Dive report: Imperial Eagle

About the wreck

When first launched in 1938 until 1947 she was named "New Royal Lady”, then in 1948 as "Royal Lady" and thereafter until 1958 as "Crested Eagle"  Built by J. Crown & Sons Ltd, in Sunderland England and powered by two oil engines manufactured by Crossley Bros. Ltd.  Imperial Eagle made its maiden voyage between Malta & Gozo on 1/6/1958.

At 45 metres long it had accommodation for 70 passengers and room for 10 cars. It remained on the Mgarr to Marfa route until March 1968. After 1968 she was used to transport cargo and animals from Gozo to Valletta. She also served for storage. In Malta she was owned by Sunny & Maria Pisani a family from Gozo, and was sold to the local Diving community on 28/11/1995 to scuttle her as an attraction for divers. The Imperial Eagle was scuttled 500 metres off Qawra Point on 19/7/1999.

Dive report

My initial doubts in my confidence were magnified initially because the first 3m was very difficult to descend through and had a strong current until about 6m. During this period I was thinking "I roughly know my weighting, but threw on an extra 2kg to be safe, was I still wrong? I feel like I'm neutral at the start of the dive, what state will I be in at the end with 30 minutes of deco to do!"

My concerns were quickly belayed, once I got past 6m I started to drop like a rock and I was injecting a good volume of gas into my wing which reassured me because it implied I was over-weighted, so the initial difficulty of descending was because the suit was soaking up the water because it was dry to begin with and the air was working its way out.

The shot line is permenant to a massive cube of concrete and it landed us right next to the statue which we used as a reference and got settled. OK-ing each other to confirm that we were both happy, Rob reset his computer to give us an accurate bottom-time (to exclude the descent time) and average depth (to exclude the time spent during the descent at shallower depths which would be artificially pulling up the average) and I started to ascend up the front of the statue to shoot an initial bit of video of this iconic feature. We followed the right arm as instructed but it hit the reef wall head on, I chose to go left at the wall, but that was wrong, so we only got on the wreck by about 10 minutes in.

Leaving Jesus behind...

We arrived at the wreck hitting the bow head-on, both of the forward anchors are still attached an in place, and the anchor hoisting machinery still clearly visible, just behind the anchor hoists, there are two box-shafts with ladders down the side that lead down into the forward cargo area, but the decking was vacant in many areas which made for a much easier descent in. Rob gave me the OK and he led into the cargo hold.

Arriving at the wreck

Dropping in, we entered the cargo hold aft of our position (I didn't notice during the dive, only on watching it back later that there was a door leading forward), the hold was quite small, possibly only for storage, but it was very atmospheric having the blue-light streaming through the decking and through the port holes into the room. Amazingly, the individual rivets are still visible on the individual metal plating of the hull in here.

Just here, I get a small shiver of cool water running through my wetsuit - being inside the wreck, the water is 'stagnant' and not being replaced with warm seawater from outside as often, as a result the water here is probably 5 or so degrees cooler than the 'exterior' sea water (so a chilly 18 vs 23 degrees!!).

Completing our circuit of this room, probably no larger than 5m-by-5m, Rob communicates his intention to leave this room into the next and then ascend back onto the deck.

Leaving the forward room

Swimming along the port side of the wreck a few meters, we then re-enter the wreck into a room that is located below the wheel house, possibly a canteen given the size of it. We work our way slowly around the room in a clockwise direction until we face aft where we exit this room through a doorway on the starboard side into what could be an observation area as it is open and windowed all the way around. Again the decking here is vacant and only the metal structure is present.

Crossing to the port side, below us we can see another cargo hold but we do not enter it as it looks like a plain square room approximately 7-10m in length and the full width of the ship.

Possibly a canteen area.

Continuing aft on the port side, we pass a boxed off area that contains the smoke funnel running up from the bowels of the ship, below what would be knee-level if standing as a passenger on this ship, there are port-holes which indicates that this would be a room - Rob is ahead of me and is circling around to look through a hatch that leads into the room - I take a cheeky glance through a port-hole and see the top-half of a steam boiler.

Coming around to be beside Rob, who is now about shoulders-deep into the room before he back-fins away to allow me to have a look in while Rob moves around to an open hatch to cast his light in too. As I thought, its the engine room, there are two boilers orientated along the length of the ship, one port and the other starboard. There is a step-ladder to enter and it would be possible to get in, but it would be very difficult to helicopter turn in there without causing significant silting

Rob has to overcome his inner-wreck-ferret, it's just too tight!

