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Tomberforce(Perth, Australia): Weekday - nightdiving, Weekend - Anything non-tech within a few hours drive. Also up for other longer trips (Exmouth, Dunsborough, Albany) if I can get the time off work! I'm AOW, doing my Rescue Diver course very soon. I have a car and all my dive gear except tanks. I fly up north every other Monday, which screws with my Diving on every other Sunday. I'm also looking for people to Rock Climb and Mountain Bike with if anyone is into those?! Charun, I've sent you an E-mail!
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Feb 20, 2012 13:50
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:37 |
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On a night dive last night, an octopus managed to steal and swim off with my buddy's torch, which was on. Funniest thing I've ever seen diving!
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Feb 23, 2012 00:43
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Watching this video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWZoRaBJ-IM&feature=related I've got a possibly silly theoretical question about water pressure in Cave Diving for you techies! It seems like it should be obvious, but I've just been wondering about it, and I'm not too sure. Say, for example you have a sinkhole 80 metres deep. At the bottom of the sinkhole there are caves extending off horizontally. Is the water pressure exerted on the diver in these caves inclusive of the pressure depth of the sinkhole, or is it limited by the enclosed nature of the caves?
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Apr 3, 2012 14:54
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Frogmanv2 posted:If you had to choose between diving on the Exmouth Navy Pier, or on ningaloo reef itself, which would you choose? Dont have time to do both, and this is the most pleasant problem I have had to face in a while. I heard from an instructor who works at a dive shop in Exmouth that the Navy might be heavily restricting access to the pier at some point in the near future, so on that basis I would go for that. I've heard it's awesome, I'm jealous, have a blast! I had a horrible dive in the Swan river yesterday - freezing, pitch black, nearly zero vis and a strong current at 21 metres!!
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May 13, 2012 10:04
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We had 16 degrees C last Sunday in Perth. I was starting to get pretty cold by about 40 mins wearing my 5-4-3mm suit. Gonna be going back to the UK to get some dives in around October, I'm going to pick up a drysuit there and use it in Winter here in Australia. Before the UK I'm off to Peru though, anyone know anything about shore diving off Lima?
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Jun 26, 2012 13:21
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Does anyone happen to know about diving on the Paracas Penisular in Central Peru? I'm in Paracas for the night and have heard there is great diving around here but all my gear is at home so I'd need to hire - on the off chance does anyone know of a local dive shop? I can't find anything on google! Cheers!
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Aug 10, 2012 04:32
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So I've just submitted an abstract to present at an upcoming archaeological conference - it just happens to be in Hawaii! I am far more stoked about the diving than I am about the conference! All being well I'll be in Honolulu for a couple of weeks next april - is that a good time for diving over there/ does anyone have any good sites that they recommend?
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Sep 18, 2012 22:46
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whaam posted:Some newbie diving questions. I'm going down south on my honeymoon in a few months and I'm going to get my PADI open water at the Sandals resort there. Does anyone have any experience with these resort courses? Are they pretty good or kinda lovely? For the price of the resort I would hope they are good. One of the things you'll learn on your OW course is that recreational diving is only undertaken within no decompression limits. This means that, in theory it is possible to safely end any recreational dive without the need for decompression stops. So yes, to answer your question you wouldn't need to perform any decompression after a 15' dive other than making a normal, i.e slow ascent. Decompression is not a matter of depth alone, but also related to the amount of time you spend at a given depth - which is why you'll hear divers talk about no decompression limits. NDL's are basically the amount of time you can spend at a certain depth before incurring a substantial risk of decompression sickness. It is possible to exceed and NDL at shallow depths, but in the real world it's somewhere in the 25-30 metre range where it starts to become a realistic possibility that you'll exceed an NDL before you use up all your air. Of course these are things that you'll learn about in more detail in your course and should read up on more from known reputable sources (i.e not here!) Some resort courses do have a pretty bad reputation in general, but hopefully if you have an instructor worth his salt and a reasonably small group they will do things properly. As far as solo diving goes - I totally agree with Bishop. Don't even think about it until you've gained substantial underwater experience first, at least enough not to have to ask that question! I've got a vague question for the instructors here. I'm currently doing a Divemaster internship. Do any of you guys have any advice for DM's - either what you would be expecting to see in a DM as an instructor, or any tips and tricks you learned going through the system yourself? Particularly interested to hear from guys from other agencies - there's no BSAC club where I live in Australia so I'm with PADI but I get the impression that NAUI and BSAC have higher standards, so I'm keen to learn more. Tomberforce fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Nov 24, 2012 |
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Nov 24, 2012 00:09
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So I did a dive this morning, and managed to go home without my hire tank. Went back, but it's gone. gently caress!
