September 11, 2005 - I nearly died today!

11^th of September 2005 was the first time ever that I though I was going to die underwater.
I have had a few close brushes with death over the years, always top side, but that day was the first time I really thought this was it underwater. Let me start at the beginning…

I had previously quit my day job and decided to work as a Dive Instructor full time for a while before my wife and I bought a house and couldn’t afford the luxury of doing this in the future.

I was running a couple of Dive courses concurrently, AOW and Nitrox, and while the two Nitrox students were well sorted a couple of the AOW students were not quite ready to be there.

Two of my original AOW students had ran out of time to complete the course before heading overseas (the course had previously been postponed due to weather) and one had failed the previous night dive and realized he wasn’t ready to continue on, so that left two, Diver A and Diver B.

Diver A was a good wee diver even though she had only done about 15 dives. Her trim was good, her buoyancy was great and most of all her attitude was top notch.
Diver B on the other hand was a bit of a Space Cadet. He had attention problems, retention problems, cognitive ability problems and I’m sure he had a drug problem too.

I failed Diver B the other night on a night dive and didn’t want to take him on the deep dive as I wasn’t confident in his ability to remain focused. I had mentioned my concerns to him and told him I wasn’t happy to take him on the deep dive until we had done some more training with him. I also offered to do this extra training in my own time and for no cost. He didn’t want to hear what I had to say and went straight away to my Boss who then had a “chat” with me.  
His response was to tell me that Diver B had spent a lot of money with the shop and we should look after him. I told him I didn’t care how much he had spent with us; I wasn’t prepared to take this guy on the dive. He told me that it is one thing to teach for fun and another to teach for profit and insisted that we should take him… Against my better judgment I agreed on the condition that I could take a Divemaster to give me a hand and that I was wearing my twinset as a safety factor for myself. I’m extremely glad I did now as it stopped a potential tragedy.

On the day the students turned up bright eyed and bushy tailed while my Divemaster failed to make an appearance. I was a little pissed at the DM as this isn’t the first time he has done this. Luckily I had decided to bring Katie along on this dive, while she is only a Divemaster in training she is a great diver and the only one on the planet I will trust my life with underwater. I think that’s due to me having molded her into a good diver from her dive 4 up until now, dive 57.

We got all our gear on the boat and I gave a brief about the boat and the dive. My two nitrox students were told they could do their own thing; I just wanted to see their dive plans before the dives.
The two AOW students were briefed on the plan for the dive and told that they had to enter the water with everything sorted. We pulled up to a craypot buoy and everyone got their equipment on and performed Buddy Checks. Boats don’t anchor in Wellington as the Cook Straight is only 11 nautical miles wide at it narrowest point so the tidal fluctuations between west and east coast are pretty wicked to the extent that when its high tide and one end, its low tide at the other. One particular dive spot we enter the water 15 minutes before slack tide, drift with the current, then it goes slack for one minute and we ride it back the other way for 15 minutes.

This day we were only diving about a kilometer of the South Coast and as soon as we entered the water we swam to the buoy and descended the line.

All the way down the line I kept checking they were Ok, and got the OK signal back from both of them and Katie. We reached the bottom at 25 metres and swam off the line to a small sandy patch in the reef, about 5 metres from the line. The viz was fantastic and the buoy marking the line could be seen 25 metres above. This is the best viz I have ever seen in Wellington as it’s normally a pretty stable 1-3 metres with 15 maximum.

I hovered above the sandy patch and watched Diver A and Katie do the same. Diver B was glued to the bottom, trying to stand upright and kicking sand and silt everywhere. I swam over to him and told him to put a little air in his BCD and kneel down. Normally I wouldn’t get students to kneel as they are now supposed to be able to maintain buoyancy, but this guy was all over the place and I felt it was prudent to get him stable.
So all kneeling in a circle I got the students to write their names backward on a slate for me, and we did some depth gauge comparisons. That completed I decided we would swim off a little to clear the silt cloud and do the compression and colour tests. We swam off about 3 metres, all the time keeping the line in sight, and I noticed Diver B had his weight belt nearly coming off. I signaled him to lie face down and tighten up his weight belt. He tried to do it up while standing and nearly dropped it. I swam over and flipped him face down and pulled the weight belt up around his waist. He finally got the hint and tightened the belt. Next thing Katie swam over to me holding Diver B’s Fin! I swore silently to myself and put his fin back on and decided that was it. We were going back to line and up.
We started swimming over to the line but I couldn’t see it anymore as Diver B had kicked up clouds of silt that reduced the visibility to about 3 metres. I looked back and signalled OK to all the divers and Diver B kept pointing to the surface. I asked him to hang on until we could find the line but his eyes were wide like saucers and I could see panic setting in. I signaled Katie to take care of Diver A and started to take Diver B up.
I started to swim him up but he had no air in his BCD and wouldn’t budge off the bottom, his breathing was off the scale and concerned about his air supply I pulled my primary out of my mouth and put it in is gob. At the same time he grabbed me in a bear hug trapping both my arms. I grabbed my back-up from around my neck with my teeth and managed to break one arm free, grabbed his inflator and started adding small amounts of air to get him neutral so we could swim up.

