Diving Thoughts

The Standard are reporting that Elizabeth Quat will become the first woman from Hong Kong to be involved in a diving expedition to the Antarctic for research purposes. The article isn’t actually clear on whether she will actually be diving there, or whether she is the first Hong Kong woman on a diving expedition there or just the first on a diving expedition “for research”. All in all they don’t give us much news to go on, although their photo does show some diving gear and a camera housing.

She will apparently be a photographer as part of Project Elysium which will “document the vista, flora and fauna of the Antarctic Peninsula”. This is done with a view to raise awareness of climate change. It should be a great trip, so good luck to Ms  Quat. Hopefully we’ll have some great photos to show later.

You can read the article on the Standard website, from where the photo above came.

On 24 Jan 2010, I went out with Hong Kong Underwater Club. The boat left from Tso Wo Hang up near Sai Kung at 09:30. I have to admit that I wasn’t feeling 100% after a fairly late night involving an excellent curry and one or two more beers than were perhaps strictly necessary. But the tanks were delivered to Mr. Chan’s junk by speedboat, and then we were off. Bruce the DM has chosen Basalt Island as the first dive site in the hope it would be sheltered. When we got there there was quite a swell running and the visibility wasn’t looking all that inspiring. To make matters worse, he’d put me on the 2nd wave, which I try and avoid at all costs. Like SCDC, HKUC do their diving in two waves or flights, to ensure that there is always cover available in the event of a problem. So if you’re on second wave you have the luxury of more time to get ready before you need to dive as you can start kitting up once the first wave go into the water. Many people see this as an advantage, but I prefer to have more time to sort my gear out after I’ve finished diving, so I can relax on the way home. Consequently it must be about 5 years since I’ve been on the second wave. So after roundly abusing Bruce for that decision, I went to sleep for an hour.

I woke up to find we’d arrived and the first divers were regarding the water with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. This seemed to be justified when Lucy came back with ear trouble and told the rest of us just how bad the visibility was. The trouble was that the deeper you went the worse the vis was, but the shallower you were the worse the surge was. Mike reckoned that 10 metres was the optimal depth.

Rita and I started kitting up, and we had a reprise of the getting into the drysuit hilarity that she pioneered 2 weeks earlier. This time it did seem to be slightly easier, but the neck seal didn’t seem to seal very well on her neck. Although she was OK unless she looked down. Anyway we finally got kitted up separately. She was inside getting help from anyone who was there. I was at the front of the boat. So once I’d got myself sorted out, why wasn’t I helping? Because I was diving independent twins, and I found it really difficult to get through the doors into the main cabin area. Instead I waited for her to put in an appearance so we could do a buddy check.

This week I’d dispensed with my cheap and nasty wing – the Wing with No Name. I was using Calvin’s OMS wing which I borrowed last year and have still got because I haven’t seen him since! Now I remember why I stopped using it. Partly it was because I got the No Name Wing, and partly it was because the inflator valve sticks open on Calvin’s, rather like the one on my Halcyon. So I was forced to disconnect it and inflate the wing orally. In addition to Calvin’s wing, I was wearing Andreas’s semi-dry, Andrea’s boots, Andreas’s hood. Oh and  Catheryn’s Jetfins (which I wanted to try out). Meanwhile Rita had my fins because the foot pocket was bigger than hers and could accommodate her drysuit-clad foot better than her own. She also had Steve P’s hood. So while we’ve both got a fair amount of dive gear, not a lot of it seems to be our own!

We dropped into the water and Rita immediately started to notice cold water trickling down the back of her neck. Actually so did I, but I was expecting it. We pressed on, using the anchor line as a guide, and the visibility got worse as we went down, and finally we came off the line at around 12 metres. We headed inshore and started to get shallower. Visibility was around half a metre and the bottom was littered with urchins. Rita kept off the bottom to try not to put any holes in her dampsuit. Unfortunately we got separated in the poor visibility and had to surface. It turned out that Rita had drifted up slightly and as the air expanded in the drysuit, she was forced to focus on that instead of following me.

We regrouped on the surface, and since we’d not gone very far, we went back to the boat and got her an extra weight. Dropping down again to 12 metres, this time I decided to head along the shore line along the same depth contour rather than taking us in shallower to where the surge was more of a problem. Despite the conditions, there quite was a  lot to see.  Some nice orange soft coral, some of the purple broccoli coral, lots of shrimps, many attracted to the light from our torches. We also found a nice  big filefish, as well rockfish and a few crabs. It was actually far more colourful than I’d been expecting.

