Dive News & Reports

Evil Phil

NB: PADI Recreational Dive Planner Recall
It seems that there was a printer error. If you are using an RDP purchased in 2002 then you should read this article to see if you need a replacement.

http://www.padi.com/rdprecall/

PADI recently issued a recall notice for certain Recreational Dive Planners (RDP). Errors by the printer caused inaccurate or missing numbers on these RDPs.

While analysis of the problems shows that the risk of injury from errors is remote, for the sake of safety, we ask that you immediately check any RDP that you purchased or received during this period, against the product and production codes listed below. Please note not all RDPs shipped during the latter half of 2002 have printer errors ...

Evil Phil

Stolen Gear

Posted by JaK ...

---

Original Message

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From: Elvira de Eyto [mailto:elvira.deeyto@marine.ie]
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 1:04 PM
To: 'irishdiving@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: [irishdiving] stolen gear
Dear all - the following gear was stolen from the Trinity Club on tuesday
night (the 27th) while they were shore diving in Sandycove harbour, Dublin.
This message is twofold - firstly to warn everyone to keep an eye on their
stuff if they are in that area (I thought I would never see the day!), and
secondly, if anyone is offered this gear for sale to please get in touch
with our D.O. John Hickie at jhickie@facility.ie. Alternatively, if anybody
might have picked up this gear thinking it belonged to them, perhaps they
could give it back?
Many thanks
Elvira


Bottle - Faber, stumpy 12L, White. serial no - 99/9954/010 (has the number
21 painted in silver on shoulder)
Reg - Oceanic Alpha CDX, with octopus and contents guage. serial no -
209988 (club no. 8, might well have 'TCD' scratched onto the first stage)
STAB - Oceanic BAJA - (has the number 2 attached to bottom D-ring with cable
tie).

Evil Phil

Zeagle Systems, Inc. is recalling 931 first stage scuba regulators sold between January 20, 2003 and May 19, 2003. If you have one of these regulators it is essential to take it to your dealer for immediate repair.
Do not attempt to dive with this regulator again until the regulator has been inspected by an authorized Zeagle dealer.

Some of these regs are faulty, if you have one get it checked. The full story here

Evil Phil

Passed on by Peace ...

UWATEC have issued the a recall notice for their Smart PRO and Smart COM dive computers.

Voluntary Recall
UWATEC is conducting a voluntary recall of the Smart PRO and Smart COM dive computers. A software programming error in these computers may cause the alert signals to stop working properly, and, in some instances, the screen freezes ...

Full report on Divernet.com

Mick L

I went to Donegal this weekend for 3 dives with Diveology. The dives went as follows:

Dive 1, Saturday morning:
Myself and buddy were the only divers on the RIB so we had loads of room and no time pressure. We dived a site called Limburner rock. It's a big mound of rock, like a small underwater mountain, starting from 5m down to 40m. The viz was excellent, about 15 - 20m. At one stage we lay down on the sea bed at 40m and could see the outline of the RIB on the surface. There is loads of life on the rocks at about 20m. There is a string surge at 5 - 10m which made deployment of the SMB a bit tricky.

Dive 2, Saturday afternoon:
This dive was a shallow dive on the wreck of the Kallipoli, a greek steamship torpedoed in WWII. The trick on this dive is to find the wreck which is scattered around the seabed. Despite the good viz we managed to find a part of the hull but not the boilers. There's not much current here and the seabed was rocky/sandy so it was as good a time as any to practise a few drills.

Dive3, Sunday morning:
The best wreck dive I've done in Ireland, we dived on the Laurentic, another wreck from WWII. She's a big ship and unlike the Kallipoli there's no searching to be done, you can't miss her. Again the viz was amazing. I've never seen so many congers and lobsters in the one place, the whole wreck is teeming with life. Unfortunately fishermen know this as well and there is a lot of fishing line and hooks scattered around the wreck. The wreck itself is quite flat but there is a lot of cargo still to be seen. We dived on the bow and worked our way back until we got to the 4 massive boilers, all next to each other. At this point we had to turn back as we had been at 40m for about 20 min and we had clocked up 27min of deco by the time we got back to the shot. During the dive we kept our eyes open for any signs of the 22 gold bars rumoured to still be missing from the salvage.


