New Product! Carnation Coral Print

Carnation Coral Print by Skipper_is

Olá Amigos! How do? So, I’m back from Egypt, and I’ve got a new print available. Really like this one, it’s two Carnation Corals in the Red Sea, near Sharm el Sheikh.

Sharm el Sheikh Day 6: Last day

Location: Shark’s Bay

32% O₂ Nitrox at 200 Bar

MOD: 33.75m

Max Depth 29.7m, Dive Time 63 minutes
EAD: 24.1m for 63 Mins (PPO₂=1.27) O₂ Exposure 35%

This was a totally planned dive. From the start to finish we planned the dive, then dived the plan, using the wheel.

This was the plan.

Drop down to 30m, our max time here was 20 minutes, We planned for 15. After this we ascend to 20m, where our maximum time is 15 minutes, with a planned time of 12 minutes. Then we ascend up to 12m to use the remainder of our gas, maximum time 55 minutes.

 

This was then converted to use 32% Nitrox, giving us greater maximum times. This was done simply for safety, we’re still diving to Air times, but the Nitrox gives us an extra margin of safety. Then we dived what we’d planned.

This was the actual dive profile, with nitrox pressure groups, not bad eh?

 

 

 

 

Overall a very good dive, did enjoy the technical side of it.

Naw, sweet puffer fish.

An urchin with a polychetae fan worm.

Our last dive, back to sunny England, and my Masters degree

Sharm el Sheikh Day 5

First Dive:
Location:  Jackfish Ally

32% O₂ Nitrox at 200 Bar
MOD: 33.75m
Max Depth 18.3m, Dive Time 71 minutes
EAD: 14.35m for 36 mins (PPO₂=0.90) O₂ Exposure 20%

Excellent dive.

Love the swim through at the beginning. It then flattens out to a decent reef, with some lush corals:

I love this coral, it’s a Carnation Coral. Dendronephthya spp.

Oops I just pood out a broccoli coral.

Second Dive:
Location: Ras Ghazalani

32% O₂ Nitrox at 200 Bar
MOD: 33.75
Max Depth 18m , Dive Time 43minutes
EAD: 14.1m for 46 Mins (PPO₂= 0.896) O₂ Exposure 35% Total

Another nice, relaxing dive.

Not much to say about this one. Was nice, relaxing, shallow, but good! But coming out with 100 bar is getting old.

Sharm el Sheikh Day 4

First Dive:
Location: Shark’s Bay

32% O₂ Nitrox at 200 Bar
MOD: 33.75m
Max Depth 29.6m, Dive Time 36 minutes
EAD: 24m for 36 mins (PPO₂=1.26) O₂ Exposure 20%

First dive I lead, though not especially well. I didn’t really plan the dive, and just dived it on a computer. However, it turns out it was okay, and the wheel confirms it. We descended down to ≈30m. For the table I set our dive time to 16mins (Max time is 20minutes at 30m). We then ascended up to 20m for 8 minutes, then up to 10m for the last 12 minutes. I came out with 100 bar, but my buddy was getting a little anxious and came out with 60 bar, we could’ve managed an extra 10 minutes or so, but no matter.

WE SAW AN EAGLE RAY! VERY VERY COOL! Sorry, I was a little excited. I made little squeaking noises in my regulator.

Second Dive:
Location: Sharks’ Bay
31% O₂ Nitrox at 200 Bar
MOD: 35.1
Max Depth 17.4m, Dive Time 45 minutes
EAD: 13.8m for 45 mins (PPO₂= 0.84) O₂ Exposure 35% Total

Out at 100 bar again! Woo love it.

Didn't take any pictures on this dive, not sure why.

