Well, those of you who know Japan know this story had to come from one of only two possible areas in Japan.  This time it is not my home prefecture of Okinawa, but Saitama, near Tokyo.  The story in full:

Man lying on Saitama street killed in hit-and-run
Thursday 15th May, 02:40 PM JST

SAITAMA — A man died after being hit by a car on a street in Saitama on Thursday morning, police said. According to a witness, the man, identified as Soichiro Utsunomiya, 30, was hit by a white van while he was lying on the street around 2:25 a.m. He was taken to hospital but died from head injuries about one hour later, police said.

According to police, a woman passer-by noticed Utsunomiya sleeping on the street, with his head on the pavement. As she was calling police at a convenience store nearby, she saw the van run over the man and stop. She told police that the driver got out of the van, but got back in again and drove off.

Police said the victim was seen shopping at a nearby supermarket and was drunk, according to witnesses. 

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First of all, he wasn’t lying in the street.  he was passed out paraletic in the street from alcohol.  Whether it was alcohol purchased from the supermarket or at an izakaya (drinking establishment)/snack bar.  First of all, not good at all that the guy drove away, especially as it seems he got out and realised what he had done.

I raise this story though as the same thing nearly happened to me a while back.  It was when I had my old car and I was driving home to my village one night one the back roads.  Turned round a blind corner and there, straddled across the centreline was a guy just lying there.  I swerved and braked sharply and just managed to miss him.  Stopped the car and got out to make sure he wasn’t injured.  As I approached him slowly I could smell awamori (the local fire-water) on him and realised he was just completely hammered.  He saw me and slurred a little (most likely something similar to, “Go home!”), and once I realised he wasn’t injured I got back into the car and drove away.  Some may ask why I didn’t remove him from the road but to be honest that’s something I don’t want to get involved in.  Another car goes by and sees a foreigner pulling an Okinawan guy to the side of the road; next thing you’ve got helicopters out, hundreds of police officers an you’re getting questioned like you’ve done something wrong.

All I’ll say is that I’m glad I didn’t come across him while taking that same corner in my Evo.  My car’s low and he might have damaged the underside of it as I’d gone over him!

This blog is not going to just become a list of crimes that occur in Japan, but I have just read this story which was shocking and worth reporting to others.

Two teenagers detained over killing 8 swans in Ibaraki lake
Thursday 15th May, 10:17 AM JST

Police on Wednesday detained two teenagers for killing eight swans at a park lake in Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture, on April 28. According to police, the two boys, aged 15 and 13, beat the swans to death with wooden sticks at the park from 1 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. on April 28.

The 15-year-old boy was sent to prosecutors, while the 13-year-old boy - who cannot be prosecuted because he is too young - was sent to a child consultation center.

The two were quoted by police as saying, gIt was fun to kill the swans, especially when they tried to swim away.h

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Now is it just me, or is anyone else a little disturbed that these kids will be out of their “consultation center” in no time at all? Are they gonna get bored again and look for more fun. Maybe other animals or people will be even more fun when they try to get away from being killed. What the kids were doing out between 1:00 and 2:30 in the morning is another matter (I know the following day was a Japanese public holiday but even so…). Is it right to question what kind of family background they came from? Maybe the kids came from warm families whose parents had all the time in the world for them, but the kids just had this evil streak in them. Maybe (as happens in many Japanese families), the kids grew up hardly seeing their father due to long working hours & the attraction of snack and hostess bars, they were spoilt by their mother who never saw them do wrong, and so when they hit their teens they thought they could do anything they like to anything/anyone they like. Who knows.

Argyle Caravan Park, Loch Fyne

I managed to get my teenage daughter out her bed around nine am and drag her into the scuba bus (aka my rusty old pug 406 estate that cost about the same as my primary torch!) to go along to see if I could get a chance to get in the water with John Kendall or Iain Smith and try to remember some of the things I was meant to have learned three weeks previously at my GUE Fundamentals course.

Unfortunately due to my late arrival I managed to get there as Steve, John & Iain where already on a dive and Kat was chilling in the sunshine.

Eventually after surfacing the lads all got out the water, I fettled and tweaked a couple of bolt snaps and knots (with Johns help), set up my doubles (chuckle) and got ready to dive, Iain’s mum turned up and I struggled to not laugh too much at the banter between her and Iain, a right good comedy show with mum giving as good as she got well that is until Iain savaged her dive gear and set up a single tank GUE compliant wing for her complete with long hose, I don’t think she knew what hit her, even her ankle weights and fins where banished…

So as the mayhem was going on around us, Stevie and I agreed to go for a wee guddle…

11/05/2008 Dive: 251

Maximum Depth: 14.1Metres
Water Temp: 9-13oC
Visibility: 3-5 Metres
Dive Time: 43 Minutes

Equipment:

DUI TLS 350 Explorer (DUI Zip Gloves), Halcyon 21w/9A HID, Double (Twins ;-)) Twelve Eurocylinders, Frog Midnight Wing, Apeks XTX200 Primary and Backup Regulators, Salvo RAT Backup Torch, Scuba Pro JetFins.

Weighting: 3 x 1KG V Weights, 1 x 2.25KG P Weight, 2 KG Tail Weight 1 x 1KG on Waist Harness. Total 8.25 KG

Goal: Practice GUE Skills & Procedures, V Drill and Buoyancy Control, launch DSMB, Have fun!
Unified Team: Stevie Hick dive and myself, myself to lead dive.
Equipment: Head to toe check performed on surface prior to dive (I Forgot to do Bubble checks) Stevie had a one piece harness on, w00t!

Left Pocket (equipment planned to be used on dive): Halcyon 1 Metre Oral Inflate DSMB, Deep-sea Supply Delrin Finger Spool.

Right Pocket (backup / spare equipment): Spare Beaver Atomic Mask, Wet Notes & Shears

Exposure: Maximum Dive based on GUE minimum deco Rules (Explained quickly to Stevie as part of GUE EDGE) planned maximum Depth 12-18 Metres.
Decompression: First stop 50% of max depth, 1 minute stops, 3 metres apart Ascent Rate 9MPM
Gas: EAN28 (Air top off on a EAN32 Fill) – Stevie on Tyre Gas (AKA AIR) All Usable, Minimum Gas 50 Bar.
Environment: Cold, dark and horrible boat moorings!

It only took us two minutes to run through the GUE EDGE on the surface but I have a feeling it was because I missed stuff and Stevie just agreed with whatever old tosh I actually said.

Stevie was diving without a primary light as he has some problems with his torch on the previous dive, this caused me all sorts of mental problems as I was trying to tune into my new found GUE Spidey sense and couldn’t see a torch beam so had to keep looking behind me for Stevie, it’s weird, you just learn how important the torch is, that it’s your voice underwater and then I go diving with Mr. super eloquent and funny but silent, bit strange, hey ho!

We settle into a pattern and just meander around, I am trying some modified frog kicks, being cautious of trying to not go too slow, also I try a few back kicks but don’t quite get them right and end up going backwards and upwards like a milk cart reversing down a one way street.

Anyway we guddle around, Stevie goes for his valves when I’m not looking, I wasn’t expecting that but should expect it cause I’ve dived with the stroke many times now.

I signal to Stevie I am going to try to do my valves (remembering this is why I only got the provisional pass on Fundies and not a full pass), I oscillate my torch in my left hand, purge my backup reg and start to reach back for my right post, whay hey I get it! I manage to shut it down although my buoyancy is over the place and I have to pause to regain composure, I switch over to my backup reg (ooh damn the orders wrong, I think, heck I can’t remember now!) I give in, I try to reach back and turn on my right post but can’t reach it, I signal to the Stroke and he gets it for me, ahhh its nice to be diving with Stevie, I Know I can trust him to sort me out and I think he can trust me to sort him out (not like that!, clean your bloody minds will you!) These shut-downs are doing my head in, I so want to get them off and on.

We bimble around looking at the moorings, chasing crabs, examining up to it after the valve closing lark.

