Definition of the bends...

... by Jeremy Hardy on QI last night;

It's what you get if the wind changes while you're talking with your mouth full and running with scissors.

;-)

Talking of seques....

I find it disturbing that you're thinking of no.2s mere minutes after saying '2-3 days of solid diving.'

YES! Kinnie for all!

As Stan from South Park would say - 'Oh My God! They spilled Kinnie!'

Life's questions

I wonder if anyone has ever openly admitted to doing a no.2 in their wetsuit.

On a similar plane of thought; don't some fish turn back and consume their own solid waste? Isn't that something humans should emulate in order to blend in with the fish?

Good man. Malta beckons. They've just had some freak storms there, but October should see good weather return. There will be 3 items on the agenda:
1. Advanced OW course; which is 2-3 days of solid diving.
2. The consumption and plundering of Kinnie.
3. Picking our next dive site.

Of course the teaching of St. Padi states that "he who eateth gas-giving food, or drink, even until his belches spring forth unsummoned, shall be smitten by the Lord with exploding guts, even as he rises from the deep."
from the Book of Shells c. 720 AD
This means the Kinnie shall have to be kept in reserve until we're done divin'.

Just remembered that the buddy-check acronym could also mean
"Become Wealthy, Rich And Famous".

Belated Jubilation On The High Seas...

Arrr...

Yes indeedy... I feel strong enough finally to celebrate what we've done. I was exhausted for days afterwards (that and going back to work, but that's another story!).

As we were lazily finning around the Brighton Marina basin, the instructor was pointing out the various wildlife representatives, but I'm afraid I was more interested in the twisted debris and wreckage that was down there. It was like a building site! I was expecting to come across a battered white van with a badly tuned transistor radio blaring out BBC Radio 1 and a fifth, surrounded by the floating debris of sandwich packets and B&H cartons. And a garage door? Who throws one of those in a marina? Perhaps it was the secret escape hatch from Posiedon Boy's underwater kingdom... Perhaps not....

When you're diving, you can trim your buoyancy by taking deeper or shallower breaths, deep breath - go up, shallow breath - down. This all seems a bit tricky at first, but there's nothing like the sight of a rusty iron spike poking out of the mud, and you're going straight at it at what seems like 80 mph, to get the idea of it!

And where to now? Yes, the med sounds good... I (MALTA!) must (MALTA!) start (MALTA!) dropping (MALTA!) subtle (MALTA!) hints (MALTA!MALTA!MALTA!MALTA!)

Dave Barry Be Good

Dave Barry getting certified...

2 More PADI Open Water Divers

We've done it.

And if we did it, then a balloon tied to a brick could also do it: become PADI-certified. The training wheels are off, and so the wobbly, winding progress under the seas begins. The sticker on this bicycle says "Advanced Open Water Or Bust".

Variables: where to do it? England is hard-core, but the Med is tempting. Which courses to take? Wreck, of course; Night-diving - sounds lovely; photography - that means I'll have to buy cameras and sheeit. Watch this space for news of impending advancement.

This post sponsored by a huffy green eel in Brighton Marina. In its silt do we linger...

ProEar Scuba Mask

This seems to have rave reviews, ProEar Mask

Scubastore sell it for £58., in the UK it's £90+ ... might be worth a try.

Plus it makes you look like a cyberman... ;-)

Dumbest product review ever ...

Read the customer review at the bottom here
;-)

oh dear I broke it

Barry Trauma and the Tympanic Haematoma

OK - how's this for an idea? Underwater flashmobs!

Imagine 1500 divers all turning up at the same site and doing something irrelevant for exactly 43 seconds...

Or... how about converging (fully kitted up) in a really surreal place, like the third floor of Canary Wharf..?

You want to see my earwax - not so much horns as Klaxons!!!!

...and if you want Badger Spotting...

;-)

It's a little bit freaky to see the blogger banner up there, showing context-sensitive advertising. I wonder how often it updates? Do you think if we changed the subject completely to, say, Badger spotting, the banner link would keep up?

I must say that old man in the video had some crazy alien nest in his earholes. "That's just ordinary wax" reassures the doctor as his audience wade through their fold-up chairs, screaming and stumbling towards the exit. I've never seen ear-wax with horns before.

Pre-pressurisation vs equalisation...

That doc's video was quite informative - I'm going to try and 'archive' it to VCD for 'reference'.

I was struck by his interpretation of 'early and often' to imply that you should keep your inner ear pressurised from before you descend until you reach the target depth - THEN equalise... I shall try that next time. It obviously works for him, and as the video shows in alarming detail, there's nothing wrong with his ears.

Video's worth seeing if only for the 'AARGH 6ft EARWAX!!!!' moment ;-)

Bugger Wales! Retire Away to Frinton ... or
Bugger Whales Reluctantly And Fastidiously ... ?

And don't get me started on filling children's heads with God nonsense!

Acronyms

The excellent Tim at our scuba centre shares his mnemonic for the buddy check:

"Bomb With the RAF"

Kids find faith in sea

"whales, starfish and wacky deep sea divers can be an exciting way to learn about God."

Doc's site now a permanent link

Saw the doc doing his video presentation. He's got a very nice ponytail; much less threatening than that muscleman who advertises striding machines late at night.
Also put a scuba filter on the news link. The search term may as well have been "scuba+death", given the news items returned.
*
Spotted a swollen brook by the office and thought about the logistics of diving it.
*
What is that recent Discovery series about wreck detectives? sort of like Time Team but off the side of a boat...

Good site, that

Cool, go for it.

The video presentation the good doctor mentions can be found here: The Diver's Ear Under Pressure.

Interesting to note that the Eustachians are named after a person rather than Euston Station because of all the bogies ;-) (marshalling yard humour...)