He realised what I was doing and snatched the inflator away with one hand, gripping me hard around the neck with the other and started pumping massive amounts of air into his BCD. I dumped all my air and tried to slow him down with the other but he wouldn’t let go of the inflator button and we were ascending way too fast. I kept trying to dump air from his BCD but he wouldn’t let go so I cuffed him in the side of the head a couple of times. That made him seem to wake up a little and he let me grab his inflator and I dumped some air and halt our ascent at 11 metres. Next thing I know we are descending again so I started adding more air into his BCD but we were still sinking. I managed to stop our descent at around 15 metres but looking down I could see the bottom, as we had drifted to shallower waters, and worse I could see his weight belt hanging off his fins.
I decided the best thing to do was to get his weight belt back on and then try it all again.
We dropped onto the bottom and I pushed him flat on the ground, while swimming down as hard as I could, and grabbed his weight belt from his legs and pushed it up over his waist. He realised what I was doing and grabbed the weight belt to try putting it on and managed to drop it. Desperately I maneuvered myself around him and grabbed the weight belt with one hand and held him with the other. He had a huge amount of weight in the weight belt (which he told me later he had added more because he wanted to make sure he could stay down-he had 16 KG in his belt) and I was fighting to hold him down and pick the weight belt up. I was breathing hard now, harder than I had ever breathed before, and started to curse this f*cker.

Somehow I managed to get the weight belt on him and start our ascent again. I still can’t quite remember how but we had the belt on and were ascending. This time he had me in a huge bear hug and was again holding down the inflator button and we were rocketing to the surface. I managed to dump a little air again and stopped our ascent at about 3 metres then tried to hold us there for a minute or two but he got hold of the button and we were off again.
We hit the surface and I asked him repeatedly if he was OK. He replied he was and I asked him what he thought he was doing. He just kept saying sorry over and over again and saying it was his fault and he was sorry again. I reassured him we were all good now asked him what went wrong. He said he didn’t know and he just panicked.

I checked both our SPG’s and his read 0 psi and mine 80 bar. I had used 170 bar out of a set of 12L doubles. That’s 4080 Litres of gas. A normal 80 cuft contains 2420 litres of gas. On a dive to 30 metres with students I normally use around 40 bar for 20 minutes bottom time and a safety stop.

If I had been diving with a single tank then we would have either been dead or bent.

Katie and Diver A arrived back on the surface not long after, having come back up the line we descended down. They said that as soon as I signaled them to look after themselves we disappeared in a cloud of silt and they had no idea what had just happened.

I talked with my boss afterward and told him what happened and that I wasn’t happy with the pressure he had put on me to take this guy along. His response was that it was my call and mine alone. After all the pressure he put on me to take this guy I couldn’t believe what I was hearing…

Nowadays I always stand up for what I believe in and I use my judgment solely. I will never put myself in a position where my, or anyone else’s, life is put in danger purely to make another person profit.

Some people say I am abrasive, others say I stand on my soapbox too often, others just think I’m a thorn in their side…I don’t care what they think. Often my judgment is better than others as I never put money first. In fact I will live under a bridge before I compromise my judgment or principles again.

September 10, 2005 - A disappointing end to an otherwise great day

You may remember the Challenging student I had the other day that I was so proud of? She disappointed herself and me today.

I took her out for OW Dive 2 and brought Little Darlin along so she would have some female company and someone to empathise with her, as Little Darlin found diving to be quite challenging at first.
She descended 3 times and wouldn?t stay down each time. She kept freaking out at the kelp and coming back up again. I told her to bite back the fear as it wasn?t any different to Wednesday when we did OW Dive 1 for her.
She refused to fight the fear and I called the dive. I am really disappointed in her because I know she can do it and I have put over 8 hours of my own personal time into helping her overcome this fear.