So we get up to around 6 metres and I signal for blobs, we both start off about the same time, I unfurl and assemble my spool to my blob, Stevie already has his assembled in his pocket.

We both orally inflate and play the maypole dancing game, trying not to tie each other up.

Up we go and on the surface wind in our blobs (well it’s not quite that smooth, I end up winding my blob down to me as I hadn’t inflated it enough so I give it a good blow this time, fwar fwar!)

We surface swim back to the slip and come out the water feeling triumphant, or at least I feel great that Iain and John didn’t witness any of that!

So out we get, have a gab, Eventually Iain, John and Iain’s mum surface, there is no shouting only laughter and smiles, looks like Iain’s mum enjoyed being assimilated into the collective too.

I pack my gear, Derek and Anne turn up on the Posh RHIB and we have a wee gab, I say my goodbyes, Taylor and I head off to M&S for some nice tasty food and I drop Taylor off at my ex wife’s, A nice wee day out but I tell you this, I need to get shut-downs sorted because I am so fed up of doing boring featureless dives at training sites, I crave a nice piece of ferrous oxide, all I would be doing is tempting fate and hoping nothing goes wrong, if something did I wouldn’t be able to sort it….

Tune in next time for more adventures of a GUE Newbie……

John Kendall http://www.guetraining.com/

Conger Alley Scottish Forum http://www.congeralley.com

Thanks to Iain for organising and Taylor for being a great daughter

Part three of my IDC & IE Report.

Part One: IDC AI 

Part Two: IDC OWSI

GO PRO!

What does IE Stand for?

Instructor Exam

Friday May 2nd mid afternoon and we all we climb into the Scuba Med Van & head to Santa Ponsa where the IE is hosted.

Looby & Rina in the van

Dave drives, Clive sits up front, we have spot quizzes all the way down to Santa Ponsa with Clive asking questions from all the DM theory exams to make sure everything is in our heads.

At this point I have no idea there is room in my head for anything else, I am sure anything that is said now will just rattle around in the empty space between my ears.

Caterpillars, no capillary gauges, your gorgeous! no shut up, argh! my head hurts now.

We get to Santa Ponsa and check in to our hotel for the next two nights, the IE is planned to be Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday morning although there have been rumours that due to only eight to ten candidates the examiner is hoping to finish everybody on the Saturday, no extra pressure on us then to get it all right…

We all attend the IE introduction, Jordi is the examiner and he gives a presentation designed to allow us to relax, he explains all the processes and the scores required.

Jordi then hands out the assignments for the weekend and explains that as per the rumours we will be finishing everything on Saturday. Friday night exams, confined water, open water and knowledge presentations all to be done on Saturday.

Classroom I have planning multilevel dives a question from an OW diver Quiz.
Confined water I have the CESA (my nemesis)
The Short Skills circuit is kit remove and replace underwater, mask remove and replace, reg recovery, something else and guess what CESA again. so not only am I having to demo CESA I have to teach it, I start to get worried.
Open water I have AAS Doner and receive for 30 seconds while stationary & a Sheet bend from a S&R Adventure dive.
You can get some make up’s if you fail first attempt on confined water and in the knowledge presentations, also you can resit one theory exam if required. Open water there are no make ups, but scores must average out above the pass mark (3.4 I think from memory)

If you fail any one section

* Exams (theory and standards)
* Confined Water (teaching and skills circuit)
* Open Water (teaching and rescue demonstrations)
* Knowledge Presentation (prescriptive teaching)

You can come back to another IE and only have to sit the components you failed previously.

Its now about six o’clock on the Friday night, we then get handed various exam papers, Standards first, everybody is doing it at the same time, there are eight of us in total here for this section.

Two of the guys are here for exam resits (I remember a random statistic that Clive told us, 92% of people that fail their first IE fail it on the exams, we are all divers, if we can get through the exams we can all do the diving….)

We get 90 minutes to do the standards exam, its open book, everybody seems to have their books all tabbed with various sticky notes and colour sections apart from me and the two folk using laptops with PDF versions of the manuals.

Woosh the clock starts ticking, 50 questions, 90 minutes. tick tock, tick tock…. I hardly opened my book, I am finished and I’ve only used 25 minutes, I marked a couple I wasn’t sure of, double check, 35 minutes in and I hand my paper to Jordi.

He tells me I can start preparing my teaching presentations while the others finish the standards exam, after ten minutes he comes up to me and shakes my hand, says congratulations 98% pass mark. I go outside and sit around in the sunshine, Michelle and Florian join me, then Laura and Ian and soon enough Dave & Clive are back from the pub, Dave seems to be missing fingernails at this point, I think he is worried about us all. Rod appears and talks to his two guys. Jordi Calls us all back in.

Another ninety minutes and five theory exams, which way does the current go , what pressure, what groups, what levels, this equipment, what tide, What PPO2, if an object displaces etc.

I finish this set of exams just after Michelle, we all head outside again, Jordi calls us back in one at a time, hands get shook, people smile, all six of us from the Scuba Med IDC pass the exams, lots of relieved faces all round.

One of Rod’s Guys fails (Stephen) two exams so no make up, he has do to that whole section again, he looks distraught, we can all feel his pain but are all selfishly relived its not us, the two guys doing resists seem to be happy, one has a make up exam to do the other passes and has completed his IE, he smiles and vanishes into the night.

Now we head back to the hotel, I cant even remember its name, all I know is its up a hill and has a mosaic of dolphins in the pool.

We get some food from the place next door and settle into the lounge of the Hotel, Dave and Clive can’t help us but they can support us from the bar.

Laura is not amused, she has a teaching presentation on diving aware, “don’t just dive, dive aware” Comedy, makes us all laugh anyway, especially as she is such an English rose with her posh southern accent.

I am troubled, I have CESA to teach in confined water, I write my slates up for it and my slates for open water, I prepare my knowledge presentation on selecting the next level for a multilevel dive, I try not to sound perplexed as I expand from “look at the yellow box” to try to make the presentation into an interactive fifteen minutes of teaching, I concentrate and decide to use the large teaching wheel, get some extra wheel manuals and decide to use the maps I brought along as my contact and non diving training aid.

Its about one thirty am now and we all head off to bed for a 7.30am breakfast, we have to be kitted up ready to do our briefings for confined water at 8.30 am on the Saturday morning.

I get some sleep, I wake up, I get some sleep, I wake up, I am up at 5.30am I cant get back to sleep, head is buzzing remembering ” I particularly liked”, “the value”, “In Summary” My head is playing PADI Buzzword bingo to itself, its almost like being in a meeting full of management consultants but with only my head as the active party.

Up for breakfast, we all check out the hotel, get to the van and head off to the indoor pool that is being used for the confined water section.

The stench of chlorine is strong, I cant wait to start breathing off my cylinder, the water looks rancid, Milky white, sun cream rancid, the pool is only twelve metres long but visibility is at most 5 metres.

Jordi watches us assemble our kit in silence (exam conditions), we then all head outside and give briefings to each other with Jordi sitting at a table behind us listening and marking scores, we don’t have a name but a colour and a number (Red 5 is me) that way when ever you do anything he can tell who you are and where his scores go on the slates.

I brief CESA, I explain to Jordi I have brought a measured piece of line and some weights, he says no need and shows me what he will consider to be nine metres in the pool.

We all line up in our numbered order 1-8 (Stephen is One, Ian Two, Rina Three, Mike Four, Me Five, Laura Six, Florian Seven, Michelle Eight - the random things you remember sitting at your pc weeks later…)

Jordi explains we will do the skill circuit in two groups (1-4 then 5-8) no surprise really as visibility is that bad in the pool, we all to do the Skill Circuit, I do CESA easily, I think its because the pool is so murky I don’t have to worry about getting to a point nine metres away, I just do it and realise I am about to hit the wall at the opposite side of the pool..

Michelle, Mike are asked to redo the CESA.

After the skills circuit we all surface and Jordi gives us our scores (I get a four on all five skills which is more than enough to pass) I think Florian and Laura get a couple of fives but mostly everybody gets fours and all eight of us get through to the teaching in confined water round. Some smiles and some pressure off as Jordi decides all the surface skills will be done last.

