auchmeddan

Jules made her 100th Dive last weekend, on an eventful day.

We headed out South Shore even though the weather was not good, but it got worse the further we went. The Swells got higher, until we were looking at swells 6ft or more. It seemed like 10ft at the time, but probably wasn’t.

By the time we finally found somewhere we could dive We had large swells, strong surge, OK Visibility, and a couple of large fish (HogFish and Black Grouper). Back on the surface after the dive a new diver panicked and got hit a couple of times on the leg by the boat (which was bouncing a few feet by this point), resulting in a couple of cuts and some stress for the guy. The hang line got caught around the prop, and the anchor line got sheared while there was still a diver out in the water (his own bloody fault for not coming up when he was told to). We then ended up with a DiveMaster in the water without a snorkel or fins…or any good reason to be in the water. Once the Diver and Divemaster were back in the boat, Ondrej was sent back over to find the anchor, but he ran out of air before recovering it.

All in all, it was an eventful morning.

I Finally got out Diving again last weekend, and it was damn cold! I was sitting on the boat shivering between dives. Jules was laughing at me.

Last weekend took Jules to 99 dives, and was the first time we’d dived together in a while. I didn’t take many photos this weekend, but did get a few of a nice sized File Fish and a cute little guy that I think is some sort of Blennie. (UPDATE : Joe identified this for me as a Razor Fish).

We have a dive holiday booked for next June, and we’re both looking forward to spending a week on a small boat in the Bahamas diving with Tiger sharks. We booked with Jim Abernathy’s Scuba Adventures for their Tiger Shark Expedition after I saw a great up-close photo in the back of a recent copy of “Sport Diver”. More info on the trip is available at this link - Shark Trip

There are some other things going on just now that had me more than a little worried that we were going to have to cancel the trip (that we’ve already put a deposit down on) but it looks now like that’s all going to work out in our favour. I’ll supply more news about what’s going on when I know more (but no, Jules isn’t pregnant).

I’ll leave this with a couple of photos of the Razor Fish and a File Fish.

Jules finished her Dive Master course this weekend, knocking off 5 exams on Sunday. Go Jules!

As part of the course, she drew this map Saturday of the Montana. Looks pretty good to me, but I’m always getting turned around on that site anyway!

Click on the map for a larger picture:

Jules has been doing well with her Dive Master Course, and was out again today - drawing a map of a dive site this time. Jules has really got the right kind of personality for this (the complete opposite of mine) and I think she would make a good instructor. There are five exams still to be completed, which Jules is studying for just now. I’m sure she’ll pass them all without much of a problem.

This course has been really good for Jules as she really enjoys meeting new people, helping them get their gear together, and then guiding them on a dive site. It sounds like Hell to me as I hate anything that messes up my dives (new dive buddies, sand-kickers, people touching the reef, fast swimmers, having to worry about someone else’s air, etc etc). I don’t know how she’s able to do it and keep a positive attitude! It’s very impressive.

As for me - The Hibees won the Derby last weekend and the Dolphins won, so I was happy. There hasn’t been a whole lot going on apart from that.