I told her that I start full time at the shop in a few weeks and won?t be able to give her anymore spare time and she said she will wait until I can.
She is basically giving up.
Little Darlin is spewing and I am feeling drained.

September 10, 2005 - An awesome dive with Little Darlin

Little Darlin and I had an awesome dive today.

We had, in the past, been exploring the reef out to the right side of Mermaids Kitchen and never found its end. Today we decided to find its end.

We swam probably 200 metres out to sea and dropped down over the reef to a depth of about 14 metres, and recognized an area about 100 metres from where we had previously explored too.

We set off on a southerly bearing and pretty soon all the canyons and caverns that abound the early stages of the reef dropped off to become a rocky flat reef the raised above the surrounding sand about 3 or so metres.
We swam for about 40 minutes and reached a depth of 21.5 metres. Here and there little canyons and split fissures in the reef became apparent and all the walls were covered with bright and dull green bryozoans, all jostling for space to attach to the reef. Little Darlin started getting low on air so we decided that today we were not going to find the end of the reef.

I set a bearing for north, and home, and we swam off over gravel fields, that had been formed into huge undulations by the fierce Antarctic swells that frequently roll in on this exposed piece of Coast. We seemed to take a long time to get any shallower and then I felt a blow in my side as Little Darlin decided I was lost and didn?t know where I was going so I deserved a smack in the kidneys.
I took my compass off and handed it to her and she sheepishly handed it back and then tried to distract me by pointing out that at 20 metres we could see the surface twinkling away. Nice try lady.
Eventually the gravel fields turned into low lying reef and then some huge pinnacles appeared before us. Swimming up to them we discovered a huge cavern that had been formed over thousands of years by the rolling southerly swells. We swam delicately through it with our eyes sweeping the beautiful encrusted walls and Little Darlin spotting a few more nudibranchs stopped to check them out. While I love nudibranchs I don?t think I am as obsessed by them as much as Little Darlin and gave her a bit of a shove to move on. We exited the cavern and swam through towering pinnacles and plunging canyons.
All too soon it was time to head up so we ascended to 6 metres for our first safety stop and drifted with the gentle current of an incoming tide. As we moved up to our 3 metre stop we came across another canyon, much larger than the previous. Little Darlin started making little signals and signs, obviously trying to tell me something but I had no idea at all what she was trying to say, so I just stared at her blankly. After another minutes had passed it clicked what she had been saying. ?Let?s come back here for dive 2 of the day and check these out?.

She seen me click and gave me a ?Homer Simpson? look, implying I wasn?t the brightest flame in the fire. I poked my tongue out at her and she started to hump my leg? Well ok she didn?t but it makes the story sound a little more humorous.

We arrived at the surface and made plans to come back here while we slowly swam on our backs, the beautiful spring sunshine warming our faces.

The water temp was 13 degrees Celsius, maximum depth 21.5 metres, and bottom time 60 minutes.

September 8, 2005 - I had a challenging dive yesterday evening...

So they both turned up bright eyed and bushy tailed, all keen to get into it.

So we geared up, had a brief brief, and then headed out over the road to our number one dive spot.

So first up was the buoyancy check. Bearing in mind that both these students were on the larger side of life, both in personality and body size, and they were wearing two piece 7mm neoprene wetsuits. We started off with what they used in the pool and worked our way up from there, eventually both of them had masses of weight around their waists and in their BCDs. One of them had twice as much as she had in the pool and was still having problems descending. After 45 minutes of weighting and re-weighting, and relaxation and breathing techniques they were good to go.

We dropped down into 2 metres of water and slowly worked our way out into 9 metres of water. The Lass was having huge problems with her mask (I had told her way back in the original pool sessions it did not fit her and she needed to get a new one) and had to hold it continuously as it was riding up her face and squishing her nose. I considered calling the dive there and then but knew if I did that she wouldn?t come back again, as two ?failures? would be too much to handle.
So we cruised out onto the gravel, mask still being held, and then just chilled out for maybe 5 minutes playing with all the blue cod. They both seemed to love watching the blue cod and tapping little stones together which make them come investigate what is going on. Soon we must have had maybe 20 Blue Cod milling around and they were coming up close enough to stroke their chins (apparently they like it but I never touch aquatic life unless it?s for dinner).

We then hovered up off the bottom and moseyed on over to a little reef a few metres away, where I happen to know lives a big old sea perch, and low and behold under the rock is sitting my old friend Mr Sea Perch. After checking him out we turned around and swam back in the direction of home, following a snaking little gully filled with Paua (abalone) and triplefins back to the surface.

