8m dive, I mean 80!

Today's date will be a noted date in the log books of four daring tech divers. Today was the first time that our very own instructor Howard and our long time tech student, Luidmila had ever been as deep as the dive today- planned depth of 80m! Planned turn time was 18minutes down the wall at Wras il Hobes off Gozo then another 40minutes decompressing on the ascent. Alan was there watching, proudly watching over his students while there were two safety divers at 40m as a back up. They were in the shop from an early time each diver taking three stages with them doing two switches to enriched air, first to 32% then 72%. One dive, 5 twin sets and 12 stages between the lot of them. High maintenance divers, absolutely! The buzz of excitement before the dive was electric between all of them and us rec divers were left at the centre jealous of their plan.We're eagerly awaiting their return to hear the ins and outs of the dive, but i'm sure they'll be as elusive as tech divers always are!

Earlier this week aswell we had three DTD (Discover Tech Dives) out on the house reef with Steve, our summer instructor. Francesca, Jay and Stephen all managed to survive, everyone was suprised as Fran who was carrying more than her body weight on her back. Debrief from Steve sounded like they all did extremely well practicing some back finning and helicopter turns on their first time. Pretty impressive for the Italien, Maltese and German. Think techwise is going to be busy this winter with all these keen techies!!

We're also anticipating a few groups to be paying us a visit this October when the water's still comfortable and the vis is great to hit those deep sites like the Stubborn and the Poly. And i heard Luidmila talking about the HMS Southwold which is aournd 70-80m so the next finger slates will be written up shortly!

Tech Delicatessen

1 Danish Pastry

1 Luxembourger with chips

1 Lithuanian Litvak

No this isn't a very diverse menu this is the collection of tech divers doing their advanced Nitrox course at the moment with Alan. After a cruisy dive to Um El Faroud yesterday they left this morning to the inland sea after a quick morning classroom session with numbers and calculators flying around the room. Two days ago the gang were joined by Matt, one of our uni boys here doing a dozen recreational dives and wanted to give the twin set a bash so they all headed out to the house reef to do some skills and have a bimble around and all came back successfully and he's already looking forward to doing his Tech 40 on his next trip.

The other day I was being enlightened about Tech diving by a very inspiring tech instructor and he was telling me how it has more of a purpose, compared to recreational diving where is can be more relaxed in its planning, a more "we'll see what we see" kind of attitude. I enjoyed hearing this focused kind of diving with a plan an objective and a time limit. Hhmm I think I see my new certification card... I'll let you know when I do my twin set taster, feel free to let me know if anyone wants to join??

My Version of Tech History

Technical diving- as a non technical diver, and um a girl, this sounds awfully complicated and also very heavy. I have attempted to lift one of those twin sets and its probably easier to lift a set of identical twins! But i have been assured that it is manageable and can't be too difficult...

If in doubt find solace that two of our instructors, the two Alexs or Dude and JNR as their known around the dive shop have recently become our newest tech instructors- so if they can teach it then we can surely learn it!! No no, they have worked really hard and are more than capable, ask our newly certified tech 40 diver Paul who finished his course at the Faroud yesterday! A very happy divers whos now taking some time away from the diving to finish his holiday with the family, a very big well done to him and looking forward to his return!!

We've got a trip to the Polynesian planned for tomorrow so the boys will be heading down 60m to check out the biggest wreck in Malta spanning over 100m in length. Now i've been doing my research on the wreck and its got quite a history and has now turned into a phenomenal dive. After being bombed in 1918 the thirty year old boat went down in just over half an hour to head to its new home taking ten lives with it. Its been nick-named the "plate" ship due to all the crockery and artifacts still aboard, since its been there for nearly a century its become a popular artificial reef where you see big schools of barracuda, you'll also see two deck guns at the bow and stern and play pretend wars! Boys with their toys and all!