Diving Thoughts

Over Easter I was fortunate enough to go wreck diving in Truk Lagoon. The trip had been planned for a while, and 22 of us chartered the Thorfinn liveaboard. Getting there from Hong Kong took the best part of a day. We set off on a 4:30pm Cathay flight to Manila before changing to Continental Micronesia. Continental Micronesia aren’t my least favourite airline, that accolade goes to aeroflot in the late 80′s, but they’re certainly down there. Having a monopoly doesn’t give them much incentive to improve, and sure enough they haven’t. Anyway, after the usual chaos at the transit desk and security checks in Manila, we arrived in Guam at 4:30am local time, fought our way through immigration and yet more security checks, then had to hang around for an 8:20am flight. Thanks to Catheryn, here you can see the Captain diligently performing the pre-flight checks:

Captain performing pre-flight checks (Photo: Catheryn Chu)

We arrived at Chuuk at 10am local time, having travelled for almost 20 hours. Fortunately only Robert Ho’s bag was damaged this time. Last time I did this trip we had 3 or 4 casualties. And the first time I went, they offloaded all the dive bags in Guam because it had been raining and they were worried about the extra weight. So perhaps Continental Micronesia are improving after all!

We were met by Captain Lance Higgs from the Thorfinn, and some of his crew. It took two runs to get us and all our gear to the wharf where the Thorfinn was tied up, and since the Chuuk roads were in a dreadful state, we’d have been quicker walking. We’d have been up to our knees in mud as well, so I think all of us were happy enough to stick with the van. Sadly the area around the airport looked even more run-down than on my previous visit in 2006.

On board Thorfinn we met Cindy, one half of the husband and wife team who organise the diving and everything else. She’s a Brit and her husband Rob is an American. They are both experienced divers, and while Cindy likes fish, Rob’s passion is cave diving, and he had a wealth of great stories. They were very organised, yet very friendly and accommodating. I would say they are a valuable addition to the Thorfinn.

We were on-board a day early because of the way the flights had worked out, and were very fortunate that there were only two existing customers there. Consequently everyone had cabins, except for me and Rita, who selflessly sacrificed ourselves by sleeping on other people’s floors.

After an extensive briefing and a brief lunch, we were all ready for the 2pm dive.

To be continued…

S.S. Thorfinn

The S.S. Thorfinn was built in Norway in 1954 as an Antarctic whaler. Captain Higgs eventually acquired her and used her in a variety of roles before converting her into a diving liveaboard. She can take 22 guests in 11 cabins, and is spacious and very comfortable. Charters are usually for 7 days.

The Diving

They offer up to 5 dives a day, and the dive times are usually 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm and an 8pm night dive, after dinner. Diving is done from tenders, which take divers out to the various wrecks. That means that fewer divers on each wreck. The Thorfinn will move during the week to allow you chance to dive a different group of wrecks. All in all, it is a  flexible arrangement and worked very well. Having smaller groups on each wreck is a definite plus. A few years ago while we were diving on the Heian Maru the old Truk Aggressor turned up.  Trying to get out of a narrow hold, while 20 Aggressor divers were barging their way in was no fun at all.

Captain Higgs imposes some rigid safety stops to avoid the risk of DCI. These consist of:

• 18 metres: 1 minute
• 9 metres: 2 minutes
• 5 metres: 10 minutes

Given the amount of diving available, these seem to be sensible precautions, and have been in operation for a number of years.

Trevor and me on a safety stop (photo: Lau Wing Kee). This must be on the San Francisco Maru, as Trevor had to borrow a regulator immediately before that dive, which is why his octopus is dragging

HMS Victory was Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar, but it was the 6th ship of that name to serve with the Royal Navy. Its predecessor was also a 100 gun ship of the line and was  launched in 1737. However it sank in 1744 in the western approaches to the English Channel with the loss of 1100 men, after hitting a major storm near the Channel Islands. Its topmast was washed up in Guernsey but until 2008 that was the last anyone had seen of her.

In 2008 the salvage company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, found the ship and is in negotiation with the UK’s Minstry of Defence (MOD) trying to come to an agreement to salvage the wreck in exchange for a cut of the profits.

Recently marine archaeologists have found a human skull and rib bones underneath a cannon on the wreck.It has not yet been decided if these should be recovered and then either re-interred, or studied.

Two cannons have been recovered from the wreck, a 12 pounder and a 42 pounder.

There is more information from the Guardian’s website, from which the above photo came.

Several websites are showing video of the deepest underwater eruption ever recorded.  The pictures show lava bursting into the water at the West Mata submarine volcano. This is about 200km south-west of Samoa. The video was taken by a robotic submersible called Jason and is over 1100 metres deep.