I want to laugh, Laura couldn’t find her own mask so she got a new Mares Liquid skin in bright pink, its horrendous but we all remind her it suits her dive aware, PADI girl look, she could be straight from a promotional video.

We all submerge into the manky pool again and Jordi starts pointing to each of us one at a time, giving us the signal to be instructors.

Rina is selected as a student by Stephen, he demonstrates the air depletion exercise with Ian, he then does the exercise with Rina, Rina gets her regulator back and looks worried, she gives the OOA signal to Stephen, he turns her air back on….

..One or two folk are told to surface straight after their teaching presentations …. Lots of worried looks between the remaining candidates, we all look at each other, subconsciously asking what’s going on?

When its my turn I move the whole group right around and face them on the opposite wall as I want to be on the inflator hose site of the students should they decide to inflate rather than let expanding air out of their BCD’s.

I ask somebody to be my DM (I cant even remember who at this point), I give the signals as I briefed earlier and I get my DM to watch the students while I demo the CESA. I am bricking it, the pressure is on me here.

Anyway I demo it, I then call out Mike as my student. I stay close to Mike, I have one hand round his front checking for the exhale, I have one hand close to his tank to hold him should I have too, wooooa! I have to stop him, he is going far too fast.

I use the signal for remember, I use the signals to redo the skill and I use the slow signal, we go back to the far side of the pool, I check the students air pressures, I check the DM is OK.

This time Mike slows down, we reach the far end of the pool, I remind Mike what he had done wrong then give him the very visible high five to show my appreciation of him doing the skill, Jordi points for me to surface and tells me to prepare my debrief he goes back with the remaining candidates….

I have no idea how I have done, Florian comes out too, he has to do his debrief, Stephen gets kitted back up and goes back in again, he is having a nightmare, I feel for him he is doing his make up.

Jordi surfaces and gets Florian and I to do our debrief, as soon as I have done it Jordi tells me 4.3 a pass, no make up, pack my kit and get ready for my knowledge presentation. More pressure off.

Once again all six of us from the Scuba Med IDC Family pass this section, Stephen throws the towel in, Ian joins us and we welcome him with friendly smiles.

Poor Clive and Dave (they look like two expectant fathers waiting on the news, I am sure Dave has no fingers left never mind fingernails), only Open water and knowledge presentations to go this afternoon, more than half way through the IE!

Back in the van and head off to the Santa Ponsa Marina and the ZOEA dive centre that is running the boat for the Openwater session this afternoon.

Florian, Michelle & Mike

We get to the marina, get our cylinders all handed in to be filled, Dave takes off to try to find us lunch, we all sit down and start going once again through our teaching presentations and our knowledge development sessions.

After a bite to eat Jordi turns up, Laura gets a five for flirting with a Spanish candidate here to do his open water section again.

We all kit up get on the boat and one at a time give our briefings to Jordi.

He explains we will be in two groups, one group doing rescues and being evaluated by the course directors and one group doing in the water doing teaching presentations with Jordi.

Dive 250: PADI IE Santa Ponsa Mallorca 3rd May 2008 Dive time: 39 minutes Max depth: 6.7 metres.

Laura and I are buddied up, we do a text book giant stride off the boat, everybody comes off the boat, we are all told where to descend. Looby and I do our SORTED routine to descend, ever conscious that the whole event is an exam.

We find Jordi settled on the sand, and settle into a row, Jordi gives us signals one at a time to be Instructor, Ian is first he selects me to be his student, I have to do a part mask flood and clear, Jordi points over Ian’s back and tells me to do a full flood instead.

I am so nervous I do the full flood, Ian reminds me to do a part flood, I do a part flood but clear it badly (bloody hood and mask and gloves and nerves more than anything else) this is not going well, Jordi had warned us on the boat that we must do everything perfectly apart from the fault he gives us and here I am struggling to clear my mask, first student to do skills too.

Eventually after four or five attempts Ian congratulates me on doing the skill well enough, Jordi cuts that short and gets Ian to move on to his second skill. Then its Mikes Turn, Mike gets Ian to demonstrate a hover (Ian is in a drysuit with a buddy air2 as his BCD inflater) I think eek not a good choice, but hey it simulates real life and peoples kit choices.

I watch as Mike deals with Ian fault of over inflation (as prescribed by Jordi) I also note that Ian’s right calf has bubbles streaming from it (if your reading this you may have a drysuit leak) .

My turn to be Instructor, I get to do AAS stationary and a sheet bend, nothing bad, Mike tries to donate his primary I spot it quickly and get him to go donate his octopus while he uses his primary. For the sheet bend my student tied the wrong knot, I showed them the right knot and got them to do the skill again.

Rina’s turn she has got Fin Pivot, she gets Laura to do it, Jordi Instructs Laura to over inflate her BCD, Rina is slow Laura goes up, Rina grabs her they both go to the surface. They both return with Rina holding Laura’s hand, Rina get Laura to do the skill again, she then does her second skill.

One of the Spanish guys gets picked by Florian to do the bowline and recovery of an anchor to neutral buoyancy using a lift bag, it goes well, perfectly neutral and well tied knots.

Jordi sent us away buddy pair at a time to go do the rescue evaluations.

Rod evaluates Laura and my own rescues, we get back on the boat and dekit.
Everybody gets back on board and we start heading back to the harbour.

Jordi asks us all to give him our debriefs, I do this “I particaulary liked the way……”, Florian does it “However , remember to do such and such” , Mike Does “the value is…” , Ian too, we all pass this section some relief on our faces. I score a 4.0 and a 4.0, Laura gets her debrief she scores a 5.0 (perfect!), Rina gets her debrief done so does Michelle, Rina is crying, Michelle is now crying and so is Laura.

Three woman all crying and I didnt say anything and Clive was quiet at the back of the boat, so it wasnt him, what’s going on?

We get back to the Shore, Dave is waiting on us, he sees the girls all crying, I still have no idea what is going on.

We start getting the kit off the boat, I manage to find out Rina failed this section for Student safety, Michelle passed but she had been given a talking to about the amount of time it took her to find somewhere to tie her CESA line too and Laura passed too but blamed herself for what happened with Rina..

Rina keeps herself to herself, Dave gives her a hug and tells her to keep herself together so she can do the knowledge development and that means she will only have to sit the Open water section again at another IE.

We all stick together and are called into the classroom for the final component of the IE…

Everything runs smoothly in the classroom, we all teach and interact, I hear the phrases from everybody “key points, take notes, highlight, ask questions, in summary”, everybody manages a non diving contact, Ian used his crocs (bad man!)

Mike manages to use a mobile phone and a digital camera as his contacts(he uses my mobile) so we even manage to get a photograph of us during the Knowledge Development section.

Front Row: Michelle & Laura
Middle Row: Myself & Florian
Back Row: Jordi Attenza (PADI Instructor Examiner)

Jordi gives us our scores as we each finish, its agonising waiting on all the others finishing as Florian can hardly hold himself in his seat, he just wants to bounce around and go get a cigarette.

We all pass this section (4.6 I think I score).

That’s it all over, the IE is done and dusted, Jordi writes up the paperwork for everybody we have a nice presentation of the certificates by Clive, Dave & Rod.

From the Six candidates from the IDC hosted by Scuba Med, five of us are now qualified as OWSI’s and Rina has to go back and do one section. (I believe she has been in open water over the last few days practising and is flying to Alicante on the 16th of May for her remake IE.)

Good luck Rina!

I can’t thank Dave, Jan and Clive enough for all the effort and genuine care they put into running the IDC and supporting us at the IE.

Now onwards to the world..

..Oh I got pretty drunk on Sunday night at the BBQ and Dave had a nice skirt and blouse on.

On the Monday I Chilled and on the Tuesday we did our EFRI Courses with Rod.

Just again…

What does IE Stand for?

IT’S EASY!

Left to Right: Dave, Me, Florian, Michelle,Laura, Mike & Clive.