All in all a very good weekend of diving. Diveology is a new dive operation, and with the dive sites they have in Donegal they have the potential to be really successful. Best of luck to them

TacT

looks good! I'm off down to spiddal this weekend or next for a spear-fishing/snorkelling holiday, I'll let ya know what the life is like down there.

That wreck you dived on where there were a lot of fishing hooks etc sounds more than a little interesting from a fishing point of view. Do you need a boat to get out to it or is it within swimming distance, 200-500M from the shore?

Mick L

Yeah the Laurentic is a great dive, a bit too good in fact, we spent more time looking around than we should have and paid for it by hanging around for deco bored silly. But there's a lot to see.

It's about a mile out from Lough Swilly but the harbour we were using was about 40/50 minutes away on a RIB. There's a description on the wreck and some pictures in this Divernet article

daveg

Excellent report Mick. I'm gonna make this a sticky as it may give the group some idea's for dive sites. If you wish to add your dive reports please do so.

daveg

Basking shark rescue by Scubadive west members

Mick L

I went diving in Martinique a few weeks ago. If you're looking for a dive holiday location here's what you can expect:

Martinique is the island directly North of St Lucia in the Caribbean. It is a French island so if you speak French well and good, if you don't you could probably get by. The diving ranges from shallow coral reefs to deep wrecks and drop offs. When I say deep we're talking 60m. The diving is easy in clear warm water. This is wetsuit diving, I had a 5mm full length, no hood or gloves needed. There are some excellent dive sites around the island. The two best sites are

Le Rocher du diamant (Diamond Rock):
This is a large rock (large enough for English soldiers to occupy) just off the south western tip of the island, with a good view of St Lucia. The rock drops off steeply to 50m then there is a wall to 60m. The sea bed then gradually drops away the durther you get from the rock. There are some nice themoclines to cool yourself in on your way down and back up. On the way back up there are some very nice swim throughs, one cave in particular about 14m high, there's a great view when you swim through it and look back and up, the top of the cave is just at the surface of the water.

The Roraima:
This passenger ship sunk as it was in the harbour of St. Pierre when Mont Pele errupted and destroyed the town. (It has been reported that only 2 out of the 30,000 population survived). This is a deep wreck, lying in 50m. there are many swim throughs, the biggest being a section between the double hull (very silty, narrow and deep, once you've done it you won't forget it!!).

The other dives are shallower, anything from 12m to 40m. There's always a good bit of life, dolphins, Eagle Rays, turtles, octopus, and lots of fish. You won't get as much life as the Red Sea but there's certainly more than Dublin Bay.


Martinique has some great dives and if you want to dive deep then this is a good place to do it. We went in September which is after the main season so we got a good deal on accomodation. It's also the rainy season but that's not a problem, the rain can be a welcome break from the heat and only lsts about half an hour at a time.

Peace

HIGHLY WORTH READING FOLKS:

The best trip i've been on so far in relation to diving was when i dived the Red Sea. T

The only way to dive the Red Sea is to go for a liveaboard - this eliminates the getting up at 5am in the morning and dragging your gear down to the jetty and hoping aboard a day boat for the 3 hours journey out to whatever site you're diving that day. No Sir, the liveaboard simply moors up overnight and when ou get out of bed at a more civilised 7.30am you simply walk down to the dive deck and gear up. No fuss no mess. You can be in the water within 15minutes of you're gentle awakenin by whichever french instructor is calling you MiniMe. The shear convienence of it outweights any cost which may be incurred over a day boat holiday.

Same deal for when you come up from a dive. You hop up onto the dive deck, doff your kit and up you go to lie in the sun knowing you've got about an hour and a half before you repeat the exercise.

Also the diving in the red sea is , well you have to see it to believe it. We managed to get a swim in with a wild pod of dolphins....literally no words to describe that. Moray ells that look like they could eat you whole. Turtles galore. Huge wall dives - the most spoectacular was Shark Reef (750m down!).
I'm tellin yis, the red sea is a divers mecca for a good reason.

