffel 54 litre CONTACT8www.stahlsac.com DIVER GUIDE ★★★★★★★★✩✩

The big Caicos bag ate my dive gear.

I also had room for batteries, chargers, spare masks, a second set of regs (to test) and a lightweight waterproof cagoule.

The top and bottom handles made lifting the packed bag in and out of a car boot easy, and the backpack harness worked like a dream.

Pulling the Caicos along on the smooth tiled surfaces at the airports, it felt balanced and light.

I managed to get everything I needed for a week’s dive trip coupled with four nights in a city packed into the Duffel, along with a first aid kit and toiletries, and had room to spare.The shoulder-strap made moving the bag a doddle.

Conclusion These bags are built to a very high standard and should withstand the baggage-handler’s torture chamber. After my trip they looked none the worse for their ordeal.

I also took comfort in the fact that the discreet yellow livery was not screaming: ”Look at me, I’m full of expensive dive kit!”

The Caicos was great to use but I hate the fact that nearly a quarter of my precious weight allowance was taken up by the 5kg bag itself.

The Duffel is ideal as a second bag, but don’t expect it to take a full set of dive-kit.

Come on, Stahlsac, build a bag that’s as tough as these two, will take all my kit and weighs somewhere in-between! ■

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DIVER TESTS

VIDEO LIGHT

RGBLUE SYSTEM 01 THERE HAS BEEN A REVOLUTION IN underwater videography in the past year. Go on any dive trip, especially on liveaboards, and you’ll see lots of little plastic housings with tiny high-definition video cameras capable of capturing broadcast-quality footage of anything at which you can point them.

The problem with shooting footage under water is the lack of colour as the water filters out reds, oranges and yellows, leaving everything with a blue and cyan cast.

To get the true colours back into the images you need artificial light from a torch, and not just any old torch but a super-bright lamp designed specifically for the job in hand.

Enter the RGblue System 01 light, which is supplied in the UK exclusively by Ocean Leisure Cameras.

The Design The RGblue lamp is designed specifically as a video light and can be used with multiple accessories to create a system that provides a total solution to shooting in the colourdrained underwater environment.

The specs are impressive, with four pre-set power levels from 500 to 2200 lumens delivered from a single COB (chip on board) LED. This emits light from a single plane and solves the problem of irregular light distribution and the annoying shadow effect seen with multiLED lamps.

Another feature that makes this light stand out from the crowd is the colour temperature.

LED lights tend to deliver a very cold light, one seen as blue by the human eye. At the other end of the scale, the halogen lights of yesteryear delivered a very warm light, seen as orange.

The RGblue sits somewhere in the middle, with a very pleasing 5000 Kelvin temperature perfect for rendering realistic colours while maintaining vivid blues in the background.

The beam angle is around the 100° mark, which will more than cover the field of view found in most movie cameras. A condensing

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lens that screws into the lamphead will tighten the beam angle to 60° and is supplied as standard.

Control of the light is via two push-buttons. Pressing them simultaneously switches the unit on. A single push of the right-hand button turns on the light.

Further pushes take the light levels up from 500lm through to 2200lm in four steps, while the levels are reduced in the same way but with pushes on the left-hand switch.

Charging is via an external gold-plated twin socket, so you don’t have to open the lamp to connect it. The clever electronic circuitry includes built-in safety mechanisms in the form of temperature sensors, over-current and short-circuit protection.

There is also an over-pressure valve to release any expanding gases that may be discharged from the lithium-ion battery.

When in use, a colour-coded light lets you know the batterycharge state. The RGblue is depth-rated to 100m.

An optional extra is a small mount that screws into the light-head and forms a platform for a GoPro camera housing.

Like the handle-mount, this is constructed in anodised alloy and enables you to position perfectly any of the various GoPro housings.

The mount places the camera upside-down, but a single click in post-production on the GoPro software editing suite will sort out this little dilemma.

The handle-mount is compatible with a YStype strobe arm, and allows the light to be incorporated into any camera set-up using 1in ball and clamp arm systems.

In the Water I used the RGblue in two ways: firstly with a GoPro Hero camera set to ultra-wide HD movie mode, and secondly as a video lamp mounted to my DSLR housing for shooting macro video through a 60mm lens.

In GoPro mode it was easy to hold and shoot footage. The only problem was that the handle fouled my view of the GoPro’s rear LCD screen.

I thought that backscatter would be troublesome with the camera placed so close to the light source, but the perceived problem just didn’t manifest itself. In fact the final footage was as clear as my conscience.

The light could be seen falling off quite quickly in the camera’s wide-angle mode, but smoothly and evenly lit the foreground subjects

with no visible hotspots or unwanted shadows.

The same could be said of the DSLR video footage. I had added the condensing lens, as the angle of view is very narrow through my 60mm optics, and the results were very pleasing, with colour rendered exactly as I’d expect if shooting still images with twin strobes.

The warmer colour temperature was a real advantage in this respect. However, I did need to increase my ISO settings to enable a tighter fstop and maximise the depth of field, with the light set to its brightest setting.

Conclusion There’s no hiding it – the RGblue video light system is an expensive piece of kit. But it does seem in this case that you get what you pay for.

It’s expandable, with screw-in snoots, red filters and alternative mounting options.

The colour temperature is ideal for underwater shooting, and sets this light apart.

One tip, however – if you want to shoot divers, turn it off.

Otherwise all you’ll get is footage of them with their hands covering their eyes! ■

SPECS PRICES 8£699. Handgrip £45.

GoPro mount £40.

OUTPUT 8500 to 2200 lumens CONTACT8www.oceanleisurecameras.com DIVER GUIDE ★★★★★★★★★✩

www.divErNEt.com

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DIVER TESTS

REGULATOR

HOLLIS 500SE SIDE-EXHAUST REGULATORS were very popular back in the day.

The Poseidon range of Cyklons, Jetstreams and X-Streams were favourites with technical- and cavedivers around the world.

They offer two main advantages: they can be used in either left- or right-handed configurations without you needing to use a set of spanners, and they push the exhaled gas bubbles away from your field of vision.

With a recent trend in recreational as well as technical diving being the sidemount system, this style of regulator is enjoying something of a comeback. From across the Atlantic the divegear manufacturer Hollis has introduced its own version, the 500SE. I took one with me to the Caribbean to put it through its paces.

The Design The 500SE’s pneumatically balanced servo-valve is in fact a two-stage valve. Just a small sip opens the servo mechanism or control valve lever.

Gas-flow from this servo creates a vacuum that immediately opens the main valve diaphragm, allowing the gas to flow through the regulator to the mouthpiece.

The first stage is an overbalanced diaphragm design, which provides progressively greater intermediate pressures as the depth and gas density increases. It features a fixed barrel with four low- and two high-pressure ports around the circumference. The port configuration is fixed but has been designed to put the hoses exactly where they’re needed.

The first stage is environmentally sealed to prevent internal corrosion, contamination and freezing. It meets the rigorous CE standard for coldwater performance, and comes only with a 300bar DIN connection.

The second stage is built from high-grade plastics and polymers and features the balanced servo valve system. You purge this regulator by pressing a small honeycombed pad at the rear of the exhaust port. Exhaled gas bubbles are sent towards the rear and away from your face.

The second stage can be disassembled under water without the need for tools, using a largediameter handwheel.

www.divErNEt.com

The two stages are connected via a lightweight and flexible Maxflex hose.

An orthodontic mouthpiece and a bolt-snap tie point complete the set-up. The whole thing is compatible with 40% nitrox out of the box.

In the Water I used to dive exclusively with side-exhaust regulators at one time, and I’d forgotten just how good they are.

The second stage gave a loud hiss when I initially turned the tank valve on, something that happens with most servo-type valves. It took me back to my regular UK Channel-diving days on trimix and servo-style Swedish valves.

I’ve been diving with some seriously good regulators recently and I have to admit that my definition of a smooth breathe has changed immensely.

Under water the gas delivered from the 500SE seemed a little raw in comparison, as the servo tended to over-deliver after each breath.

This was especially true in the shallows, when I had my head tilted and my face pressed into my camera viewfinder. A change in my head position quickly sorted this out.

I found the second stage light and unobtrusive, although initially it looked somewhat bulky. In use I started to forget that it was even there, the mouthpiece being of a design that fits my mouth perfectly.

I didn’t have to bite down, so didn’t suffer any jaw fatigue during what

were mostly 90-minute dives. The Maxflex hose helped in the comfort department too.

The purge was stiff to operate. The semiflexible plastics used for the second-stage cover had also been used for the purge cover, and although this area has honeycombed cut-outs it still takes a firm push to move the servo lever.

I found that I had to grip the second stage with my thumb on the button and my index finger at the front and squeeze quite hard to make it work.

