Divers Night

So, next week, on the 4th of december, 2008, 20:08 a clock, we'll be going nightdiving. Diversnight has been arranged for a few years now on the initiative of the diveclub DKTV's founder. This fourth annual diversnight is again pushing for a recordbreaking dive-event by having as many divers in the water at the same time as possible - last year there was 1859 divers in the water, and hopefully there will be more this year as the popularity of the event has spread outside of Norway and Scandinavia.

There is also a set of rules that every divesite must follow to ensure a minimum of safety. Would be rather unfortunate if anyone was to have an accident.
Borrowed without permission from the diversnight.com site, but assuming it's ok as it is about safety.

"The following must be present on the dive site for matters of safety:

• Surface support; a diver in gear (PAI Rescue or equivalent*)
• Emergency Management Plan in the unlikely event of an emergency
• The diving flag must be raised
• Divers must be logged inn and out of the water
• No ‘solo diving’
• All divers must be certified , with night diving experience*
• Local emergency services should be notified of the event
• All divers must fill out a liability release form"

The liability release form is a bit fishy, but understandable. So if you wanna go dive, make sure do sign up yourself and your buddy for an independant divelocation or check if there's a planned location somewhere close to you.

Why I hate british Diver - a rant.

The title sounds very aggressive, I know. It's a result of me getting more and more tired of the british dive magazine 'Diver' and its ability to time and time again front what can only be, in the developed diveworld, be seen as hazardous and narrowminded diving. I won't be throwing in actual examples, as I am short on time, but if you bother to pick up one of the monthly copies of the magazine, you'll be able to find them yourself.

I started buying the magazine as there's a limited supply on avalible recreational reading around, and I quite like to keep myself updated on what goes on in the diveworld. Diver magazine is ofthen full of relatively well-written stories from around the world. Divetrips and divelocations are presented with nice big pictures and the ocational amusing anecdote of cultural shocks and clashes. But that's where the good part stops. The articles are RIDDLED with romantic notions of how diving was conducted by the british 30 years ago, when the article writers first set out to get wet behind the ears, and how everything have changed for the worse in recent times.

What was good, and what has made things turn less good, according to Diver magazine? Well, there's a whole lot, and I won't be able to throw in the multitude of claimed examples, but if one was to sum it up it would be about all the new thinking going on. One such example of this new thinking is how diving has turned into being about skill. Being a skilled diver who likes to focus on safety, which includes diving on mixed gasses, is apparantly a negative thing. The magazines scribents are also very fond of talking down on one of the newer ideologies of scuba, which is DIR (google it if you don't know), which supposedly takes away the individual freedom by frowning upon divers taking with the every single bloody piece of kit one could ever think to need underwater.
Articles have discouraged against using a kidney OPV on wings and BCDs while using a drysuit. Which ofcourse is pure bullshit. If you are unable to dump air from your boyancy compensator by using anything else than the inflator while diving a drysuit, you are clearly way out of your element and should find a divable pool as soon as possible.

And if you are diving from a boat, which seems to always be the case for british divers, you must make sure you have all the gear you need, in case the boat looses it's directions. Everyone can agree that a closed SMB, reel and a main + backup torch is pretty usefull for signaling and grabbing attention in and out of water. But did you know that you also need a couple of bottles of water? a cap to avoid sunburns? a flag to waive about to catch attention? a flute to be heard with (lol)? An perhaps some emergency flares and a waterproof GPS with a locator beacon? the list goes on.

Obviously you won't need anything but something bright ( a decently siced SMB) and a proper lightsource with a respectable burntime. What diver fails to do is to communicate the need to first and foremost assess the dive one is about to do. Which, if they did, wouldn't have helped much as they have the romantic notions of diving as deep on air with as much customized gear as possible.

And when they get about to reviewing divegear... it can sometimes be helpfull to view viable alternatives, but for some reason they tend to talk down upon equipment inteded for DIR purposes without being able to analyze what techniques are inteded for using the gear in question. Nor do they care to ask themselves what enviromental needs the DIR gear has been created to meet. Being unable to use gear properly and thereby judge it by actual working criteria is simply just small minded - I can understand the want for having divegear that you can put on twice a year and put back in the closet without a second glanze or understanding of its servicing needs of functionality, but thats not how diving works. When you dive, you move in an alien and hazardous enviroment. To be as safe as possible, you need to analyze the hazards and eliminate them the easy way instead of adding to the complexity of gear by bringing along something to compensate for the eventual hazard. This is ofcourse not doable at all times, but if the old farts at Diver Magazine could open their eyes to a a new world where divers are concerned about their personal safety aswell as that of their divebuddy, I wouldn't have to put the main boddy of british divers in the same category as the main boddy of russian divers: cowboy divers who are seeking extremes without comprehending the hazards or their own lacking knowledge of hazards and how to handle them.