For those of you who are interested we stayed on a liveaboard called the WildCat. There are many liveaboards but the WildCat gets an unusual write up on divernet today:
http://www.divernet.com/news/stories/wildcat141003.shtml

I assure you for the duration of our visit the boat was completely positively bouyant.

Evil Phil

This was to be my first time not only diving in Irish waters but diving in cold water too. So I had to do two orientation/refresher dives before I was allowed out on the big bad boat dive. So without much further ado ...

The first dive, for which I buddied up with fellow moderator daveg, was a shore dive and only went to about 8m. The 7m visibility was okay considering this was my first dive in a year. There was the usual instruction stuff before we fined out into the dive proper, a kelp reef. The amount of life was a pleasant surprise. Crabs, cuttlefish, loads of other fish and I even got to feed a conger eel, which was pretty cool. MickL and Peace were off doing what boards people do best, being techies and going techie diving. Our shore dive lasted about 45 mintues with a bit of a swim back to the beach.

Afterwards it was into the changing rooms for a nice hot shower. Down I stripped and walked, naked as the day I was born, into the showers. The woman in there promptly ran screaming out of the showers which are unisex and not telling people is, apparently, a joke. Bastards. Then we went to the pub and got locked.

On Sunday morning, feeling very green, my second shore dive was at about 14m depth with the same vis. More conger eels, crabs, king-prawns (whom I assume have a symbiotic relationship with congers) and various oddities that live in the sea. There were a couple of dogfish too, sharks of any kind are always a highlight. Then back for coffee, a less naked shower and more coffee.

I was now ready for the afternoons boat dive, so I wimped out being cold and hung over. This didn't last and I went off with everybody else feeling even worse. This was to be diving proper going to about 20m+ with deco stops. Not deep for some of the lads in here but deep enough for a beginner like me. More congers just bigger and a lobster like something out of a Jules Verne novel. Again the amount of life was a surprise as I drifted over a meadow of brittle sea stars teasing crabs in passing. It was green and murky with an eerieness I thoroughly enjoyed. Back up to the boat then to clamber aboard amongst the filthiest looks I've received in a long time. There was a strong swell and a number of people were unimpressed with my being the last aboard.

Diving in Ireland is fun, fun, fun. It different from the tropical diving I've done. With half a foot of neoprene and 15 kilos of lead it's a long way from 2k and a shorty. Its good though, I'm going again.

daveg

Originally posted by Evil Phil
Afterwards it was into the changing rooms for a nice hot shower. Down I stripped and walked, naked as the day I was born, into the showers. The woman in there promptly ran screaming out of the showers which are unisex and not telling people is, apparently, a joke. Bastards.

LMFAO. I can honestly say I have never seen a funnier face than yours when the girls walked into the shower.

daveg

Originally posted by Peace
The only way to dive the Red Sea is to go for a liveaboard - this eliminates the getting up at 5am in the morning and dragging your gear down to the jetty and hoping aboard a day boat for the 3 hours journey out to whatever site you're diving that day.

Kevin who did you book the holiday with? Was it on-line? If so can you post some links.

Mick L

Originally posted by daveg
Kevin who did you book the holiday with? Was it on-line? If so can you post some links.

Dave, we booked through friends of ours and there is also a website for the wildcat where you can book it yourself. But the boats gone man, just let it go.

Plenty more boats in the sea

Mick L

Originally posted by Evil Phil
Afterwards it was into the changing rooms for a nice hot shower. Down I stripped and walked, naked as the day I was born, into the showers. The woman in there promptly ran screaming out of the showers which are unisex and not telling people is, apparently, a joke. Bastards.

I seem to recall he had a big grin on his face when he came out

Dirty bastard!!!

Peace

Taken from www.divernet.com

Oz divers in terror alert
Two Australian divers about to board a 737 flight to Sydney, rowed with airport staff at Vanuatu after 15 live anti-aircraft shells were confiscated from their luggage.

The divers had recovered the WW2 munitions while wreck diving near Santo island and were planning to take them home. Officials in charge of security for the Sydney-bound flight were horrified when they discovered the shells in two bags about to be loaded into the cargo hold.

