BSAC member A782836/0019

A few weeks ago I joined the Aylesbury Green Park Sub Aqua Club; http://aylesburydivers.org.uk/nuke/index.php

Today is my first training session in the pool! I am going to start learning the rescue techniques that PADI don't teach you until the rescue diver course and I can't wait!

AGPSAC did over 1200 dives this season which means that finally I will get to meet people who want to go diving! That has been the problem to date, my friend Craig who is in some of the photos diving on his re-breather, lives near Darlington, so that distance isn't terribly conducive to getting loads of weekend diving in together. The club will now put me in touch with divers who are happy to head to Stoney Cove and other more exotic locations (!) for a couple of dives on a Saturday - which will be great!

Here's to successful rescues in the pool and no rescues in the open water (fingers crossed!)

St. Abbs - Into the abyss...

St. Abbs - Happy snapper

St. Abbs - Velvet swimming crab hiding under an anemone

St. Abbs - Velvet swimming crab

St. Abbs - Lobster!

New camera kit

I have recently upgraded my camera! Gone is the little IXUS 400 and in comes the Canon Powershot A570IS - yes I have stuck to a compact camera as I hve kept my INON external lenses. All I needed was a new housing and a new lens mount. The cost of my upgrade was about £250 but I managed to recoup £150 of that selling my old kit on eBay!

The PowerShot gives you manual control over the camera which means you can make better use of easy things like manual white balance, ISO speed, as well as using the apature and shutter speeds to control depth of field etc. I have also moved up to 7.2 megapixels from 4 megapixels so I can enlarge my photos and get them on my wall at A4 without loosing quality!

Now all I need is 'the' shot!

So with that in mind, this August Bank Holiday my family & I headed to St. Abbs with my re-breathing friend Craig to chill out and get some dives in...

Red Sea - Sun Silhouette

Red Sea - Diving at Elphinstone reef

Red Sea - Little Bottlenose Dolphins

Red Seqa - Green Turtle and Remora

Red Sea - Clownfish

Stoney Cove - Sleeping!

There are fish in Stoney Cove

Stoney Cove - DANGER! Divers

Stoney Cove - At the wreck

Stoney Cove - At the bus

Adventures of the wet kind

I am a new diver; recently qualified in October last year in the Maldives.

Since then I have invested in the plethora of kit that is required (any sport is always better enjoyed when you have your own kit) and have dived in the Red Sea (lovely) and Stoney Cove in the UK (great fun for a first timer)!

I also enjoy photography, so I thought I would combine these 2 things and see what happened! I have a reasonably old Canon IXUS 4 digital compact camera that I bought a housing for (60m depth rating) and also some external INON lenses (wide angle, macro and fish eye) and finally an external strobe that I have isolated with a fibre optic.

These are my results!