Once I had sorted out this technique I found that I could control the gas flow better.

And I needed to, because the purge could be quite brutal if I overdid it, and would lash my oral cavity with hurricane force if I pressed too hard. Once familiarised, the purge worked well, delivering gas progressively and clearing any unwanted water with ease.

Hose-routeing was neat and tidy. The port layout put my second stage, gauge, octo and low-pressure inflator just where I wanted them.

SPECS PRICE 8£450 FIRST STAGE 8Overbalanced diaphragm SECOND STAGE 8Pneumatically balanced servo PORTS 84lp, 2hp WEIGHT 8750g CONTACT8www.hollisgear.com DIVER GUIDE ★★★★★★★✩✩✩

Conclusion This 500SE may have looked old-school but it felt new-age, with its modern materials and construction. I found it very comfortable in use, and once I’d got my head round the different way that a servo-assisted valve delivers gas and changed my technique to embrace the purge and slight over-delivery, I was more than happy to be diving with it.

The big plus was that my exhaust bubbles were never seen in front of my face, and for a photographer that’s a big issue. For side-mount and twin-set fans this would be a great addition to your armoury. ■

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DIVER TESTS

CAMERA

GOPRO HERO3+ BLACK EDITION THEY’RE EVERYWHERE: tiny waterproof plastic boxes with even smaller high-definition video cameras capable of producing broadcastquality footage. Cyclists, runners, drivers, parachutists, surfers, skiers and snowboarders all use them to record their action-packed activities, and divers are using them too.

I’m talking about the GoPro range, of course.

If you haven’t seen one or the resulting footage you’re a sleeping beauty and need to get kissed by a prince.

Those nice guys at Ocean Leisure Cameras in London lent me GoPro’s latest flagship model for testing along with an LCD back, two housings and associated accessories.

The Design The new GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition featured in this test has had six updates from the previous model, representing an evolution of GoPro’s flagship camera.

I could waffle for pages about the technical aspects of the camera but fear not, that’s not the route I intend to take.

Instead I’ll start with the words of GoPro founder and CEO Nicholas Woodman: ”We saw that we could make the Hero3+ significantly smaller and lighter while at the same time increase the battery life by 30%. ”We also saw the opportunity to design a sharper lens, so we did, improving GoPro’s already highly regarded image quality.

“We also thought up exciting new features like SuperView, which enables the world’s most immersive wide-angle video.”

The result is a camera capable of capturing outstanding footage in either still, time-lapse or high-definition video formats. For stills the

Above: Hero3+ connection sockets and memory-card slot.

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camera will take 12Mp images in 30 frames per second bursts, and in video mode it will record in 4K at 1080p/ 60fps.

The new video styles come in the form of SuperView and Auto Low light modes.

The housing is constructed from clear plastics with a single silicon O-ring seal and is locked closed with a large latch.

A single flat port with a square surround virtually touching the lens enables crisp all-round coverage.

For this test I also used the LCD back screen, an optional extra that allowed me to see what I was filming.

I had two housings for underwater use, one the new 3+ version with a reduced profile, the other the previous model, which still fits perfectly and had a back door suitable for the extra bulk of the LCD screen.

The camera has only three buttons, the Mode button and a Shutter-Release button (which double as navigation and menu selectors and are located at the front and top of the camera) and a Wi-Fi button on the side that switches on and pairs the remote control.

This remote is of no use under water, so was not used on the test.

Under Water I took the Hero3+ with me on a number of dives. I handheld it, mounted it under a video light and attached it to the top of my DSLR camera housing.

Switching it on and setting it to record is easy, requiring only two button-pushes. I found with the LCD screen that I could actually line up and compose footage rather than guess what I was getting, as I had to with the previous model. This makes a hell of a difference, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Light levels are sensed and the camera automatically adjusts the iris to enable consistent exposure across most of the light range found under water.

The major problem I encountered is that the camera sees and records what the human eye sees and that’s a blue world filled with cyan casts without any reds, oranges or yellows.

To get over this, red filters can be attached to cover the port and render more vibrant colours but for me by far the best solution is a lamp delivering bright artificial light.

The camera uses a micro SDHC card to store

the recorded footage. I took a 32GB one with me and filled it after a single dive, so be prepared for that and either get a higher-capacity card or, better still, some spares.

After the dives I uploaded the footage straight to a hard drive via my laptop. Others on the trip loaded their raw footage straight to their tablets or smartphones via the GoPro app which, incidentally, can also be used to control the camera remotely (topside).

With all this footage you’ll need an editing tool. GoPro provides its own solution CineForm Studio as a free download from its website. It enables you to cut and edit quickly and correct colour temperature, contrast and aspect ratios.

Conclusion As a versatile action-sports camera, the GoPro has all the bases covered. Its ease of use, functionality and simplicity will enable you to capture some incredible footage.

Add a video light or filters for use under water and get the best from it.

What’s really refreshing in this day of superexpensive and super-complicated camera gear is that this little GoPro Hero3+ is easy to use and comparatively inexpensive. ■

SPECS PRICE 8Camera and standard housing £360 (including Wi-Fi remote). Optional LCD screen £80 CONTACT8www.gopro.com

DIVER GUIDE ★★★★★★★★✩✩

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Oxygen Analysers

VN202 MKII with QuickOx $XWR 6ZLWFK 2II

TEK-Ox

A wide range of sensors are available for almost all Oxygen Analysers

DINKIT

Quick-Ox

BC Adapter

Vandagraph Ltd. 7HO Ć&#x201D; ZZZ YDQGDJUDSK FR XN

Six good reasons for choosing

MARINOX MARINE OXYGEN THERAPY UNIT â?ś Specifically designed for boat use or any hostile environment.

â?ˇ Designed as a medical therapy system â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not a diving regulator derivative.

â?¸ Supplied with a 540 litre 200 bar pin index aluminium cylinder.

â?š Totally operational and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ready to useâ&#x20AC;? WITHOUT removal from its protective case.

â&#x17E;&#x17D; Unrivalled performance and specification.

â&#x17E;? Lightweight, rugged and compact â&#x20AC;&#x201C; buoyant.

The latest diving videos from around the world

Just unscrew the lid and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ready to use!

www.subaqua-products.com Sub-Aqua Products Unit 8, Lycroft Farm Industrial Park, Park Lane, Upper Swanmore, Southampton, Hants SO32 2QQ. Tel: 01489 878055 Fax: 01489 878002 E-mail: websales@subaqua-products.com

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Just Surfaced_FEBRUARY_v1a(Q8)_Layout 1 03/01/2014 15:10 Page 104

NEW BUT

UNTESTED The latest kit to hit the dive shops

Atomic T3 Regulator 6666 Hailed by the manufacturer as its new signature regulator, the Atomic T3 titanium is a lightweight model that comes with a three-year/300-dive service interval and a non-contingent lifetime warranty. The first- and second-stage components are machined from corrosion-free titanium alloy to give a regulator that weighs only 771g. The first stage features Atomic’s Jet Seat high-flow piston and is environmentally sealed to prevent freezing and contamination.

Two high- and five low-pressure ports are incorporated into the swivel turret.

The second stage features a comfort swivel and Atomic’s Auto Flow control and a rapid-adjustment knob for quick de-tuning. The unit, 40% nitrox compatible from the box, is priced at £1190.

8 www.atomicaquatics.com

Poseidon SE7EN Rebreather 5555

Scubapro Synergy Twin Trufit Mask 6666 Scubapro’s latest mask has an ultra-soft skirt designed to fit all face shapes.

Using two different thicknesses of silicon, the mask incorporates ribbing to stiffen the skirt. This allows softer silicon to be used and it is this, claims Scubapro, that enables a perfect seal. Available in a variety of frame colours and with clear or black silicon skirts, this twin-lens mask has optical-quality tempered-glass lenses or tinted and mirrored lenses (as shown) for glare protection at the surface. Expect to pay around £60.

8 www.scubapro.com

Hailed as the next generation by Swedish dive-gear specialist Poseidon, the SE7EN is an evolution of the world’s first recreational closed-circuit rebreather (CCR), the Poseidon Mk V1. It is an upgradeable machine that can be used as a recreational or 100m technical CCR, and features G7 electronics; plug-and-play automated pre-dive checks and Bluetooth connectivity to enable interactive dive-planning, configuration and technical support. The SE7EN has an integrated dive computer, bail-out system and user-monitoring three-sensor alert system, and the cover has a built-in handle, grab and lighting rails. Various accessories are available for customising or upgrading your unit, which is priced according to specification from £6560 (recreational) and £7200 (technical).

