It is no secret that Cape Town is a little low on water. The coastal dive industry, even though we spend a lot of time in the ocean, is actually quite a heavy user of fresh water. Everything thing you learn about taking care of your equipment revolves around the phrase “rinse well with clean water.” Clearly this is not an option in Cape Town at the moment.
Dive gear in the driveway
So how do you maintain your dive gear and keep it in safe condition during such circumstances? For a dive centre or training facility the volume of gear that needs cleaning can be overwhelming at the end of the day. Here are a few suggestions on how to manage.
No matter how well you de-kit after a shore dive, wet dive gear tends to collect sand. (You can minimise this by using something like the Wetsac, but this isn’t always an option with my students.) I take the gear back into the ocean and rinse it as well as I can in the shallows. This involves several trips as wet dive gear is heavy.
Wetsuits are rugged and don’t too much mind being left salty. They do end up being a little crispy after a while, but the most important, non-negotiable aspect is hygiene. I take a spray bottle with a mixture of Savlon or Dettol and spray the inside of the salty wet suit, then let it dry. Gloves, booties, hoodies and rash vests get the same treatment.
Regulators get a similar treatment, without the disinfectant. I give them an overall light spray with warm water in a spray bottle, with a good spray into the mouth piece. The inflator hose nipple also needs to be rinsed well as this does not handle salt build-up too well and could get stuck during a dive (at best, annoying… at worst, life-threatening).
Cameras, dive computers, torches and compasses do need a little more care, but fortunately are relatively small and have lesser water requirements. I use a narrow, tall bucket and put the bucket in the shower. While showering you can easily catch enough water to cover these items…. Seldom more than a litre is required, and you can leave them to soak.
The biggest challenge is a BCD. Again, it is a tough and rugged piece of gear, but the inflator mechanism does not like salt build up. Using the same bucket of water used for the camera and dive computers, I soak the inflators overnight. I then connect an airline and inflate and deflate the BCD to help flush out the valves behind the inflate/deflate buttons.
Whilst such basic, minimalistic care for your dive gear is not as thorough as that recommended by the manufacturer, it is a method of extending the use of your gear when the availability of fresh water is close to zero. As a rule I prefer to only have two students per class and can effectively wash three sets of gear in less than three litres of water.
It goes without saying that as soon as it rains, you should be collecting that water to give your gear the long, luxurious soak it deserves (and probably needs by that stage)!
View of Cape Agulhas lighthouse from the seaward side
The Cape Agulhas lighthouse is the most visually pleasing lighthouse that I’ve visited so far. Tony and I visited it while we were staying at De Hoop last September.
View of Cape Agulhas from the top of the lighthouse
Cape Agulhas was named by the Portuguese from their word for needle. During the 1500s, when they were plying Southern Africa’s coastline, the magnetic declination in the area was approximately zero, meaning that there was no deviation between true and magnetic north, and the compass needle pointed to true north.
The door at the top of the tower
(Technical sidebar: Cape Agulhas lay on an agonic line during the 1500s. An agonic line is a line on the earth’s surface along which the magnetic declination or variation is zero. Earth’s magnetic field slowly changes, and with it the positions of the north and south magnetic poles. For this reason, the variation between true and magnetic north at a point on the earth changes slowly over time. You can examine a map of historic declination over the last 400-odd years here – if you scroll it back to 1590 you can see the green line through Cape Agulhas.)
The lighthouse is within walking distance of the southernmost tip of Africa inside the Agulhas National Park, and was built on land donated by Michiel van Breda, a local landowner (for whom Bredasdorp was named). Van Breda had experienced the trauma of shipwrecks along the stretch of coastline on his farm, with hundreds of dead bodies washing up after ships foundered on the rocky shores in rough seas. The shipwreck museum at Bredasdorp commemorates many of these wrecks.
The lens inside the lantern house
The lighthouse was commissioned on 1 March 1849. It has a 7.5 million candela light that emits one flash every 5 seconds and has a range of 31 nautical miles. The lighthouse tower is 27 metres high, with a focal plane 31 metres above sea level. The tower is made of limestone with a white lantern house. By the 1960s the tower had deteriorated to such an extent that the lighthouse was temporarily decommissioned (its job performed in the interim by an aluminium tower), and restoration was undertaken. It was recommissioned in 1988.
View of L’Agulhas
The lighthouse is open to the public (also on weekends, which is unusual for a South African lighthouse) and contains a museum and a gift shop on the ground floor. The view from the top is well worth the climb.