Prevention of Middle Ear Barotrauma

The excellent Edmond Kay MD has plenty to say about earholes and equalisation.

Finman - if the main site this is from turns out to be solid, re-usable material I might put the link up on the right there. Could this be any more exciting? Will any of it make a difference the next time I start descending too quickly?

Music you probably shouldn't listen to underwater...

The Breeders - Last Splash
L7 - Bricks Are Heavy
... anything by Gravity Kills

Ear'oles - Nature's preschool structural dynamics experiment

OK - so now both myself and the Reverend have dodgy ears. This is perfectly normal, this is simply nature's way of telling you that you shouldn't be there - 'You're floating, all your movements are restricted and ungainly - but you can deal with this. There's no air, but you can deal with this, too...OK...now, what's that tickling, gurgling sensation? That's right, it's an earful of PUS, get out of that, pitiful human!'

(ooh, it's that woman out of Hot Shots II - naked...ahem)

I was convinced that I'd just got an ear full of water and that eventually it would come out, but nothing would work. When it was still there 4 days later and I got a steaming headache, I thought perhaps I ought to see the quack. So, in with the aural probe and - 'Ooooh, I'm surprised you're not in agony...that's really inflamed.'... Pants. One diagnosis of Otis Redding and a handful of auntybionics, next please... Found out later that a serious infection gives the impression of 'fullness' - ie: an earful of water that you can't shift. So, kiddies, if you feel like your ear's full, then you've got a soul singer infection in there, or something...

I'll be trying a couple of preventatives involving olive oil, acetic acid, and possibly lemon juice - sounds like salad dressing to me!

Here's where I got the info about infections...
http://www.deeperblue.net/article.php/186/12
http://www.deeperblue.net/article.php/198/12

There's always a first time...

18/2/1966 23:55 - First breath of air, first of many... addictive I've heard, once you start stopping will kill you...
14/9/1984 00:23 - Lost virginity (not mine, I was borrowing one)
2/9/2003 12:10 - First (real) taste of scuba diving .... whooohooo (glub)
2/9/2003 12:11 - First nasty ear infection ... eugh ... humans are such a dreadful design
10/9/2003 00:09 - First time I ever blogged ... now I feel dirty...

Barry Humphries and Gary Oldman in a film about Beethoven? ... where's the OFF button dammit!!!!

I love the internet

World Atlas Micronesia Oceania locator map and information page

I love the internet because it kills all the mystery in life.

Truk Lagoon - Micronesia - Underwater photography by James Lee

James Lee must be praised and envied for experiencing and recording all this wet visual goodness. There's a truck! and there's a fish!

So where is Micronesia, I ask? Do they do weekend breaks from Stansted?

The Eustachian Tubes.

Of a frog. It took me a few bleary squints to be sure this wasn't some poor cadaver in a medical student's grubby paws. That rod sure looks nasty, nonetheless.

music to listen to underwater - #1

• Boards of Canada - Beautiful Place in the Country


• Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Arse

And why should scuba diving be "extreme"? In my limited experience it's a very staid, relaxing experience. We'll have to wait for the first out-of-air experience, or conger eel nipping my fingers, or an octopus yanking my tadger. THEN we shall see extreme.

Until then let's look at "Extreme setting up a doctor's appointment":

1. wander into Battle, sleepy town on a sleepy afternoon, with Andy (Faz). Set up appointment via huffy secretary. Me ears hurt you see, but not always. Could this be the dreaded arse/ear infection? or even worse a perforated ear drum?

2. Mr Nice Dr lets me fill in the "not from around here" form while he asks about serious illness and accidents. Then a poke into the lugholes and the verdict: "It's shouldn't be a bar to diving on Saturday". Words that made me leap for joy and knock the Doc to the ground, licking his face. Then I asked to be let out for a pee.
Later I led him to the well where the Harman kids where last seen. And then i was shot.

3. No seriously - he says that when the magic light shone onto my ear drums, they reflected back with MURK, and MOTTLED GLOOM. Healthy drums would have gleamed. This means there is fluid inside the old Eustachian tubes (dear old Eustace), possibly resulting from equalisation problems. Ah that'll be the "EEEEEEEE-blib-blib-EEEE-HSSSSS!" noise as i dropped down the concrete hole in the marina. Only 6 metres but for this acolyte it was enough to be taught valuable lesson #1: equalise often. often. that means often.

***

So the news is I might get to do Open Water dive #4 on saturday. With Shaun on the way out of an ear infection, and my inner tubes full of effluent, it should make an odd pairing of hopeful graduands. All for the joy of induction into the church of PADI.

PS remind me to draw out my theories on how PADI is like Scientology, except without the crazy-ass alien shit.

Scuba guide

This here shizzat has a lot of juicy linkage : Scuba guide. On a site called SportExtreme...

Plenty of dive guides, a dive calendar, and bits on malta too. MV Xlendi one day I will go and pretend to buy a kinnie from a fish in the upside down cafeteria...

Freedive/scuba/spearfishing/farm management website: seems to have a filthy load of e-scuba e-quipment to view

Open Water Dives #1-#3

Brighton Marina - 06th September 2003 : a patch of still water with chalky cliff on one side, and apartment block down the flank. From a jetty, the kit-up and launch leads to wetsuit joy and cool knees-in-silt action.

A half-buried salad fork turns out to be a flatfish tail. the disturbe owner spurts forward and away from the onrushing silt-storm of flailing student fins. My dream is to hover and not disturb, but at this height even the frog-kick drops pressure bombs into the silt. Must adjust to a higher orbit.

Earhole earhole, aching orifice of doom. The Oracle Says: "You will not go diving this weekend."