The divers reacted angrily to having their souvenirs confiscated, and argued that they had made the munitions safe by removing the projectiles from the tip. The detonators were still inside the casings.

Flight officials were unconvinced, but let them go: minus the artillery shells. The incident only recently came to light after a report into the effectiveness of security scanning equipment at the airport.

21-year-old Samantha Marsden was arrested and charged in January, after joking with officials at Miami airport that she had three bombs in her bag. But then, being in possession of anti-aircraft artillery at an airport would appear to be less of an offence than joking about it.

Mick L

Anyone heard any more info on what happened in Kerry over the weekend? All I've managed to gather is that a diver went missing and the body has been found. Report here

Evil Phil

All I've heard is that she was an English girl.

Peace

From Divernet.com
The body of a diver, still wearing a cylinder, was discovered by wreck divers close to a 40m wreck site off North Wales on Saturday 24 April.


The dive group informed the coastguard, and police divers recovered the headless remains from the site off Point Lynas, Anglesey. The deceased is believed to be Richard Hartley, who went missing while diving the WW1 wreck Cambank in July 2003, though a formal indentification has not been confirmed.

The body was recovered to Moelfre Lifeboat Station on Anglesey. North Wales police confirmed that the body had been in the water for some considerable time. Relatives of the deceased have been contacted.

You really do have to keep your head when you're on a dive.... :eek:

daveg

Being back from my hols I said I'd report back on the 2 dives I did. I booked the dives with horizon divers in Key Largo. I have to say the staff were top notch from booking right through to the diving. Total cost for full gear hire, 2 dives and a dive camera rental worked out at $110.

We were staying in Miami so my biggest worry was driving from the Holiday inn, beside Miami Airport to Key Largo. However all was well as I lucky found my way to the Florida turnpike and then South on Route 1. Weather was fantastic. A balmy 85 degrees.

Arrived after 2 hours and got all my kit together on the boat. I was buddied up with alone lone diver who had dived the Spiegel the year before which was a bonus. I'd heard scary stories about the currents around the ship (Spiegel) but he said once you get down the anchor line it all settles down. 30 mins later we were giant striding off the boat into the warm Atlantic. They had warned us again about the current on the way down telling us masks and other gear can be torn off as you descend. I was anxious but it was fine and was a quick descend to the 510 feet purpose sunk WW2 ship. Visibility was excellent and as we descended a clear vision of the size of the ship was presented. It was massive....

We started at the rear of the ship snapping some shots of us holding the screw (which was over twice the size of us). We then moved along the bow of the ship investigating the holes in the ship, which was teaming with fish. On the return I came across a large opening (about 1/2 the size of a door) on the deck of the ship. I decided to swim into the room below. I got a rush of anxiety as I imagined what would happen if my exit was blocked. Air was running out quickly due to the depth (approx 90 feet) so we made our way back to the anchor line and surfaced back to the ship.

Second dive was less eventful. Another wreck (cannot remember the name). Was much smaller and in shallow (20 foot) waters. Nice relaxing dive as we enjoyed the fish (barracuda, angel fish, groupers ect).

A very enjoyable days dive.

http://www.fla-keys.com/spiegelgrove/

Mick L

Originally posted by daveg
I got a rush of anxiety as I imagined what would happen if my exit was blocked. Air was running out quickly due to the depth (approx 90 feet) so we made our way back to the anchor line and surfaced back to the ship.

Sounds like a good dive Dave. Wreck penetrations are a great way to add some excitement to a dive, I too have used a horrible amount of air on a swimthrough of a wreck through a combination of depth and anxiety.

If you enjoyed the wreck and would like to see more large wrecks and swimthroughs, check out Scapa Flow.

Peace

Originally posted by daveg

Florida turnpike and then South on Route 1
85 degrees.
(approx 90 feet)
(20 foot)

And stop being so american... Measutments in meters and Degrees Celcius if you will please...

Swimthroughs can be sweet!!! Did one at 50m and i thought i'd never get out alive... alas here i am typing away..

daveg

Esp for Kevin. Measutments calculator.