We reached the surface and inflated our BCD?s then both of the students started bubbling with excitement and enthusiasm. They both had initial difficulties, and probably will continue to do so for a while, but had overcome the first and biggest hurdle in their paths to diving success.

I was so proud of both of them and felt that I had made the right choice by throwing in my day job and becoming a full time dive instructor.
It?s moment like these that make it all worthwhile.

September 6, 2005 - A relaxing pleasure dive

Well I feel better today on account of having a dive after work last night.
Little Darlin and I decided to head out to ?Mermaids Kitchen? and had a fantastic dive, although we didn?t see any Mermaids.

We waded into the water, put on our fins and then lazily meandered out on our backs until we got past the ?gates?. The gates are like a natural little rock formation that protects the little bay where we enter the water, which is about 2-4 metres deep.
We dropped down into 7 metres of water and just relaxed on the bottom for 1 or 2 minutes while Little Darlin checked her new drysuit was working ok, then with a quick circle of the torch beams we set of to the south east in a slow trot, across the ?barren? ground until we hit the reef.
The water temperature was a surprising 13 degrees Celsius, up 1 degree from the previous week, and the viz was a nice 12 metres or so and we could see the stars twinkling away on the surface of the water.

We followed the little reef along, checking out all the little triplefins scurrying away from our torch beams, until we came to the end then swam a quick 180 around the point and headed up into the ?swimthrough?, one of many in the area.
The ?swimthrough? is an open ended cavern at both ends, about 20 metres long and 4 metres high all the way through. The walls are covered with plenty of encrusting life and hangers-on. We spent a good 15 minutes taking our time through the cavern examining the beautiful coloured walls and Little Darlin managed to find stacks of neat little Clown Nudibranch (Certosoma amoena).

(I didnt take the photo and don't know who did-Just posted it so you know what I am talking about)

We exited the ?swimthrough? and then did another 180 and swam down through a canyon, also covered by fantastic encrusting life.
(I promise to get some photos of these walls over the weekend)
Swimming out over the ?barren? area we came across a few crayfish, out fossicking for food, and some good size Blue Cod having a wee sleep. We decided that we would head for home and arced around in the general direction.

Arriving back at (what I thought were) the gates I lead us up one of the little gully?s, probing every nook and cranny for interesting marine life, until I could see white water above us. This puzzled me somewhat as we should have come into the bay and there is never any white water in the bay(well hardly ever).
Little Darlin flashed her torch at me, then pointed toward the surface, then pointed to me with a menacing look that said ?You and your crap navigation-I am going to fricken smack you one? (Little Darlin can get upset at white water-she hates it and hates it even more when I lead her into it).
I told her to stay put while I went up for a quick looksie to see where we were. I popped up and seen that I had indeed gone up the wrong gully and started working out a mental picture in my mind as to where to find the right one.
Next thing Little Darlin popped up beside me, had a quick look around, and then laid a beauty in my solar plexus (she can be a tad fiery, and over-react sometimes), then started berating me for missing the right gully (I should point out here that I only missed it by two metres and they look very similar).
Urging her to move out from the white water crashing into the rocks, I backed off a little to let her calm down, then we swam back to the shore on our backs discussing the great dive and the crap navigation?
All in all a great relaxing dive. Bottom Time was 38 minutes, Maximum depth was 10 metres, 12 metres Viz and 13 Degree Celsius water Temp. Just a baby dive but well needed?

September 5, 2005 - A weekend without diving

Well I had my first weekend, for quite sometime, without diving this weekend. I have to say it was a little different.

You see Little Darlin decided that, as I had no courses on this weekend, we were heading up to Hawkes Bay (Central East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand) to visit her Father and just hang out for the weekend. I did have my hopes pinned on doing some relaxing diving with her as she is about the only person I can dive and totally relax with. With others I feel that I am constantly waiting for them to do something stupid, even if they don't. If Little Darlin can't dive for some reason or another I would rather sling my doubles on and go for a dive solo than dive with some of the divers around here. In saying that I do dive with other divers but never "fully" enjoy it 100%, although that's not to say I dont enjoy the dives however.
Does that sound confusing? It's because I need to dive most days or I get a little funny. You see I am suffering from withdrawl symptoms. I am currently on my 5th day in a row without diving and have decided I am going diving tonight after work or I am gunna lose the plot.