Sharm El Sheikh Day 3

My first dive of the day was aborted at 9 minutes. During the setup for the dive my octopus broke, it was an old oceanic thingy, and it must’ve been dropped or banged during the loading of the boat. When I switched the air on it blew the rocker arm off the valve, snapping the joint. Since the octopus is an old model there is no way of repairing it, or rather, no point. But with my octo leaking air at an alarming rate, I had to take my gear off the cylinder. The initial aim was to simply remove the octo and dive without it. There were plenty of other people there so one person not having a backup air source wouldn’t have been a major problem. Unfortunately there wasn’t a port plug available. So I had to switch it for a backup regulator set from another dive boat, something I wasn’t very keen on doing as I’d no idea what it’s history is. Turns out my fears were well founded. The regs I got had a taste of ammonia, but I was under pressure to dive. So I begun the dive, but then I found the regulators breathed really weirdly, very resistive. That coupled with the constant taste of urine, I decided I didn’t want to continue the dive. So I ascended to 5m, did a 3m safety stop and left the water.
This dive was not logged as it was 9 minutes long….
So, the first dive of the day was 2 hours later:
First Dive:
Location: Gordon Reef
32% O₂ Nitrox at 200 Bar
MOD: 33.75m
Max Depth 25.6m, Dive Time 43 minutes
EAD: 20.64 for 43 mins (PPO₂=1.1) O₂ Exposure 20%

This was a really rubbish dive, we headed out along the reef to an extent, but then we dropped down and levelled out for a bit. We were supposed to be going to find some sharks, but to do so we had to swim out from the reef, against a current for quite a distance. The depth was about 40m, and since my buddy had come off the deeper dive previously, we had to stay at a reasonable depth. Benson, one of the other people on the dive was left behind by his buddy and joined me and my buddy Frazer. Frazer and I use air at pretty much the same rate, but Benson used his up a lot faster trying to catch up with his buddy, so we had to cut the dive at 43 minutes.

We saw some Gorgonian Sea fans, though this is a terrible picture! Could’ve used some more lighting.

There was a wreck, or something similar, at the end of the dive. But since we were low on air, and beginning our safety stop we couldn’t go down and have a closer look at the girders and tyres.

And then we got picked up by the boat!
Second Dive:
Location: Sharks’ Bay
32% O₂ Nitrox at 200 Bar
MOD: 33.75
Max Depth 16.5m , Dive Time 46 minutes
EAD: 12.81m for 46 Mins (PPO₂= 0.84) O₂ Exposure 35% Total

The last dive of the day was a night dive.

We did see some very cool things, such as this toxic leather sea urchin, and these highly annoying feather stars. Whenever I got close to them to take a picture, they curled up:

Subsequently all the pictures I have of them are like this…


This was really cool. A Banded Boxer Shrimp. Very cool little fella. I wish I could’ve stayed to take more pictures of him.

This is my 2nd night dive, and the first I did with my current torch. From both of these I learned something.
Firstly, my torch, a Princeton Tec Shockwave LED, is a very nice torch. I like a lot. Nice white light, very good on battery use, and a very bright light.
Secondly, with regards to experience. When diving with a camera on a night dive, you really need a buddy to work with you. When you go in with the camera to get a shot, unless you have a strobe, it goes dark because you cannot handle the camera and use the torch at the same time… simply not enough hands. So, something I need to do when diving with a buddy is to get them to light up the target when you go in with the camera, allowing you to focus and compose the shot, then using the built in flash to get a decent shot.

Have a sleepy pufferfish

Sharm El Sheikh Day 2

First Dive:
Location: Sharks’ Bay
31% O₂ Nitrox at 200 Bar

MOD: 35.1m
Max Depth 20.7m, Dive Time 53 minutes
EAD: 16.81 for 75 Mins (PPO₂=0.95) O₂ Exposure 25%

Another dive in Shark’s Bay, saw a masked puffer fish.

And some fire coral

Second Dive:
Location: Sharks’ Bay
31% O₂ Nitrox at 200 Bar

MOD: 35.1m
Max Depth 16.4m, Dive Time 56 minutes
EAD: 16.81 for 56 Mins (PPO₂= 0.81) O₂ Exposure 45%

We saw a Moray Eel,

With fearsome teeth!