You can find out more and see the video from the BBC’s website.

Russia’s Prime Minister enhances his action man reputation with a submarine dive to 1400 metres in Lake Baikal, the world’s largest body of fresh water. He joined a team of scientists who are using two  cramped Mir mini-submarines to study gas hydrates and natural seepage of crude oil on the bottom of the lake.

His dive took four and a half hours. During that time he spoke to reporters via a hydrophone, and described the scenery through the porthole as being magnificent.

It’s a good job nothing went wrong. Although if something had, it would have been interesting to see if current President, Medvedev, stayed on holiday for 5 days, like Mr. Putin himself did when the Kursk sank in the Baltic.

The photograph above was taken from this Guardian article.

Last week I was fortunate enough to be at a talk by Dr. Wilson Li of the International Association of Hand-in-Hand Divers. It was given at South China Diving Club’s weekly meeting and was a Medical Seminar on Adaptive Diving for the Disabled. Among other things Dr. Li covered :

• Common physical and mental handicaps, chronic illnesses
• The personality, behavior and social adaptation of the Disabled
• Special considerations in adapting scuba diving for the Disabled

Dr. Li’s presentation was enthusiastic, informative and  inspiring. Very few of us had any experience of diving with disabled people, and were not aware of the pleasure and in some cases, the medical benefits, they can gain from diving.

One of the most impressive stories was about Matthew Johnston. When he was 7 he was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), which is a debilitating neuromuscular disease. By the time he was 27 he only had mobility in his thumbs and depended on a ventialtor to breathe. Typical life expectancy for people with this illness is 30 years. Despite this he dreamed of diving, and had the determination to make his dream a reality. He may not be diving in the sense that most of us go diving, and he does require a dive team to support him. But few people can have had the determination to overcome such insurmountable odds to experience diving.

Closer to home in Hong Kong, the International Association of Hand-in-Hand Divers (IAHD) is working to help disabled divers to try diving. They now have over 100 members and have run a number of Discover Scuba Diver Courses for Physically Handicapped People.  They have even organised overseas trips to the Philippines.

If you are an instructor or just a diver who is interested in helping out, you should take a look at their website – http://www.iahd.org.hk/, although it is only in Chinese at the moment. And if you get chance to go to one of their presentations then I would thoroughly recommend it, as it may change the way you think about diving and instructing.

On Tuesday 19 May 2009 THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY – HONG KONG is hosting  a presentation by Richard Gerrish on “Extreme Caving: Into the Deep”. It will be at  3/F British Council, 3 Supreme Court Road, with a Drinks Reception at 6.30 pm followed by the  Lecture at 7.30 pm.

According to the promotional email:

We are delighted to welcome Richard Gerrish, a world-renowned cave explorer, to speak on “Extreme Caving: Into the Deep”. The world’s caves provide one of the last places on the planet where original exploration is still possible. During this lecture, Mr Gerrish explains his adventures in the extraordinary world of cave exploration. The lecture covers his 2005 expedition to Malaysia exploring the eighth longest cave system in the world and the discovery of the second largest cave chamber in the world. The talk continues with his exploration of deep caves in China in 2006 and 2007, where Mr Gerrish was part of the first descent of the world’s second deepest underground shaft and the discovery of the first 1,000m deep cave in China.

If you’re interested, the lecture will cost HK$100 for Members and HK$150 for guests and others.

Click here for The Royal Geographical Society – Hong Kong’s website.

SCMP has an article today about the Coral Triangle. This isn’t some sort of Twilight Zone-type place like the Bermuda Triangle – an area of sea where coral mysteriously disappears, never to be seen again. In fact the aim of the World Oceans Conference, a meeting of 70 nations that starts today in Manado, is to ensure that coral doesn’t disappear at all.

The Coral Triangle they are referring stretches across 6 nations between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, specifically Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, East Timor (shouldn’t that be Timor-Leste?), Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Despite looking like the sort of triangle that I used to draw before I discovered the benefits of rulers, it is apparently home to more than half the world’s coral reefs, three-quarters of its coral species and key stocks of fish.

Unfortunately the Coral Triangle is beset by a set of challenges including overfishing and climate change.  Apparently around 120 million people living in the Coral Triangle depend on the sea for their livelihoods which puts tremendous strain on resources. Protecting the area is being touted as  a key target of the World Oceans Conference.

There are plans afoot to introduce a marine protected area around Nusa Lembongan, and part of the intention is to get the support of the local community to look after their environment. If the initiative is successful, hopefully other areas will be able to replicate this.