It really is tight ...

We are now most of the way towards the stern, and start to head back along the starboard side on the main deck. Watching the video back, I did notice that there was a hatch on the floor - this could drop into another part of the engine room or a cargo hold. We come out through a window to be completely outside the wreck once again and then turn aft again to head around the rear of the ship. On the seabed we can see the massive ramps that were used to allow cars to drive on laying beside the ship as they are hinged to the deck.

Passing over the ramps, working our way both backwards and descending there are massive schools of fish swimming here. Dropping a further few metres we see the pair of propellers - each blade must have been nearly a meter long each.

Heading aft

We have now swum around the stern and are now heading along the port side heading towards the bow, we decide to move up to the top of the ship to see the wheelhouse (if it was still there) and the only indication of the wheel house - the ships-wheel. On the way we swim around the huge smoke stack - probably 4m in diameter and maybe 7m tall. Now that we are on top of the ship, we are now no longer shielded from the current which is currently running from starboard to port it isn't a problem, we are basically swimming diagonally and drifting forwards along the length of the deck.

Coming up onto the top deck

Arriving at the wheel, it stands in isolation - nothing remains of the wheelhouse other than a few pipes and cabling. Rob is hovering just to the left of the wheel, while I'm attempting to get into position to shoot some video with him in the background of the wheel and I see him taking his reg out ... the way he does it is slow and relaxed (whereas when we practise our drills we throw the reg away quickly) so I know nothing is wrong - that is confirmed when I see him doing an ear-to-ear grin! That's exactly how I'm feeling too dude - 40m down, 24 degree water, helium, 30m visibility - yeah everything is awesome right now!

Rob at the ships-wheel

Heading forward again, there is a little section of the railing of the wheel house left, but otherwise it is flat here, so we drop down onto the main deck near the bow. The current run time is 30 minutes, I have about 100 bar left, I instructed that we should make our way back to the shot line.

Just as I'm swimming over the bow, I get a flash (of light) from Rob, I look over and he's pointing down at something ... So I swim over and look down to see ... a perfectly pristine, upright, ceramic toilet!

And ... it's ... a ... toilet?!

We leave the wreck and following the reef back to the statue and shotline. At this depth, even though the water is very clear it is still cutting down on the available light which means that the flora is mostly a green colour (that is the colour of light in most abundance at this depth).

The journey back took far less time than I expected and after just a minute or two the statue was visible, (I called the dive at least 5, maybe 10 minutes early in hindsight) so rather than ascending straight away (and to make best use of the bottom time and gas we have) I decided that we would go back to the statue to take some more pictures of Rob in brilliant trim as usual.

Swimming back along the reef

By 34 minutes, I called the dive and we started our ascent. We switched to 50% at 21m. The ascent continued fairly quickly as the stops were only 3 minutes at 21m and 2 minutes every 3m, but by the time we arrived at 12-15m the currents had grown to a level which couldn't be compensated for with just gentle fining, so we grabbed onto the shot line to provide the support.

Deco at 15m, stunning!

By 6m the swells became an annoyance, I would regularly see my bottom timer reporting 4.8m ... 6.5m ... 6.0m .... 4.9m... Whilst simultaneously the ears had the pressure coming and going. None of this made the deco particularly bad, just something to manage.

For 34 minutes on the bottom, our total runtime was 60 minutes (there is something psychological about doing at least an hour so I dragged out the last few minutes :)). A maximum depth of 41.8m was achieved when we dropped right down to the propellers, but the average depth for the dive was around 36-38m.

Rob deco-ing out

Video

Below is the video that I made of our dive, shot using a GoPro Hero (the original one), edited and colour corrected using Da Vinci Resolve 11.3 (product wesbite). Hope you enjoy it!

Imperial Eagle from Chris Armstrong on Vimeo.

Malta 2015 Holiday - Day 2

Alarms are going off at 7am because Rob and I need to be at Techwise for 830 and because we haven't got anything in the house, we will stop somewhere for breakfast. Walking through Paceville, we stopped in at the Black Bull for breakfast and coffee before then wandering down to Techwise for 830.

Flying 1600 miles to eat the same food as home!

It was a straightforward morning of analysing gas, loading up the truck with (a lot) of cylinders!