If you are thinking of doing an IDC & IE then remember to contact Dave at Scuba Med for his all inclusive prices.

Continuing on from the AI section of the IDC

The OWSI Section of an IDC is delivered by a Course Director, in our case Clive Albon (CD#59733).

Clive, Florian & Michelle

Laura and Pika have a flat warming party this is where we all meet Clive as Dave had picked him up straight from the airport, I have another early night and had only lemonade at the party.

Clive took over where Dave left off, going through the presentations from the Candidate workbook, drilling us continually for knowledge reviews and taking the micro teaching further with the sessions on prescriptive teaching.

We where each given two prescriptive teaching topics to do in class, two open water subjects to teach and two confined water teaching subjects.

Clive took us to the lovely heated pool again and went through the complete skill circuit again, Clive made me redo CESA a good few times as usual it was my weakest skill to demonstrate, I really do not like CESA (after a few attempts at CESA I eventually scored 90 overall, which was a relief).

We then done our first confined water teaching presentations, I cant remember which one I had but it was one of the timed ones for sixty seconds, I had Florian and Mike (Mike put the AAS in upside down and I didn’t even spot it at first) both do it but I failed to time it correctly and scored a overall one due to not meeting standards (one of the breathing from an Alternative Air Source skills - stationary for 30 seconds), a harsh blow for my confidence however I would rather score a one on the IDC than at the IE. Must remember as an Instructor demonstrating the skill you don’t need to do it for the time but the students must do it.

Clive then went through alternative ways to demo the unresponsive diver on the bottom and the unresponsive diver on the surface, we all had a few attempts at these with varying degrees of success, even more off putting when people are counting in Swiss and Austrian as I try to concentrate on my own counts.

Back to the classroom to do our prescriptive teaching using each other as students (we eat all of Dave’s precious Yorkie chocolate now).

I write this from memory so may have missed bits out…

Prescriptive Teaching: Laura, Rina, Michelle, Me & Florian

Introduction (Tell them what your going to tell them): Contact (something non diving), Topic, Value, relevance to student, relate to local diving, relate to actual diving. “Turn to page…. highlight, take notes ask questions”

Body (tell them it): Key points, Teach subject matter from manuals, slides or official material, use training aids (more points scored for non diving training aid, use maps to illustrate planning i.e dive tables - interact with the students) Sell a related continuing education programme (remember to tell them availability, how many dives and how long it will take) and some dive gear (i.e a computer).

“In Summary” (the magic words, tell them what you told them) : Key points, value, check they got it, relate to actual dive they will do so give value to what they are learning, sell the con ed and the kit.

Dave told me to chill a bit, Clive said I was manic, they both said they have never had to tell somebody to slow down and try not to sell so much stuff before…….

Anyway I scored well enough 4.4, good enough to get to and pass the IE.

Another couple of days of Presentations, knowledge reviews & evening study, knot tying sessions and with Clive going over everything making sure we all learned, learned and learned.

At a few points there where some clashes of personalities between Clive and us, it was obvious he wanted us to pass and wanted us performing well but sometimes he just rubbed us up a bit the wrong way.

If I didn’t know better I would have thought that during the ethical standards presentations he even took joy in showing us that there is no mention of an instructor being polite and courteous …..

Back to the lovley warm pool for more rescue practice and more confined water teaching presentations, this time everything goes smoothly for me and I score a five (maximum points)

We do another Prescriptive teaching session and this time I score a 4.8 (Roving diver survey technique), so I start feeling good about this IE thing coming up soon.

Out to open water for a couple of dives, the Open water teaching presentations and an adventure dive workshop.

Dive 248: Can Picafort Marina Wall, 30-4-2008 Max Depth 7 Metres Dive Time 35 Minutes.

I gave my briefings on the mask partial flood and the Search and Recovery, two two half hitches knot exercise I had.

In we all go, taking turns at being DM, Instructor or students, (why did I write DM first? maybe its still the most important role to me…) helping each other out by not making things hard for each other is about all we can do.

Typically Clive gave the students errors to put into the skills and you have to spot them, stop them, make sure the student is no no danger especially from buoyancy and air skills, are they blowing bubbles, are they putting too much air in, have they spat the regulator out. Watch for this one at strange times, hover with no reg in anybody? Mask remove and replace with reg spat out, oh boy but these things will all happen in real life, is the alternate air source the right way up?

Florian seems to have forget he is meant to be getting one of us to rig the lifting bag and make the anchor neutrally buoyant, no he is just having fun…. comedy.

It gets cold in 17oC water sitting about watching people do skills…

After a short surface interval we head under again for our Adventure dive workshop dive.

Dive 249: Can Picafort Marina Wall, 30-4-2008 Max Depth 7 Metres Dive Time 20 Minutes.

Utilising the roving diver survey technique and with fish slates and blank slates for marking up the rough numbers we had split into buddy teams, Rina and I see some fish, mark them up, continue round the small rocks and reef marking down what we see. The Buddy teams all meet up at the bottom of the buoy line after twenty minutes and Florian unties the buoy, we all swim back to shore.

Back to the Esperanza and the Scuba Med Dive Centre , we do our debriefs and Clive tells me I scored well in my open water teaching presentations, I think a 4.5 and a 4.3 but cant in truth remember.

The Pricing workshop is interesting and makes me worried that I dont think I would ever be able to afford to do this on my own, I do need to find some friendly dive centres back home to work with otherwise the overheads would be far too much.

We go over more Presentations and knowledge reviews, sit the theory exams, I pass them all but once again scrape the Physics and Physiology ones with 75% and a 82%, the others are all 92%+, technically they should all be 100% but I blame the warm weather, long hours and lack of alcohol, Ive been here nearly ten days and havent been out on a session once, hey I must be taking this seriously……

….Its Thursday the IE starts tomorrow (Friday May 3rd) and the IDC is finished, time to rectify that non drinking situation…

We all head out via the donner king for a kebab (poor Mike, he hasn’t had a kebab in his life now ten days with us lot and he has had three…. I hate to think what his poor partner will think when he gets home with a kebab addiction, watch out for a kebab van at 8 acre lake!) A few beers at Cafe Pris, the Red Lion to watch the Kareoke and then off to Charly’s for some games of pool and a giggle downstairs at the dance floor, I stumble from Charly’s around 3am heading for the Flamenco..

It was good to see the Alexei (The RSM), Luchi, Patric, Stuchy, KitKat and a few more of last years faces out and about, I do like Can Picafort, its a fun wee place.

Friday Morning the IDC is over but we take the opportunity to do the new PADI Emergency Oxygen Provider Speciality Instructor course.

Lots of fun, we finally, I think, all bond with Clive and realise that he does actually care very much that we do well, we call each other ambulances, all do the skills for the O2, we go through the instructor course for it including the marketing and pricing workshops and its actually a nice course, the books for it have got great illustrations and nice snippets of information.

Friday evening we all pack the van full of everything we can find (I mean everything! plastic fish, staples, giant wheels, drysuits, bottles full of sand, dive gear, cylinders etc etc, the kitchen sink…. to go to Santa Ponsa for the IE.

Well, records are being set left, right and centre today. Less than a couple of hours ago I reported on the police giving a lighter and cigarette to a suicidal man covered in kerosene in Nagoya, reaching new heights of ineptitude. I predicted that the media would drop the story within a few days but I didn’t realise it would just be under 24 hours from the initial event happening (and it then took a while to be reported) and it being deemed not important enough to be shown on any of the front pages of the Japanese online news sites. Looks like a man who robbed a convenience store and then went straight to the police and repented is much more important than this event.

Forget about the police facilitating suicides, Japan. Your government is in full control. You are free to do as we tell you…

Finally, it was funny to see that the police have been unable to determine whether the man was trying to kill himself or whether it was just an accident. Hmmm… to the layman or anyone who dabbles in psychology, it might seem that a person that douses themselves in kerosene and gets out a lighter trying to kill themselves before arrest, who refuses to change their clothes after arrest and then asks the police for a lighter and cigarettes during interrogation might want to kill themselves. But I’m sure the police know what they are doing. Just a thought, can you imagine a conversation when this guy returned home from work to his wife/parents:

Wife/mother: “Welcome home. How was work today?”