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Dec 9, 2012 11:36
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Just a quick hypothetical question about diving and flights that I was wondering to myself - not even remotely planning to act on it! Would diving at sea level to altitude diving profiles and TOD's theoretically compensate for a shorter surface interval before flying?
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Dec 15, 2012 09:52
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pupdive posted:Here's the thing you are forgetting: Yeah, I'm not talking real world at all, just purely hypothetical in terms of understanding deco theory!
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Dec 15, 2012 11:42
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Sir Winston Beehill posted:So I got my licence recently and have gone on a couple of dives but I've become bored of going to the same dive location continuously. Is there a list of beginner rated dive spots in Sydney? Most of the lists talk about advanced level spots but I want to get in a few more hours of practise before I get my advanced licence (since I'm still having issues with buoyancy You don't need to have perfect buoyancy to do your AOW - in fact a good way to improve on it is to work on it in the course with an instructor there to give you advice. Take time to do a proper buoyancy check - remember that by the end of the dive when your tank has 50 bar in you will be more buoyant than when you start out so compensate for this with a little weight, or do another check at the end of your next dive. If you've got a local site that you're bored of, go and spend some time there anyway just practising, sorting your weighting and working on your breath control (which really is the key to good buoyancy!). I don't know anything about Sydney diving - the Abyss site has a few local sites listed? http://www.abyss.com.au/scuba/pc/Sydney-Dive-Sites-c131.htm. If you find yourself in Perth, hit me up and I'll show you some of the local sites here.
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Dec 15, 2012 13:46
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Bishop posted:Same goes for surfacing and dumping gas. I totally agree - on a few OW courses I've been DMTing on the instructor I'm working with is teaching students to empty all their air from their BCD and kick themselves up - I guess safe from a runaway ascent perspective, but not how I was taught in my OW, and I think potentially dangerous considering they're all massively overweighted (18 - 21 lbs) and some are going to be taking their diving to South Asia straight away, where the dive sites on drop offs etc can be significantly deeper than anything in our local area (shore dive max 22m, boat dive max 40m on maybe 2 sites). I haven't said anything to the instructor - as he's the instructor and I'm the DM, but I was thinking of asking someone about it.
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Dec 15, 2012 22:13
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Crunkjuice posted:Anyone watch the 60 minutes on the salvaging of the Costa Concordia? They had a 3-4 minute segment on the salvage divers that was pretty cool, except for something that i can't wrap my head around unless its just them screwing up facts. Must be 40 metres?
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Dec 17, 2012 10:03
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Mr.AARP posted:Very pleased that I was able to score a Suunto Vyper for $125 on scubaboard. Hooray for not getting DCS from looking at the wrong square on my dive tables! Now if only Suunto didn't charge $75 for the USB cable... I paid $120 yesterday for a Mares Drak usb cable. I feel violated. In other news, I booked flights to Hawaii. I get into Honolulu on the 29th March and leave on the 10th April. I want to hike Mauna Kea and spent a considerable time underwater - any suggestions for good dive sites and the best/cheapest way to travel in between the islands? I assume there's a ferry?
