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Drysuit Course

UWE would like to congratulate Tania O. and Duncan T.  for their successful completion of the PADI Drysuit Course.  Not only did they brave the cool waters of BC, but they decided to head out on the zodiac and do these dives in the snow!  Well done to both students!!

Tania O.	Duncan T.

Winter Wonderland

Not so new to the Sunshine Coast is the snow, but in this case, I have to admit it has been hanging around for some time now.  UWE planned an awesome charter to the HMCS CHAUDIERE back on the 19th of Dec, but we ran into a problem, when the throttle control froze and we were not able to get anywhere.

The 28th of Dec, was a busy day….we still had snow on the ground.  Duncan and Tania came out and did their drysuit course, and thankfully the throttle thawed out and away we went.

Dive One had us out to Pipers Point, to complete the few skills that we had to do, and off onto the wall we went.  Surface water conditions were calm and flat, with a temperature in and around 43F, with huge huge clear visibility!  We spent 30 minutes or so out on the wall, things were beautiful as is always the case while we are out in the inlet.  Both students did an awesome job with all their skills.

Dive Two, had us head over to Tuwanek Pt, where we planned to jump in on the sailboat wreck, and do the couple of skills that was needed to complete the drysuit course.  Do to some equipment problems, we had to split the dives up, so I took Duncan, and completed his drysuit skills, then returned to the boat, and picked Tania up after a quick regulator exchange…and off we went to get her qualified as a drysuit diver!

Overall a great day out diving…interested in winter diving…want your drysuit qualification….then stop by and visit Suncoast Diving.

Gear Review: UK Sun Ray LED Light

I just purchased the new UK Sun Ray LED light, from Suncoast Diving in Sechelt, and WOW what a light. I used to have UK Light Cannon and this new Sun Ray has just about TWICE the power along with a low and high switch which I found to be very effective, especially during night dives.
The other thing that I like about Sun Ray is that I dropped it on the floor and it was just fine, not like Light Cannon, if you dropped it then it may or may not work again.
In my humble opinion this is the BEST light that UK has brought out and it comes complete with a rechargeable battery so no more buying batteries all the time.

Yours in Diving,

Bob Hodgson

9 mile Tec Dive

Uwe and Suncoast Diving was up to 9 mile point doing another Tec dive.  Neil and Mike were up from Vancouver to do another of their Technical dives.  Though we had a later start then normal overall it was well worth the wait.

Upon arriving at 9 mile we could quickly tell how good the visibility was going to be.  Tide was high, but in 30 feet of water we could clear see the bottom while we were still sitting in the boat.  Due to the cold surface temperatures we decided to cut back the lenght of the bottom time so we would not have to pay for it back at 20 feet, in the middle of the cold surface layer.  Sam was the dive leader for todays dive, and she did a wonderful job getting the group to the bottom and headed down the crack to the deep wall.  Once down, we settled into a nice easy swim so we could enjoy the sites, the topography at 9 mile is a amazing.  The wall is covered with tube worms, sea cucumbers and other marine life.

Overall the dive was good, good visibility!!  Uwe and Suncoast Diving is going to be up the inlet on Saturday to do a wreck course and Drysuit course.  If your interested be sure to stop by the shop and sign up!!

Busy Weekend of Training

What a great weekend.  Victoria and Brett came up from Vancouver to take their Drysuit course and to do some fun diving!!  Things started off really well, we got the video done and out of the way, and then got to the fitting part of the course. 

Brett had no problems with a suit fit, however, the suit we got for Victoria though in great shape, it was a little short, and the neck and wrist seals were a little on the large size!  We did our best to tape the seals, but as Victoria can atest to, it LEAKED!! and leaked big time!!  I was very very impressed with the strength Victoria showed…soaking wet she still finished the skilles from dive one…and though not able to make back in for dive two….she actually showed up for day two, and completed her course!! So, my hats off to her!! Great Job!!

Gear Review: Galileo Sol

Wrist Mount Computer, Transmitter, Heart Monitor

Pros:
Easy to code, easy to read, easy to navigate.
Simple to set the transmitter, and found even if you’re a bit longer getting into the water and don’t get a chance to purge lines to change air pressure and the default surface mode time (3mins) has passed and the computer turns off, once you get in the water the computer pops on and picks up your air pressure a few seconds later. Large screen with legible display big enough for your buddy beside you to read without eye strain. When in surface mode, travelling through the various menu options is intuitive, with the only procedure of “exit” from a general screen option needing to be looked up in the manuel.  The logbook feature is my favourite, with your dive profiles in graph form being displayed right on the computer (no PC upload needed!). The graph profiles also have concurrent temperature readings, as well as your heart rate.

Cons:
If on an angle, the digital screen started to become illegible/blur together, so looking almost directly ontop of the screen is needed. Has a setting “remaining bottom time” RBT, seperate from your remaining No-deco time, that takes into account how much time you have remaining, using your current SAC rate, at that depth before you reach your pre-set reserve gas. It has an audible alarm at 3mins RBT, 2mins RBT, 1min RBT,0mins and pretty much all the time after. It also set an alarm off when your heart rate (if it was even being picked up) was increasing, indicating a higher work load. That would be fine if the fact that your computer sounding an alarm while your 70+feet under water didn’t set your heart a-pumping even faster, keeping the cycle going. The heart rate monitor itself seemed a bit more effort than it was worth. Being female, it must be donned in private, then getting confirmation from the Sol that it’s receiving a BPM transmission is difficult. Then when looking at the readings received afterwards in the logbook, the information seemed all over the place. These difficulties could be due to insufficent contact between monitor and skin (moisture is needed, and unless your in a wetsuit, your drysuit leaked, you’re particularly sweaty or really wet down the sensors before hand and hope you don’t dry it out before you dive, keeping it moist is hard), distance between monitor and computer is more sensitive, or my heart really was all over the place and the computer was reading it just fine.

Overall, I’m happy with the inwater and surface functions of the Sol that we’ve used so far. I’d be interested in doing more with it for nitrox, possible tech diving, as well as it’s PC interface. A transmitter is a nice change, and especially one that isn’t particularly fussy over my time to get into the water (particularly good if you’re an instructor with students, a gear intensive person, a distance from your dive site, or a bit more detail oriented than time oriented when getting geared up). But I’m not quite sold on the heart rate monitor, though I like the idea of the information it can give you. The problems that I had with it could possibly be solved with more familiarity with it, further reading of the manual, and some persistance, but so far I’m not convinced. Plus it pinched a bit:P