We surfaced after 40 minutes and went back to the boat where we decided to be lazy and skip the second dive. We weren’t the only ones, although we did seem to be in the minority that had actually enjoyed it. But then I suppose our goal was different from most people, as we were really there to re-test Rita’s drysuit, which she handled very well. But it was still quite wet inside, but at least now we’re confident that a lot of the water is coming in past the neoprene neck seal.

Bruce moved the boat to the south-west corner of Kau Sai Chau, which was much more sheltered. The people who dived all said that the second dive was better. But by that stage, I’d stowed all my gear and was warming up over a cup of soup. As the divers got back, Rita broke out the hot sake, which went down very well. Certainly the 2 litre carton didn’t last long, and this could be a popular innovation during the winter. Hats off to the Japan Diving Club, who had done it the previous week as they celebrated the first dive of the year. Several SCDC people were on hand for that, which is how the sake idea got back to us. Meanwhile Bruce and Lucy from the Underwater Club provided Dundee cake and gingerbread, which was really good.

Next Thursday remember to ask Catheryn what the hood on her coat is for, as I found it a very convenient place to put the empty beer cans to save me walking to the bin. But I think Joerg got the blame.

Thanks very much to the Underwater Club for making us so welcome.

While it might not be snowing here, Hong Kong has been a little chilly recently. So when I looked out of the window on a grey and frigid Sunday, I really didn’t fancy diving. But I’d signed up for a dive with South China Diving Club, so there was very little choice. Besides, Rita was going to try out her “new” drysuit for the first time, which was bound to be entertaining. We’d picked up a custom-made suit from Seaskin when we were in the UK in April, and by the time we got around to diving in Hong Kong again, it was far too warm to contemplate wearing it. It was bad enough trying it on in the apartment with all the aircons going full blast, especially when the undersuit arrived. The undersuit had been slightly delayed, so Seaskin delivered it to Hong Kong at no extra cost, which was very good of them. In fact Seaskin were very helpful throughout and their custom-made suits are very good value. But this was its first outing, and since neither of us had ever dived a drysuit before, I was expecting a lot of laughs.

We picked up Marcus and Dive Marshal Catheryn, and headed up to Tai Mei Tuk. This was also going to be the first time I’d seen Hong’s new boat, bought to replace his previous one which had been wrecked in a typhoon last summer. It’s a different style of boat from the old junk, with a large interior cabin and a steering position up on the top deck. Unfortunately the forward and rear areas are quite small which will make it very crowded for a large number of divers. But on Sunday there were only 6 divers and one non-diver, so it was fine.

We headed out to Crescent Island, which offers a very sheltered dive site, and a nice environment for Emma, our non-diver, to relax on the boat. While the corals along the shoreline and around the island in the middle, offer shallow, but very colourful, diving with lots of hard corals.

That's the way to do it! (John Hurt, Alien)

Rita started kitting up 45 minutes in advance, which looked a bit premature until she tried putting her head through the neoprene neck seal. To say it was a bit tight is an understatement. Stretching the seal seemed practically impossible, in fact it would have been easier to compress her head. After several attempts, copious quantities of talcum powder and  the judicious use of a headscarf, she finally managed to get it on. All of which made us realise just how hard it was for Alien to burst forth from John Hurt’s stomach. The only real difference I suppose is that Alien wasn’t too worried about the damage it was doing on its way out, whereas we were trying desperately not to tear the seal. Although you’d need to be superman to tear this seal.

Anyway, with the suit on, she and Catheryn were ready to do a buoyancy check. Catheryn was wearing her new, thicker undersuit for the first time, so it took both of them a while to get their weighting correct. Meanwhile Joerg and I left them to it, and dropped down to the sandy bottom at around 13  metres. From here we headed into the island in the middle of the bay, where we came across a wide variety of hard corals. There was also a massive school of thousands of small shrimp floating at around 6 metres. It was a shallow, but pretty dive. Joerg did a superb job of navigating us back almost to the boat, although the bit where he wrote “got lost” on his slate had me a bit worried.