Rant over.

Seaskin Nova Drysuit Review

This is a poor translation from the original review which I typed out for a webforum. If there's anything you'd like to know about the suit not mentioned bellow, ask and we'll see if I know the answer. (not that I aexpect anyone to read it, but hey... just in case)

The basics – what is teh Seaskin nova?

Seaskin Nova is the trilaminate drysuit from seaskin which is made to measure. Seaskin is a brand from the company Aqualand Ltd. Which is a factory making scuba-products for several brands.
Front-zip is standard on the seaskin nova, and instead of a regular telescoping torso, they have chosen to go for just some extra material in the back which is secured to the front via a stretchy crotch-strap. go to Dry Suits from Seaskin Custom Drysuits home page for further details (but take em with a pinch of salt).

The process:

So… I was in urgent need of a drysuit, but living on a student loan, funds were short. But wait! What was it I glimpsed there in the back-alley of teh intarweb? A made to measure drysuit fir 400 British pounds/monopoly money? Surely it had to be the Nigerian mob after my money again... but if it was a scam, someone had gone through a lot of trouble making em fake forum-posts (have a look at the Yorkshire-divers forums), so I figured I’d give it a shot. One want everything to be just so when you’re getting yourself a custom suit. I phoned Seaskin and am allowed to chat with a cheery fellow named Richard – all of my questions are met with positive answers. The missus measures me three times while muttering about me visiting a gym. An order is placed, and I send an e-mail with some lines on how I want things done. Material: 2/2 nylon, bla bla– it’s the 22nd of may. A couple of days later I call seaskin again to confirm the details. Richard is his cheery self and says he’ll staple the e-mail to my order right away. My suit should be done in 4-5 weeks, starting from the day before yesterday.
I spend 5 weeks being elsewhere, but my suit is not done when I get home. Oh-well, it should be here any day now. In the second week of July I call Seaskin again, and Richard claims that it’ll ship in a couple of days. Another week passes, new phone call, and again same answer: couple of days. After this I call weekly to get an update – surprises like a lack of hunter-boots, halcyon-pockets not arriving from supplier and not being able to bond polyurethane pads to my suit are popped on me during the phone calls. Hunter-boots are found and glued, halcyon pockets finally arrive and alternatives for the polyurethane on the bum and elbows are promised. At the end of July I run a bit anxious about not getting any dives done, so I call a couple of times a week. Having to change delivery-address because holidays are over kinda sucks.


In the beginning of August my suit arrives. At First inspection it looks extremely good, but there are a few issues that have to be mentioned: there are no of the promised reinforcements on elbows and bum. The seams are double-sticthed and not triple-stitched as the web-page says (no matter as long as it’s functional). A couple of the seams have gone wrong and don’t hold together but for the glue, and there are quite a bit of air-bubbles trapped between the material and the tape. The reflective tape that is supposed to be on the arms is not there - no explenation given. But the inside of the suit with its glued and taped seams look to be high quality and they had done the most neatly done attachment of pockets I’ve ever seen.

So I have my suit – put on the undersuit, slip the drysuit on…. good heavens! – it feels like I’m wearing a soft jumpsuit! – the mobility is superb and the fit is just great! There is a bit of excess of material at the left shoulder by the zipper, but the suit is not tight in one single area. Frogkicks and aerobics are preformed and regarded as great entertainment for the missus.

When diving:

time to play around with weighting and trim with the new suit – its quickly done with and I can move on. The seaskin remains very flexible even when fully squeezed. The inflator is placed on the left side of the chest and I quickly discover that it allows me to have a much shorter inflation-hose (which is good). The valves preform flawlessly, the hunter-boots are flexible and have a nice fit. The warmneck which looked bulky next to the DUI version proved to be thin, robust, flexible and not in the way of movement at all.
I was a bit concerned about the arse of my suit being roughed up a bit as I use this particular part of my body to sit on while in a boat, sitting on rocks before and after a dive etc. but so far so good.