Policeman: “So so… not too eventful really. I did give a pack of cigarettes and a lighter to a man who was covered in kerosene and who then proceeded to set himself on fire and kill himself in the police station. Apart from that nothing of note”

Wife/mother: “…”

OK - let me just set the scene here and find out your response to the situation. You are a police officer and arrive at a Nagoya house to arrest a man on suspicion of assaulting a female housemate/partner. As you arrive at the house, you see the man walking out of the house carrying an 18-litre can of kerosene. He walks down the road and douses himself in the liquid on 3 separate occasions, using around 5 litres. You make no attempt to stop him doing this as you are a reasonably inept officer to start with. You do take action when the man gets out a lighter and threatens to kill himself. You wrestle the lighter off the man, he is arrested and refuses to change clothes before being taken into full custody. So off to the police station he goes and into the interrogation room. Again, the man refused to change his clothes at the police station and says he just wants to go on. Now, as questioning is about to start in the small interrogation room, the suspect asks if he can smoke. So, here is the dilemma. Do you:

a) Point out the clearly marked no smoking signs all around the police station, and tell him that it is just not possible.

b) Take into account the man is covered with a highly flammable liquid, and was suicidal before his arrest, meaning any naked flames could turn him into a human fireball.

c) Accept his request and hand the man a lighter and pack of cigarettes, regardless of signs and safety. You then choose to leave the room, leaving the man alone with the cigarettes and lighter for 15 minutes.

Now, if you chose option 3 then please take yourself outside and give yourself a sever beating. To be honest, with that kind of mentality you deserved it. Of course, option “b” would be the obvious answer with answer “a” as a side-point. So now that we’ve deduced what you should do, let me ask you what you think the Japanese police did…

I decided earlier in the year to try my hand at gaining instuctor certification so decided it was time to once again head back to Mallorca and Can Picafort with Scuba Med Divers

I flew to Palma from Bristol on the 24th of April. Dave picked me up at the airport and we headed straight to the Esperanza Hotel , where the IDC was being held.

The Esperanza Beach

I hadn’t even unpacked or been to my accommodation and I was in a classroom going through a few of the presentations from the AI components of the IDC.

The classroom at the Esperanza dive centre is large enough for the six students and has a whiteboard, laptop with large external LCD screen and tea, coffee making facilities along with a fridge to keep some cold drinks and fruit of the chocolate kind in.

This wasn’t going to be a holiday and I wasn’t going to get any rest, that much was clear from the start. I was introduced to Mike, Florian and Rina, I said hi to my friends from last season Laura and Michelle.

After a couple of presentations and a course orientation it was off to the pool to practice Skill circuits.

I get a cylinder, some weights a bcd and some regs from the kit room, the kit room is small but well organised.

Its good to see Alix again too as she takes Rina and I off to the central pool.

The Esperanza is a great location, its got a nice heated pool, a good supermarket and good value for money restaurants should you decide to buy a cooked meal.

I assemble my kit, a silent demo quality kit assembly while Alix watches and I remember to clip a snorkel onto my mask strap! (something I will need to get used to when doing teaching dives when I pass the IE)

Bloody hell, this is where I start to remember how rusty I am with demonstration quality skills, Alix runs through the demos with Rina and I, I start remembering and the only one I really struggle with is CESA.

CESA is not something I was ever taught, I only really picked it up last year doing my DM Internship, so it was never ingrained into me from the start.

We finish the skill circuit and head back to the classroom, Alix gives Dave the OK and I am pleasantly surprised I wasn’t as rusty as I thought I was.

Another presentation from the AI section and then off to the Hostel.

I along with a few of the others are staying at the Flamenco Hostel in Can Picafort, near the marina, its very basic but clean enough and friendly enough (Accommodation in a tourist class room to myself with breakfast supplied worked out at 270 Euros for the twelve nights) .

During my stay I actually ended up moving between three different rooms at the Flamenco each with a decent seaside view over the beach and the marina, one room had a separate bathroom down the hallway but apart from that all reasonably sized and similar.

The next few days where all a blur, basically lots of pool skill circuits (me always struggling to demo CESA), classroom presentations then being shown how to micro teach PADI style and how to do the confined water and open water teaching presentations.

Dave worked me hard to bring me up to speed with everybody else who had started the IDC a couple of days before me.

I was being scored quite well and I even managed 100% on the AI Standards exam and only used 30 minutes to do it.

This was feeling good especially after the hard time I had on Fundies the previous weekend.

Dave asked if I fancied having some extra practice at the other exams so I gave them a go and managed to pass them all aswell (just with regards to physics and physiology, I needed to get some more studying in prior to the OWSI section of the IDC and the IE should I be signed off to go to it).

The only open water dives that are part of the IDC AI Component are the open water teaching presentations we all had to do.

Before the dives we all gave our briefings to each other role playing students, Divemasters and instructors.

Dive 247: 26/04/2008 The Bridge, Bonaire, Mallorca - Water Temp: 17oC Max Depth: 7.9 Metres Dive Time: 54 Minutes.

MI: Dave Campling

AI Candidates: Rina Houston, Michelle Sigron, Florian Aufhammer, Mike Mudryk (Mike recently acquired 8 Acre lake an inland dive site near Huddersfield) & Myself.

5mm Suit, hood & gloves and believe me for doing these teaching presentations that was just about warm enough, you do tend to sit around a lot negatively buoyant on the bottom when being involved or not in everybodys presentations.

I was given full mask flood and hover to do in open water and essentially I had to make sure the candidate doing the skill was safe and they completed the skill to meet performance requirements.

There was loads of jellyfish and they upset Michelle a bit, a demon she would have to deal with herself.

Somebody took the mask off and somebody did a fin pivot instead of a hover but overall not to shabby, mistakes spotted and corrected.

After the Skills presentations we had a wee ten minute fin around looking at the scenery then back to the shore and debrief time.

The next day Clive the Course Director would arrive and we would all start the OWSI section of the IDC together….

Ressel is kind of the usual first dive, as it is relatively easy to get the gear to the cave, and as we had planned to do some more chunky dives later in the week, it is good just to check the conditions and get into the cave diving mindset again. We took short body scooters and a stage of 32% and went round the shallow circuit a few times, taking a look down the shaft to the shallow circuit, whilst the other guys did a couple of dives going first one route and then the other. The conditions looked good, although the river was very high, and we reckoned that a couple of days it would be perfect, so after a pleasant enough day we went back to the dive centre to prepare for Monday and Trou madame.