And off we go to the marina to meet the boat.

Launching from the RIB

The rib arrived, we loaded up and took the 5-10 min ride out. I had to try on two wetsuits during the drive out. In the end I settled on a two piece wet suit to give me the comfort and thermal protection. It had been my initial plan that we would start with easier back-gas only dives and then build up to the trimix dives later, nothing like starting off the wrong way around! I have been diving about twice a month for quite a while so I felt reasonably good that I could jump straight in with this level of diving, I still had some apprehension though.

You can read the dive report here.

While waiting for the RIB to come get us, I couldn't resist doing the Richard Rawlings (Fast 'n' Loud / Gas Monkey Garage) "woo"!

Back on the boat, its time to chill!

Reflecting on an awesome dive!

Rob - serious!

Once we arrived back at the dock, we loaded up the truck and headed to Cirkewwa to dive the P29.

A beautiful day at Cirkewwa.

While we had lunch Steve 'scary' Sherry was decanting to refill our twinsets. Rob and I ended up with about 140 bar, so we would take our deco stages and breathe them on the way out to extend our range and preserve the back gas for when at depth on the wreck.

You can read the dive report here.

A rapid de kit and loading up the truck and we left to head back to Techwise. Whilst sorting out our gear we met Julie, Chris's wife. Discussing the plan for tomorrow, we would be diving the Hellespont, like the Imperial Eagle it was at 40m+ so we elected to use trimix with 50% for decompression again.

Retiring to Huggins for the mandatory deco, Rob and I had lunch and got to know Chris and Julie - a lovely couple! Rob and I retired home to the apartment where we watched the dive porn of today. I was still pretty tired so took an early night again, 8pm, to rest up for tomorrow.

Malta 2015 Holiday - Day 1

After months in the planning (most of a year in fact) the time for our holiday was upon us. Our flight to Malta was at 0710, which meant that we are waking up at 2am to get to the airport, that's because I know Ryanair check in for hold bags can easily take an hour, plus getting through security - as a result I aim to be at the airport nearly 3 hours before the flight. Oh yes, and I had to take a detour via Kincardine Bridge because demolition works were taking place around the Forth Road Bridge.

Interestingly on the drive to the airport, we saw two very large owls. The first one was flying above the motorway, the second we found on the slip road eating some road kill. I had just come off a roundabout, travelling down the slip road to rejoin a motorway when I saw it just sat there, I figured it would take off the moment it saw my headlights so I started braking, but it didn't take off. I had to come to a complete stop probably about 1 mm behind the owl before it moved on!

Upon arriving at the airport, I parked my car in the NCP car park, and caught the transfer straight to the airport.

Arriving in the terminal building I saw that Ryanair no longer had any check in desks at all. Instead there were self service baggage drop which is a good idea. Getting through security wasn't anything awkward, as per usual my carry on bag which contained my four sets of regulators, my harness and backplate, and my HID light with battery pack were pulled aside to be investigated, but it was painless.

Finally into the main terminal now, I made a bee line for the Weatherspoons where we all had a lovely big fry up and consumed vast amounts of coffee. A shocking observation was to see the sheer number of people drinking alcohol, it wasn't even 530 am! I wouldn't be surprised if it was groups of men on stag-dos, instead it was couples!

By 6am our flight was called, naturally Ryanair were using a gate at the far extreme end of the airport, and we were offered free check in of bags into the hold. It was a 3 hr 45 min flight to Malta, couple of patches of reasonable turbulence but otherwise uneventful.

I had pre-booked an airport transfer which took us straight to Techwise. Charlotte got to meet by best friend and dive buddy Rob for the first time in our (Charlotte and I) 4 year relationship. We then met Alan to discuss the plans for the next day - imperial eagle. We had planned to do a check dive, somewhere like the Faroud, but it wasn't viable because of the Sunday traffic.

I spent the next hour unloading my dive bags, building up a twinset and stage ready for the next day and putting all my accessories into the dive box.

We then walked home to the apartment, probably a bad idea being jet-lagged, exhausted and in the hottest day of the holiday whilst wearing all our "winter clothes".



On the final stretch of hill, we passed a garden with a spiders web between two bushes. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Other than the BBS - the Big Bastard of a Spider - that ruled it!

Man-eating spider (possibly)

Once in, we started to unpack and then went sun bathing on the balcony.

Chillaxing!