8 www.poseidon-uk.co.uk

Suunto D4i Novo Dive Computer 4444 The popular Suunto D4i watch-sized dive computer has had a facelift. New for 2014, the Novo models are available with four new cases – yellow, blue, white and black. The entire watch-case and strap are coloured, and the black bezel has been altered accordingly on all models except white, which sports a stainless-steel bezel. The internal components and functions are unchanged but the Novo range is supplied with a divemanager cable. The old style of D4i remains available but only in black and supplied without the cable. D4i Novos are priced at £395.

8 www.suunto.com

Light and Motion NightSea Lamp 3333 Light and Motion has taken its Sola diving lamps and produced in partnership with NightSea a light designed to excite the proteins that some marine animals and coral possess. By illuminating these creatures with a blue light and viewing them through a special yellow filter these effects, known as fluorescence, can be seen and recorded. The Sola NightSea has nine special blue LEDs

104

and can be used in both flood and beam modes. There are three power settings and a long claimed burntime. A filter that clips to the front lens turns the light white, so that the Sola can be used as a standard torch. Expect to pay £628 for the torch, £24 for the mask filter and £39 if you also want a camera filter to record what you see.

8 www.cpspartnership.com

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JUST SURFACED

XDeep Black BT 6666

Subgear Definition3 Wetsuit 4444

For technical divers a bottom-timer that records depth and time in conjunction with a carefully calculated dive-plan is standard equipment. Polish dive gear manufacturer XDeep has a new model, the Black BT. Sporting a brightly coloured OLED display, the BT also boasts a logbook function with 8MB of flash memory, an ascent indicator, three-axis compass and programmable alarms. It is powered by a 1190mAh rechargeable Samsung battery. A housing machined from a single polyacetal block with a sapphire crystal-coated glass face gives the BT a depth rating of 200m. You can opt for either elastic buckled or bungee straps. The BT Black, which is to be upgradable to a fully functioning nitrox and trimix computer via a software download soon, costs £219.

The UK distributor is Blue Orb. 8 www.xdeep.eu

This new 3mm neoprene suit features Subgear’s Body Map system, which uses specific materials in panels for what the designers claim is extreme warmth and comfort. These materials include infra-red reflecting heat-shield technology on the inside torso panels, plush lining on non-stretch panels and Ultraspan flex panels in highstress areas. The suit also has an angled zipped rear entry along with ”comfort” neck, ankle and wrist zips. Instrument grips on each wrist are intended to keep your dive computer and watch in place.

Available in both male and female tailoring, Definition3 is priced at £139.

8 www.subgear.com

APD Cell Validator 3333 Ambient Pressure Diving’s cell validator allows for the hyperbaric testing of oxygen cells in its range of rebreathers without the need to remove the cells from the unit’s lid. A simple test allows the user to check the oxygen control parameters, including speed of response and accuracy of the oxygen cells. It also allows the user to prove that the cells will display accurately above 1.3bar before a dive. Built from shock- and waterproof materials, the validator can be also be used to seal the scrubber between dives or during storage. The T-piece includes mesh caps to prevent insects entering the counterlungs. Expect to pay £75.

8 www.apdiving.com

NEXT ISSUE CAVES OF MEXICO Lisa Collins sheds light on Yucatan’s cenotes

THIS IS YOUR YEAR!

www.divErNEt.com

The mouth-brooding world of Lake Malawi

SOUTHERN GEMS Join a diving road-trip from Brisbane to Tasmania GRANT HENDERSON

Everyone wants to get into the water with basking sharks – make it happen this summer!

STRANGE SIGHTS

ON SALE 20 FEB

DHD – Feb. 2014_Holiday Directory 08/01/2014 16:25 Page 106

HOLIDAY DIRECTORY FACILITIES INCLUDE:

Hotel or guesthouse

Self-catering

Equipment for hire

Dive boat charter arranged

Suitable for families

Packages from UK

Compressed Air

Nitrox

Technical Gases

BSAC School

PADI Training

NAUI Training

TDI Training

SSI Training

DAN Training

Disability Diving

AUSTRALIA GREAT BARRIER REEF – CORAL SEA MIKE BALL DIVE EXPEDITIONS 143 Lake Street, Cairns, Queensland 4870, Australia.

Tel: (00 61) 7 4053 0500. Fax: (00 61) 7 4031 5470.

E-mail: mike@mikeball.com www.mikeball.com UK Agent: Divequest – divers@divequest.co.uk

OCTOPUS DIVING CENTRE PO Box 40124, Larnaca, Cyprus. (Dive centre located on the Larnaca to Dhekelia Road, 100m from the Princess Hotel.) Tel/fax: (00 357) 24 646571.

Mobile: (00 357) 9965 4462. www.octopus-diving.com E-mail: octopus@spidernet.com.cy PADI 5* Gold Palm Resort & Cyprus’ only BSAC Premier School.

CANARY ISLANDS

FRANCE COTE D’AZUR DIAMOND DIVING 11 Rue des Pecheurs, Golfe Juan. 06220.

Tel: (00 33) 615 305223. E-mail: info@diamonddiving.net www.diamonddiving.net Quality PADI training French Riviera. PADI 5*IDC Resort, six IDCs per year.

RAJA AMPAT PAPUA DIVING Sorido Bay Resort and Kri Eco Resort, Kri Island, West Papua. Bookings Office: +62 (0)811 4804610.

E-mail: info@papua-diving.com www.rajaampatdiving.com First dive operator (since 1993) and conservation centre in Raja Ampat. Resorts open 365 days.

GREECE

FUERTEVENTURA

CRETE

DEEP BLUE P.O. Box 33, Caleta de Fuste, Antigua E-35610, Fuerteventura. Tel: (00 34) 606 275468.

Fax: (00 34) 928 163983. www.deep-blue-diving.com E-mail: info@deep-blue-diving.com CMAS, IAHD. Harbour location. Special group rates.

CRETE UNDERWATER CENTER

PAPHOS CYDIVE LTD

Mirabello Hotel, Agios Nikolaos, P.O. Box 100, P.C. 72 100. Tel/fax: (00 30) 28410 22406.

Mob: (00 30) 6945 244434, (00 30) 6944 126846. www.creteunderwatercenter.com E-mail: info@creteunderwatercenter.com IANTD Nitrox training. Groups, individuals & dive clubs welcome.

Myrra Complex, 1 Poseidonos Avenue, Kato Paphos.

Tel: (00 357) 26 934271. Fax: (00 357) 26 935307. www.cydive.com E-mail: cydive@spidernet.com.cy PADI 5* CDC. First Career Development Centre in Cyprus and Eastern Mediterranean.

IRELAND CO. CORK OCEANADDICTS

GRENADA ST. GEORGE’S

Ballynaloughe, Nohoval, Co. Cork.

Tel: (00 353) (0)87 7903211.

E-mail: anne@oceanaddicts.ie www.oceanaddicts.ie Day boat and liveaboard diving.

SCUBATECH DIVE CENTRE Calabash Hotel, L’Anse Aux Epines.

Tel: +1 (473) 439 4346. Fax: +1 (473) 444 5050.

E-mail: info@scubatech-grenada.com www.scubatech-grenada.com Discover The Difference!

LANZAROTE SAFARI DIVING LANZAROTE Playa Chica, Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote.

Tel: (00 34) 625 059713, (00 34) 928 511992. www.safaridiving.com E-mail: enquiry@safaridiving.com English owned, award-winning BSAC School and Seamanship centre, SSI Instructor trainer facility and PADI dive centre. Open every day of the year. Daily shore and boat dives, night dives too – all same price. Great deals for groups, universities and the solo diver.

DIVE POINT Parmenionos St. No4, Tombs of the Kings Rd, Kato Paphos, Cyprus 8045. Tel/fax: (00 357) 26 938730.

E-mail: divepointcyprus@hotmail.com www.divepointcyprus.co.uk British BSAC/PADI instructors.

TRUE BLUE BAY RESORT – AQUANAUTS P.O. Box 14161, Grand Anse, St. George’s.

Tel: (473) 443 8783. Fax: (473) 444 5929.

E-mail: mail@truebluebay.com www.truebluebay.com Boutique hotel, Gold Palm diving centre.

MALAYSIA BORNEO, SABAH THE REEF DIVE RESORT

EGYPT HURGHADA ILIOS DIVE CLUB Steigenberger Al dau Resort, Yussif Affifi Road, Hurghada. Tel: (00 20) 65 346 5442.

E-mail: info@iliosdiveclub.com www.iliosdiveclub.com PADI Dive Centre, border free.

INDONESIA

(Mataking Island), TB212, Jalan Bunga, Fajar Complex, 91000 Tawau, Sabah. Tel: (00 60) 89 786045. Fax: (00 60) 89 770023. E-mail: sales@mataking.com www.mataking.com PADI 5* Dive Resort.

ALOR ALOR DIVERS Jl. Tengiri N. 1 Kalabahi, Alor Island, NTT, Indonesia.