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Dec 23, 2012 11:17
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Video my girlfriend took of us having some fun with Fur Seals in Western Australia a couple of days ago, great sites! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGVZqt30VrU
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Jan 9, 2013 07:23
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Loving Africa Chaps posted:I just got a Hollis m1 and it owns considerable bones. I have one too, it is an absolutely fantastic mask.
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Jan 15, 2013 15:24
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Crazy C posted:Figured Open-Water was the starting point. I take it those are all prerequisites among other things? Depending on what country you're in, you may have to do a dive medical. In Australia it's a pre requisite to do the Open Water.
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Jan 16, 2013 14:12
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Bishop posted:"Boat Diver" has always been my favorite PADI specility course. Yeah I understand there are plenty of people who mainly shore dive lakes or off beaches and they might gain some stuff from it, but an entire class about diving off of a boat? And with my shop - it's $400!
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Jan 17, 2013 00:28
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Finch! posted:I broke one and had to use a Shadow. The Shadow is the only mask I've ever had that wouldn't stop fogging. I hated it and gave it away when another M1 arrived. It's like the previous M1 - after mild cleaning, it hasn't ever fogged and it is completely awesome. Yeah I had a perfectly servicable Mares mask at the time, and just tried on the M1 out of boredom in the shop. Bought it straight away and it's one of the best dive purchases I've made. I had another expensive day today - new reel and DSMB, plus a bunch of other accessories, retractors etc and a new pair of heavy duty gloves. I'm DM'ing on a wreck speciality course this weekend. I have to say I've got pretty good value out of this. I've not taken the wreck speciality course myself ($500!) but through the DM I'm sitting in on the whole course and doing all the dives. Plus they've thrown me in on a boat night dive for free too! All I have to pay is the extra for Nitrox fills and my acccomodation down there! I don't get the C-card at the end of it, but I get the experience and as a DM that's what I care about more. Pretty sweet!
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Jan 17, 2013 11:49
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I had 6 dives this weekend DMing on a wreck speciality on the HMAS Swan in South Western Australia (yes I'm totally logging the 10 minute bounce dive to 100 ft to look for a reel that one of the students dropped). I got the whole gig for free, and the instructor only needed me on the last dive to watch students whilst she was in the wreck with two of them, so I spent the other dives having a blast exploring the wreck interior with another DM. For the last dive she went with another kid from the boat without much experience, but with a lot of confidence. Turns out that he had no concept of what a no decompression limit is and exceeded his by a fair margin. The DM was running Nitrox and he was on Air, and the nitrox diver got to within 10 mins of an NDL on a second 100ftish dive. He flat out ignored her when she told him to surface and went into the wreck again, then he had to be reminded to take a safety stop. She absolutely ripped him when they got back to the boat, and this kid had no idea what he had done wrong. He's going to learn a fairly hard lesson if he keeps diving like that. I don't know what cert level he was, or which agency he trained with.
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Jan 21, 2013 00:06
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Ah she was never at risk of exceeding her O2 limits - the wreck was sitting in 100ft of water and she was diving a 32 mix. Just the other guy was way over his air NDL and clueless about it.
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Jan 21, 2013 06:10
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Unrelated - as a PADI DM, do you guys think that there would be alot to be gained from taking the GUE fundamentals course? I'm pretty interested, but it's hard to find a GUE instructor in Perth where I live.
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Jan 21, 2013 06:40
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IM FROM THE FUTURE posted:Checking out the pilot house on a tug freediving was really cool, I can imagine why penetrating wrecks is so fun. Yeah it's great fun. I'm in a bit of certification limbo with wrecks now. Technically I haven't done the wreck speciality - but this weekend I DM'd on the course, and sat in on all the theory sessions, so I've done everything and got the experience - but I haven't paid PADI $500 and so haven't got the C-card. I guess it's not going to make any material difference to my diving, but it'd be nice to know whether that experience would count if I wanted to do an advanced wreck course in the future, as I think I might. I'd rather not pay so much extra money to get experience I've already got!