After lapping up some sun, the plan was to go shopping but everywhere was closed.Malta does have funny hours in general, which felt even more backward because in Scotland we don't have " Sunday Trading Hours" - it's just another normal day and makes things far more practical (listen up England! #welcometothe21stcentury).

For convenience, we went out to eat at Biancos. Charlotte and I had a Maltese platter for starter and then I had tagliatelle with prawns. Charlotte had seafood risotto. Whilst Charlotte and I have eaten here before on our previous trip, Charlotte wasn't impressed this time round.

Since waking up at 2 am with about 4 hours of sleep, I was exhausted and went to bed at 8 pm!

Mounting a GoPro Hero onto a HID Light

Using the GoPro underwater

So my darling girlfriend bought a GoPro Hero for my birthday which I got to use for the first time when diving in Sweden. On that particular set of dives, I had nothing in my hands other than the GoPro. And even then, it was a little fiddly. Actually it was quite fiddly and I lost the functionality of my hands as they were used for holding the camera - I could do nothing else with them. So I needed a new plan ...

Thinking ahead ...

Longer term, I wanted to get into underwater videography which by implication involves handling the camera effeciently. So I figured that my best would be to attach my GoPro on the side of my HID light. This would also mean that the GoPro is pointing at whatever is being illuminated by the light too, so win-win in my opinion!

The Bits

GoPro in their thoughtfulness supply the GoPro Hero with a multitude of accessories to allow you to mount your GoPro how you like. In the picture below, you can see that the attachment I thought most suitable is the flat-surface sticky mount. On the right is the light reflector assembly.

The light head assembly and a GoPro mount to mount .... somehow

The first problem is attaching the sticky mount to the lighthandle. Initially I was going to mount it on the opposite side of the handle to boltsnap. What I really wanted to do was to mount it on top of the ballast so the GoPro was looking over the light head, but the ballast is too curvy.

Looking at the side I was going to use (in the image above the left-hand side of the handle as you look at it, right when hold it) there was a disgustingly big screw head in the middle. When I tried to see if I could just push down enough to let the compressible adhesive material absorb it I was hugely dissapointed.

In the end I had to dig out the Stanley knife and drill to clear away some of the adhesive and then drill out some of the plastic.

Modified attachment

Now I was able to ensure that a large area of the adhesive would bond to the metal of the Goodman handle to ensure a robust attachment. The result of my labours:

Finally installing the GoPro on the light. Firstly, I had to make up a kind of right-angle mount. No DIY required here, it requires using all the accessories that is provided when you buy a GoPro. I did a hunt on the internet using "GoPro Right Angle" because the final result is something a litte more cumbersome than one would like, but nothing!

In the picture below, you can see the adaptor that is used to provide a connection between the flat surface plate and the GoPro in the top-left, bottom-middle are the two connectors required and top-right is the GoPro

Adaptors

Assembled GoPro on the light head

Underwater Results

The proof is in the pudding, so off I went to test it out. The results are a mixed bag. The great thing is that there is always light where the camera is pointing. But in some respects there is too much light because you get the quite clear blue light of the HID in the bottom left corner. The effect decreased SLIGHTLY when I defocused my light head as much as I could.

Visible light beam

Conclusion

I am confident however, that if I were to use a video reflector such as the one below then the central spot would be far less intense because even a defocussed HID light is still extremely focussed in comparison.

Video reflector, from Deep Ideas Ltd

Unboxing the GoPro Hero action camera

Everything you need to know about a GoPro Hero camera

I had bought a second-hand camera with underwater housing from a friend for the bargain price of £80. There was a problem in that it wasn't shooting video - but I thought that I might be able to address that.

A few dives later and I was finding the camera quite cumbersome, probably not helped by the fact I was taking a butter tub lid with me to use for white balance correction. I was struggling with handling it plus getting back into diving after a few years lay off - I watched my Polish friend, Olaf, with his nice compact GoPro and immediately thought that a much better idea because he could put it away in a pocket between shots. On my last holiday to Malta I had borrowed a friends GoPro and it did a great job and after diving with Olaf, I was convinced that getting a GoPro would probably help me get going with underwater and action videography better than my current camera.

And for my birthday, my fantastic girlfriend bought me the entry level GoPro called the GoPro Hero.

Whats a GoPro?