Tel: (00 62) 813 1780 4133.

E-mail: info@alor-divers.com www.alor-divers.com Pristine. Diving. Exclusive. Covert. Destination.

MALTA (inc. GOZO & COMINO

CYPRUS

GOZO

LARNACA RECOMPRESSION CHAMBER 24/7 professionally manned and fully computerised, privately owned and operated 14-man recompression chamber, internationally approved and the DAN Preferred Provider for the island. If in doubt … SHOUT! Poseidonia Medical Centre, 47a Eleftherias Avenue, Aradippou, Larnaca 7102, Cyprus.

24hr Emergency Dive Line: +357 99 518837.

E-mail: info@hbocyprus.com www.hbocyprus.com

GOZO AQUA SPORTS

LIVEABOARDS

Rabat Road, Marsalforn, MFN9014, Gozo, Malta.

Tel: (00 356) 2156 3037. www.gozoaquasports.com E-mail: dive@gozoaquasports.com PADI 5* IDC & DSAT Tec Rec Centre, BSAC Dive Resort.

Premier Technical Diving Support Service.

SEA QUEEN FLEET Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Tel: (00 20) 12 218 6669 or (00 20) 12 100 3941.

E-mail: seaqueen@link.net or karen@seaqueens.com www.seaqueens.com Red Sea liveaboards. Dive Centre.

SHARM EL SHEIKH ELITE DIVING Divers United Dive Centre, Karma Hotel, Hadaba, Sharm El Sheikh, Red Sea, Egypt. Tel: (00 20) 1224 308 780.

E-mail: info@elite-diving.com www.elite-diving.com British owner managers.

106

BALI AQUAMARINE DIVING – BALI Jalan Petitenget 2A, Kuta, Bali 80361.

Tel: (00 62) 361 4738 020. Fax: (00 62) 361 4738 021.

E-mail: info@AquaMarineDiving.com www.AquaMarineDiving.com

To advertise in the divEr Holiday Directory contact Alex on 020 8943 4288 • e-mail: alex@divermag.co.uk

DHD – Feb. 2014_Holiday Directory 08/01/2014 16:25 Page 107

HOLIDAY DIRECTORY MALTA

BALEARIC ISLANDS – MENORCA

MALTAQUA

BLUEWATER SCUBA

Mosta Road, St. Paul’s Bay. Tel: (00 356) 2157 1111.

Fax: (00 356) 21 580064. E-mail: dive@maltaqua.com www.maltaqua.com On-line booking service.

BSAC Centre of Excellence 007, PADI 5* IDC. ANDI

Calle Llevant, Centro Civico Local 3, Cap D’Artrutx, 07769 Ciutadella de Menorca.

Tel/fax: (00 34) 971 387183. www.bluewaterscuba.co.uk E-mail: sales@bluewaterscuba.co.uk Dive the famous Pont D’en Gil cavern!

ANDALUCIA – COSTA DEL SOL ANCHOR DIVING MALTA

HAPPY DIVERS MARBELLA

Sunhaven, Lampuki Street, Bugibba/St Paul’s Bay, SPB 03.

Tel: (00 356) 2756 7238. e-mail: info@anchordiving.com www.anchordiving.com

Happy Divers Marbella & IDC College, Hotel Atalaya Park Marbella-Estepona. Tel: (00 34) 609 571920, (00 34) 952 88 36 17. E-mail: college@idc-spain.com www.happy-divers-marbella.com The only PADI 5* CDC & NG center in Spain, Nitrox & DPV speciality center.

SUBSCRIBE TO divEr MAGAZINE AND PICK UP A FREE LED DIVE TORCH

AQUAVENTURE LTD The Waters Edge, Mellieha Bay Hotel, Mellieha MLH 02. www.aquaventuremalta.com Tel: (00 356) 2152 2141 Fax: (00 356) 2152 1053 e-mail:info@aquaventuremalta.com PADI 5* Gold Palm. Watersports available.

1-year subscription plus FREE Northern Diver Fusion X3 LED diving torch, worth £40

SIMPLY DIVING Carlota Alessandri 25, 29620 Torremolinos, Malaga.

Tel: (00 34) 600 506 526. E-mail: dive@simplydiving.com www.simplydiving.com Centres in Torremolinos and Fuengirola. Only British run PADI 5* IDC Resort in Southern Spain. We dive 240km of coastline, inc. famous Gibraltar wrecks.

DIVE DEEP BLUE Deep Blue Lido, 100 Annaniija Street, Bugibba.

Tel: (00 356) 21 583946. Fax: (00 356) 21 583945 E-mail: dive@divedeepblue.com www.divedeepblue.com PADI 5* Gold Palm/BSAC Premier. Technical Diving support service. ANDI

TANZANIA PEMBA DIVE 710

STARFISH DIVING SCHOOL Corinthia Marina Hotel, St. George’s Bay, St. Julians.

Tel: (00 356) 2138 2995. E-mail: info@starfishdiving.com www.starfishdiving.com Excellent seafront location. Own jetty.

Fundu Lagoon Beach Resort, P.O. Box 3945, Pemba Island/South Region, Zanzibar.

Tel: +255 (0)7774 38668, Fax: +255 (0)777 419906.

E-mail: reservations@fundulagoon.com www.fundulagoon.com PADI 5* Gold Palm.

✹ Take out a ONE-YEAR subscription to Britain’s best-selling diving magazine for just £48.95

PALAU KOROR FISH ’N FINS DIVE CENTER / OCEAN HUNTER I & III LIVEABOARDS PADI 5* IDC & TDI. Technical diving. 6 & 16 pax luxurious liveaboards. 30+ WWII Japanese wrecks to explore. Check our special events! www.fishnfins.com www.oceanhunter.com

THAILAND SURAT THANI/KOH TAO DAVY JONES’ LOCKER 9/21 Moo 2, Mae Haad, Koh Tao, Koh Phangan, Surat Thani, Thailand 84280. Tel: (00 66) 77 456126.

Mob: (00 66) 79 700913. www.techdivethailand.com E-mail: djl_kohtao@hotmail.com Recreational, reef, tech, deep, wreck.

PHILIPPINES THRESHER SHARK DIVERS Malapascua Island, Daanbantayan, Cebu 6013.

Tel: (00 63) 927 612 3359. www.thresherdivers.com E-mail: dive@thresherdivers.com British, PADI 5* IDC, IANTD.

✹ You also get a Northern Diver Fusion X3 LED diving torch (worth £40) ABSOLUTELY FREE ✹ Featuring a powerful 3W LED, it gives more than 8 hours of high-intensity light from a single set of batteries ✹ Offer includes p&p for the 12 monthly magazines

Offer worth £92.80 – YOU PAY ONLY £48.95 £X6.95 2-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION + FREE RUCKSACK – SEE PAGE 109

TOBAGO BLUE WATERS DIVE’N Batteaux Bay, Speyside.

Tel: 1 (868) 395 9343.

E-mail: wpalmer@bluewatersinn.com www.bluewatersdiven.com PADI 5* Dive Centre.

YES, please send me 12 issues of divEr plus free Torch for £48.95 starting with the __________________________ issue

TURKS & CAICOS IS. DIVE PROVO Tel: 001 (649) 946 5040. Fax: 001 (649) 946 5936.

E-mail: diving@diveprovo.com www.diveprovo.com 1990-2010, 20 years of Diving As It Should Be!

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C/d’el Cano 23, 07470 Port de Pollença, Mallorca.

