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!