I’ve had my Suunto D6 dive computer for three years, and while wearing it I’ve done 150 dives for a total of 90 hours underwater. I’ve also been a remarkably good girl, diving within my qualifications (PADI Deep Specialty) for a maximum depth of 38.6 metres.
Slightly aged Suunto D6
I discovered that my Suunto D6 needed a new battery while waiting at the airport to board a flight to Durban, on the way to Sodwana for three days of warm water diving. Tony had suggested more than once that I check it prior to our departure, but NO, I was too busy and important to do THAT! Fortunately a spare dive computer was on hand, so I dived with one of Tony’s Suunto Zoops on the trip.
(As an aside, the D6 won’t download dives from the computer into the MacDive software when it has low battery. It goes into data transfer mode when you plug it in, but refuses to download – I got error code -7. Once the battery is changed, downloading is again possible.)
Changing the battery on a dive computer can be a fearsome experience – at least in South Africa. Unless you can change it yourself (like the Mares Nemo Wide), it often entails sending the computer to Johannesburg to the agent who imports that particular brand. Then, in a kind of awful lottery, you wait for one of three possible outcomes, all seemingly equally likely:
after the agent acknowledges the safe arrival of your dive computer, a few weeks pass and the agent swears blind he hasn’t seen one of that make for the last five years (this happened to Tony in January)
the battery is changed, the computer comes back, the first time you use it it floods, and you have no recourse to anyone
the battery is changed and the computer works just fine (phew!)
Fortunately Duncan at Orca Industries in Claremont is able to change Suunto D6 (and other) batteries. I think he’s the only person in Cape Town who can do the Suunto D series. (It’s a ten minute process, but mine took five days because the computer ended up under a shelf somewhere for four and a half days before Duncan was told about it!)
Overall I am extremely pleased with my D6. I have minor quibbles. These are chiefly related to the intricacies of doing an air dive after a Nitrox dive, and the fact that it weighs as much as a fully grown labrador retriever, so isn’t suitable for most ladies to wear as a watch. I also don’t trust the compass very much, for no particular reason other than it’s digital. It’s great to dive with, though, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to others.
I have a range of different wrist mount gauges as I teach a range of courses. Whether it’s a compass, dive computer, or timing device the same rules apply when it comes to maintenance.
They must all be soaked in warm fresh water after a dive.
Compasses
The bevel on the compass must be rotated several times in both directions whilst in the warm water. This prevents salt from building up underneath it.
Dive computers
Dive computers must have the buttons depressed several times while swirling the instrument in the warm water. This will ensure no salt crystals can build up behind the buttons. I have a Suunto Mosquito that has done over 1000 dives and has never given me a day’s trouble whereas many people have had button trouble with these units. If you have delicate water contacts brushing them with a soft toothbrush keeps them clear of build up.
I also take a soft cloth and wipe silicone over everything, pour it in behind the buttons and then wipe it all off with a clean cloth.
I’ve been using the Suunto D6 dive computer for about eight months now, having finally got my grubby paws on it just after returning from our last trip to Sodwana. I think it’s about time I write a little review of it, because Suunto have just released the D6i and before you know it my computer will be a museum relic.
Specifications and appearance
The D6 is near the upper end of the range of Suunto dive computers – the model I have will now set you back in the region of R10,000 and there are several cheaper but no less effective offerings. The USB interface cable that will enable your dive computer to talk to your computer will set you back up to a further R1,500 – although this item is frequently advertised on special by Suunto stockists and occasionally as a special bundled with the dive computer, so keep your eyes open. It’s far more usual, however, to have to buy this innocuous-looking cable separately, and gasp at the price.
You can choose an elastomer strap or a metal strap (for about R2,000 more). Although the metal strap looks really cool, it’s not really practical if you dive in varying water temperatures and change the amount of neoprene on your wrist frequently. The computer functions as a dress watch if you want to use it as one – it displays the time constantly when not in dive or memory mode – but it weighs more than a slab of chocolate (130g) and is far too large for the average lady’s wrist, so I don’t use it for this purpose except when travelling (to deny the baggage handlers at OR Tambo Airport the privilege of stealing it).