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Maestro Issue No

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107

Liveaboard Directory – 02_14_Liveaboard Directory 08/01/2014 16:29 Page 108

LIVEABOARD DIRECTORY DWw Dive Worldwide

GD

Geo-Dive

Divequest

HD

Holiday Designers

O

Oonasdivers

AF

Aqua-Firma

A

Aquatours

DQ

CT

Crusader Travel

Emp Emperor

CT DWw STW UD

AUSTRALIA – Cairns Spirit of Freedom www.spiritoffreedom.com.au Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

26 11 Y 37m steel

26 15 Y 30m alum

Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

www.explorerventures.com Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

18 9 Y 35.1m alum

16 8 Y 32.3m

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Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

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Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

110V Y Y Y N

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MALDIVES – Malé Eagle Ray

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DQ Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

SS 110V Y Y Y N

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COCOS IS. – Puntarenas, Costa Rica Argo www.underseahunter.com Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

16 8 Y 39m steel

Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

EGYPT – Sharm el Sheikh Sea Queen 1 Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

240V Y Y Y Y

HD

www.vipone.com

108

Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

16 8 Y 29.5m wood

Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

220V Y Y Y Y

MICRONESIA – Truk Lagoon M.V. Odyssey www.trukodyssey.com Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

16 9 Y 38.2m Steel

CT DWw AF DQ

MALDIVES S/Y Maldives Siren www.worldwidediveandsail.com Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

16 8 Y 34m wood

Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

DQ UD DWw SS STW Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

220v,110v Y Y Y Y

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16 8 Y 31m steel

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AF

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220V Y Y Y Y

Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

21 9 Y 28m steel

A DWw DQ SS

TURKS & CAICOS Turks & Caicos Explorer II

www.scubascuba.com 24 10 Y 45m steel

EGYPT – Sharm el Sheikh VIP One Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

14 7 Y 30m wood

MALDIVES – Malé Sea Queen & Sea Spirit

www.seaqueenfleet.com

Ultimate Diving

PHILIPPINES S/Y Philippine Siren Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

110V Y Y Y Y

UD

240V Y Y Y N

CARIBBEAN – St. Maarten & St. Kitts A DWw Caribbean Explorer II Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

Sportif

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A DWw DQ SS AF

MALDIVES – Malé Carpe Vita Explorer

S

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N Y Y N

CT DWw STW DQ AF www.worldwidediveandsail.com

www.explorerventures.com Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

Snooba Travel

INDONESIA S/Y Indo Siren

240V Y Y Y N

A DWw DQ SS

BAHAMAS – Georgetown Caribbean Explorer II

Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

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A DWw DQ SS AF STW

GALAPAGOS Humboldt Explorer

240V Y Y Y N

www.mikeball.com Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

ST

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CT DWw

AUSTRALIA – Cairns Spoilsport

SS

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www.explorerventures.com Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

12 6 Y 26m wood

Elec Cour A/C Ntx CCR

220V Y Y Y Y

Pax Cab EnS Lth Hull

20 10 Y 37.8m alum

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Showcase your vessel in the UK’s most authoritative diving magazine, complete with colour picture, web address, and summary details (including UK agents).

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110V Y Y Y N

109_DIVER_0214_DIVER 2014 08/01/2014 16:55 Page 109

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ALTERNATIVE WAYS TO ORDER Call the Subscription Hotline on 020 8943 4288 Or e-mail: subscriptions@divermag.co.uk Or go to: www.divernet.com GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you would like divEr to be sent to an address other than the one above, please write details on a separate piece of paper and attach to the form. We’ll post you a gift card to send on to the recipient.

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Classified page 110-111_02_Classified LHP 08/01/2014 15:09 Page 110

CLASSIFIED ADS CHARTER BOATS

DIVE LIFT SCAPA FLOW, ORKNEY'S NORTH ISLES, SHETLAND IS., EAST & WEST COAST OF SCOTLAND We cater for all types of diving from the wrecks in Scapa Flow through to deep technical projects. Air, Nitrox and Trimix onboard, dayboat or liveaboard option.

South West WINTER DIVING SUBJECT TO WEATHER Blue Turtle 2013 midweek dive programme can be seen on our website. Programme is very flexible. Always willing to change the site to suit your needs. Diving wrecks such as Salsette, M2, Empress of India, Moidart and many lesser known wrecks.

Phone Rob on 07970 856822/(01404) 881240

www.blueturtle.uk.com Bovisand Lodge Estate, Plymouth. 4* self-catering holiday park, 2.5 miles from Mountbatten Diving Centre. Range of quality accommodations. Free parking for RIBs. Indoor heated pool. Weekend and part week bookings available.

Tel: (01752) 403554, www.bovisand.com (37836)

Falcon II OF DARTMOUTH DIVING SOUTH DEVON. 10m Aquastar, MCA Category 2 coded. Spacious, sheltered deck area.

Owner/skippers Tony Hoile & Laurie Fraenkel, diver/instructors with 50+ years’ experience of diving this area. Gas station available near Dartmouth.

Bookings 07970 759172 or someTrwy h www.dartboat.com different!ere

Scotland (Scapa Flow)

www.jeanelaine.co.uk

Scotland

South

Oban/Mull Area For Winter Diving Spend your spring weekends diving the sheltered waters around Oban/Mull areas.

Dates available for Spring & Easter holiday periods.

Tel Jim: (07899) 897576 Boat Mobile: (07775) 508242

www.sussexshipwrecks.co.uk “Sussex” Eastbourne Fast Cat, lift, O2, Toilet, tea/coffee. Groups and individuals.

Diver/skipper Mike mobile: 077115 70294, e-mail: dive@sussexshipwrecks.co.uk (37032)

DIVE BRIGHTON www.brightondiver.com 10m cat with dive lift.

Individuals and groups. All levels, novice to technical. BSAC Advanced and trimix skipper.

Call Paul: 07901 822375 or 01273 301367

Lymington - “Wight Spirit”. Diving West Wight, East Dorset, English Channel. Beginners to technical and small groups. Electric lift. Easy access, easy parking.

Owner/skipper Dave Wendes. Tel/Fax: (023) 8027 0390, email: wightspirit@btinternet.com www.wightspirit.co.uk (37153) Isle of Wight. Diving around the Island with pick-ups from the mainland. Beginners to advanced divers. Electric lift, easy access and parking. Owner/Skipper Mick Martin.

Tel: 07890 372958. Email: matzenmarine@btinternet.com (34929)

EASTER/MAY BANK HOLIDAY AVAILABLE

www.dartmouthcharters.co.uk Dive or snorkel with friendly seals at Lundy Island. We are offering big discounts to groups of snorkellers, see our new website. Clive Pearson is one of the area’s most experienced skippers. Wrecks, reefs, drop-offs, basking sharks July/August, some weekends still available.

Normally three dives a day, individuals can book midweek. Please phone for a chat and a brochure: (01237) 431405. www. clovellycharters.com (29726)

2014 SPACES AVAILABLE Tel: 01856 874425 Fax: 01856 874725 E-mail: dougie@sunrisecharters.co.uk

divescapaflow.co.uk (01856) 850055 Now taking bookings for 2014 with an amazing 10% discount.

Contact: leigh@divescapaflow.co.uk

PLYMOUTH

Dive Lundy aboard the “Lundy Murrelet”. Purpose built charter, maximum 10 divers. Diver skipper with 35 years’ experience. Oxygen carried. For details, please phone: (01237) 424228 or 07974 805086. Also ask about midweek specials! www.lundy-charters.co.uk (34085) Swanage Boat Charters. Daily diving for 2 to 12 divers and whole boat charters visiting wreck, reef and drift dive sites. Phone Patricia/Martin/Bryan: (01929) 427064. email: info@kyarra.com Web: www.kyarra.com (33158) Venture Dive Charters. For quality diving from Plymouth, visit: www.venturecharters.co.uk or Tel: 07778 494274.

(33336)

• TWO CHARTER BOATS WITH LIFTS • TWIN/DOUBLE ENSUITE B&B • DORMITORYS • CAMPING • AIR STATION • RIBs WELCOME

EREIGN

DIVING

Seahouses

Dive the Farne Islands aboard Sovereign II & III Seals, scenic and wrecks. Own quality B&B. Fully stocked dive shop and air station. Air to 300bar and nitrox available.

Tank hire also available. Ailsa, Toby & Andrew Douglas.

Tel/fax: (01665) 720760 or www.sovereigndiving.co.uk

www.lundydiving.co.uk

DIVE year round on CEEKING Price per diver or full boat.

Boat only or with B&B. Side lift. Free drinks 01752 663247 07702 557317 www.divingplymouth.com & cylinder hire.

FARNE DIVING SERVICES

SO V

Contact Andrew. 01271 866325 / 07971 462024 Diving in Newquay - Atlantic Diving. Two 10mtr super fast catamarans, both with diver recovery lifts. Superb visibility, stunning wrecks, Basking sharks, seals, blue shark cage diving. Accommodation, midweek specials.

Air, nitrox & trimix available. www.atlanticdiver.co.uk Tel: 07860 927833.

(28607)

North East

www.farnedivingservices.com e-mail: leehalldiving1@aol.com

Friendly seals, wrecks, reefs, drop-offs and pinnacles.

Midweek and evening deals.

Farne Islands All year round diving from our hard boats and RIB for groups and individuals. Air Station with air fill collection service.

Elizabeth G Luxury 23m liveaboard

Six twin berths, loads of deck space, stabilised.

Nitrox, Trimix, O2. Great crew, great food, great diving.

We now have a dive lift!

Phone: 01631 720090 07831 225427

diver@farne-islands.com WILLIAM SHIEL www.farne-islands.co.uk Tel: 01665 721297 Mob: 07799 666573 www.farneislandsdiving.co.uk

Northern Ireland Aquaholics diving from Rathlin Island to Malin Head www.aquaholics.org (25210) Dive Belfast, Strangford Loughs and Rathlin Island.