Sharm El Sheikh Day 1

First Dive:
Location: Sharks’ Bay
32% O₂ Nitrox at 200 Bar (Though I think my SPG is bust as it reads 210 for every full cylinder…)
MOD: 33.75
Max Depth 30.5, Dive Time 53 minutes
EAD: 24.4m for 53 Mins (PPO₂=1.28) O₂ Exposure 30%

We saw a couple of cool things, like this Giant Moray Eel;

And this Blue Spotted Ray (BSR) feeding in the sand:


After a surface interval of 2hours 24 minutes we headed back in for the 2nd dive, in Sharks’ Bay.
Second Dive:
Location: Sharks’ Bay
30% Nitrox (I know… I know… Smack on the wrists for me… But we didnt get the gas prior to the first dive)
MOD: 36.6m
Max Depth: 14.6m, Dive Time 54 minutes
EAD: 11.79m for 54 minutes (PPO₂ = 0.78) O₂ exposure for this dive: 15%, total for the day: 45%

Saw a cool Networked Pipefish:

And took a nice shot of the sun, casting nice rays in the water:

MRSA Even came along for this dive:

















And I discovered there is a bit of grease or something under the lens cap of my dive camera, so after a certain number of turning it off and on again, it puts an annoying blur in the centre of the pictures… Not entirely sure how to get rid of it….

Sharm El Sheikh Day 0

So! On the 11th September 2011 I flew out from Birmingham International Airport to Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh International Airport, but let’s rewind to what led up to this… On the 10th, Saturday, I arrived in Birmingham by train:
(With MRSA of course!) and stayed overnight at a family friend’s house, who had an awesome picture in his bathroom:

Very cool.
Then, at unpleasant o’clock in the morning I headed to the Airport for 5 hours or so of waiting… This holiday involved a lot of that.
Coffee at Birmingham International is expensive as hell! And they have NO FREE WIFI! So I stole their electricity to charge my phone:

That’ll teach them.
We finally got on the plane and flew over to Egypt… And got to bed at around 12pm I think… Not sure to be honest!

Random amusing

Before I became a biologist I was studying a BSc in Aircraft Maintainance in the International Centre for Aerospace Training (ICAT) in Cardiff Airport. Some mates and I were in cardiff after lectures, going to the Somali consolate or embassy or similar (one was Somalian). We were in the lift and these 2 guys got in, one said to the other "meet Skipper, he's studying in ICAT." I was like how the crap does he know that? Have I met him before? Then I realised I was still wearing my ID card :)

Back to Yorkshire

So, today I headed back up to Yorkshire. I was due to stay until tomorrow, and use this day to orient myself around the area while i still had the car. But I was feeling homesick already and decided that I'd just ship out.
But, I did take one last tour up through Llanberis, through the Llanberis Pass to Nant Peris

^^ The view up the valley to the Llanberis Pass


An old Slate mine overlooking Llanberis, inside is a Hydroelectric Power Station, called Electric Mountain, which sounds amusing in a North Wales accent... Eletrrrik Mmmounten!


^^ Another view up the Llanberis Pass


^^ Some moorland! On the way to Capel Curig

^^ Clouds! And more Clouds

After Nant Peris I headed towards Capel Curig, and from there to Betws-y-Coed. From here I got a little bit lost as I was relying on my GPS kicking in at this point, but it failed to do so, so I ended up VFRing it to Denbigh.  (That's Visual Flight Rules.. It's an aviation term, but it translates easily enough to going by eye)
And from there it was back towards Liverpool, Manchester and the big motorways... where I was very naughty and snapped a picture, unless you're the police, in which someone else took it.


So glad to be home! Went and stared at cows for a bit, and begun packing for Egypt!



Egypt here I come!

In North Wales

So, after a 5 or so hour drive from Yorkshire, I arrived in Bangor. My house is pretty nice, with a view of a hedge out of the front window, and the sea from the two side windows, though when I arrived it was foggy and raining and I couldn’t really see anything.

I took a trip up to Snowdonia National Park in the afternoon, and went over the Llanberis Pass,  (Where I think Dr Tim Johnson did some work with a drainage channel allowing fish to migrate through this pass they built… Not sure… )

Anyways, it’s pretty spectacular up there, but chances are, when I start my course I’ll be pretty full on and not have the time, or ability to get back up there with my bike, or by foot…

It’s all very pretty up there, so I’ll try and go back up tomorrow on my way back to Yorkshire.

Although the area here is really nice, I do miss Yorkshire already, and instead of going home on Friday as I was supposed to, I’m going to head back on the Thursday.