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    Iron Heart Fall/Winter 2025 Live Reveal - Thursday 12th of June at 1700BST

    Scuba anyone?

    Hobbies and Pastimes
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    • GilesG
      Giles
      IHUK Crew
      Joined:

      @mclaincausey:

      independent eyes

      I love watching them from above when they are in their burrows. Their eyes moving completely out of sync fascinates me…..

      "OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011

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      • GilesG
        Giles
        IHUK Crew
        Joined:

        Leaf fish

        Dragon fish

        Ghost pipefish

        Shrimp fish (and Paula)

        Turtle

        Cement mixer

        "OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011

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        • GilesG
          Giles
          IHUK Crew
          Joined:

          Nudibranch

          Octopus

          Garden eels

          Clown fish

          Turtle and human

          Porcelain crab (again, but one of my favourite critters to find - not difficult when you know where they live)

          Wheel

          "OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011

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          • JDelageJ
            JDelage
            啓蒙家
            Joined:

            Lovely pictures! I've never seen mats shrimps; I'd like to. They are very cool indeed.

            Where are you Gilles? It looks like a super rich spot!

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            • GilesG
              Giles
              IHUK Crew
              Joined:

              Mantis shrimp are fairly widespread in the tropics, the pretty ones mainly in the Indian and Pacific oceans.  I'm in Indonesia and have seen more free-swimming (rather than hiding in their burrows) ones here than anywhere else….

              "OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011

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              • JDelageJ
                JDelage
                啓蒙家
                Joined:

                Aaah, very nice! Currently looking at options for Raja Amat…

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                • GilesG
                  Giles
                  IHUK Crew
                  Joined:

                  Very nice.  We've been a little disappointed with the number of divers here, basically if I have to look in front of me to make sure I am not going to hit a diver coming the other way, or when I look around, I can't immediately recognize my group, then it's not for me.  We've decided that from now on we will try and find areas a little less travelled, or do liveaboards where we can get to remote places to cut the number of bodies in the water down…

                  Hands down, the best place we have dived is Socorro.  It's hard to get to, but absolutely amazing (if you like big stuff).

                  We're looking at going to the Hallaniyat Islands in Oman as soon as we can.  I know the islands from my fishing exploits, they are bursting with marine life and have a resident population of Humpback whales.  And I believe, there is only one dive operation that goes there.....

                  "OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011

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                  • JDelageJ
                    JDelage
                    啓蒙家
                    Joined:

                    Liveaboards are great. My best experience diving was a liveaboard in the middle of the Red Sea. Amazing mix of coral reefs and pelagic creatures.

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                    • T4920T
                      T4920
                      見習いボス
                      Joined:

                      I'm going to be diving for the first time next month in Thailand. Doing the PADI Open Water course and possibly Advanced too, depending on how much time I have.

                      If anyone has dived in Thailand before, can you provide any recommendations for place to take these courses? As it stands I'm thinking Koh Lanta, as I only have two weeks in the country and it's location lines up with the rest of my itinerary, but I'm open to other suggestions.

                      “𝑁𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑡, 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑜, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑡𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑚 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡.”

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                      • GilesG
                        Giles
                        IHUK Crew
                        Joined:

                        No experience of diving in Thailand I am afraid. But my strong recommendation is do your open water, then enjoy diving for a while. Then add advanced (and Nitrox if you think you will dive a lot) at a later date.

                        "OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011

                        last edited by 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • endoE
                          endo
                          見習いボス
                          Joined:

                          @T4920:

                          I'm going to be diving for the first time next month in Thailand. Doing the PADI Open Water course and possibly Advanced too, depending on how much time I have.

                          If anyone has dived in Thailand before, can you provide any recommendations for place to take these courses? As it stands I'm thinking Koh Lanta, as I only have two weeks in the country and it's location lines up with the rest of my itinerary, but I'm open to other suggestions.

                          Did my PADI Open Water there about 30 yrs ago. On Koh Tao, but the diving is much better in the Andaman Sea (where I went later, around Rai Leh, beautiful reefs and some wrecks) than in the Gulf. Agree with Giles, just do the OW and dive as much as you can.

                          si tacuisses

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                          • T4920T
                            T4920
                            見習いボス
                            Joined:

                            @Giles:

                            No experience of diving in Thailand I am afraid. But my strong recommendation is do your open water, then enjoy diving for a while. Then add advanced (and Nitrox if you think you will dive a lot) at a later date.