The computer has a four button interface that I find very intuitive, and I could figure it out to a large degree without reading the manual. That said, if you buy a dive computer, YOU MUST READ THE MANUAL! Don’t be a fool – you want to know EXACTLY why the thing is beeping at you, what it looks like when you go into deco, and be very sure (as one clown – who was buddied with us once because he didn’t know anyone on the boat – wasn’t) whether the “3” you see on the screen indicates a time in minutes, your current depth, or the number of brain cells you have. Read the manual!
Air integration and the D6i
The D6 has actually been replaced by the D6i, which is functionally identical but has more internal memory, and is capable of air integration with an optional (heart-stoppingly expensive) dongle that you attach to your cylinder and reads remaining air. The computer will then give you an estimate of remaing dive time based on air consumption to date. I have no interest in this (at the time I bought the D6, air integration was the main distinguishing feature from the D9) – I’d use a pressure gauge regardless, and wouldn’t feel comfortable trusting what I see as an physical, analogue process (displaying the air remaining in my cylinder) to a potentially failure-prone piece of electronics.
I know I may sound like a luddite here, but an experience Tony had on the boat a few months ago confirmed my reservations. Another instructor’s student had an air integrated computer and no pressure gauge (why bother with redundancy?). The air integration with the computer wouldn’t work, but they only discovered this on the boat when they were parked over the dive site, and – after toying with the idea of cancelling the dive, and then swapping kit so the instructor, who should have an excellent feel for his air consumption, had the set up with no pressure gauge – did a very short dive. As a mathematician I can see that having snapshots of your remaining air at 20 second intervals to look at in the dive manager software might be appealing though…
Decompression algorithm
The D6 uses the Suunto Deep Stop RGBM (Reduced Gradient Bubble Model), and allows for continuous decompression as you ascend (instead of forcing you to do stops at particular depths). It also allows you to complete your safety stopsat depth – something I haven’t experimented with much, but will be using next time we dive the Lusitania. The computer recommends a safety stop once you exceed 10 metres on a dive, and if you violate the recommended ascent rate it will advise a mandatory safety stop between 3 and 6 metres. I tried to photograph the D6 during a dive where I’d switched on deep stops, but there was a 20 metre layer of green plankton blocking out the light from above, and my flash kept reflecting off the screen protector. Hence the dubious results you see here. I have 28 minutes of no-decompression time remaining, dive time is 11 minutes, depth is 20.9 metres, and my first deep stop will be at 13 metres. Maximum depth (bottom left) so far has been 23.8 metres.
Suunto D6 during a dive – first deep stop is due at 13 metres
You’re most likely aware of this, but a dive computer does not measure anything that is going on in your body with respect to dissolved gases. Dive computers use mathematical models – based on the original dive tables, only more sophisticated – that approximate, for the average person, how much nitrogen has gone into solution in the body’s tissues, and how fast it is being released, based on your dive profile. They measure depth temperature, and time, that’s all. For this reason many dive computers, including the D6, have an option for you to set a more conservative calculation algorithm if you’re at higher risk of DCS – for reasons of increased age, high body fat percentage, or any of the other DCS-predisposing risk factors. You can also adjust the partial pressure settings up and down if you so desire, but anything higher than 1.4 bar (ata) strikes me as reckless.
Nitrox and no-fly time
It goes without saying that the D6 is Nitrox capable, and it’s very straightforward to set the Nitrox mix. After one dive on Nitrox, the option to do a repetitive air dive disappears, and you have to manually set the oxygen percentage of your mix back down to 21%. I think this is to force you to think about what gas is in your cylinder. The D6 also handles switching to a richer mix for decompression, and this optional second mix may be set through the same menu system as the primary nitrox mix.
The D6, again like most dive computers, gives a no-fly time after you’re done with diving for the day. This time is usually well under 18 hours, but you’d do well to follow DANguidelines forflying after diving (usually 18 hours after your last dive) and not bank on the reading given by your computer. Do not be like Gerard, who shall remain nameless, and mistake the time display on your computer for the no-fly time. After a dive on the Aster that ended at about 3.30pm, he announced that his no-fly time was “fifteen hours and twenty nine minutes.” A few minutes later, to his puzzlement, it was “fifteen hours and thirty four minutes!”
Dive Manager software
The Suunto dive manager software, that allows you to examine the details of your dives on your computer screen at home, is not compatible with Apple Macs, so I had to find another solution. I’ll review the software I do use, MacDive, in a separate post. Apparently from “fall 2011”, whenever that rolls (rolled) around, the Suunto software – DM4 – will also be compatible with Apple computers. I’ll test it when I get a chance, and let you know what it’s like… As is apparently wildly popular these days, one can also share one’s sporting activities on the Suunto Movescount site via an automatic link-up from within the software interface. And, no doubt, publish them to facebook.