Peace

Originally posted by daveg
Esp for Kevin. Measutments calculator.

pfffft

Peace

Hello again folks,

So a couple of weeks ago we decided to head up to a dive op we had on heard about. His name: Davey Carson - the skipper of the boat, and wife Nicky who takes care of all the food n stuff (the cheif one might say).

They run a converter 1950's trawler. Converted into a liveaboard. They can take 8 divers on liveaboard and 12 divers on a day trip. There are two bunk rooms, one forward and one aft. Things could get a bit snug if there was 8 divers. The bunks are side by side... so its 2 bunks deep on either side of both cabins.

So first impressions when we got there .... very good. Davey carried our bags for us since we were walking across 3/4 fishing trawlers at midnight at a poorly lit pier. Luckily enough he only managed to drop Mick's bag into the water and not mine.. so yeah positive first impression. Inactual fact, it was more funny than incovienient... from my angle ofcourse

Nicky had sandwiches and drink made up for us....sweet as.

Next morning we set off for a dive on the U861. All things considered we probably should have picked a better dive site. The fishermen that were talking to davey had warned us about the fact that spring tides had not gone neap so currents were running pretty hard even though neaps were meant to be in effect. We said 'go' and davey said 'fair nuff'.

So the deck of the boat has plenty of room and a raised area so you can sit down while kitting up. Top marks. Second only to the boat we were on in Scapa Flow which had bench's so everyone could sit down. Getting kitted up was a .... unsavoury affair... The swell was making the boat pitch and yaw all the way out so we were pretty sea sick by the time we got there. Now we had to put our heads down and try to get full kitted in proper order. Well oh my god was i glad to get into the water.

However, i jumped off - not a small jump... its a long way down . Went to grabd the shot and the current was pushing the boat onto the shot... so i had to move away. Down current of the shot... and it was a pretty strong current. :mad: So finning and finning and finning... i must have been about 6 inches out of reach of the shot the whole time. Finning finning finning... man those fishermen were'nt winding us up huh. Oh sweet glory... i've got it. Thank jasus for that... only one problem now... i can feel the anchor at the bottom dragging off the rocks.

Anyway, i had to wait for the dive boat to make another pass to drop off my biddy for the day. So off we went down the shot... not an easy task in that current. But eventually, maybe 3/4 minutes later we got to the bottom. Rocks... bugger... rocks. No uboat. Just a trail where the anchor had dragged through the rock. We tried to follow it for a little bit but gave up in short order. There was no way we were going to make any serious ground against this current. So we gave up.

Haning onto the shot in the current was a two handed affair. Would have been away better idea to deploy smb's and just drift. Whatever, next time.

Next came the ladder, i won't really mention that because i'm reliably informed a lift has been installed... I'm looking forward to a return visit.

All in all it was a very good weekend. Both davey and Nick are good fun and up for a laugh. And they are very flexible. Usually they operate in the rathlin island area but this weekend they took the boat over to Greencastle as the sites we wanted were in that area.

As far as i'm aware there is no web page for their operation, its pretty much word of mouth and that how i heard of them. If anyone wants to do a bit of diving with them drop me a pm and i'll send you a number you can contact them on. I'm not posting someones mobile number up....

Thumbs up on this one...

Peace

Hello again,

I recently went up to Malin Head again to give diving with Geff Millar another go. I recently met up with some people that had positive stuff to say about him so I thought i should check it out and see for myself.

Saturday:
Diving an unknown uboat. There is dispute about its number.
Depth: 55/56m

We met at the pier early, as in its still night time out early. Put the gear together in the dark... and half asleep.

The rib ride wasn't too bad.... as rib rides go. Its quick.

Kitting up was the usual nauseas affair. As soon as you reach for that first piece of kit it starts to creep up on you. By the time you shift the twinset into a place where you can wriggle your way into it you feeling it in the pit of you stomach. By the time you manage to get your fins on (pretty hard in a dry suit and a twinset on) I'm thinking that i don't want to go into the water. But i know if i don't go i'm waiting on the boat for an hour for the first divers to get back onboard sick as a dog. Its better to get into the water.