Weekend break packages from £190 per person, inc ferry, accommodation and diving. Tel/fax: (02891) 464671, web: www.dvdiving.co.uk (33964)

Wales info@elizabethgcharters.co.uk www.elizabethgcharters.co.uk 8 PLACES LEFT ON OUR LAST ST. KILDA DIVING EXPEDITION OF 2014 CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE

DI V

E1

25.CO.UK

OUR W

07

764

58 53

53

07764 585353

Custom built 42' dive vessel, huge deck space, Diver lift, large wheel house + separate toilet.

www.dive125.co.uk Eastbourne Charters

STAN/LEE HALL (01665) 720615

OBSESSION CHARTERS – Ilfracombe DIVE LUNDY ISLAND

Onboard Compressor

Ian Noble 01803 834598 • Boat 07780 970803 E-mail: iannoble@tesco.net

DIVE 125

Air + Nitrox

With full shelter deck for all weather, six spacious double cabins with hot & cold water, two showers, two toilets, large saloon, central heating throughout, galley with all facilities and two dry changing areas. Long established, high standard of service. Nitrox, trimix & onboard meals available. Reduced off-peak season rates.

Anglesey. Hard boat diving aboard “Julie Anne” and “Empress”. Diver lift. Visit: www.julie-anne.co.uk or tel: (01407) 831210, mobile: 07768 863355.

(29193) Quest Diving. Hardboat with lift. Diving Anglesey and North Wales. Tel: 07974 249005. Visit: www.quest diving.co.uk (31445)

www.channeldiving.com Midweek diving for individuals. Tel: (07970) 674799.

(30908) www.sussexfishingdiving.co.uk Email: info@sussex fishingdiving.co.uk Tel: 07754 324270. Diving for individuals or groups.

(32975) Dive Littlehampton. “Our Joy”. Shallow to deep, we cater for all. Skipper & crew on board, available 7 days a week.

Minimum 6, maximum 10. Tel: (01243) 553977 or 07850 312068, www.ourjoy.co.uk (31029)

HOLIDAYS IN UK Scotland Beautiful Tobermory, Isle of Mull. Diver-friendly accommodation in 2 quality properties, sleeping 9 and 6. www.tobermorylets.com or tel: (01688) 302228.

(37715)

WANTED Brass & copper diver’s helmets wanted by private collector, Siebe Gorman - Heinke. Tel: 07976 294981 or (01708) 551967 or Email: andy@deepdive.fsnet.co.uk (38135) Wanted: Dive gear. Anything considered. Cash waiting!

Tel: (0783) 464 0659, e-mail: DiveGear2000@aol.com (24615)

DIVING MEDICALS Diving medicals: London. HSE, Sport and phone advice.

Tel: (020) 7806 4028 www.e-med.co.uk (36911) Dr Des McCann, Dr Gerry Roberts and Dr Mark Bettley-Smith. HSE Medicals and phone advice. Tel: (01202) 741345.

(29072) Diving Medicals - Nottingham. Sport Diving medicals: £50. HSE Commercial Diving medicals: £110. UK and Norwegian offshore medicals: £100. Student and Group discounts. Combine with an HGV/taxi medical for an extra £5. Tel: (07802) 850084 for appointment. Email: mclamp@doctors.org.uk (36790)

Classified page 110-111_02_Classified LHP 08/01/2014 15:10 Page 111

CLASSIFIED ADS Diving Medicals - Midlands (Rugby) - HSE, Sports Medicals and advice at Midlands Diving Chamber. Tel: (01788) 579 555 www.midlandsdivingchamber.co.uk (27640)

COMPRESSORS Used HP compressors. Electric/diesel/petrol. Many makes, models & sizes available. New stock available daily.

Spares & servicing all compressors also available. Tel: (01772) 687775 for details. www.smp-ltd.co.uk (31159)

INSURANCE UNNECESSARILY RISKY

ACCESSORIES Buy online at www.divemasterinsurance.com or call us on: +44 (0)1702 476902

Like a dive without a Dive Master Policy Insurance policies for: • diving accidents • travel • equipment • liability • dive centres • boats Range of added benefits for equipment and travel policies

CLUB NOTICES

FREE OF CHARGE. (Max 25 words).

Non-commercial clubs, no sales.

PHOTOGRAPHY SEAPRO - SUBSEA MODULES are HOUSINGS for SCIENTIFIC EQUIPMENT and VIDEO SYSTEMS Special Packages on Video Cameras and Housings See web site:

www.greenawaymarine.com “PACKAGE DEALS”

GREENAWAY MARINE Tel: (01793) 814992

REPAIRS/SERVICES WET & DRY SUIT

REPAIRS All makes, all types

0161 304 8471 9 Waterloo Court Waterloo Road Stalybridge Cheshire SK15 2AU

email: repairs@gybe.co.uk

www.gybe.co.uk

Active and friendly BSAC Club. All year diving in local lake. New and qualified divers of all agencies welcome.

Own club house with 7m RIB and compressor. For further information visit www.mksac.co.uk (23746) Alfreton (Derbys) BSAC 302. Welcomes new members and qualified divers. A small but active club with own RIB, wreck diving a speciality. Contact Charlie on (01246) 236328.

(32561) Banbury SAC. Friendly, active club with weekly meetings and training sessions, own boat, compressor and equipment. Welcome divers/non divers. www.bansac.org or call 07787 097 289.

(35346) Bracknell Sub Aqua Club welcomes new and experienced divers from all agencies. Meets poolside at Bracknell Sports Centre Thursdays from 8.30pm. Diving, training and social calendar: www.bracknellscuba.org.uk or tel: 07951 855 725.

(29993) Braintree Riverside SAC based in Braintree, Essex. We welcome divers of all abilities and have an active diving and social programme. email: denise.f.wright2@bt internet.com www.braintreeriversidesac.co.uk (35869) Brixham Divers (BSAC) Torbay. East Devon reefs/wrecks.

Novices/experienced/visitors/groups all welcome. 7mtr RIB, 150hp Evinrude electronics. Club/social nights. Tel: Gary: 07740 288 670.

(33837) Bromley/Lewisham Active divers required. Full programme of hardboat diving throughout the year.

Check out Nekton SAC www.nekton.org.uk or contact Jackie (01689) 850130.

(22669) Buckingham Dive Centre. Small friendly club welcoming all divers and those wanting to learn. We dive throughout the year and run trips in the UK and abroad. www.stowe subaqua.co.uk Tel: Roger 07802 765 366.

(34491) Buntingford Horizon Divers (East Herts). All welcome.

Pool meetings. Dive trips UK and abroad. 5.8mtr RIB. Social calendar. Tel: 07971 491702 or visit: www.horizondivers.org (32806) Chelmsford and District SAC meet at 8pm every Friday at Riverside Pool. New and qualified divers are welcome.

See our website for details: www.chelmsforddiveclub.co.uk (38371) Cheshire. Icicle Divers SAA club. Meet every Monday evening 9pm at Crewe Pool, Flag Lane. New and experienced divers welcome. Try Dives available. www.icicledivers.com (31960) Chingford, London BSAC 365. Friendly and active club welcomes divers from all agencies and trainees. Meet Wednesday 8pm, Larkswood Leisure Centre E4 9EY. Information: www.dive365.co.uk Email: loughtondivers365@gmail.com (33456) Cockleshell Divers, Portsmouth, Hants. Small, friendly club welcomes new and experienced divers from all agencies. Meets at Cockleshell Community Centre, Fridays at 8pm. Email: cockleshelldivers@hotmail.co.uk(27110) Colchester Sub-Aqua Club welcomes experienced divers and beginners. Sub-Aqua Association training. Diving at home and abroad. Meets at Leisure World Friday evenings. Contact Tony (01787) 475803.

(35196) Cotswold BSAC, a friendly club based at Brockworth Pool, Nr Cheltenham, Fridays 8pm. Regular inland diving and coast trips.

Tel: 07711 312078. www.cotswoldbsac332.co.uk (38250) Darwen SAC, in Lancashire, with an active diving programme. Own RIB. new members welcome regardless of agency/training. We provide BSAC training. Weekly pool sessions. www.darwensac.org.uk (35271)

Dream Divers. Very friendly dive club in Rotherham welcomes divers of any level/club. Meet at the Ring O Bells, Swinton, last Thursday of the month at 19.30. Email: info@dreamdiversltd.co.uk (36427) Ealing SAC, BSAC 514. Friendly, active club, own RIBs; welcomes new and experienced divers. Meets Highgrove Pool, Eastcote, Tuesday nights 8.30pm. www.esac.org.uk (32395) East Cheshire Sub Aqua. Macclesfield based BSAC club.

Purpose built clubhouse, bar, two RIBs, minibus, nitrox, compressor. Lower Bank Street, Macclesfield, SK11 7HL. Tel: (01625) 502367. www.scubadivingmacclesfield.com (30263) East Durham Divers SAA welcome new/experienced divers of any agency. Comprehensive facilities with own premises half a mile from the sea. Contact: John: 07857 174125.