Electronic compass
Suunto D6 with elastomer strap (right) and titanium strap (left)
One of the major appeals for me of the D6 – and I think the feature that bumps its price up so much higher than the D4 – was the integrated electronic compass, which can be accessed at (almost) any time by holding down the top left (Select) button. In the picture at right, the D6 with the elastomer strap is on the compass display (the one on the right is in the memory log display mode which can’t be accessed during a dive). If you’re not on a dive when you use the compass, obviously the depth and dive time won’t show.
The D6i has updated the compass to allow accurate readings when your wrist is tilted; the old D6 (the one I have) is not as tolerant and you’ll need to keep your arm level as with a standard dive compass. Unfortunately the D6 doesn’t record the compass heading along with the temperature, depth and other dive statistics during the dive – or, if it does, the download software I use doesn’t access it. I suspect the former is true, since I installed Suunto’s own dive manager software on Tony’s PC to check, and there was no sign of compass headings. Boo.
What’s in the box
In the box was the computer, a strap extender, the instruction manual, a disc with the Windows-compatible dive manager software on it, and two or three scratch guards which are trimmed to fit the D6’s screen. I’ve done close to 70 dives with my D6 so far, and the scratch guard is scratched and still doing its job well. Tony’s computer, the Mares Nemo Wide, is protected with some cheap cellphone screen protectors we got from Look ‘n Listen. You can buy a generic size, and then trim it down to fit your phone (or dive computer, as the case may be). We didn’t expect this makeshift scratch guard – which is NOT designed for regular immersion in salt water – to last beyond five or ten dives, but over 100 dives and it’s going strong. I think I paid R60 for the pack of screen protector stickers, and we’ll get nine Nemo Wide-sized ones out of the package.
Buying it
Continuing with the subject of good value, one more tip for the bargain hunters. I actually bought my D6 from Cape Union Mart. They stock Suunto sports watches, and were able to order me a D6 from Suunto in Finland. I had to wait six weeks for it to arrive, and it cost R8,700. What made the deal very sweet was that by buying it on my Discovery Card which gives me a 20% discount at Cape Union Mart (thanks to my years in the Vitality program and points status), the computer ended up costing just under R7,000. I paid a further R1,200 for the download cable (I got that at a dive centre). If you have a few weeks before you need the computer, or are prepared to wait in exchange for some savings, it’s worth getting a quote from Cape Union Mart as to what they’ll charge you. If you’ve got a Discovery Card it’s a no-brainer. Email them via the website for a quotation, and they’ll tell you to print that and take it to your nearest Cape Union Mart to place the order. I had to pay a 50% deposit.
Update (late 2012): Based on feedback from other divers who have shopped for Suunto computers lately, it seems that Cape Union Mart isn’t doing this any more, unfortunately – but it’s worth asking anyway!
Maintaining it
Finally – if you have a dive computer and live in Cape Town, take it to Orca in Claremont to get the battery changed when necessary, and ask for Chris the “worship manager” (that’s autocorrect gone wild on “workshop manager”) to do it for you. Tony’s students have had baaaaad experiences (a hair across the seal, anyone?!) at other locations. There’s usually not much you can do if the service centre doesn’t seal the computer properly and it floods – your only recourse will possibly be to your insurance company.
I often take pictures by accident. This is no mystery – the construction of my camera housing and the fact that I sometimes forget to turn it off on exiting the ocean conspire here to produce curious results. What is a mystery, however, is what some of the photos depict. As a fun (haha) activity for our loyal reader(s), here’s a game of Guess the Dive Gear. Answers at the end of the post…
1. Very easy
We start with something easy
2. Easy
Also quite straightforward
3. Also easy
What's this?
But can you guess what brand it is?
Can you guess the brand?
4. Slightly less easy
Looks very tropical
5. This should be a piece of cake
What's this?
Just identifying the piece of gear isn’t enough – do you know the make and model?
Can you guess the brand?Still no idea?
6. A bit tricky
Similar to (4) above, but with an additional item to complicate matters…
Think I might have been lowering my gear to the ground. There’s a compass visible at the top of the picture, and the black mass at the bottom might be an inflated BCD. Any better ideas?