A GoPro is known as a compact action camera. The traditional camcorder of old is pretty much dead now with the rise of smart phones capable of shooting respectable amateur photography and videography. So technology came about to meet the needs of the more sporty end of videography. Cue the GoPro. Action cameras are designed to be very small and lightweight as well as being fairly rugged. It wasn't until about 2014 that other manufacturers caught up with the surge in demand. The most notable being the Sony ActionCam using very respectable Zeiss lenses.

You don't have to worry about your DSLR and expensive lenses getting wet or damaged when you have a GoPro, designed to be exceptionally rugged through simplicity, it takes Point and Shoot to a whole new level.

Unboxing

The GoPro Hero comes in a lovely white card box with a nice cut-out so that you can see the camera in its waterproof housing and start to appreciate just how small it truly is! The front is quite plain with just a few photographs, the model name and a small note stating that its waterproof to 40m (131 feet).

GoPro Hero packaging - Front

The left hand side of the box has three sections of information about the features, video shooting options and photo shooting options. These are :

• Features:
• Superview - performs stretching of the image at the edges to fill a 16:9 screen
• Auto Low Light
• Video
• 1080p at 30 and 25 fps
• 720p at 60 and 50 fps
• 720p Superview at 60 and 50 fps
• Photo
• Resolution: 5MP
• Burst photo: 5MP @ 5fps
• Time lapse: 0.5 second interval

Lefthand side of package

On the righthand side we see a list with drawings of what is included in the pack. Besides the camera there is a refreshing list of extras. The total list is:

• Integrated camera and housing
• Built-in battery
• Skeleton backdoor
• Quick Release buckle
• Flat adhesive mount
• Curved adhesive mount
• USB cable

You are also advised about requiring a microSD card. 

Righthand side of package

Finally on the back there is a large schematic showing some of the key features, or rather selling points such as the depth rating on the housing, wide angle lens etc.

Back

After being teased about how awesome a GoPro is, it's time to get at it! The front cover turns out to be a sleeve which can just slide off after the sticky plastic badges on either side are cut.

Sleeve removed from package

Still no closer to get at it! The packaging is sealed once again on the back at the top with the plastic hangers to allow display on walls. Cutting through this allows you to get the front and back packaging apart. Both parts of the packaging are made from good cardboard.

Now we get a glimpse of what is included in the packaging. At the top we can see the GoPro Hero camera held under a plastic shield, at the bottom is some paperwork.

The first small pamphlet (top left in the image below) is about Getting Started with your GoPro. This is not a quick start user manual. The manual comes in six (6) languages (including English, French, German) There are four basic points that it recommends that you do:

1. Sign up for a GoPro account - Submit your most epic photos and videos for the chance to become GoPro famous (optional)
2. Get the GoPro app (optionl)
3. Download GoPro software - easily import, view and edit your content. Create gorgeous, GoPro-style videos. (highly recommended)
4. Update your camera - get the newest features and best performance from your GoPro by keeping it up to date with the latest software

The GoPro Studio software is an all encompassing editor and camera management toolset. It's a rather hefty 115 Mb download - you don't need an account to get the software and it also allows you to update your camera as well.

The next document is the Quick Start Guide (bottom left in the image below). The Quick Start Guide shows how to use the camera and provides some advice on using your camera.

The third document is the Important Product and Safety Information Guide (bottom right in the image below).

Finally three GoPro stickers are included. I like these kind of things, I've got a Stormcase for my HID light which I use as a sticking ground for stickers from suppliers!

The paperwork

With the paper out the way, we can now remove the plastic shield holding back the camera. Removing the cardboard interior packaging also reveals some of the accessories. These are:

• USB lead
• Skeleton backdoor
• Curved adhesive mount
• Flat adhesive mount

The skeleton door is used to allow you to have access to the USB port with a wire, allowing better audio recording and charging while recording when connected to a PC. This could be useful if shooting lots of static / slow moving subjects in an interview type setting, especially in a hot environment.

The two adhesive mounts will be discussed further below.

Camera and accessories

Below are the two adhesive mounts; on the left is the curved mount and on the right is the flat mount. Below that is a device which is used to prevent the GoPro Quick Release potentially coming free during a high vibration environment.

Adhesive mounts and security bracket

Now we get to the good bit, the bit we are really interested in - the GoPro Hero camera. The GoPro (including the case) has dimensions of just TBD mm x TBD mm x TBD mm (width by height by depth) and weighs just TBD g.