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Jan 21, 2013 14:47
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Bishop posted:I said non-lethal, not painless! Solid advice Bishop, cheers. I wish I lived in a location where I could get cave training - the nearest is in South Australia, so about 1500 miles away! I also think that I consciously experienced narcosis for the first time this weekend. At about 28 metres I was aware that my teeth felt numb - and at 31 metres I tried to test myself by transferring my torch lanyard from one wrist to the other and felt...weird. It was still fine and I was still very situationally aware, just concious that things didn't feel quite normal. I've been to that depth before and not felt a thing, but I was feeling a bit seasick just before the dive, I don't know if that contributed to it. I went down to 28 metres penetrating again the next day and felt fine. I was diving 32 mix Nitrox on both dives.
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Jan 22, 2013 02:33
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Heh, as a DMC you've definitely given me some reading to do.
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Jan 22, 2013 03:13
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pupdive posted:Look at the last page where some diver with an instructor as a guide ignored NDLs. What sort of briefing (and, no, yelling at them afterwards on the boat does not count as a 'briefing') should the instructor have done to prevent the problem? Yeah that was from a situation on our boat last weekend - the DM (not instructor) in question wasn't leading the dive, she was just on the boat fun diving and paired with the guy, who was apparently experienced and 'dived on the wreck all the time' as an 'insta-buddy'. If anything it was him leading the dive. She had no reason to believe that he wasn't competent and as it was not a formal guiding situation she didn't undertake a formal briefing (quite reasonably imo). It only became apparent that he didn't know what he was doing during the dive, at which point she tried to get him to ascend safely, but he ignored her. Fundamentally that situation arose from the diver in question lacking even a rudimentary understanding of decompression obligations, and as such leading to a dangerous situation for both him and his buddy. I absolutely agree with you that theoretical knowledge is meaningless unless it's effectively translated into diving - but having a thorough grounding in diving physics and physiology doesn't at all detract from your practical in water ability, and can help you anticipate and respond to dangerous situations as or before they arise - which to my mind is the main role of a divemaster. I'll keep reading. 
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Jan 22, 2013 06:42
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SlicerDicer posted:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te5D62d3-S8 Holy poo poo that is amazing!!!
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Jan 26, 2013 09:28
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Bishop posted:I guess that rule makes sense because mechanical depth guages are as I implied are pretty much impossible to find these days. What really weirds me out are the shops that check your computers after a dive to make sure you did not do deco or penetration. Huh, how does a computer tell you if you penetrated anything?!
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Feb 2, 2013 09:10
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Just got my tax rebate breakdown from the accountant. It's good news! The question now is - get my recreational IDC out the way, or the TDI adv Nitrox and Deco procedures course? I guess they would be a similar cost overall, as I'd need to replace alot of my gear for the TDI course (different BCD, a new set of regs and probably a new computer too). I don't think there are any IANTD courses around where I live and I don't want to do any Tec with PADI.
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Feb 2, 2013 22:09
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Orions Lord posted:On a rescue course I was a victim. So I did some diving and died. Yeah that happened to me the other day with one of the other DMT's. We both dived out with the instructions to 'find 5 metres of water'. 300 yards later the depth just about got to 4 metres - he went down and 'died' I went to the surface and 'panicked' only to find that my panicking was attracting a bit of a attention from the walkers and fishermen on a nearby groyne. I toned it down a little!
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Feb 4, 2013 09:26
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Orions Lord posted:On a other rescue course they inflated my jacket fully and let me sky rocket to the surface. Jeebs - yeah when I'm playing dead I always try and keep one hand near my dump valve for this very reason! On the subject of drysuits - there's a second hand Bare trilam for sale near me for $800 looks in reasonable condition, but the zipper needs some wax - or the alternative is to get a new Hollis fx1000, but that'll be well over twice the price - anyone dived those?