The wreck of the Lusitania is considered by many Cape Town divers to be one of the top wreck dives of the region. It is fairly deep, the wreck is quite broken up, but still interesting, with a number of identifiable components, and the visibility is often quite good. However, it is a physically challenging dive, quite a distance from the launch sites, and conditions are not often suitable, so it is not dived very often. No doubt these factors add to the mystique.
Waves breaking over Bellows Rock
Tony and I had heard about the mystique surrounding this wreck, but because we hadn’t had an opportunity to dive it since he’s been in Cape Town (about two years now) we didn’t know much about it. Beautiful weather in the middle of winter provided an opportunity to take the long boat ride out of False Bay, past Cape Point, and further south to Bellows Rock. Bellows Rock is named for the way in which the water smashes over the top of it, and the break is apparently visible from Macassar – at the northern end of False Bay – when the swell is large.
The ship is now very broken up, after 100 years lying below Bellows Rock
Jumbled wreckage of the SS Lusitania
Wreckage lies tumbled among the smooth rocks
Great sheets of wreckage
Here and there are brass fittings and window frames
Railings (perhaps) from the SS Lusitania
Rocky reef on which the SS Lusitania is lying
A fish darts among pieces of the ship
The Lusitania was a large Portuguese liner that ran aground on Bellows Rock in late April 1911, carrying about 800 passengers. All but eight survived (a lifeboat capsized), and after a few days the ship slid down the side of Bellows Rock to where it now lies in 37 metres of water. A light Nitrox mix will help increase dive times here. She’s an old wreck – as old as the Clan Stuart – and very broken up. The wreckage is readily discernible, however, because it is not very encrusted with marine life at all. The surrounding reef, made up of granite boulders with a some nice holes, overhangs and places to look underneath, is very colourful and well encrusted with sponges. There are also massive numbers of West coast rock lobster!
West coast rock lobster
Sponges and soft corals at 35 metres
Colourful sponges and corals
Strawberry sea anemones on the SS Lusitania
Sponges and soft corals on the SS Lusitania wreck site
West coast rock lobster at Bellows Rock
Grant gave us a bone-chilling briefing that had me convinced (if one of the other divers on the boat hadn’t done it already by telling me with dewy eyes that this was “the Mount Everest of diving”) that this is quite a higher grade dive that requires wits, fitness and no small measure of courage for a scaredy-cat like me. The wreck lies right next to Bellows Rock, which is surrounded by a large area of breaking waves and white water. Descents at this site must be rapid – no messing around on the surface doing buddy checks (“PADI stuff”, as Grant called it once) – and descents are equally demanding. There’s usually a current pushing towards the north west, and this will force one onto the rock unless you take care. Grant advised us to swim gently in a north easterly direction (more or less across the current) as we ascended, and to do our safety stops at eight metres instead of the usual five. He warned us not to surface if we saw white water above us. He told us that he has “survived” being washed over Bellows Rock itself, but that it’s not an experience one wants to have unless it’s absolutely necessary.
West coast rock lobster
The ride out to Bellows Rock is magnificent, and takes about 20-25 minutes at the speed Grant drives (very fast). The sea was nice and flat inside False Bay, but outside the bay there was a small swell. Even though it was only 2-3 metres, Bellows Rock and surrounds looked like a terrifying whirlpool to me. Grant couldn’t drop a shot line onto the wreck because it would get washed over the rock (and presumably have to stay there forever, which would be an inconvenience). The plan was for us to enter the water in two groups. The first group kitted up, and Grant drove the boat as close as he dared to the white water around the rock, so that we were right over the wreck. He counted down, slowed the boat to a crawl, and the divers were gone. As soon as they rolled off he drove away so that the second group – me, Tony, Cecil and Ivan – could get ready.
Kitting up on the boat (that’s not us!)
Our entry probably looked just as scary, but I wasn’t actually looking at the water! Next time I do this dive I’d take more weight – for deep dives my preferred weighting is marginal and I have to swim down the first 3-5 metres; this wasn’t ideal for this dive, and because I was anxious about getting down quickly, I breathed too fast and struggled to sink! Once we were in, however, everything was fine.
What remains of the SS Lusitania
The Lusitania was a 5 557 ton vessel, very large. There are big, complete pieces of wreckage scattered about, but very little actual structure remains. Close to Bellows Rock – which drops off precipitously below the water line – are lots of interesting bits and pieces, but getting there and away is difficult because of the current. We spent some time exploring the edge of the wreck furthest from Bellows Rock, and then swam slightly north over some rocky reef that reminded me a lot of Klein Tafelberg Reef in Hout Bay.