To put this into context, I've photographed the GoPro Hero next to my Samsung S3 smart phone and a £2 coin.

Relative size of the GoPro Hero

The GoPro Hero camera and the housing are fully integrated - you can't remove the camera from the housing. Nor can you remove the battery, charging the battery is done via the USB lead.

Opening the housing

To get at the camera you open the back door. GoPro have come up with a brilliantly simple, yet absolutely secure system using a pivoting latch on the top of the camera. 

The GoPro comes with some charge, but a full charge is the first thing you will need to do, so get it plugged into your PC and charging up. Also you need to get a microSD card inserted. You don't need to worry about formatting it first - the camera will do that for you.

Connecting to the PC

When connecting the GoPro Hero to your PC for the first time you will find that Windows just treats the camera as external storage and so just works straight off. A really cool "feature" for me is that the camera shows up in my devices with the image of the Hero as well. 

Geeky feature

Connecting to the GoPro by double-clicking it in the Device menu gives you a selection of options to either view your media, copy it across, or get the GoPro software suite (which will then do all of this for you).

Hero Control Panel

After installing the GoPro software suite and re-connecting the camera you will probably be given the option to update the firmware on the GoPro.

Firmware Update

Real world testing

So I've shown you all about the GoPro Hero, its packaging and contents as well as some features, but how good is it? 

Underwater

The first thing I had to do with my GoPro before I took it diving was to find some way of securing it during dives, so all I did was attach a boltsnap. This would allow me to clip it off while entering and exiting the water and any times where I didn't want to film.

Diving with the GoPro is great, without taking any measurements it probably slightly negatively buoyant which means it stays in your hands and not want to float off. Even with thick wet gloves (5-7mm) that I was wearing, operating the GoPro was easy, because the two buttons are large and positively respond when pressed (I also had the button press noise on as well). The only annoyance was that I wanted to switch between taking video and pictures which because of the linear cycle through the menus mean't that I would have to go through all the different modes before I got back to Video (or Photo), it just meant a lot of pressing

In practice, I found that there is definitely a delay in the image capture. When you press the shutter button (top) to take a photo graph. The red LED on the back will flash three times. I think its only once its finished flashing has the photo actually been recorded. In my mind, pressing the shutter button means the image is captured upon release, once I'd taken the picture (releasing the shutter button - its now started its saving process) I would move on. This led to a lot of blurry images, with only the occasional still image.

Blurry images are easily achieved

Reviewing the video as well, I learned that the GoPro Hero REALLY like having the light, it makes a considerable difference to the quality of the images I found, this is probably due to noise in the camera. The following images were taken at the same depth, one after the other.

Looking horizontal at a depth of approximately 11m

Looking up from a depth of approximately 11m

In the latter image, whilst the foreground isn't particularly well exposed (compared to the former) there is a much better feel in terms of depth in the image. By that I mean I feel like I can't see much past the diver in the second image whereas the first image I get the impression that I can see much closer to the surface.

Another aspect of the camera liking light - when not VERY shallow or under virtually direct and intense illumination the colours become very washed out very quickly (as a diver I completely understand this, but I'm still very very surprised at how quickly the wash-out is occurring - these photos are less than 6m under water)

Underwater selfie, colours look good - you can see the blue of my mask and fin reflection well, even the yellow of my backup regulator is clear) - depth approximately 3-4m max

Downward looking photograph - same location, perhaps 4-5m max

On land / the surface

One thing that strikes you with the GoPro when taking photographs is the massive lens distortion

Massive lens distortion

In some ways the lens distortion can be really creative and quite desirable. It's not really a problem, most image editing programs provide functionality to allow you to fix this.

Not so major lens distortion.

Conclusion

The GoPro Hero camera comes with no internal memory so buying a microSD card is absolutely mandatory. For shooting Full HD video at 30 fps, a full class 10 card is recommended. All of the video and photos I took to make this blog up was taken on a very cheap Class 4. Perhaps using a Class 10 would have improve the photo taking process and reduced the number of blurry photos?

For the size (matchbox) and price (under £100), I am more than impresed with my GoPro and want to thank my amazing Charlotte for a wonderful present!

Dive Report : Molle, Sweden

Background

As part of a birthday present by my girlfriend which was to take me to Sweden for my birthday, i also got to go diving for a day. The holiday was fire just under a week and we had some great experiences, you can read more about it in her very detailed blog here. 