After 20 dives on various wrecks, including snagging on lots of the wreckage on Tirpiz, the suit looks good as new. The material cleans off easily and dries in minutes. The suit itself is very lightweight and overall it appears to be good quality. As you can see from my review, I am not particularly impressed by the customer service of Seaskin – sure the representatives of Aqualand and Seaskin are a friendly bunch, but there's a lot more to customer service than a cheery and positive staff. Don’t get me wrong: the customer service wasen’t bad, just not in any way as good as I had been led to believe through the statements of others.

In conclusion, I can, believe it or not, recommend you to try the seaskin nova drysuit if you are short on funds. I don’t know if I would have bothered with the 2/2 nylon on a second go-around seeing as there are none of the promised reinforcements. The cutting and most of the stitching is nice and precise work. The fit is excellent as long as you measure yourself properly, and the price is simply just unbeatable. I’ve tried several makes of DUI and they are unquestionably a tad better than the seaskin, but seriously… it’s not worth three times the price of a seaskin. I will probably consider a new seaskin when this one wears out.

Diving in Malta

Divetrip to Malta

Me and the girly went to Malta this June - I had read quite a bit about the diving in malta, and was really looking forward to it, seeing as I had never ever dived wet before. Malta turned out to be a not-so-great place with every single corner serving "english breakfast" which might have been a by-product of all the fat brits huffing around. The islands also sported a range of fantastic historical architecture and archaeological sites which lost some of their beauty to the fact that a majority of them had flashing neonadds bolted to the walls or a sweaty Macdonalds cramped into it. The food was everything from awfull to the best I've ever had. The best food Iæve ever had was probably awfull too, but I had treated myself to a couple of liters of sangria and a cheap bottle of local redwine prior to the meal. We didn't go there primarily to dive - allthough I have to admit that it was my primary motivation for choosing Malta from the multiude of cheap package hollidays. We were going to be there for two whole weeks, but we were short on money so finding the right divecentre (right beeing, unfortunatly, the ones able to compete in price) was essential, and luckily, the small islands have something like 44 of them to choose from. We went to a lot of centers, that quite honestly, scared us a bit due to seemingly low standards on rental and safety equipment, but then we stumbeled upon a newly opened centre that is run by a likeable and entertaining british couple: http://www.corsairdivingmalta.com/. We went pretty early in the season, so we lucked out and were able to pick exactly when and where we wanted to dive - having noone to bother us but the instructors. They picked us up from the hotel (the hotel being a whole sad story of itself ) in the morning, brought us to the centre for e briefing and then drove us to the divesites. There was no timeschedule, so there was no sense of rush at any point of the days spent diving.
The divesites themselves were in one word: fantastic. a lot has been done to create interesting sites where there are none, and let me assure you: there are very few places on malta where there are no interesting sites. The underwater limestoneformations is worth a multitude of dives by themselves. Huge arches, small grottos, swimthroughs, octopusses, moray eels, baracudas, seahorses, fireworms, parrotfish and much more hiding in the cracks. the Viz was supposedly not great, but imo. it was better than good. I've only seen better during mid-winter in northern norway. I used a shorty, which, tbh I don't think I really needed (the water was warm), and a halcyon eclipse 40'. My longhose drew some snide remarks from the snorkelinstructors and bubblemakers, but didn't seem to be an actual issue.

If you get the chance to go to malta to dive. do so, but opt for Gozo instead of the main island. If you have to choose between the red sea, malaysya etc. and Malta, don't go to Malta as a first choice unless you are short on money or have already been to the countries and sites which are a step up on the ladder on the scale of exotic. Gozo rivals everything else out there, but main Malta is simply just good enough.

Diving

So I was out diving here the other day. the viz was awfull - between 1 and 4 meeters depending on debth. I had a couple of drysuit newbs with me and I was a bit conserned that one of them would find the garment constricting and thereby panic, be afraid, hurt themselves, hurt me, hurt each other etc, but it turned out that there were no apparant major issues. I was somewhat expecting something bad to happen, and I am a bit ashamed to admit that there was a tiny bit of disapointment when everything went swimmingly. I spent most of my time turning this way and that, trying to keep track of both of them at once, so I didn't get to enjoy the muddy green water and empty bottles as much as I had wished for, but hey.. atleast I got to be in the water.