The dry suit was a qualified success. Rita hadn’t come back shivering uncontrollably as she does after most winter dives. But she hadn’t come back completely dry either. It’s going to take a couple more dives to try and work out whether there is a small leak, or whether the water on the inside had sneaked past the neck seal, which, having finally been persuaded to stretch over her head, didn’t seem to want to contract around her neck. Also with the thick undersuit, she found the external boots and fins were a little too tight.  The good news was that she was able to dive with the suit without too much trouble. While she found it more difficult than diving in a wetsuit, she was able to cope, and properly weighted, and with boots and fins that fit, will hopefully enjoy it more next time. One thing we might have to add is a female pee valve because getting the neck seal off is even more difficult than getting it on, so it looks as though she’ll have to keep the suit on for the entire winter! Apart from the neck seal it looks a good suit. In fact Alex and Vicki subsequently ordered suits from Seaskin and are very pleased with theirs. For some reason they went for latex though.

While Scott and Marcus did their dive the rest of us had a relaxing lunch watching a wild boar wandering up and down the beach, and played with Hong’s dog.

Having escaped from the drysuit, Rita was in no mood to put it back on again, so for the second dive, Catheryn  came along with Joerg and myself. Joerg led again, and took off like a train with Catheryn and I struggling unsuccessfully to keep up. Initially I thought it was going to be easy enough to follow the trail of silt that Joerg’s powerful fin kicks were disturbing. But eventually we concluded that we’d lost him, or more accurately that he’d lost us. So we surfaced and he finally reappeared about 100 yards away. Perhaps it wasn’t just the athletes that the old East German authorities were busy doping!

Reunited we tried again, and this time we headed to the north-west shore of the bay, where there was a rocky reef, and some more hard corals. There was a variety of different fish, but the high point was a dragonet in about 5 metres. Unfortunately none of us had a camera, so you’ll just have to take my word that it was really pretty.

Back on board and it was time for a recuperative beer. All in all an excellent day’s diving. I’ve always liked Crescent Island. It’s usually very sheltered and calm and is also a very pretty, remote environment. The diving is easy, but there is a lot of colourful hard coral, and usually a large variety of small fish. Many years ago I did some really good night dives here and it might be worth us trying to do that again.

Thanks a lot to Catheryn for organising it all.

Divers used to be a fairly sedentary bunch. Heavy exercise meant carrying 2 pints of bitter and a meat pie from the bar to a table and was only to be attempted if you couldn’t find a waiter to carry it for you. Your average diver would make Father Christmas look anorexic, and would get out of breath climbing up the ladder on the dive boat, even without his dive gear on.

With that in mind, I’m a bit worried that some of our members are not real divers. Not for them the real diver’s beer belly. Instead they are fit and lean like greyhounds, albeit with a lot less hair. Not for them the real diver’s pursuits of propping up the bar until the small hours. No, they spend their small hours hiking over mountains and running along catchwaters. What inspires this enthusiasm for vast quantities of exercise and pointless sporting activity? I can only assume that they are going through a particulary serious mid-life crisis. This mid-life crisis has culminated in them planning to walk 100km for charity on 20th November as part of Trailwalker 2009.

And who are these pseudo-greyhounds? Our very own Andy Eastwood, Andy Niven and Rob Christie. And Mike.

Their team name is South China Diving Club, although in view of their emotional state and their physiques, a more appropriate team name might be The Mid-Life Whippets. And Mike.

Here’s a few words from the Chief Whippet about how we can help…

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Hello SCDC,

We are pleased to announce that (for the first time ever!) a South China Diving Club team has been assembled to compete in the Oxfam Trailwalker Charity Walk across Hong Kong territory on November 14th.

Each year Oxfam organizes the Traliwalker event to raise funds for the needy and impoverished. Teams of 4 walkers join together to show their support and raise funds by hiking 100 km (62 mi) across the territory.

We are asking all of you to please consider making a pledge to the SCDC team and donate to Oxfam. This year’s donations will go towards helping impoverished communities in Asia combat the impact of climate change on their environment.

You can make a pledge by visiting the link below and clicking on the ‘Sponsor Us Now’ button:

https://admin.oxfamtrailwalker.org.hk/en/registration/teamDetail.html?teamId=200954238

Thank you very much for your consideration, and we look forward to telling you all about this challenging event once we have finished!

Best regards,

• Rob Christie
• Andy Eastwood
• Andy Niven &
• Mickey ‘Big Ears’ Belshaw

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This year, the fund raising will go to benefit the following:

• Helping poverty stricken areas of western China to adapt to extreme weather changes with eco-friendly programs to introduce solar stoves and produce biogas from livestock waste.
• Reduce vulnerability to severe flooding in Bihar state of India through training and skill development with the local community, such as how to create makeshift floatation devices and lifejackets.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Notes about Trailwalker (Hong Kong):

+ Teams have up to 48 hours to complete the challenge. Our team is targeting to complete within 24 hours.