(36639) East Lancs Diving Club based in Blackburn. Friendly and active club welcomes new members at all levels of diving from all organisations. Tel: 07784 828961 or email: ELDC@hotmail.co.uk www.eastlancsdivers.co.uk (34566) Eastbourne BSAC; RIB, banked air (free) to 300bar, nitrox, trimix. Enjoy some of the best diving on the South Coast, all qualifications welcome. www.sovereign divers.co.uk (30173) Eastern Sub Aqua Club SAA 1073. We are a small friendly dive club and welcome new and experienced divers alike.

We are situated north of Norwich for training. For more information please see out website: www.esacdivers.co.uk (30083) Eastleigh (Southampton) Sub Aqua Club (BSAC).

Whether you want to learn or are an experienced diver, interested in a course or a try dive. We meet every Tuesday at 10pm in the Fleming Park Leisure Centre bar. Contact us on: 07923 553 645. www.eastleighsubaquaclub.org.uk (32305) Ellon Sub Aqua Club, Aberdeenshire, welcomes newcomers and experienced divers. We dive year round and meet on Thursday evenings. Contact www.ellonsubaquaclub.co.uk (30353) Flintshire Sub Aqua Club based in Holywell, Flintshire, welcomes new and experienced divers from all agencies.

Full dive programme. Meet Wednesdays. See us at www.flintsac.co.uk or call (01352) 731425.

(23870) Haslemere Sub Aqua Club based at Haslemere, Surrey, friendly active club welcomes new and experienced divers, offers full training. Meets Thursday nights. Contact Mike 07754 968297.

(25972) Hastings SAC 58 years old SAA Club (0044) welcomes new and experienced divers. 2 hard boats. Meets 8.45pm Tuesdays at Summerfields, Hastings. See www.hastingssubaqua.co.uk (31690) Hereford Sub Aqua Club, is looking for new members.

Regular diving off the Pembrokeshire coast on own RIBs. Training and social nights.

Contact: rusaqua@googlemail.com (36237) HGSAC. South Manchester based friendly, non-political club welcomes newcomers and qualified divers. Lots of diving and social events. Family. Three RIBs and compressor. www.hgsac.com (22483) High Wycombe SAC. All welcome. Active club with RIB on South coast. Contact Len: 07867 544 738. www.wycombesubaqua.com (35591) Holborn BSAC, central London club. 50% M & F. Diving every weekend from our 6.5mt RIB on the South coast.

Contact Kate: 07561 801 886 for more details. (31570) Ilkeston & Kimberley SAA 945, between Nottingham and Derby, welcomes beginners and experienced divers.

We meet every Friday night at Kimberley Leisure Centre at 8.30pm. Contact through www.iksac.co.uk (22762) K2 Divers, covering West Sussex/Surrey. A friendly BSAC club, but all qualifications welcome. Training in Crawley, boat at Littlehampton. Email: k2divers@yahoo.co.uk or tel: (01293) 612989.

(32716) Kingston BSAC, Surrey. Two RIBs , clubhouse and bar, active dive programme, 2 compressors, nitrox, trimix, full training offered at all levels. All very welcome. www.kingstonsac.org or tel: 07842 622193.

(35782) Leeds based Rothwell & Stanley SAC welcomes new and experienced divers, full SAA training given. Purpose built clubhouse with bar, RIB, compressor. Meet Tuesday eves: 07738 060567, kevin.oddy@talktalk.net (36145)

Leicester Diving - Friendly & active BSAC club based at Wigston pool. Meet Tuesday nights at 8pm. Contact Daniel on 07957 507517 www.delmardiveclub.co.uk (30443) Lincoln - Imp Divers. Small, friendly, non-political diving club with our own RIB are looking to welcome new and experienced divers. Contact Richard: 07931 170205.

(36044) Lincoln and District BSAC. Active club with own RIB, compressor and other facilities. Regular trips and training. www.lincolndivingclub.co.uk (35682) Lincs Divers BSAC 1940. Friendly, active dive club offering dive trips and training for new/experienced divers, Lincoln based. www.lincsdivers.co.uk (32140) Llantrisant SAC, two RIBs, towing vehicle, welcomes new and experienced divers. Meet at Llantrisant Leisure Centre 8pm Mondays. Contact Phil: (01443) 227667. www.llantrisantdivers.com (22576) London No. 1 Diving Club. encourages divers of all levels, from all agencies. Based in Central London with 7mtr RIB, compressor, hire kit etc. www.londondiver.com (31780) Manchester Diving Group. Friendly, active club, welcomes new and experienced divers. Own clubhouse with bar, lecture room, compressor, RIB. Weekly pool sessions . Email: buddy@manchesterdiving.org.uk (28050) Manta Divers. Norfolk wreck & reef diving. Small, friendly, experienced club. All agencies welcome. SAA training. www.mantadivers.org (23377) Mercian Divers (BSAC 2463) Active and friendly club.

New, experienced & junior divers welcome. Own RIB. Based in Bromsgrove, West Midlands. Tel: (01905) 773406, www.mercian-divers.org.uk (30458) Millennium Divers. Active, friendly club for all levels and certifications of diver, based in Portland, Dorset. UK diving and holidays. Club social nights www.millenniumdivers.org (32636) Mole Valley Sub Aqua Club. Surrey based SDI club, own RIB, active diving UK & abroad, training and social events. Trainees/crossovers welcome. Contact: 07552 498558 or email: committee@mvsac.org.uk (36533) Monastery Dive Club (Dunkerton Branch). New divers welcome to join our club. Trips to Plymouth and NDAC. S. Wales area (Crosskeys, Risca.) Please text Flinty 07971 432803 or email: welshflinty@hotmail.com (30534) Nekton SAC. Based in Bromley, we are a friendly and active SAA Club that welcomes experienced and new divers alike. Info@nekton.org.uk or call Steve: 020 8467 4599.

(32470) Nemo Diving Club. Small, friendly dive club offering dive trips and training for non/experienced divers in Retford and surrounding areas. Contact: www.nemodivertraining.co.uk (24976) North Glos BSAC 80. Friendly, active club welcomes new and experienced divers. Own boat and equipment with weekly pool sessions, Thursdays, 8.30pm at GL1 Gloucester, (Gloucester Leisure Centre). www.nglos.co.uk (22284) North Notts Nautilus SAA942, Mansfield. Family dive club, diving and social members welcome. Clubhouse with licenced bar. Regular dive trips and holidays. www.NNN Divers.co.uk Tel: (01623) 622130 Facebook.

(30624) Nuneaton. Marlin BSAC welcomes experienced divers to Pingles Pool every Thursday. Active training, diving, social programme in a flourishing club with no politics allowed. www.marlinsac.com (35421) Orkney SAC. Small, friendly active dive club, based in Kirkwall, welcomes divers of any level or club. Own RIB and compressor. Contact Craig: 07888 690 986 or email: craigbarclay31@hotmail.com (26493) Preston Divers SAA 30. The friendliest dive club. Come and meet us at Fulwood Leisure Centre, Preston on Monday nights between 8.00pm - 9.00pm. www.prestondivers.co.uk (22855) Reading BSAC28 offers an active, friendly diving club.

Open to all grades and agencies. Pool training Mondays, club night Thursdays. www.rbsac.org.uk Email: rbsacinfo@gmail.com Tel: Sue 07772 172 575. (26111) Reading Diving Club. Experience the best of UK diving with a friendly and active club. All welcome. Tel: 01183 216310 or email: info@thedivingclub.co.uk www.thedivingclub.co.uk (34386)

WEBSITES www.lumbbros.com

Quality Diving Products

www.green-force.co.uk The ultimate torch diving system www.tek-tite.co.uk

Torches, strobes, marker lights for diving and outdoor pursuits

www.unidive.co.uk

A quality range of masks, snorkels, fins and knives

DCD – Feb. 2014_Centre Directory 09/01/2014 12:14 Page 112

DIVE CENTRE DIRECTORY IANTD

FACILITIES INCLUDE:

DAN

DAN

BSAC School

PADI Training

SSI Training

TDI Training

IANTD Training

Member of SITA

IDEST approved

DAN Training

Cylinder testing

Regulator servicing

Equipment for hire

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Dive boat charter arranged

Compressed Air

Nitrox

Technical Gases

Disability Diving

o

KENT

ENGLAND CORNWALL PORTHKERRIS DIVERS PADI 5* IDC Centre. Porthkerris, St. Keverne, Nr Helston TR12 6QJ. Tel: (01326) 280620. www.porthkerris.com E-mail: info@porthkerris.com 7 days a week, tuition from novice to instructor, hardboat/RIB charters, escorted dives, dive shop, beach café, basking shark trips, camping, shore dive.