The SCMP story is here, although you need to be a subscriber to read it.

On Tuesday 12 May 2009 THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY – HONG KONG is hosting  a presentation by Dr Raynor Shaw and Professor Bernie Owen on “Hong Kong Landscapes: 400 Million Years of Geological History”. It will be at  2/F Olympic House, So Kong Po, Causeway Bay, with a Drinks Reception at 6.30 pm followed by the  Lecture at 7.30 pm.

According to the promotional email:

In this lecture, Dr Shaw and Professor Owen provide an overview of the 400 million year geological history of Hong Kong and how that legacy has given rise to the varied scenery that occurs today. Past environments ranged from warm shelf seas to deep oceans, and from extensive river floodplains to arid desert basins. Within these markedly different environments was squeezed a geologically brief episode that had the most profound effect upon the physical landscape, and the subsequent economic development, of Hong Kong. For 25 million years, between about 165 and 140 million years ago, Hong Kong was shaped by violently explosive volcanoes. The volcanic and granitic rocks formed during this period now underlie 85% of the territory, the remaining 15% being underlain by sedimentary rocks.

The  scenery of eastern Hong Kong, which is very impressive,  is apparently going to be added to the UNESCO World Geoparks List, and their presentation will help to show why.

If you’re interested, the lecture will cost HK$100 for Members and HK$150 for guests and others.

Click here for The Royal Geographical Society – Hong Kong’s website.

Nothing to do with diving, but after a really exciting final, Fiji beat South Africa 26-24 in the Hong Kong Sevens. The South Africans had a chance to force the match into extra time after a late try in the corner. But their captain, Mzwandile Stick, was unable to kick the conversion.

Fiji actually started quite slowly and our friendly Fijian diver, Vinnie, was  fairly pessimistic about their chances. But they improved throughout the tournament and ended up playing some great rugby.

Another great tournament and now we’ll all have to wait for next year. On a personal note, my son came over from England to watch his first Sevens  since we had him in the South Stand when he was 8 months old. I think he’ll remember a lot more about this year.

Recently the Hong Kong Standard have started running cartoons from the popular Chinese cartoon – Old Master Q. Well here’s the one from today’s Standard since it has a certain relevance to divers, even if he’s not flying an ‘A’ Flag.

An interesting article from the BBC about tagging seahorses, in their “In Pictures” section. Project Hippocampus, based in South-East Spain is injecting a fluorescent polymer under their skin to allow them to identify individuals. The UK’s Seahorse Trust is hoping to get funding to do something similar in southern England. Find out more here.

Sun 23 Nov: After several great days in Fiordland it was time to leave. We set off from Manapouri relatively early and stopped in Te Anau for petrol. We found the best pie shop we’d been to so far on the trip and sampled venison and mint lamb pies, as well as a cornish pasty.

Suitably sated and we found ourselves retracing our steps towards Kingston. Inevitably we ran into the Kingston Flyer again, this time as it was setting off from Kingston, and Rita got some video of it.

We pushed on towards Wanaka, past Arrowtown, which is a historic mining town. After a wrong turn which meant we drove almost all the way into Arrowtown, then out again without actually seeing it, we took a slight detour over a lovely, hilly road, full of hairpin bends and spectacular views. It was a really nice drive. In fact the only problem was that the hills meant radio reception was awful. But since we were so busy looking at the views, that was no real hardship.

Wanaka itself was a pleasant town alongside a nice lake. We took another slight detour here to go to Rippon winery. Since I was driving, the onerous task of trying out the local wines fell to Rita – it’s a tough job but someone had to do it.  Since we knew we were going to be driving through the region, we’d made a point of looking for a Rippon wine at the Te Anau supermarket that morning, and we’d spotted a white wine, an Osteiner, a grape I’d not heard of. Now Rita was lucky enough to try it, along with a sauvignon blanc, a Riesling and 2 Pinot Noirs. We ended up buying the Osteiner, so at least I got to try it later on, and I have to say it was very good.

From there we headed on past Lake Hawea and up to Makarora where there was a holiday park. Actually this holiday park was the centre of some adventure tour operators, who combine flights in a small plane, with camping, hiking, white water rafting and cycling. They’ve got a variety of different alternatives and durations, and half the guys working there seemed to be British. We had a couple of beers sitting outside the bar listening to an English guy and a Scot talking about fishing. They’d both obviously spent a fair amount of time living in New Zealand, and it was interesting to find out something about a sport about which I know very little.

The weather was detiorating and it looked as though our good fortune was about to run out. We were to find out how much it had run out when we set off the following morning.