Trou Madame is my favourite cave really, as it is just so hard to get the gear up and down the rockfall/river that the prettyness of the cave is really a sight for sore eyes! We arrived first and started to get our gear together when we were joined by four vans full of czech cave trainees and instructors, so this looked like it might be a challenging day. If we had arrived ten minutes later we would have probably decided to go somewhere else but we were committed now so we decided to dive. We wanted to go to the end of the line which is 1.8 KM or so, but at a shallow depth, ranging from 2mtrs to 22mtrs deep. Our plan was three stages and a magnum scooter each, towing a standard body for a backup. Needless to say this took quite some time getting all the gear up to the cave and after all the lifting and carrying we had a bite to eat. Andy, Owen and Matt went in first and we started to get ready ourselves. In the meanwhile three Austrian/Swiss divers had turned up and they also went in. The water level was the highest I had ever seen it and this provided an extra challenge when it was time for us to go in. As we were just about to get in the czechs started exiting, closely followed by Andy and co as Andy had suffered a primary light failure so they exited early. Bob and I managed to fight our way through all the divers, collecting our scooters, stages etc. whilst underwater. There was no space above the water to chat or plan or confirm anything. We basically needed to sort everything out with divers coming to and fro. After a little while we got underway and settled down. The magnums are slow to turn (understatement of the year) and combined with three nitrox stage bottles it was taking a little longer than normal to settle in and get comfortable. the depth changes are all between 2 and 6 mtrs for the first part of the dive which tends to complicate things even further. Anyway we got to around 250 mtrs or so in the cave and we came across the Austrians coming the other way. Bob went through and I was following, when BAM! One of my valves explodes and all I hear is bubbles. My first reaction is to flash Bob, as I immediately close my right valve and go to the line. It doesn’t look like Bob has seen my flashing, and the bubbles are still going, so I go to isolate and find a hand already turning my isolator, as one of the Austrians has jumped in to help (nice guy :o) ) Then the bubbles stopped and the guy asks if I am OK. I am unconcerned really as I was breathing a stage bottle so just signalled an OK, and then Bob appeared, as it seems he had seen my flashing but had thought it was the guys we were passing, before turning around and coming to see what was up (turning round with a magnum and towing a standard isn’t easy ) Bob got the Austrians to continue their exit and then passed me my scooter thinking I was just tangled in the line. I told him that my valves were shagged (technical term) and he checked, turning my posts back on, or so I thought. After a quick check I got him to check the left post and then he found the problem was that my back up reg hose had burst, something I had never experienced before, and called the dive. We headed back for the 8 minutes or so it takes to travel 250 mtrs on a scooter and I got out to check my gear. I had spare hoses with me but the failure had cost me around 50 bar of backgas so we decided to call it a day and do the dive tomorrow, leaving as much of the gear as possible at the cave entrance so we didn’t have to carry it back again. Interesting day, and it just shows that turning your right post off first is a load of bollox! (just kidding ) although I have to say that when experienced for real, I didn’t find it easy to identify the post, but whilst visualising the incident after the occasion, I ‘knew’ it was the left post, but still went to close the right, so that is something to be aware of should it ever happen again.

After yesterdays Trou Madame dive we had changed our plan slightly, by using standard bodies as main scooters and a short body as backup, feeling that would get us better speed at the cost of less burn time. I also decided to only run one stage on my left at a time, the remaining two on a leash, so I wouldn’t be affected so much by the heavy stage bottles. The Austrians had turned up for another day at Trou Madame as the conditions are so good and as we had less gear to carry up the river, everything was going smoothly. Only 9 divers were diving Trou Madame today :o). As before Bob and I started getting kitted up in the water. Whilst going to clip my longhose off after switching to my first stage bottle I found a reg with no clip, which turned out to be my backup reg. The necklace had decided to break. Instead of getting out I decided to see if I could fix it there and then and managed to take it off and find that one of the knots had come loose since getting in the water. Luckily I was able to retie it (3mm gloves you see ;o) ) and we could get underway. This time the going was a lot better. The standard was better to handle with the changes of direction and bouyancy shifts and the stages didn’t create so much drag on the left side so I was more comfortable and hence faster. After 40 mins we dropped the first stage and the scooter, and as it happens this was about the limit of sensible scootering anyway as there is a steep slop and a few tight spots before us which would have been a pain to scooter through. Having dropped my stage and scooter, all ready to go, Bob signals he has a problem, which turns out to be his buckle on his waste band having come undone. In the middle of my chortles of laughter I find his crotch strap for him and he gets dressed properly, before starting our swim. The two stages then last us about one hour, during which we travelled some distance, enjoying the best cave features you will ever see. There are scalloped sections, smooth sections, shallow sections where the bubbles cause ripples on the surface and reflect your light in a very cool way, even a section that looks like some great Mr Whippy cone and you seem to swim right round it only to find another section . We get to where Greg Roach and Renato left their line arrows on their long dive last year, and then continue on, until Bob calls it, at 1 hr 45 mins, just as I can see the line heading up which is what is supposed to happen at the end of the cave. I reckon we where only a few minutes away, but never mind. It just means we have to do it all again next year :o) ) Swimming back was a bit quicker, as I was leading, and I always like to see that first dropped stage bottle, so that I know I am on the way home. Picking the stage bottle was done whilst we were swimming, and then we headed for the scooters. Its a bit slower here as we have to pick up the stage, switch to it, and then pick up the scooter, and then head for home. What a difference it makes with light stage bottles, we were able to relax and have a great scooter ride back, with the usual race from about 400 mtrs (which I won this year :o) ) Overall, a great dive, and we learned a few more things about scootering and stages.

Today we decided to go and do a Ressel dive to check out the conditions. The plan was to swim in on a 50% bottle, go onto backgas when that reached 150 bar or when we reached the shaft, then do a short swim in the deep section for 15 mins or so, before heading back and doing a relatively short deco, with a bit of o2 at the end. We would then do a 2 stage scooter dive in the afternoon. Unfortunately this wasn’t going to happen. I forgot to mention that on Monday, it rained all day, and then continued all night. This rain had now decided to come out of ressel at a phenomenal rate. We fought our way in for about 10 minutes before deciding to give it up. I have never seen Ressel like it, it was like Ginnie but with not a lot to grab hold of, and I was swimming in with a stage of mix, a stage of 50%, and twin 18’s, which was a killer. We had a plan to go quite far in Ressel, maybe even as far as the end of the first sump, but sometimes the cave has other ideas, so we adjourned until next time.

After fighting with Ressel we decided to go to Truffe, which was reported to be very good, and it is a cave I have never dived. I wasn’t disappointed. Whereas the time I had visited with Al and Fraser the water was very low, this time we had a full size entry pool, complete with Blue water! Entering the cave is done through a couple of restrictions, one a large rock and the other an overhang, where you need to push through the gravel with your tanks on the ceiling. On entering the cave you are greeted with a passage which looks like Ginnies gallery, indeed, you could quite easily think this is a less travelled version. The large passge then steadily gets smaller until you reach a 2 mtr section which is the first sump. crossing this section then leads to the second sump which is very squirrelly and small where sometimes you need to tuck in you elbows and fin very gently to avoid hitting anything. At the end of the second sump it goes to air and you can then walk a ways and go diving again. We didn’t do this as that seems like a bit too much like hard work, and headed back. Very nice dive and well recommended.

Today we decided to go to Landenouse. We knew Ressel was out so we decided to take the short body scooters for 20 mins and then take two stages to see where we could get to. Landenouse is a cave which eventually goes to around 80 mtrs but as we were using 32% for today we would just go to our max depth. All in all it was a pleasant dive. The scootering was easy enough and as we had decided to drop the scooters and the stages seperately it was also a bit slicker. After around 30 minutes swimming we reached 34.5 mtrs and the line was still going deeper so I called the dive and we headed for home for a total dive time of 90-100 mins. We have never really explored Landenouse much before but it is a very nice cave. There is a nice switchback and some nice features in this cave. Its on the list to explore a bit further next time, with some trimix stages.

Our final day was a little more leisurely with a quick trip to Truffe to play around with a camera and see if we could get anything decent, which we couldn’t (due the lack of suitably handsome models, as I was behind the lens :o) ) but my aim next time is to get a better stills setup and capture some of these pretty cool environments.

The long drive back was… well…. very long.

Some advice on PvP, unless you’re in battlegrounds don’t start with mages… a mage with half he’s mind intact can and will kill you fast and hard. Other caster tipes should prove a bit more easy but take care fear is bad!!! Warriors… luck is all that this is about… stun them… stun them to death… otherwise you’re as good as dead. This also goes for paladins, if you don’t he’ll outlast you. As for other classes… well I don’t know these are the ones I duelled with so far.
Related Topics:

• PREPARATION BUILD
• SWORD BUILDS
• DAGGER BUILDS
• Rogue Guide- part 3 (The End)
• Rogue Items

]]> http://littleworldfire.thedeepstop.com/2008/05/12/hello-world/ http://littleworldfire.thedeepstop.com/2008/05/12/hello-world/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 05:25:07 +0000

Welcome to Thedeepstop.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Fundies as this course is known has been written up and reported on many times now, you can read about it on many websites including yorkshire-divers and direxplorers.

Fundies is well documented and its easy to see what it consists of over at GUE.com

What are the biggest differences between GUE and other diver training agencies?