I just can't make up my mind where to dive. Should I go in the bay (Island Bay that is) and look for Seahorses, or cruse around the Boat Sheds and look in the reefs little nooks and crannies? 

Or should I head around the right side of the Island and explore some canyons?

Or should I go around the corner and dive near Moa Point and check out the reef there?

I can't seem to make up my mind as yet but I guess it will depend on how I feel when I get home

September 2, 2005 - More Pictures

So now that I have mastered the art of uploading photo's I would like to carry on with the previous blog.

Here is another blue cod coming to check out his reflection in the camera lens. See the little pectoral fins on his undercarriage? They sit on those on the bottom and they look so chilled out and relaxed I want some pectoral fins now.

And there we go

And out in the "barren" area we do find Flounder, proving that it is not so barren after all. These flounder are great little fish also. They are actually born with their eyes on both sides of the head but over time one eye migrates over to the other side.
I'm sure Little Darlin has the ability to migrate one eye to the back of her head also as she always seems to snap me out doing stuff I shouldnt. Like this time she snapped me connecting my Drysuit inflator hose after I forgot to do it. I was just dealing with the squeeze until she looked away and I thought I could connect it without her seeing. Wrong. Told you guys she could migrate one eye to the back of her head.

This was on the same dive, which incidently was a Peak Performance Buoyancy dive for the AOW. Thats the Big Fella setting the example in about 3 metres of water.

Well team I hope you have enjoyed these pics.

Cheerio

September 2, 2005 - Blog 3 - Some pictures

Just to give you guys an idea of the terrain we dive in. We have lots of little canyons and cracks that host a wide variety of beautiful encrusting life, nudibranchs, bryozoans and little nooks and crannies.

Then we have a huge barren area between the reefs where newbie divers can safely do skills without killing the wildlife with their fins etc. Thats the Big Fella in the front and Little Darlin following on behind on her first drysuit dive.

Then of course out in the "barren" area's the Blue cod like to come and see whats going on

You often see these curious little guys come swooping in like a squadron of fighters to check out whats happening. They travel in little packs and seem to have perfect formation, and when you spot them coming they break formation and try to look like they are just milling around all nonchalant like, then as soon as you look away they form up again and escort you to the edge of their territory.

Sometimes they can be a little agressive and if you stay still enough they will come right up to your mask and look at their reflection, then headbut their reflection. Great wee fish.

September 2, 2005 - Blog 2 - The Night Dive

Alright I am back in the land of the living now I have recovered from my ?Leftover Chinese? experiment. I should point out that Little Darlin says I must listen to her from now on, and that as soon as I have finished with food I must throw it out, especially if it involves meat. It?s hard sometimes living with a vegetarian.

So I promised the night dive gen and here it is. Please note that names have been changed to protect the guilty.

So we all met at the dive shop at around 18:00 and had a good chin wag about the dives on the weekend. We had done a Peak Performance Buoyancy dive and a Navigation dive, all of which will come in handy tonight, and we had a quick retrospective of the weekend and made any necessary adjustments that needed to be done.

 I briefed the dive and allocated buddy teams with the same strict warning I give before any dive. Buddy teams are buddy teams. Don?t lose your buddy, stay within 4 fin kicks of your buddy, your buddy is your life support in the unlikely event etc.
With the briefing out of the way we geared up and headed off across the road.
(I should add that we have one of the best dive sites in Wellington just over the road from the shop)

So while everyone waited I locked up the shop, with the usual struggles to lock the front door, and then we all headed over the road to the waiting mirror calm sea.

Donning fins in waist deep water we headed out for a wee surface swim so we could drop straight down into 10 metres of water.
Having a quick confab on the surface to make sure everyone was happy and comfortable we dropped down to a sandy bottom beside the reef and could see the stars reflection on the surface of the water 10 metres above.

Counting everyone?s torch beams, and getting an OK from each beam, we swam slowly off for a wee looksie. After 3 minutes or so I stopped and turned around to make sure everyone is OK and noticed 2 torch beams missing. Crikey here we go.

So signalling to everyone to follow I started back tracking to find the missing divers and after 2 minutes or so noticed two light beams on the surface above. I signalled to the others to stay where they were, in the hands of two capable DM?s, and made the ascent to find out what was up with diver A and diver B.