+ Despite its dense city, Hong Kong territory is mostly country parks with spectacular mountains and sweeping views of the ocean.

+ Trailwalker starts at the eastern most point in the territory and finishes on the far western side of the peninsula.

+ All proceeds go directly to Oxfam; the race participants receive no funding from the donation (and walk away with only sore legs!)

+ Hong Kong residents will receive a receipt for tax filing. Apologies, but if you are not a Hong Kong resident your donation is not tax deductible.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

—

So please give generously and support our team. It’s for a good cause, it’s tax deductible, and it’s a small price to pay to see the pain these guys will be going through. (Large donors may be given the opportunity to prod their blisters).

To conclude, I’d just like to say Good Luck to The Mid-Life Whippets. And Mike.

Thanks to Wing, who has just forwarded me some information about the Diving, Resort and Travel 2010 Expo, which will be held on 16th – 18th July 2010. It is being supported by the Hong Kong Underwater Association and the Hong Kong Tourism Board. To keep up to date with information on the Expo you can visit their website.

Last Sunday Rita and I went out with Hong Kong Underwater Club for a couple of dives at the dollos. The dollos are bizarrely shaped concrete blocks which are used to protect the shoreline in front of High Island reservoir dam. This is now the third time I’ve dived there in the last month. Not that I’m complaining, because yet again we had fantastic dives.

However for a bit of variety on our first dive, we  headed away from the dollos and along the rocky reef below the south-west shore. Depth was between 5 and 10 metres and there were plenty of fish. More exciting was a lovely flatworm that was bobbing gently before us in the current. Later on we came across an octopus in a hole, which was very brave and started to emerge as we retreated, but hid away as soon as Rita tried to take a photograph. He needn’t have worried as her camera was telling her there was a memory stick error! The dive was mainly in lovely warm water, but if we moved away from the slope, we were suddenly hit with quite a strong, cold current pushing us towards the dollos. The temperature variation was a quite striking 4 degrees C., from 29C. to 25C. in a very short distance. And while it wasn’t too difficult to swim against the current, it was surprisingly strong in an area I’ve not come across one before.

For the second dive we decided to see if the barracuda were still loitering around the dollos. They were out in force, there were hundreds of them, mainly between 5 and 8 metres. There were also quite a lot of cornet fish too, as well as a variety of other fish. We swam in and out of the passages between the concrete blocks, looking at the crabs and a small shoal of stripeys, and at one point we came across a large lobster which was a nice surprise.

All in all a great day’s diving, rounded off nicely with a few beers on the way home.

Thanks very much to the Underwater Club for inviting us out and for organising a great day and 2 excellent dives.

Due to the unfortunate demise of SCDC‘s scheduled boat in a recent typhoon, it looked as though the weekend’s diving was going to be scrapped. But the Hong Kong Underwater Club (HKUC) very kindly invited us out on their boat instead.

After a bit of excitement in the morning, involving Catheryn hijacking our van, changing the departure time and completely failing to tell us, we got to the boat fashionably on-time. We set off from Tso Wo Hang and headed to Tai Long Wan, which has long been an HKUC favourite. Anchoring near the channel between the 2 islands that make up Tsim Chau, we had 3 other dive boats in close attendance. Fortunately they were doing training and despite their tenders racing around dropping people off and picking them up, they weren’t a problem.

Rita and I headed through the channel between the 2 islands before heading left towards the mouth of the cave. This cave runs through the island and on the seaward side where we were heading, the floor starts in around 10 metres. It’s also quite a large entrance on that side. There is an air space all the way through apparently, but the surge can often be a problem. We headed into it with 2 very small torches and after about 20 metres, decided to come back another day.  If there had been no surge, or if we’d had better torches, we might have pressed on, but we decided that discretion was the better part of valour. There was quite a lot to see, but it did involve quite a long swim. A better way to do it may be to surface swim part of the distance to the entrance, or better still, get a tender to drop you off on that side of the island.

After lunch we headed to the cement wreck, but after a short debate as to exactly which part of the headland it was on, I was able to persuade them to go to the Dollos instead. These are the bizarrely shaped concrete monstrosities that are intended to protect the shoreline in front of one of the dams of High Island reservoir from wave damage. Although I like the site, I’ve not actually dived here for several years and Rita had never dived here, so we were looking forward to it. I do remember that there used to be a school of maybe 200 juvenile barracuda, so I was hoping we’d see them. Well, things have changed. The school of barracuda has turned into something of Sipadan proportions. We were swimming among them for the entire hour of the dive. There were also some big butterfly fish and a large cornet fish. The concrete blocks were good to swim through and around too, with a variety of more shy creatures hiding among them. Without a doubt the best dive I’ve done this year for fish life.