The descent went fast. I got to 55m somewhere between 60-120 seconds. My timer said "1". Took a moment to have a look about and i'm looking at what seems to be a a fully intact Uboat. Sweet. It seriously looks like its mint. It was pretty dark but i was impressed with my new Halcyon canister torch. Didn't cover much of the wreck itself due to the bottom time of only 20minutes. There was also a current which made it difficult to make any headway up the wreck. I didn't want to start working hard becuase of the depth, air consumption is savage at that depth.

Sunday:
Diving the Carthaginian. Depth 56/57m.

Another early start and another bumpy rib ride.

Descended onto the wreck and again it was pretty dark. Today however i have upgraded my already strong 50w bulb in my Halcyon to a 100w. Seemingly now i can cook fish while underwater. Just bring some chips next time.

The wreck is pretty broken up but the boilers still stand tall. Plenty of portholes still on this wreck. A load of big congers and fair sized lobsters. Made for a very good dive all in all.


After all is said and done I had a very enjoyable weekend. Geff was in good form and helped me out with kitting up on the boat when i needed a dig out. Good job skippering the boat. Landed us spot on the wrecks twice.

The cost of the weekend was pretty decent, 30euro per dive and 10euro per night for the hostel.

I would go so far as to say these could have been my best dives in Ireland so far.

NordicDiver

If you have recently purchased a Dacor Darwin Air or Darwin Console or Mares M1 dive computer, please read the following safety notice regarding the recall of certain computers. HTM Sport S.p.A., Manufacturer of Dacor and Mares Dive Computers, has discovered that during production, a small number of Dacor Darwin and Mares M1 dive computers were improperly calibrated, resulting in erroneous calculations displayed regarding "No Dec Time", Deco Time", "Air Time", "Desat Time" and "No Fly" times.
The specific products that may have this defect are in the following groups: Darwin Air, Darwin Console and Mares M1 Dive Computers.
THE MARES M1 RGBM MODEL IS NOT INVOLVED.

DARWIN AIR: Serial Numbers between 3265 and 3415
DARWIN CONSOLE: Serial Numbers between 8503 and 8592
MARES M1: Serial Numbers between 22783 and 22902 Serial Numbers between 23019 and 23045
IF YOU ARE THE OWNER OF ONE OF THE DIVE COMPUTERS WITH A SERIAL NUMBER LISTED ABOVE,

DO NOT USE IT!

DIVING WITH AN IMPROPERLY CALIBRATED DIVE COMPUTER WILL PROVIDE INACCURATE NO DECOMPRESSION TIME, DECOMPRESSION TIME, AND NO FLY TIME, AND COULD RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURY, INCLUDING DECOMPRESSION SICKNESS, FROM OMITTED OR UNCORRECT DECOMPRESSION!

Take your dive computer IMMEDIATELY to your Authorized Dacor or Mares Dealer for repair. You should expect to receive it back within 60 days.

www.divedacor.com www.mares.com

deadly chick

How strong do you need to be at swimming to start diving? It would be great if someone could tell me where to start.

Peace

deadly chick wrote:

How strong do you need to be at swimming to start diving? It would be great if someone could tell me where to start.

We covered this in the Fitness thread.

Evil Phil

deadly chick wrote:

How strong do you need to be at swimming to start diving? It would be great if someone could tell me where to start.

To do the PADI open water you have to be able to swim 200m and then tread water for 10 minutes. You can take as long as you like for the 200m but you're not allowed to rest. I reckon the better your fitness the better your air consumption will be when actually diving.

I also believe you can do a 300m swim with a snorkel but that's unconfirmed.

I don't know what the story is with CFT.

donny

CFT *might* be 250m swim and then a further 50m backstroke within a reasonable length of time. Can't remember what it is but if you're able to swim at all you should manage it.

After the swimtest you've to hold your breath with your face in the water for 30 seconds.

As far as I remember this is what it was when I started but things might have changed

NordicDiver

Evil Phil wrote:

To do the PADI open water you have to ....

1) 200 metre/yard continuous
surface swim and a 10-minute
swim/float without using any
swim aids.
OR
2) 300 metre/yard swim with
mask, snorkel and fin and a
10-minute swim/float without
using any swim aids.

