I found out on New Years Eve (last night for me!) that one of my very first ducklings (aka student) is going to be doing his IDC in a few weeks time.

Call me a little sentimental, but it felt kinda significant hearing the news on the eve of the new year; as though I'm passing on the torch so to speak. I'm so very proud of him, for how far he's come with his diving and himself as a person.

I wish him the best of luck, and I know he'll be a great instructor!

Just a quick reminder to all my aussie dive buddies - don't forget to slip slop slap!

Currently I'm doing my best impersonation of a rock lobster ever (red and shiny!), and hurting about as much as I imagine they do when someone boils them in a pot. Not a good feeling.

Have a good christmas all, and again, remember to be generous with the sunscreen.

I'm sick and tired of having to service gear that hasn't been looked after properly. I'm sure most of you know this all anyway, but here's my suggestion for looking after you gear properly, to make sure that it doesn't turn to crap on you.

1.   Make sure you get the gear serviced annually. This is your entire reg set, as well as your BCD. Funnily enough, there are several components in the BC inflator which can screw up if you don't look after them, as well as your dump valves which can wear. If you dive a LOT, I might even recommend taking your gear in for a clean and check up every six months, just to be on the safe side.

2.  RINSE YOUR GEAR AFTER EVERY DIVE! If you're pedantic and really care about your gear, use warm water and soak the gear, this way you'll most likely get rid of all the salt crystals (which is what causes the problems).

To rinse your regulators

The best way to rinse this is under pressure - simply leave your scuba unit together (tank, regs & BC) with pressure in the system, and dunk it in a tub, leaving it to soak. I know that a lot of times you can't wash them under pressure, so be very careful if you wash them all individually to not get water in areas where it shouldn't go.

MAKE SURE THE DUST CAP IS ON! If your regs aren't environmentally sealed, you have to remember that you have an entire dive for salt water to penetrate the ambient chambers of your reg. Most people only dunk the regs quickly to wash them, this probably isn't enough time to adequately clean the regs. Soak them (in warm water as I suggested earlier) for an extended period, making sure that you move them around every now and then to get water flow happening.

To rinse the second stages, never ever hold the purge button in if there is no pressure in the system. If you do, this will send water straight up your hoses and into your first stage which is Very Bad. Again, soak them in warm water. If you want to move them through the water for flow, make sure you don't move the second stage against the purge button pressure so you inadvertantly let the water pressure push the purge button (let me know if that sentence makes NO SENSE).

For gauges and compasses, make sure you get salt and sand out of everything. Turn bezels to make sure they run smoothly, and again, let them soak to get the water out.

To rinse your BCD

Never push the inflation button if the system has no pressure in the line. This will send water into your inflation mechanism and more than likely cause corrosion.

To clean the bladder, inflate the BCD and drain all the salt water out of out using the dump valves. Then inflate it again and fill it with fresh water. Rinse the fresh water around, then drain it. Inflate half way, add some BC Life if you're into your 'products' and then hang it to dry out of sunlight.

I'm running out of time, so I have to go. Let me know if I've missed some important steps (which, knowing me, I have!)

Cheers!

Divers are, generally speaking, more fun than other people.

I've worked in a lot of different industries, and overall, I have to say that the diving community is far easier to work with and enjoy working in, than any other industry I've been involved in.

I've never found something that ties so many different people together on such a regular basis. How many other interest or hobby groups can lay claim to having such a diverse group of people be so involved? Divers come from all walks of life - whether they're students or plumbers or doctors or salesmen or computer techs or politicians or artists or whatever, there's something about diving that just ties everyone together, isn't there?

The variety of people and interests I've discovered, and the amount of different things I've learnt since I started diving is amazing. I don't understand how some people can just stay at home in their little box and never venture further than the TV screen, because there is so much amazing stuff out there to learn about.

As I've previously stated, I am a total sook and will only dive in a drysuit. Unfortunately, my drysuit is reaching the end of it's lifespan (it's had a very tough life, RIP), and I'm probably ending up wetter in it than I would in a wetsuit, but that's another story.

A few weeks ago a couple of friends and I planned to go out for a 'cray hunt' dive (it's getting close to Christmas and our freezers are all empty), and even though I'm not known for my desire to hunt anything, I was happy to go along with my camera purely to blow bubbles.

I have to confess, it's very rare that I don't enjoy a dive, however, this particular dive was all weed and kelp and weed and kelp and weed and kelp and I think the most interesting thing I found was a juvenile crayfish that looked more like a Morton Bay Bug than an actual crayfish... but I'm digressing again. This dive was seriously boring. Very very very little fishlife, and the weed/kelp was so thick that if you wanted to see anything you had to plow through it, and I get tired of battling against kelp very quickly.

Still, despite freezing my ass off in my leaky suit and really not seeing anything of great interest down there (didn't get a single photo), I managed to stay down for an hour. The only reason I actually came up was because my buddy had sucked his tank down to about 20bar and needed my occy to get up (19meters).

It struck me, at some stage between hovering over one piece of kelp or another, that I must be absolutely mad to put myself in that situation, and willingly hang out even though I was actually cold and bored and fairly miserable.

Why?

Because even though I won't ever dive that site again if I could help it (much better sites right next door), I was underwater, and there is something indescribably magic about being underwater. It's as though when the reg is in my mouth and I'm floating in midwater, just hanging there, time stops and all that matters is finding myself. I'm quite content to float around and play with my buddies bubbles while he tries (fruitlessly) to find a crayfish. Or I'll imagine pictures in the kelp fronds. Or pretend I'm hunting some great animal and prowl my way through the kelp.

I must be mad, right? Mad about diving, apparently :P Have I mentioned that this particular dive was the seventh or eight dive in two days? Probably not. It was a fairly intense weekend of 'work diving' followed by this 'fun hunt dive'.

I guess all I wanted to do was reflect on how far gone I am with diving, that even the 'crappest' dive site I've ever seen still managed to entertain me for an hour, and I got something personal out of it (hey, imagining pictures in kelp fronds only keeps one entertained for a little while, the rest of the time I guess I must have been thinking and considering and pondering fairly hard!).

So yeah. Every dive is a good dive, regardless of what you see or don't see ;)

Oh, and I'm really hoping I get a new suit soon because this business of freezing my ass off is really not good for encouraging me to get back into the water.

I've had the most amazing dive experiences in the last few weeks, including humpback whales, southernwright whales, giant cuttlefish, seals, wrecks... wow. And this is all part of my job. Sometimes I forget how truly blessed I am to be working in the dive industry!

I'm washing the dust off the journal, hoping that I find a bit more time to update, but the way things are going with courses and charters, I'm not spending much time above water these days!!

Personally, I'm really enjoying my hiatus from real life - taking this time off to work full time in the dive industry is one of the best choices I've ever made. I'm not regretting it for one instant. The active nature of the work means my fitness has skyrocketed, I've lost a lot of weight and I'm feeling healthier than I have for a long time.

In other personal news, things haven't really progressed on the love life front. I'm still hopelessly in love with one of my closest friends and dive buddies, and I sincerely doubt he has any idea. It adds that extra bittersweetness to our dives together, and it keeps me really keen for weekends of diving and teaching, as we work together more often than not!!

In other news, I am truly amazed at how some people have managed to get their dive tickets. I'm even more amazed that the instructors teaching those particular people have been given their teaching certificates. Mostly, I am disappointed because realistically, this problem exists with all recreational agencies and I don't know how practically the problems and practices could be changed.

Just as a side note - the Cressi Matrix is a brilliant, brilliant mask.