:Gledder\’s diving blog…

Lanny

Met up with Mark, Lanny and Al for more scooter diving - starting to get the hang of it.

Lanny brought his X Scooter - it is SO light and easy to carry - I was jealous the moment I picked it up!

Me

On long tracks across the quarry mid water it seemed to hold track really well - nice piece of kit.

We did three dives (Lanny bottled out after dive 2 as the balmy 5 degrees that Vobster offered were a little different to the Carribean where he has been for six months or so.

Mark

Mark was breathing from his stage as he entered the water with not much in his twins. Whilst he had plenty of gas we decided to switch stages under water after a bit to extend the dive for a while - a swap which went very smoothly indeed.

Last dive the viz really was bad - the rain had made the water close to the cliff murky and the ambient light was enough to ensure that lights were pretty useless. Keeping the three scooters together was a challenge indeed - as was avoiding the cliff which loomed up out of nowhere :o)

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The single most expensive piece of kit I’ve bought is my Salvo 21 watt HID light… hmmmm shiney :o)

Made by Barry Miller in Florida the lights are exactly what is needed in british waters. We make a lot of use of these lights signalling between team members to the point that whilst we wear two back-up lights, if iyour primary light fails it’s a real p.i.t.a.

Mine has never really focussed in to a nice tight spot and for a long time I thought it was my fault. Andy Kerslake tried to get it sharp on a recent course but we didn’t see much improvement.

I mentioned this to Phill (divingniknaks - Barry’s UK supplier) at the NDC on Friday and he swapped his ballast for mine. What an improvement!

Lightsabers at dawn anyone…

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I have had real problems starting off my back kick - especially on ascents. This was a right pits on Tech 1. It was partly caused by my position in the water but even when I sorted this my back kick was still very ineffective. Once I am travelling backwards - after pushing myself off something - I’m OK and can make good progress but starting the process was proving impossible.

Did you notice the “was” there. At the weekend I borrowed some XL Jetfins from UE in Portland as Andy Kerslake suggested that I might get on with them a bit better and, hey presto, back kicking MUCH improved. So another kit order to www.Divingniknaks.co.uk and an even lighter credit card. My existing fins will be kept for wetsuit diving where the smaller blade size is OK with less kit to create drag.

They are huge though - and I whacked Fraser in the face with them a couple of times on the dives as I was not comfortable with how long they were… well frankly… if he was a better diver he’d have kept out of the way!

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