Pingu

CFT is:
(a) Swim 200 metres freestyle without stopping.
(b) Swim 50 metres backstroke without stopping.
(c) With head submerged in the water, hold breath for 30 seconds within 5 minutes of
(a) and (b) above.

NordicDiver

Pingu wrote:

CFT is:
(b) Swim 50 metres backstroke without stopping.

Floating on your back, use an up-and-down freestyle kick and windmill stroke to propel yourself.......

Peace

Just when DaveG thought he had seen it all.... The Spiegel Grove flips on everyone!

News:

Florida wreck flipped upright by storm
By Charlotte Boan


The world's largest intentionally sunk ship was unexpectedly found the right way up by divers days after Hurricane Dennis hit the Florida area. The 6,880-tonne former military vessel Spiegel Grove, which sits at 50m, flipped upright as the core of the storm passed over a few hundred miles west of Key Largo.

The wreck's new position is one project directors have wanted since the former US Navy landing ship dock prematurely sunk and rolled over on 17 May 2002. The ship's upside-down bow was left protruding above the water. Three weeks later, a salvage team managed to fully sink the vessel on its starboard side between 20 and 50m, six miles off Key Largo.

Since June 2002 the Spiegel Grove has become one of the most popular wreck dives in the Florida Keys, with up to 75,000 divers visiting the vessel. According to the Reef Environmental Education Foundation, up to 160 different marine species can be found around the 170m-long wreck.

'I'm flabbergasted,' said project director Rob Bleser. 'Nature took its course and put it where it belongs. This will mean a whole new dive for those who have explored it before.'

However, not all were happy about the moving wreck, which was faced with 7m-high waves and extremely fierce currents during the storm.
'It's bad news from my perspective as a resource manager that it moved,' said Billy Causey, superintendent of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. 'We have to figure out why.'

He also added that sanctuary officials would temporarily close the wreck site to divers to analyse its stability and replace lost mooring buoys.

Scuba.ie

Scapa Flow trip June 2006

The travel to Scapa from Dublin is a bit awkward, but not something I would let stop me from getting to this fantastic location. We drove to Belfast and got the ferry to Stranraer and then met up with some more of our divers and drove through the day to Scrabster via Glasgow and Inverness. We broke the driving up into 3 sections, with a one hour break each stop, so it made it a lot more manageable. Then we got the ferry to Stromness in the Orkneys, which added another hour and a half. We arrived on Saturday at 20:30, got our dive kit on board the M.V. Sharon Rose and checked into our self-catering apartment. We started diving on the Sunday through to the Friday. Here’s a brief breakdown of the dives:
Sunday:
Koln – 35m
Karlsrure – 25m

Monday:
Markgraf (battle cruiser) – 45m
F2 – 18m

Tuesday:
Konig (battle cruiser) – 41m
Dresden – 33m

Wednesday:
Kronprince Wilhelm (battle cruiser) – 36m
Brummer – 35m

Thursday:
James Barrie (Icelandic fishing trawler 40m long) – 43m (tidal)
“Bottle dive” – 19m (scenic, lots of debris from WW1 ships like plates, bottles etc)

Friday:
Dresden (so good we dived it twice) – 33m
Karlsrure - 25m (were hoping to do the Tarbaka, but there were a few boats on it)

On all dives below 30m we included deep stops, and some of us (myself included) were using 50% nitrox to help offgas from 20m and above for deco. We did a lot of penetration dives, but as the wrecks are nearing 90 years old they are getting fragile, and are liable to collapse, so great care has to be taken. The most memorable were the James Barrie, (a 2 knot current at 43m isn’t funny) partly as it looked very like the trawler from “Perfect Storm”, and the 3 battle cruisers (all inverted). The Dresden was great, as it is quite shallow and reasonably open, so we could penetrate the wreck for most of its length. We had 15-25m viz all week, and mostly flat calm conditions. One day it got up to force 8, but as the Flow is very sheltered, we could still dive. Water temp 10-11 degrees, chilly, but managable.
We were asked at the start of the week to take part in DAN’s Project Dive Exploration, which we did. Essentially they ask you what cert you are, your equipment (OC, SCR, CCR) and gas usage (Air, Nitrox, Trimix) and dive profiles. Then they download your profiles from your Suunto (or they can loan you one for the week if you don’t use one, I use one as my backup so that was ok). This all goes to help DAN understand diver’s habits and profiles to make diving safer. We even got a tour of the local recompression chamber, soon to be upgraded.
All in all it was a fantastic week’s diving, which exceeded our expectations. The local dive shop (Scapa Scuba) even managed to replace a dry suit zip for one of our lads overnight, so none of the dives were missed!
We have all said that we will try to get back next year, time permitting.