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Feb 4, 2013 22:08
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I booked a 3 dive boat trip off Oahu with Island divers on the 31st of March! About 2 weeks, so excited! 2 deep wreck dives and a shallow drift dive!! 
Tomberforce fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Mar 16, 2013 |
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Mar 16, 2013 06:48
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At Sydney Airport on my way to Hawaii. 3 dives at the weekend, can't wait!
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Mar 29, 2013 06:24
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Hung out for about 10 minutes today with a Hawaiian Monk Seal. Amazing!
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Apr 9, 2013 01:26
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SlicerDicer posted:Where are you in Hawaii? This was at Spitting Caves off Oahu. Was over for a conference in Honolulu but flying back to Australia the day after tomorrow so no time for the other islands this time 
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Apr 9, 2013 05:26
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pupdive posted:Who'd you go with, how'd you get there etc? Went out on the boat with Island Divers Hawaii. Seemed a pretty decent outfit really. Did 3 dives about a week ago - the YO-257, Sea Tiger and a 'drift' dive (with no perceptible current) called Sea Cave. All were fantastic, though the YO had a pretty gnarly current running. Dive conditions on the Sea Tiger were pristine. We did the LCU today and hung out with about 4 white tips reef sharks inside the wreck. Swarm of Eagle Rays were floating around under us for our safety stop too. Swell was up quite high, but the dive conditions were fine - the swell doesn't seem to stir up the visibility too much in Hawaii like it does in Perth. Jumping in at Spitting Caves we heard whales straight away, and also saw another White Tip shark, but the Seal was the highlight! Would love to stay and check out the diving in Kona, but not going to get a chance. Tomberforce fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Apr 9, 2013 |
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Apr 9, 2013 10:06
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Frogmanv2 posted:Just booked a dive at the Navy Pier in Exmouth, the day after we are swimming with the whale sharks. Super Excite Mode ENGAGE Cool I'm going to try and make it up there in May. You dive in Perth much? Finch! posted:Ah nuts, A friend of mine works for another company. I was hoping you could pass on a message about her pixie ears for me. The dive shop I'm doing my DM with owns Exmouth Diving centre who also do whaleshark tours, so I know a few of the Exmouth crew. Tomberforce fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Apr 16, 2013 |
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Apr 16, 2013 14:25
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SlicerDicer posted:You must not do deep diving? All the dive pros here are required to carry computers and they are monitored to make sure they are not dragging tourists to 160-180ft or deeper. Yes stupidity happens.. I think he meant he always carries two computers! Man I really find it absurd when pros get annoyed and snarky about people who have difficulties - they're the ones who we train for, and seeing and helping them get over their initial difficulties and start having fun and becoming good divers is what makes being a DM/Instructor satisfying! Teaching someone who picks everything up straight away is easy! I had a situation the other day that I'm really annoyed with myself about. I was DMing a pool session with 3 OW students, it was the end of the day and while the instructor and the other DM were sorting gear outside the pool I was helping the students out of the water. I'd already got out of the water to help the with 2 students still in get out of their gear when one drops his mask in the 3.5 metre deep pool. He tells me and I tell him to get out of the pool and that I'll get it, but while I'm putting my fins on, he dumps all his air and is on his way to get it himself and was back up before I could do anything. Of course he was fine - he was a perfectly comfortable (overconfident) student, I suspect he actually dropped his mask down there deliberately to 'challenge' himself to go and get it without a mask. I was just really annoyed that I hadn't anticipated the situation better. It's a learning process though. Tomberforce fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Apr 30, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 23:44
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:37 |
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SlicerDicer posted:Some recent stuff I managed to squeeze in when in Australia, the weather was awful but managed to get out once and the vis was pretty bad too. Whereabouts in Australia were you?
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Apr 30, 2013 00:06
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