Sponge on the wreck site
Our ascent was uneventful – we followed instructions, did a deep safety stop, and surfaced a safe distance from Bellows Rock. The water was very clean, and very cold, but as we moved further towards the entrance to False Bay the visibility declined somewhat. I’d like to dive this wreck again, but conditions have to be very special – with almost no swell and no wind – for it to be safe. I feel like a Philistine for admitting that the challenging nature of this dive was not compensated for by the specialness of the dive site itself, although it is without doubt a very interesting and varied dive.
A torch reveals the colours of the soft corals all over the site
The boat ride back past Cape Point and along the eastern shore of the Cape Point Nature Reserve was beautiful. We saw several whales, a sunfish (briefly), seabirds, and – for most of the trip – the ocean floor beneath us, as the water was crystal clear. It was, as Cecil said, an absolute treat and a wonderful way to spend a morning (all of it, even the death-defying leaps from a slow-moving boat!).
There are loads of dive computers available today and it can sometimes be difficult deciding what to buy. In my opinion a dive computer should be sold with the required download dongle and the software required to manage your logbook digitally. If you take diving seriously then looking at your profile on a computer adds real value to the experience.
Download cables for the Suunto D6, Mares Nemo Wide, and Suunto Zoop
Importers also run specials from time to time where the download cable is free which leaves a bad taste in your mouth if you just forked out over R1000 for the cable a few weeks earlier! I am a regular diver so the ability to change the battery myself is an important feature for a computer. Some dive computers require they go in to a service centre (often far from home). After a few battery changes I usually replace the rear cover as well as they tend to become a bit rough once they have been removed a few times. The manufacturer recommends a new cover with every change… but then they would as a battery change costs around R20 if you change only the battery, but around 5 times that for the rear cover.
Citizen
The first instrument for diving I owned, and still wear today, is a Citizen dive watch. It is a far cry from a real dive computer as it records only your last two dives, depth, dive time and water temperature. It does not show you deco or permissable dive time at depth. Years back when dive computers were very expensive this was a very popular option. It is rated to 200 metres, way deeper than I am ever going and has one downside: a battery change and vacuum seal can only be done in a few places in South Africa and costs around R700.
Aladin Prime
My first dedicated dive computer was an Uwatec Aladin Prime: an easy to use air nitrox computer with terrific software. Only two buttons for all menu options (essentially a four button computer as each button had two pressure points but due to their close proximity to each other a little difficult to use with gloves on). Downloading is easy as the computer has an infrared port as does my laptop but a USB infrared dongle is very cheap if your computer does not have an infrared sensor.
Clare's arm with the Aladin dive computer
Suunto Zoop
My second computer was a SuuntoZoop. Again an easy to use (three button) computer with buttons far apart. This was a big drawcard for me at the time. The downside to this is the download cable is not included in the purchase and cost almost 60% of the computer’s price. The software was not as user friendly and the graphics not as good as the Uwatec software, but it still had all the basic information. The computer was plagued for a few years by random shutdowns that never seemed to have any form of regularity. This fault was never found and it sometimes works for month before happening again. This just led to me having very little faith in the unit so it became a backup.
Suunto Mosquito
Next came the now-discontinued Suunto Mosquito, by far the most user friendly computer and a big plus was that the download cable purchased for the Suunto Zoop fitted the download slot on the mosquito. Again it is a four button computer but the buttons are far enough apart that using them with gloves is easy. This computer had one downside for me and that was that it would go out of the Nitrox mode if you did not dive within two hours of setting it. With time the small text has become harder to read at depth (age related eye issue) so an upgrade was required.
Mares Nemo Wide
Enter the MaresNemo Wide. Four buttons again, but big enough buttons for the aged half blind diver with large screen and big text for the same reasons. This is an amazing computer and by far the best of the lot for me because the screen is easy to read in low visibility and the buttons so large you cannot miss them even if you wear boxing gloves. The software is good and has an easy download interface. The down side was the download cable. Not much more than a mini USB cable with a bit of plastic and a tiny printed circuit with a diode to make it look expensive, this cable costs 60% of the price of the computer which in my opinion is beyond ridiculous.