MIDDLESEX

NORTHERN IRELAND

DIVE MACHINE

G&H DIVING SERVICES

Unit 11 Orchard Business Centre, Sanderson Way, Tonbridge, Kent TN9 1QF. Tel: (01732) 773553.

Fax: (01732) 773663. E-mail: robert@divemachine.com www.divemachine.com Mon-Sat 0930-1730, closed Sunday. Friendly, helpful, huge stocks. PADI CDC Centre.

Unit 1 Willow House, River Gardens, North Feltham Trading Estate, Feltham TW14 0RD. Tel: (020) 8751 3771.

Fax: (020) 8751 2591. E-mail: Ghdiving@aol.com Mon-Fri 0900-1800; Sat 0900-1230. ANDI Training.

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AQUAHOLICS DIVE CENTRE 14 Portmore Road, Portstewart BT55 7BE. Tel: (028 70) 832584. E-mail: dive@aquaholics.org www.aquaholics.org Open 0900-1730.

Diving Malin Head to Rathlin Island.

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WARWICKSHIRE LEICESTERSHIRE

DIVING CYLINDER AND REGULATOR SERVICES

STONEY COVE – THE NATIONAL DIVE CENTRE Leicester, LE9 4DW. www.stoneycove.co.uk www.underwaterworld.co.uk Sales & service: (01455) 273089; The Dive School (PADI 5* IDC): (01455) 272768; Nemo’s Bar & Diner: (01455) 274198. UK’s leading dive company. Dive “Stanegarth”, Britain’s biggest inland wreck.

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148 Coventry Road, Warwick CV34 5HL. Tel/fax: (01926) 493797. E-mail: dc-rs@hotmail.com Open Mon-Fri 1030-1800.

Computer/watch batteries and pressure testing.

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Otter House, 911 Wakefield Road, Dudley Hill Slip Road, Bradford BD4 7QA. Tel: (01274) 307555. Fax: (01274) 730993.

E-mail: sales@diverswarehouse.co.uk Mon-Fri 0930-1730; late night Thurs ’til 2000; Sat 09301700; closed Sun. Manufacturer of Otter drysuits.

PADI 5* Centre. PSAI.

DIVERS DOWN 139 Babbacombe Road, Babbacombe, Torquay TQ1 3SR. Tel: (01803) 327111. Fax: (01803) 32463.

E-mail: info@diversdown.co.uk www.diversdown.co.uk Open Mon-Fri 1000-1730; Sat 0900-1730; Sun 1000-1600. PADI 5* IDC.

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DORSET DIVERS DOWN SWANAGE

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MERSEYSIDE

ANDARK DIVING 256 Bridge Road, Lower Swanwick, Southampton SO31 7FL. Tel: (01489) 581755. Fax: (01489) 575223.

E-mail: bookings@andark.co.uk www.andark.co.uk Open 7 days, PADI 5* IDC, RYA powerboat, 3.5m pool & classrooms, large shop, mail order, kids parties, Club, helo escape, disabled friendly, 300bar.

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WIRRAL SPORTS & LEISURE 164-192 Cleveland Street, Birkenhead CH41 3QQ. Tel: (0151) 647 5131. Fax: (0151) 666 2631. e-mail: sales@wirralsports.co.uk www.wirralsports.co.uk Mon-Fri 0900-1730; Sat 09001700. Air to 300bar. Diving, watersports, mail order and online shopping. Friendly, helpful staff, PADI Centre.

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DIVE CENTRE DIRECTORY Call Sara or Alex on

020 8943 4288

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX

11 Power Road, Chiswick W4 5PT. Tel: +44 (0)20 8995 0002. Fax: +44 (0)20 8995 5100.

E-mail: info@londonschoolofdiving.co.uk www.londonschoolofdiving.co.uk Open 1000-1800 Mon-Thurs, 1000-1700 Fri-Sat. PADI CDC, onsite pool, kids parties.

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E-mail: medina@madasafish.com www.diversdownswanage.co.uk Open 7 days a week during the dive season. The UK’s oldest dive centre.

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DEEP BREATH

Hey dive pros, who are you trying to impress?

Could it be that some would-be or new divers, particularly women, are put off the sport when they encounter rude or patronising attitudes towards them?

JO CAIRD thinks it could

T

HE DIVE CENTRE DIRECTOR who made

THIS IS PARTICULARLY THE CASE for those new to diving. Getting qualified is not much fun in itself, even if there is a thrill attached to that first experience of exploring under water.

For most, training is a means to an end, and the hours spent studying dry dive science, doing confined-water dives and endlessly practising tricky new skills are more about endurance than enjoyment.

Don’t get me wrong – this is vital stuff that all divers need to know. Training needs to be rigorous to ensure the safety of everyone involved in the sport, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But given that this isn’t exactly the most diverting way of spending your hard-earned leisure time, it’s important to make the process as pleasant as possible if we want to encourage beginnerdivers to stick with it.

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dismissive.

I’ve logged only about 50 dives but have been fortunate enough to have dived in some unusual locations. It’s often only at the point when staff at dive centres get a look at my logbook that they start taking me seriously.

Surely hiring some gear and booking a seat on a dive-boat shouldn’t make you feel as if you’re trying to join some kind of exclusive club?

SOMETIMES, HOWEVER, the put-downs feel more deliberate. I don’t know why the dive-centre director I mentioned in my opening paragraph took against me, but that’s clearly what happened.

Every question I asked – from “where can I get changed?” to “what's the vis like?” – was met with a roll of the eyes, a snide remark, a snort of derision.

It was genuinely perplexing, not to mention

upsetting enough that I very nearly called the whole thing off.

If I hadn't been halfway around the world at the time, at the only dive centre in the area, I would have done just that.

I have no problem with bowing to greater experience and expertise. It’s interactions and conversations with more experienced and skilled members of the community – including the people running dive centres and the instructors who work there – that inspire me to push myself, keep learning, improve.

But having a healthy respect for experience doesn’t make it acceptable or helpful to denigrate lack of experience.

PARTLY TO BLAME is the macho culture that diving can’t seem to shake off. The sport isn’t without risk, of course, and there are moments when I envy my buddy his upper body strength, but very little recreational diving these days requires peak physical fitness, or a propensity for acts of derring-do.

The delightful truth – something we should be shouting from the rooftops – is that diving is an activity accessible to almost everyone, whether they’re old or young; sporty or sedentary; male or female.

Alas, this is a message that isn't always getting through, at least as far as the statistics on gender in scuba can tell us.

In 2012, women made up only 34% of PADIcertified divers worldwide.

There may be various factors behind this disparity, but I don’t think it’s a wild leap to lay at least some of the blame at the door of macho dive culture and the misogynistic attitudes and behaviour in which it sometimes manifests itself.

I can’t be the only female diver who has ever been made uncomfortable by sexist language, sleazy glances or unwanted advances.

And I’m sure my buddy, who is also my boyfriend, isn’t the only male diver to have been deliberately belittled by an instructor seeking to demonstrate his masculinity.

If we’re to broaden access to this sport and retain keen newbies, by ensuring that diving is inclusive and welcoming, we need to acknowledge damage caused by macho dive culture, examine our interactions and call people out on bad behaviour. It’s about treating each other with a bit of common decency.

SIFIS DIAMANTIDIS / DREAMSTIME.COM

me feel so stupid for not knowing the names of all the local fauna in advance that I considered cancelling.

The divemaster who shouted at my buddy for five full minutes for having only a photocopy of his stolen certification card – despite being told that PADI was in the process of sending a replacement.

The numerous guides who have talked down to me because I don’t own all my own gear.

These are just a few examples of individuals I have encountered whose behaviour has risked putting me off diving over the six years since I qualified.

I’ve come across a lot of wonderful divemasters and instructors in my time – women and men who have taught me a huge amount, inspired me to improve my skills and generally been a joy to spend time with, both under water and topside.

Most dive professionals you meet are fantastic ambassadors for their sport. Yet it takes only one negative experience to put someone off for life.

Instead, some of the instructors I have come across seem more concerned about showing off their own skills and experience than effectively initiating their students into the sport.

Though relatively harmless in most cases, at its worst such behaviour can turn into outright bullying. Confidence-building is an important element of dive training, and it’s crucial that students don’t feel belittled or intimidated.

Power-play on the part of instructors is perhaps born of job dissatisfaction.

I can see that teaching open-water courses may not be the most glamorous aspect of a career in diving, but that’s no excuse for behaviour that ultimately does a disservice to the whole community.

It’s not only dive virgins who are vulnerable to unwelcoming attitudes, either.

Sometimes it’s inadvertent – a matter of someone just being a little bit

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