Cave Diving Trip to the Lot, April 2006: Ressel, Landenouse, St George and Trou Madame April 30, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : CaveDiving , 3commentsDive report covering dives in Ressel, Landenouse, Trou Madame, and Fontaine de St George.
At last! After a boring winter with only a few quarry dives we were heading to France to partake of some of the excellent cave diving available in the Lot region. I had travelled down on the Wednesday night to stay at Bob Cooper’s place and managed to arrive just in time to see Rick Huggins and John Kendall at Bob’s local Indian Restaurant to catch up and have a small beer after the three and a half hour drive. We then packed the van ready for the trip. Due to the amount of kit we were taking this time Bob and I had rented a van which was subsequently loaded with two sets of twin 18’s, two sets of twin 12’s, eight AL80’s two 7 Ltr’s and a AL40, two Long body Gavin Scooters and two shorts, as well as all the other dive kit and clothes etc. For a moment we thought we might not fit it all in, but we managed eventually, although the van looked a little low. Rick and John managed to use every inch of space in Ricks Astra van.
(more…)
DAN America and Chamber Operator, SSS, Reach Settlement April 28, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : Decompression, News , 1 comment so farIt appears that DAN members across America can breathe a sigh of relief that they will be able to get treatment from SSS chambers in the event of emergencies, as they and DAN have settled their previous dispute over treatment fees.
Underwater Times report;
Representatives of SSS announced that DAN America insurance is once again accepted as a result of the resolution of the outstanding claims that were the basis for the lawsuit. The terms of the settlement remained confidential. The SSS Network of Recompression Chambers and DAN America have pledged to work closely together to ensure that injured divers will receive the most appropriate and effective medical care.
Cognition research focuses on the tongue April 27, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : Trivia , add a commentI saw this interesting article today at dfw.com. Research and testing is being conducted with the aim of giving military divers similar senses to those of owls, snales, and fish.
A narrow strip of red plastic connects the Brain Port to the tongue, where 144 microelectrodes transmit information through nerve fibers to the brain. Instead of holding and looking at compasses and bulky hand-held sonar devices, the divers can processes the information through their tongues, said Dr. Anil Raj, the project’s lead scientist.
This research has enabled blind people to found doorways, saw people moving in front of them and even caught balls.
23 Killed by Three Bombs in Dahab April 27, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : News, Travel , add a commentThree nearly simultaneous bombings on Monday shattered the evening tranquility of the beachfront promenade in Dahab, killing at least 23 people and wounding more than 60 a day after Osama bin Laden issued a taped warning against Westerners.
From StarNewsOnline;
The explosions – the third terror strike on a Sinai resort in less than two years – hit Dahab at 7:15 p.m. Interior Minister Habib el-Adly said those killed included 20 Egyptians and three foreigners, and that 62 people were wounded.
“There were just three loud bangs and people rushing around,” British tourist Paul McBeath told Sky News. “Everybody is shaken.”
SanDisk Sponsors 2006 Red Sea UnderWater Photography Competition In Israel April 13, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : News, Photography , add a commentIt appears that underwater photographers are starting to attract the major manufacturers. I saw this latest news piece today regarding SanDisk, who manufacture a number of things including memory cards for cameras;
SanDisk Corporation will sponsor the Red Sea International Underwater Photo competition in Eliat, Israel on April 24 – 29. The contest is already attracting photographers from all over the world, representing Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Philippines, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, and the USA.
The participating underwater photographers will have three days to shoot their photographs before the submission deadline. In order to get the best shots, divers usually dive to about 100 feet. The photographers are restricted to only 25 minutes of shooting time per dive due to water pressure and air supply constraints. There is no room for error. Fast read and write speeds with their digital film cards as well as reliable, high capacity storage are needed because while submerged, changing or replacing flash film cards is impossible and every shot taken is critical.
(more…)WikiScuba enhancements make it even easier to use and more useful to scuba divers April 10, 2006
Posted by Andy Carroll in : News, Trivia , add a commentIts been a little while since WikiScuba was created with the aim of becoming the scuba diving encyclopedia all divers could call upon as a research aid, and there have been a few recent improvements which I thought were worth telling people about.
There is now a clever little bookmarklet available, the link to which is on the home page of the site. By right clicking and saving as a bookmark or saving to favourites you are now able to search wikiscuba without going through the trouble of actually visiting the site. Once the bookmark is in place you can click on it and a search box appears into which you can type a search term and the wikiscuba site pops up with the relevant search page. Even cooler is that you can highlight any text on a webpage and then click the bookmark and the wikiscuba site pops up on the search page again! This should prove very useful and convenient for finding information about a certain topic you see on another site.
(more…)Bookmark, Spidge, or Discuss this Article