Diving Day

The day started at 7am, slowly for me - not just because I am naturally rubbish in the morning but because between the high pitched, vocal seagulls and a group of Swedes coming home very drunk and had parked themselves on the benches outside our flat and were keen to make sure that all of Angelholm knew.

Breakfast was much like the previous day : meats, yoghurt and cheese. And coffee!

We left for Mölle at about 845 and we arrived at Kullyn Dyk dive centre by about 915. I met Lasse, a very friendly gentleman, and we quickly got a full set of equipment ready for me. I even got a brand new wet suit!!

It did feel very strange getting a BCD Jacket rather than a harness and wing, although Lasse did mention he had one, a Halcyon one too (!), I kindly refused because of the time it would take to get the harness how I like it.

A short drive down the road to the Mölle harbour where we found the boat.

Gear at the harbour.

It didn't take long to get loaded up and the rig built, and then I wanted to start getting into the wetsuit on because I was worried about the size. It did take about 15-20 minutes of stretching, pulling and grunting but it was on. I had to jump in and cool off after all that though! After a gentle float to cool off, we took off and I got to know my guide, an instructor called Ingrid.

Time to cool off!

The ride was only about 20-30 minutes and the water was like a mill pond!!

Silky smooth water!

We arrived at the dive site, a place known as Paradise Harbour, so named because historically, captains would bring their ships into this harbour to shield them from bad thunderstorms.

Before kitting up I looked over the edge of the boat to splash some water on me to keep me cool while I kit up, below me I can see the reef. Looking good!!

Getting into our rigs we entered the water using a backward roll off the boat, this is without a doubt the first time I've ever used this technique since PADI Open Water course!

About to jump in!

Entering the water was a welcome relief from the heat. Having not dove in a wetsuit with single tank for years I had no idea about weighting. Lasse had made a weight belt up with 9 kg for me, but I was paranoid, so put an extra 16 pounds in the jacket pocket! I knew about 30 seconds after I started swimming I was way Way overweighted!

Dive Narration

Nervous about my weighting I left my BCD inflator alone while I dropped down into the reef. We were moored on a pebbly area and surrounded by a kelp-like forest. Looking up I see the boat and the sun shining beautifully shimmering slightly through the rippling water. GoPro out ... On .. Video recording on!

Kelp-like forest

At this point Ingra led us through the underwater forest for nearly 50 minutes, for the most part I was grinning with a smile the whole time. The water was lovely and warm and the visibility was fantastic. The environment felt like I was diving in am aquarium! There were quite a few jellyfish floating about and lots of starfish which ranged in size from tiny to the size of dinner plates!

I'm glad I had my GoPro because writing this blog because I can't remember much about the dive!

At the end of the dive I was down to about 50 bar so decided that this would be a perfect time for a weight check. Just passed the anchor was a pebbled area that I could kneel down on (the shame!).

Dumping all of the air from the BCD I landed on the seabed. My BCD had quick release pockets, each one had an eight pound lead block in, pulling one out I put it on the ground, still holding on I tentatively let go .... Still on the seabed .... Big breath in .... Still on the seabed ...

Now let's see what happens with the second pocket ... Pull it out (the pocket! You dirty minded sod!) and I'm still there! This is great, it will mean I can leave all that lead on the boat and it will make the second dive so much easier!

Surface interval

We elected for a one hour surface interval and diving the same site, although Ingrid and I would be diving the southern edge of the reef this time. After getting out of the rig, and swapping cylinders, I jumped back in to do some snorkeling around the area of our first dive to take some more footage. I paddled around for about 20 minutes like this until I came back to the boat to prepare for dive #2.

Dive #2 narrative

In much the same way as dive #1, Ingrid led and it was very much a blur. Thankfully I could remind myself by watching the video footage back again.

One of my favourite pictures!

Return

The cruise back was gentle and pleasurable, Ingrid and I chatted some more while we took apart our equipment and sun bathed. Just as we arrived at the harbour, I spotted Charlotte and Marcus sitting under a small lighthouse.

A quick boat unload to return to the dive centre to pack away equipment. For 950 Kr, just £72, I got full equipment rental (wetsuit, mask, fins, gloves, two cylinders of air and boat fee) for two lovely dives.

Paradise Harbour, Molle, Sweden from Chris Armstrong on Vimeo.