Choosing the right dive site for the day is the number one way to make or break a day of diving. Every diver out there would probably agree that choosing the best dive site gets easier with experience, but very rarely does anyone explain what to consider in choosing a site. For me there are […]
Technical Diving
Technical diving may include use of Twin Tanks or Sidemount Systems, Rebreathers, Cave or Wreck Diving and the use of mixed gases, Nitrox and Decompression Procedures.
Hollis Prism2 Rebreather
Only last month I mentioned blowing bubbles and then my new Hollis Prism2 Rebreather arrived and my dive course was scheduled for the 18th of June. Before I knew it I was up in Taupo diving without bubbles (except on ascent of course!) Before that could happen however I (the […]
Where’s My Buddy?!
Lost buddy procedure Twelve meters deep, fifteen minutes into a dive and you lose your dive buddy. What do you do? The lost buddy procedure is something that we all learnt as Open Water Divers but does everyone understand what, why, when and how this is done? Wellington’s conditions can be tough, and with limited […]
Enriched Air Nitrox
Although Nitrox has been used inrecreational diving for almost 25 years, it is still often misunderstood. As an instructor, I’ve found myself correcting countless students who are under the impression that Nitrox enables a person to dive deeper than normal air — this is just one of the common misconceptions about Nitrox diving. Although specific […]
Sidemount Diving
Sidemount diving has been around for a long time. It has always been used in the secretive world of the extreme cave and wreck explorers, allowing them to get into tighter restrictions inaccessible to back mounted divers. Nowadays sidemount is becoming popular with open water diving for several reasons. […]
Hollis Explorer Rebreather
Rebreathers are making headway into mainstream diving and the Hollis Explorer is perfectly designed with the recreational diver in mind. The Explorer is an electronic semi-closed rebreather (eSCR) an intelligent hybrid that is compact, lightweight and extremely easy to use. The Explorer is unique in using a single gas blend of 32-40% Nitrox is electronically controlled to […]
PADI Self-Reliant Diver
This Distinctive Specialty is designed for experienced divers who may decide to dive on their own, particularly popular with photographers, or for professional divers, such including Instructors and Divemasters who may not have an assigned buddy capable of assisting them in an emergency. The course focus is preparing the self-reliant diver with dive planning and […]
TecFest 2014 – Tecsploring New Frontiers
Road Trip! Dive HQ Wellington’s first dive was planned the Waikato River – this is an awesome dive starting in town by Cherry Island and finishing down a Reid’s Farm. The river drops away in parts to 15m before rising back to 2m around the islands which makes for some wicked current and eddies. The rock […]
The Mikhail Lermontov
This Russian Cruise ship sunk on the 16th of February 1986 as she tried to take a short cut between a rock and a hard place. The crew tried to reach safety along the beach in Port Gore but the ship settled back down into the bay. Of the 740 passengers and crew aboard only […]
Rebreathers!
On Friday the 10th of May this year I attended the first ever New Zealand TeCFest. By June 30 just seven weeks later I was certified on my own closed circuit rebreather. Claire has asked me to write a few paragraphs about how this all came about so here goes. Prior to TecFest I was […]