Upon reaching the surface it turns out that Diver A is having problems with his mask and it?s leaking like a sieve apparently. I tell him that diving with a sieve on the face is not a good move and suggest he tighten the straps. That doesn?t work and now I am getting the feeling that it?s not the mask that is the problem but rather the ?pucker factor? is getting a little high. I tell him to just relax and breathe slowly and if he likes he can head back to shore, no shame. He agrees that heading back to the shore is a good idea as he is now ?bottling it? so I tell him and Diver B to chill for a sec while I get the others to come up so I can escort him back to shore. The others hit the surface and one of the DM?s volunteers to take Diver A back. I have to say I appreciated that as we are now about half a mile out to sea.

So they head off and I do another quick head count and would you believe it, another diver is missing! Now I am a reasonably calm and tolerant person but by now my patience is wearing thin.

Looking below I see a torch beam moving about on the bottom and telling the others to chill, I drop like a stone to the bottom. Reaching the torch beam I give him a shake on the shoulder, heavily resisting temptation to bitch slap the ******, and tell him to come up.

?Did you know? I said calmly,?that it?s a bad idea to solo dive, especially at night?

?I thought we were all going down? spits out Diver B.

?And what part of ?Let?s all hang out here and wait for DM 1 to get back? means lets all go finish our dive? I ask.

?Ahh?errr?ahhh? That?s right. None of it. (I should note that I have had problems with this guy before, I?m sure he does loads of drugs)

So to cut a long story short, DM 1 gets back, and we descend on our merry way.

This time we are sorted man.

The divers all get given a bearing that they must navigate out on, and then reciprocate back to me, as this is one of the tasks of the dive. All divers achieve this with ease so now is play time.

Cruising along the reef edge we duck into a nice canyon that hosts a variety of beautiful green and blue bryozoans , all fighting for space with the yellow and grey sponges, who are in turn being munched on by Clown Nudibranchs and the odd Wellingtons Nudibranch. The display of ?tie-dye? in our torch beams presents us with a beautiful canvass of nature?s art and everybody is hanging out in mid-water enjoying this spectacle. A couple of crayfish, alerted by our torch beams, scurry away, tails and feelers raised against the threat of predators, and wait just out of reach of our torch beams.

Diver B signals he is at 120 bar so we turn in a lazy slow arc and head north, for home, still weaving in and out of the canyons and pinnacles that abound this part of the south coast.

Getting nearer the shore we are in only 4 metres of water when Diver B, a little slow on adjusting his buoyancy to suit, decides to float slowly to the surface, his fins kicking at thin air as he has breached the surface to try and stay down. I rise up to meet him and ask what is wrong. He tells me he hasn?t got enough weight in as he forgot he was using an aluminium tank for this dive.

I get 2 KG out of my weight belt and go to feed it into his belt and he jerks and knocks the weight out of my hands. Cursing silently to myself, as these are my last two single kilo weights since all the others have been pilfered from my weight belt over time, I notice everybody else has come to the surface.

?Well team did you enjoy that?? I ask. Everybody is spilling with excitement and already planning the next night dive they intend doing.

We discuss the dive as we all swim lazily on our backs to shore and everyone agrees that they love the differences in night diving.

September 1, 2005 - Blog 1 and a half

August 31, 2005 - First Blog

Well as I just created this blog I thought I had better do a "First Blog"

So after years of bending my darling partners ear with comments like "What is the point of those stupid blogs" and "You will never catch me with a blog" I have a blog.

So to kick of this first blog I though I could say something about myself but I hav'nt really a lot of time, as I have to go home and get my gear ready for a night dive tonight, so I will be brief.

Well for those that dont know me, 99% of you, I am a Diver and Dive Instructor in Wellington New Zealand. Thats right the only city in the world where a 100 mile an hour wind is considered a gentle breeze.
We do a lot of shore diving down these parts and on a beautiful day you can drive 10 minutes from our Capital City centre and see lots of dive flags dotting the South Coast as every man, woman and scuba dog goes diving.

On a crap day you will just see me diving and cursing at the friggen wind and swell as I get battered against the rocks. Maybe thats why I have rocks in my head.
I think I could create a PADI Scuba Surfing specialty actually. You know... when you are swimming back to shore after the wind changed direction and a wave picks you up and if you time it right you can ride it all the way back to shore, and if you dont you get slammed into the bottom and ground along like a train wreck? I can teach you to ride that swell so dont be shy and sign up for my PADI Scuba Surfing Specialty, or PSSS for short.

I am halfway through taking an AOW course at the moment and am taking them out tonight for the Night Dive so I will post a report later on tonight or tommorrow, depending on how hard they work me tonight. You never know with these guys!

Cheerio