Suunto D6
Clare dives with a Suunto D6. By far the best in quality, it has a stainless steel housing whereas all the others are plastic. It does have a similar menu and four button system as the Suunto Mosquito but again required the purchase of yet another download cable for a little over R1 000. The software was not useable on an Apple computer so a generic program called DiveLog was found by Clare and she loves it (she will review both the software and the D6 after a few more dives with it). The big advantage of the D6 is the electronic compass so if you do not want to have instruments strapped all over then this is a good buy. Stainless steel is however for more expensive than plastic so take a deep breath when you buy it and make sure it’s strapped on securely!
Citizen, Aladin, Zoop, Nemo Wide and D6
Screen protectors
Most if not all dive computers come with a screen protector. Some have it on when you by them whilst others need you to fork out a few more banknotes to obtain them. I found that they would collect dirt and salt between the screen and the protector and with time they become hazy and spoil the view. For my Mares Nemo Wide Clare bought a pack of stick on cell phone screen protectors and we trimmed one to size and stuck it straight on the screen. It seems to last and this is a very cheap option for a screen protector.
Well, it looks like an attempt at sun protection, or a badly improvised turban. What it really is, is Dean practising compass navigation at Long Beach for his Open Water course. His left arm has the compass on it, and he’s watching it under the towel as he attempts to navigate a straight route back down the beach.
Tracy, Goot, Sophie, me, Tami, Bernita, Clare and Cecil outside the chamber
We have just come home from a 50 metre chamber dive. We were two groups of four on each dive and the profile went like this: surface to a brief stop at 9 metres to check that everyone was okay and then a plunge down to 50 metres in two minutes, ten minutes at this depth and then around 25 minutes for the ascent with a few stops to decompress.
50 metres down...
We took a small sample of a wetsuit with us, this compressed to paper thin material. Two balloons, inflated before the descent, shrank to the size of a fist at 50 metres. We took several dive computers and a wrist mount depth gauge. The computers agreed more or less on the depth we reached, 50.2, 50.4 and 50.1 metres. The analogue depth gauge showed almost 60 metres. Great fun and a safe way to experience chronic nitrogen narcosis.
Clare examining the controls of the chamber
Last week
Evil-eye pufferfish at Long Beach
We had three good days of diving last week and saw a huge ray, several cuttlefish, puffer fish, and of course the regular octopus. There have also been huge schools of yellowtail, the fishermen were netting a few hundred an hour on the northern end of Long Beach. All the dives last week were interesting as a big school of tiny anchovies followed us around.
Two tiny cuttlefish at Long Beach
We dived at Long Beach on the weekend, Corne doing Divemaster training, Marinus and Dean doing dive three and compass work for their Open Water course, and Sarah finishing her Open Water course.
Dean practising compass work under a towel while Marinus and Corne look on
The water was 15 degrees and the visibility was low, perhaps 3-4 metres. We were able to capture a small feeding frenzy on camera below the bow of the wreck where a few species were after the same food, the winner being the shyshark who took it all in one bite. I’ll send a link to the video in the next newsletter.
Sarah impersonating a manta ray
Sunday’s planned boat dives were cancelled due to a red tide hitting the coastline and turning the water into coffee. Clare, Lukas and I did a photography dive to check it out and had less than 2 metres visibility.
This weekend
This weekend will be a little tricky. The Argus Cycle Tour is on and its around the peninsula so there are going to be road closures on Saturday evening and Sunday. Saturday they are closing the road late so we may be able to dive from Hout Bay but will only know on Thursday if this is going to happen.
Sunday is definitely out so we are planning to head off to Gordon’s Bay, weather permitting. The plan is for Grant to take the boat out really early, check out the conditions and then give us a call. You will need to either escape the race, participate, or stay home so why not come to Gordon’s Bay and we go wreck hunting. The diving there is lovely and conditions are good there when our side of False Bay is a mess because of the southeaster. We’re going to make a day of it and have lunch and an ice cream afterwards.
If you want to come diving on Sunday please let me know before midday on Friday because the boat will fill up very quickly with NON-cyclists!
Sodwana
Sodwana divers please send me a list of gear you will require so we can get it planned and arranged. We will have a dinner at our house for the group about 10 days before we leave to get all the final arrangements sorted out. I will let you know amounts owing in a separate mail.
I am going to run two special programs over the next month, one being a package of Open Water, Advanced and a Specialty – e.g. Wreck, Deep or Nitrox – at a half price. Secondly do Discover Scuba Diving any weekday for R350 and if it is for a friend of yours you can tag along for free.