I would like to thank HKUC for their hospitality and for a very enjoyable day out. It was a lot of fun, great diving and yet very relaxing.

This morning we had a partial solar eclipse in Hong Kong. It was predicted to happen between 08:15 and 10:46, with the maximum eclipse at 09:26.

Obviously staring up at the sun, even through sunglasses, is not a sensible thing to do so I needed an alternative.  Ten years ago I was in Munich for a total eclipse and I was far better prepared, with some of those eclipse goggles to allow me to watch it. Today I decided to try out a couple of alternatives. Borrowing from the image on the right from the Hong Kong Observatory, I stuck a pin through  a sheet of paper three times (to see what difference larger or smaller holes made).  I also took down a pair of binoculars, not to look directly at the sun, but to project on to the cardboard.

So first of all I tried with my ridiculously simple pin-hole device, secure in the knowledge that it wouldn’t work. Immediately I was quite taken aback when I saw 2 small crescents projected on to the cardboard. The third “pin”-hole was too big and was ineffective.

Flushed with the unexpected success of my very simple pin-hole device, I then tried to use a pair of binoculars to project an image of the sun on to the cardboard. This took a bit more effort aligning the binoculars with the sun and the cardboard but eventually I managed it, and was blessed with a sharp, bright crescent that was considerably larger than I’d got out of the pin-holes. In fact I got 2 images, one for each lens in the pair of binoculars, but they were large enough that I could only fit one of them on my cardboard box at a time. A telescope on a tripod would have made life a lot easier, as it was quite difficult to keep the binoculars aligned, and I couldn’t hold them steady enough. But despite that, I would still count the morning as a success and I was really pleased to have been able to see the eclipse in such a simple way.

The Royal Geographical Society in Hong Kong have a talk this evening entitled Namibia: Survival of the Fittest. This is about a 7 day foot race over some of the most harsh but beautiful terrain on earth. Three of the participants were Joanna Eades, Michael Wellstead, and ex-SCDC member Keith Futcher. Keith was one of the people who helped to teach me to dive in the early 90′s. And I needed a lot of help!

Anyway the talk is tonight (Monday, 20 July 2009), at the Pacific Place Conference Centre, 5/F One Pacific Place, Admiralty. There is a Drinks Reception at 6.30 pm, followed by the Lecture at 7.30 pm

More information from the Royal Geographical Society (HK)’s Website.

Our favourite diving boat, Hong’s junk has run aground after Typhoon Molave on Saturday night. I’ve not got details yet, but it looks as though it broke its mooring and wound up on the breakwater near the pier at Tai Mei Tuk. I’m not sure how long it will be out of action, but good luck to them getting it sorted out and back in operation.

It looks as though SCDCwill have to find an alternative boat for this weekend’s dive.

Molave hit the territory on Saturday night with the number 9 signal being raised at 1:30 am on Sunday. Wind speeds were reported as reaching 148 km/h.

Yesterday SCMP had a story about the diver who died while diving off Ping Chau on Thursday night. He was part of a group of over 10 people who were staying in a rented house there and had been diving by day and night. His name was Cheng Cheuk-yin and he was 50 years old and apparently was a veteran diver.

At around 9:45pm on Thursday he and a buddy were diving at Tai Tong Wan, which is on the east side of Ping Chau, Mirs Bay. They were in about 3 metres of water and less than 50 metres from shore. Mr. Cheng sufaced around 11:30pm and complained of feeling unwell. He had difficulty breathing as they swam back to shore. When they got back, his friend called marine police who arrived within about 5 minutes, by which time Mr. Cheng was semi-conscious. He was taken to Prince of Wales where he was declared dead shortly before 1am. One of the Chinese papers apparently mentioned that there was speculation he had suffered from a heart problem, which would fit in with the SCMP report.

The SCMP points out that diving deaths are on the rise, although in this case it could just be a medical problem that happened while someone was diving. There are also more people diving now than there used to be.

If you are a subscriber, you can read the SCMP article here.

I’ve heard a report from one of the Chinese news websites that a diver died after diving at Tung Ping Chau last night. He was reported to have had trouble breathing and Marine Police were called. The incident happened at around 11:35pm and he was taken to Prince of Wales hospital where he was pronounced dead. There only seem to have been 2 people on the boat. It sounds a bit like the night diver who died at Tseung Kwan O in April.