                            Thanks for the advice. I'm going to have roughly five days on the island, so this will probably suit me much better than trying to cram two courses into my short time there.

                            ⁴⁹ ²⁰

                            “𝑁𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑏 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑡, 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑜, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑡𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑚 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡.”

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                            • GilesG
                              Giles
                              IHUK Crew
                              Joined:

                              @Karol:

                              Scuba diving for wooden wrecks in the Baltic Sea

                              Welcome.  I ignored a deep stop notification on my dive computer yesterday - ended up having to do 31 minutes at 3 metres and having a spare tank dropped in for me.  Wont happen again…...

                              "OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011

                              last edited by 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • ChapC
                                Chap
                                見習いボス
                                Joined:

                                @Giles:

                                I ignored a deep stop notification on my dive computer yesterday - ended up having to do 31 minutes at 3 metres and having a spare tank dropped in for me.  Wont happen again…...

                                OMG  ??? ??? ??? WTF did you do that?

                                God has blessed you richly, so get down on your knees and thank him. Don’t forget the less fortunate or God will personally kick your ass. I’d love to do it for him, but I can’t be everywhere. Willie Nelson

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                                • GilesG
                                  Giles
                                  IHUK Crew
                                  Joined:

                                  My normal computer locked out for some reason a couple of days ago.  I was not diving with it at the time, but nevertheless, when a dive computer locks out, it will not work for 24 or 48 hours.  So I used my spare dive computer, which I am not used to.  When Haid, the divemaster and I set it to Nitrox, we added a few other safety warnings, including deep stop.  My spare is different from my primary, so I was not used to what it was telling me.  I did not notice that I went into deco, but did see a 14 meter deep stop warning come up.  I was cold and it was the last dive of the holiday, so thought, oh fuck it, the warning has only come on because we programmed it to be super-cautious and even if the computer locks because I ignore it, then it does not matter as I will not be using it again for months…...

                                  Got to the normal 5m safety stop and did not believe the computer was telling me I had to do a 31 minute stop.  So I timed 3 minutes with my normal watch, checked that Paula who I was diving with, had zero safety stop time left, and surfaced.

                                  My computer was erroring so I showing to Haid. So he basically made me do the 31 minutes, not that I was arguing.  I just felt really sorry for him, as hanging around for half an hour under the surface when you are cold is not a lot of fun and for Paula who was on the boat not really knowing what the hell was happening.......

                                  "OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011

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                                  • ChapC
                                    Chap
                                    見習いボス
                                    Joined:

                                    I see… same time and depth as Paula? So just a computer fault? But yes I beg Paula was super worried

                                    God has blessed you richly, so get down on your knees and thank him. Don’t forget the less fortunate or God will personally kick your ass. I’d love to do it for him, but I can’t be everywhere. Willie Nelson

                                    last edited by 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • GilesG
                                      Giles
                                      IHUK Crew
                                      Joined:

                                      My max depth was 1.3M deeper than hers,  and she deep-stopped at 14M for 1 min. I think on balance, I would have been fine, but if anything had happened to me, it probably would have been the end of Haid's diving career….

                                      "OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011

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                                      • ChapC
                                        Chap
                                        見習いボス
                                        Joined:

                                        @Giles:

                                        My max depth was 1.3M deeper than hers,  and she deep-stopped at 14M for 1 min. I think on balance, I would have been fine, but if anything had happened to me, it probably would have been the end of Haid's diving career….

                                        …and you might have spend the last day of your holiday in a decompression chamber.

                                        God has blessed you richly, so get down on your knees and thank him. Don’t forget the less fortunate or God will personally kick your ass. I’d love to do it for him, but I can’t be everywhere. Willie Nelson

                                        last edited by 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • GilesG
                                          Giles
                                          IHUK Crew
                                          Joined:

                                          Nearest is bloody miles away…...

                                          "OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011

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                                          • ChapC
                                            Chap
                                            見習いボス
                                            Joined:

                                            @Giles:

                                            Nearest is bloody miles away…...

                                            Only five throughout the Maldives as far as I remember… isn't there one on Kuredu?

                                            Good to have a divemaster that is overcautious

                                            God has blessed you richly, so get down on your knees and thank him. Don’t forget the less fortunate or God will personally kick your ass. I’d love to do it for him, but I can’t be everywhere. Willie Nelson

                                            last edited by 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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