Well most of you will know about these but some of my friends may not even have heard of GUE, so here are the headlines…

• Dive in teams of three not Buddy teams of two.
• Air is not a GUE Diving gas.
• Smokers may not hold GUE Certification.
• Mandated equipment configuration.

So here we go….this is my own abridged blog from my experience.

April 18-21st GUE Fundamentals Location: Somerset (Vobster Quay) Instructor: Clare Gledhill

This is not a Macho course, its a fun training course which has high standards to gain accreditation.

You are shown new ways of doing skills that you can learn via other agencies or via other methods, sometimes I think Tech courses are written up as if they are all macho i.e “I was given an out of gas and a primary light failure, life depends on blah blah” well in my opinion Fundies is nothing like that, here is just one small example..

During other training I have had my gas turned off and my mask taken off me unexpectedly when doing dives.

During GUE Fundamentals the instructor or support diver didn’t touch any of my life support kit ever, they pointed at me and gave me they signal to donate gas or to turn my torch off and even when having to do the no mask swim, I took my mask off myself, my buddy led me by holding onto to me (real technical divers call this touch contact) and the instructor stayed close by us in case anything should go wrong, so you see the emphasis is on fundamentals and safety.

Is that what I thought before I went along, no way, I was scared senseless of being beasted by these underwater dive God’s.

I learned lots that weekend thanks to Alistair and Clare and the one thing above all else I learned was that
The most important piece of kit a GUE diver takes in the water is his buddies or in GUE speak, “the team”.

So what did we do….

• Pool session incorporating a swim test and back kick, helicopter turn instruction
• Four training dives
• Approx ten hours of lectures
• Approx five hours of academic exercises
• Approx 3 hours of video review & feedback
• Experience Dive
• Debrief

Skill Demonstrations

• Valve Drill
• Back Kick
• SMB Deployment

I met Jim, Mack, Dave, Alistair and Clare thanks to everybody for making this a brilliant course, well ran and good friendly people even the Vobster Underwater Wraith*…..

We learned that rule six may be to look good at all times but rule seven is never to look structured in a council swimming pool.

Post dive video assessments are brilliant, they really do show you when you got it right and when you got it oh ever so badly wrong.

I found it hard to maintain the high standard of buoyancy control and I found it impossible to perform the valve drill, it probably wasn’t a good a idea in retrospect turning up to a training course wearing a drysuit with drygloves that I had only used for two little fun dives, however at least the suit and me got a good work out.

After Dave and I completed our experience dive we even had a chance to have one extra chill out dive with no fear of the VUW coming near us.

So in all I managed a Total of six FUNDIvES and well to be honest, I managed to scrape a Provisional pass (Not needing any further instruction just lots of practice & a re-evaluation dive).

I basically failed to maintain the correct levels of buoyancy and I also failed miserable to do my Valve Shutdown drills, lets face it in all honesty who else is mad enough to go on a training course wearing a suit they have only just got and only managed to dive twice prior to the course…….

The Backick is interesting and will be a nice skill to master and I have started putting it into practice although I have found I tend to go upwards and backwards causing a silt cloud.

*Vobster Underwater Wraith - is some sort of ghost like diver that has a red overlay on a DUI suit and sweeps in unseen and unfelt to switch off primary lights.

 *This is a blog from last summer i didn’t post at the time as it wasn’t finished, but I might as well now*

After a slighly stressful week C & I got the chance to join a bunch of friends for a couple of dives off Celtic Cat.  The weather was pretty terrible, with some wind arriving, the temperature dropping and the rain coming in heavy showers.  Still, the sea was flat and the reports of good visibility from the earlier dives that we had missed had us excited.

The first questio was did we want to dive a kown wreck, or try and find a wreck off Lizard Point that had sunk on a reef in the late 1800’s and was difficult to find.  Having never dived off the south of Lizard Point and expecting the best viz on the flood tide comingup to HW slack I was all too keen to agree with the wreck-nuts..except for me it was the reef that sounded promising!

On station nicely in time the shot was dropped and showed very little current running.  We kitted up and dropped in.  Immediately it was apparent that we were “on the viz”.  The shotline stretched down below and we could see the first divers in a good 15 metres or more below us.  Flying down the shot the reef came into view.  It was large, rounded rocks, with sheer-sided gullies, floored with white sand between.  Lying almost next to the shot, convinced he was invisible was a small turbot.  Completely reliant on his camouflage pattern he stayed stock-still whilst I photographed him.  Being able to get up close to a fish like this is always a real buzz.  You get to examine the way they are put together, and just how amazing the patterns formed by their scales are.

Okay, so I have been rather slack for the last 9 months over adding to this blog, but I promise to make an effort from now on.  To summarise, the bits that have been missed…….

Trip to the Galapagos Islands for 10 days of liveaboard action, inlcuing 5 days up at Wolf & Darwin.  More sharks than I could ever have hoped for and a whopping 32 whale shark encounters over 6 dives at Darwin, including plenty of “one on one” time.  We then spent another few days kayaking down an Amazonian tributary, just the two of us and two guides.  Camping on the river’s edge, right in the depths of the rainforest and ending up at a brding lodge, only accessible by the river, no electric light or power - brilliant….although I now fully appreciate the Rain bit of rainforest.

 Friday night dives out of Falmouth ran pretty well up to Christmas, but after that the wind seemed to appear every weekend, right up into April, so the dive rate was somewhat down.  This drove us to warmer climes and a week’s diving in Tobago.  We stayed up at Speyside, and whilst the diving was good, it wasn’t mindblowing (I think the Gos has spoilt us) and we did sadly have our cash stolen from our locked hotel room, which was a definite downer on the stay.  Still, shortie diving in 27 degree water can’t help but make you relaxed

 Since then the weekend and Friday night dives have picked up again and we have got a few reallynice dives in over the last 3 weeks - hence I am reinspired to blog.  Watch this space!

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Some advice on PvP, unless you’re in battlegrounds don’t start with mages… a mage with half he’s mind intact can and will kill you fast and hard. Other caster tipes should prove a bit more easy but take care fear is bad!!! Warriors… luck is all that this is about… stun them… stun them to death… otherwise you’re as good as dead. This also goes for paladins, if you don’t he’ll outlast you. As for other classes… well I don’t know these are the ones I duelled with so far.
Related Topics:

• Wrath of the Lich King: Utgarde Keep
• Vashna’s Guide to Rogue PvP (Part 3)
• Rogue Race Choices
• Rogue Guide- part 3 (The End)
• Rogue Abilities- I

]]> http://soldave.thedeepstop.com/2008/05/09/typhoons-starting-already/ http://soldave.thedeepstop.com/2008/05/09/typhoons-starting-already/#comments Fri, 09 May 2008 00:08:45 +0000 soldave http://soldave.thedeepstop.com/2008/05/09/typhoons-starting-already/

First of all, a chilling reminder about the power of typhoons/cyclones/hurricanes has been all too evident in Burma this week. 22,000 dead and a potential death toll of over 100,000 has really hit home the power of Mother Nature. Incidentally, a pop quiz for you here: cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes… what is the difference? Will give the answer at the end of this post.

Well, 2 months before the season is scheduled to start, it looks like the first typhoon of the season is heading Japan’s way. Typhoon Rammasun is curling northward in the Pacific and will reach winds of 115kts. This typhoon is highly unlikely to make landfall either in Okinawa or mainland Japan, but this could signal the start of a very busy year for typhoons. Could do without that as I have only recently replaced the wind deflectors off my car following the big typhoon last year! That, combined with a weather front approaching from the west of Okinawa unfortunately means that I reckon no diving will be on the cards this weekend. It would be possible to dive tomorrow I think, but work commitments mean that I won’t be able to get into the water.

Managed to get a dive in last week though at Maeda Misaki. Dived with Brian and a diver I certified last year. The dive was fun and the weather was beautiful (as it is today; can’t see any clouds out of the window and just a slight breeze keeping the edge off the heat). Was good to get into the water again and wanted to continue the trend again this weekend but it looks like it won’t be happening.