I found a plate on the "Bottle Dive", not on a wreck, so it is ok to remove it. The British Admiralty mark is in the centre, dating it to around WWI. Its illegal to take anything from wrecks in Scottish waters, as they are protected by Scottish Heritage and the Reciever of Wreck. While we were there, two divers on another boat (not to be named) were warned not to take anything, as they had been seen diving with a hammer and chisel...After the warning they were spotted coming back with pieces of the wreck, and the skipper radioed ahead to report them. The police were at the pier when they got back and they were arrested. Scottish Heritage were very pi**ed off when two divers were released last year without charge, so it looks like these two will be made an example of! Probably get a fine and/or a sentence. Their complete dive gear can be confiscated too.....

Eoin.
www.scuba.ie

case_sensitive

I just got back from my AOW course with Scubadive West this past weekend, and I can't recommend them highly enough.
The weather was crap and the viz was very poor for Killary by all accounts, but I still had an amazing time, the instructors were lovely and somehow got us through our course in muddy water. Plus, they lent me a dry suit and any other equipment I was missing for nix.
The last day (deep and wreck) was easily the best day of diving I've done so far, I'll definitely be back.

There were a gang of divers down, including a few clubs, so at any given time they were juggling 30 divers, but never lost their friendlyness and everyone came back unscathed.
To top it all off, I had a tiny problem on the last day, and Cillian called to see if I was alright today, great service.
Once I get a car sorted I'll definitely go back for more, brilliant school in a lovely part of the country.
Now, back into Dublin Bay :-(

Scuba.ie

Just back from a week in Tenerife. I decided at almost the last minute to bring the rebreather. I had already booked dives with http://www.dive24-7tenerife.com/ better known as Dave and Nikki Carson who used to run a boat out of Malin (or thereabouts).
It was my first time bring the rebreather away, so I was a bit nervous about security etc. No bother in the end, and no baggage charges either!
I got picked up and dropped back from the hotel each day and Nikki even made sambos for lunch! I dived with Dave on all dives (also a RB diver) and saw a load of sting rays, a turtle (at 20m!! :eek: ) and an angel shark about 6-6 and a half foot long. Our last dive was a drift for 45mins - we had travelled about a mile and a half in that time!
All in all an excellent bit of diving, and I'll definitely be using them again.

Borzoi

Dived with Barracuda, who opperate the dive centre for the Sandals resort

Good points
1-2 dives per day include in the 'all in' package in the resort
Friendly instructors
Dive sites 5-10mins from shore by boat
Good coral and plenty of fish in 10-20mtr range
Good wrecks in the 15-30mtr range (Russian destroyer!)
28C water

Not so good points..........

The gear.
Fortunately I'd brought everything but weights and tank, nad I'm so glad about that. The equipment is old, and a little worn. Although the staff try to keep things going, it could be a bit frustrating to have to try3-4 tanks to get one at 200bar that held it too! Plenty of other problems with masks, regs etc. I had to advise a relatively inexperinced diver to get the hell out when I noticed a steady leak from his SPG during descent

The boat
Normal boat was big, and fast, and great. Occasionally it doesn't work, and a slower, smaller boat subbed instead, not great. (Though it was the only dive boat I've been on with leather sofas!

Divemasters
A little inclined to make the plan up as they went along

Costs
Afternoon dives were usually wreck dives, good diving but at €40 a throw. Typically a half hour out by fast boat, so expensive on the school too.