Today is a very special event at my school, or so my students tell me. As I was leaving work yesterday a group of them ran up to me shouting, “Sensei! Tomorrow EU is coming!”. Yes, I was as confused as you readers probably are. I enquired a little more and it appears that our school was chosen for something or other, and as part of it some guy from Sweden is going to come to the school and make a speech about Europe and the EU. I sincerely hope he is fluent in Japanese or will use an interpreter as the students’ English can be a little sketchy at times and I imagine their Swedish isn’t much better. The main even is due to kick off in about an hour though so we’ll see what this man has to say.

Just a short update today so here is the answer to that question I posed above. It is all about location, I believe. Typhoons occur in the Pacific Ocean, hurricanes in the Atlantic and cyclones in the Indian Ocean. Simple really!

Expose Armor
Finishing move that exposes the target for 30 sec, reducing armor per combo point.

This ability is most useful as a seal fate Rogue, since you’ll usually have a lot of extra combo points to work with. The armor reduction has a pretty noticeable effect against anything wearing plate, since warrior and paladin defense can mitigate a lot of the Rogue’s damage from backstab and eviscerate. The problem with this move is deciding whether the combo points are more valuable as armor reduction or flat out damage with rupture or eviscerate, or maybe even mitigation through kidney shot. Ultimately it’s very situational and depends on the fight.
Other combat abilities

Gouge
Causes 75 damage, incapacitating the opponent for 4 sec, and turns off your attack. Target must be facing you. Any damage caused will revive the target. Awards 1 combo point.

This move is possibly one of the dagger Rogue’s most important abilities. The stun is guaranteed to last 4 seconds, 5.5 seconds with talents, and provides the Rogue with an opportunity to easily get behind the enemy for a backstab. However, in PVP it has far more utility than to simply guarantee positioning. The gouge can be considered a combo linker, with its improved time you can regenerate 60 energy, more than the cost of the gouge, enabling you to extend your stun lock or damage combos just a little farther. Gouge is also extremely useful to give you breathing room, time to think even, or just a chance to run away out of range. It can even be used just to cancel spell casts or temporarily incapacitate someone when you are fighting 2 enemies. The usefulness of this ability is ultimately up to the creativity of the Rogue. As an added bonus, this attack adds a combo point, which assists greatly in stun lock combos. It’s important to note the 10 second cooldown of this ability, however, so when you time your stun locks or whatever you use it for make sure you allow the stun to linger at least long enough to have it back up when you’ll next need it.

Kick
A quick kick that injures a single foe for 80 damage. It also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 5 sec.

An incredibly useful tool against casters, kick gives the Rogue another counter against timed casts by being able to cancel it outright for a minimal energy cost. Kick not only cancels the spell being cast but also makes it so that all spells of that school are instantly set to a 5 second cool down. What this means that, if you kick a mage casting a fireball he will be unable to cast any fire spell for 5 seconds. However, he will still be able to cast ice and arcane spells. Similarly with priests, you may kick cancel a shadow spell only to find them still capable of casting a heal. Be weary of casters with offensive spells from multiple schools, particularly mages and warlocks because some players who are acquainted with the Rogue’s abilities may try to trick you by casting a different spell, allowing you to kick them, and then casting from the school they want. Even trickier druids and shaman will occasionally cast their hearthstone, pretending to be casting a nature spell.

Blade Flurry
Increases attack speed by 20%, in addition, attacks strike an additional nearby opponent. Lasts 15 sec.

This attack is another defining characteristic of the combat Rogue, as it can only be obtained through a talent high up in the combat tree. With its low cool down, this ability will find considerable use both in PVP and PVE since it will effectively double your total damage output for 15 seconds, albeit spread out between 2 targets. While that might seem to be more a PVE advantage, the effect will be extremely noticeable in group PVP situations where the enemies usually have significantly less hit points. Ideally you should pair this ability with your most damaging combos so that the total damage is also dealt to the additional target.

Adrenaline Rush
Increases your energy regeneration rate by 100% for 15 sec.

The 31 point talent for the combat tree, this ability provides huge ability use potential for 15 seconds. Essentially the 20 energy tick becomes a 40 energy tick, which plainly means you can sinister strike once every tick without running out of energy. The important thing to keep in mind about this ability is that any energy tick over your maximum is wasted energy, so it’s important to keep your energy at 60 or lower throughout the duration of this ability. Do this either through damage abilities like sinister strike or various stuns and DOTs. This ability simply provides the Rogue with the means to “go nuts” with his abilities, which is where a lot of creativity will come into play.

Feint
Performs a feint, causing no damage but lowering your threat by a large amount, making the enemy less likely to attack you.

First off, it should be stated that this ability only has an effect in PVE combat. So if you have a preferred hot bar setup for PVP this ability doesn’t belong on it. What this ability does is permanently lower your threat by a set amount. This means that once used the monster is more likely to drop aggro on you in favor of someone else, or will be less likely to aggro you in the first place. However, this ability can be blocked or dodged just like any other, in which case if you were relying on this threat reduction you may need to ease your damage output to prevent getting aggro.
“Cooldown” Abilities

Blind
Blinds the target, causing it to wander at 40% of move speed disoriented for up to 10 sec. Any damage caused will remove the effect.

This ability is extremely useful for avoiding close calls, with the downside that it requires a somewhat expensive reagent. Blind has a 10 yard range so its use can vary from either giving yourself time to bandage yourself or extending a stun lock combo, to keeping an enemy from running away. The ability has the chance to break early, so you should be careful when relying on it for a timed cast like bandage or applying poisons, or even waiting to go out of combat to re-stealth.

Evasion
The Rogue’s dodge chance will increase by 50% for 15 sec.

This is the Rogue’s foremost defense against other Rogues and warriors, with an interesting exception. Warriors have an ability called overpower that allows them a guaranteed hit when their opponent dodges. Some have a talent for overpower that increases its critical rate by 50%. What this means is, against warriors dodge may make it easier for them to beat you. Some say that it’s better to use evasion and only get hit by overpower. It’s extremely situational as to whether this ability should be used against a warrior. Against a Rogue however, it’s an extremely good defense if you are at a disadvantage. Against enhancement specced shaman and paladins this ability is a relatively good form of mitigation, although both are capable of keeping you busy until the effect wears off.

Sprint
Increases the Rogue’s movement speed by 70% for 15 seconds. Does not break stealth.

This move does not necessarily see its only use in combat. Sprint can be handy whenever you need a burst of speed. From just running from place to place to jumping across gaps, when you need a speed boost spring does the trick. Its uses in combat are many, as the Rogue has no other real way to close distance fast the way warriors do, and obviously ranged classes are in no desire to be in melee proximity. Be warned, when you have a slowing affect debuff it will slow your sprint speed too, so you may be better off waiting it out.

Vanish
Allows the Rogue to vanish from sight, entering an improved stealth mode for 10 sec. Also breaks movement impairing effects.

One of the Rogue’s signature abilities, this move allows the Rogue to re-enter stealth while in combat. Once vanish is used the Rogue is in an improved stealth for 10 seconds, which makes it harder than normal for enemies to see the Rogue than in normal stealth. This ability will also protect the Rogue against incoming spells, if done fast enough. The major weakness of the vanish ability is the susceptibility to DOT effects, as any damage done while in stealth will bring the Rogue out. For PVP purposes, vanishing effectively removes the Rogue from combat, allowing him to use another opener against his opponent. A Rogue specced for the preparation ability is capable of using an opener against his opponent 3 times in one fight. The first opener from stealth, to start the fight, the second after their first vanish, and the third from using preparation and vanishing again. It is for this reason that a preparation Rogue played properly is capable of beating any class one on one. Of course, one on one encounters can be somewhat rare on a populated server. In PVE this ability is supposed to remove you from combat temporarily, clearing all of the Rogue’s threat. However, at the moment the ability does not remove the Rogue from combat in raid instances. It is unknown whether this is a bug or intended.
Related Topics:

• Wrath of the Lich King: Utgarde Keep
• PREPARATION BUILD
• Rogue Abilities- II
• The Rogue in PVE Combat
• Wrath of the Lich King: Utgarde Keep

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