Our second dive was the Karwella Wreck located off the south coast of the Island near a place called Xatt I-Ahmar (shat la mar). George seemed pretty happy with us as divers and asked how deep we had dived to date (the copilot replied 48m and myself 72m). George smiled and said "ah well, you'll love this afternoons dive. He wasn't wrong.
We then had an hour to kill for lunch so we headed down to the bay thinking this was plenty of time to grab a bite to eat.......how wrong we were. While the laid back and easy going attitude of Gozo is lovely and inviting it can get more than a little frustrating when this infests the local attitude to service and it then take 45minutes to order a pizza, leaving jsut 15 to wolf it down and get back up the hill to the dive centre. Still George was not suprised and was still waiting for us when we got back. But I digress.
The MV Karwella is a ferry that was purposely sunk off hte Xatt L-Ahmar coast as a dive site, and sits close to two other sites whose names I can't remember but were described to us as the "broken up one" and the "really broken up one upside down with propellers". The dive started by crossing a reef at about 16m then the seabed dropped away to about 45m where the Karwella sat. The vis was fantastic and the light even at 40m+ was wonderful.
Great swim through and the highlight has to be swimming across what looks like an old ball room, with the wooden slat floors still in place and the old staircase. Although the co-pilot thought the highlight was the VW Beetle in the rear deck.....had her giggleing in her reg for the rest of the dive.
Nice.
We returned to this site as well later in the week with Dave and 'Cheese and Chicken' Kat and it was just and good then.
Although the highlight of the second dive (and another experience in the learning curve for this newbie rebreather diver) was getting back on to the reef after the dive and upon checking my gas finding I had approximately zero bar of O2 left, give or take a bar. Daves face was a picture when I tapped him on the shoulder, have the single for:
I have a problem
Small one, look at my gauge:
His eyes light up like two saucers and he scrambled for his octopus.......but not to worry, I already had it under control. I breathed the loop down to PPO2 of .25 and then switched to open circuit, which was plenty of time to get across the reef and to the exit point for the dive......whilst chuckling to myself the whole way about the look on Daves face.
Funnily enough Dave didn't leave me to my own devices on the buddy checks for the next few dives, and always took a look at my gauges.........bless.
P.S I always believe in acknowledging stuff "borrowed" from others site. The hand signal images used here are taken from Strobies web page. Thanks Strobie.
P.P.S. Before any rebreather divers start over analysing this story and want to make a huge thing about it, I know the cause, I went in on the dive with about 85 bar of O2 on the gauge and thought this was fine. I suspect that it was in fact much lower but the gauge had stuck. We tested it back at the shop with low pressures and below about 50bar the reading wasn't reliable. Gauge now replaced. And no it wasn't the original AP gauage...yadda yadda yadda.
P.P.P.S. If Steve Gould is reading this, please disregard the whole of this entry, I made it all up and I didn't run out of O2........and I don't need my ar$e kicking for poor kit up drills......and yes, I have learnt my lesson.........Oh crap, I'm dead when he sees me next.
We then had an hour to kill for lunch so we headed down to the bay thinking this was plenty of time to grab a bite to eat.......how wrong we were. While the laid back and easy going attitude of Gozo is lovely and inviting it can get more than a little frustrating when this infests the local attitude to service and it then take 45minutes to order a pizza, leaving jsut 15 to wolf it down and get back up the hill to the dive centre. Still George was not suprised and was still waiting for us when we got back. But I digress.
The MV Karwella is a ferry that was purposely sunk off hte Xatt L-Ahmar coast as a dive site, and sits close to two other sites whose names I can't remember but were described to us as the "broken up one" and the "really broken up one upside down with propellers". The dive started by crossing a reef at about 16m then the seabed dropped away to about 45m where the Karwella sat. The vis was fantastic and the light even at 40m+ was wonderful.
Great swim through and the highlight has to be swimming across what looks like an old ball room, with the wooden slat floors still in place and the old staircase. Although the co-pilot thought the highlight was the VW Beetle in the rear deck.....had her giggleing in her reg for the rest of the dive.
Nice.
We returned to this site as well later in the week with Dave and 'Cheese and Chicken' Kat and it was just and good then.
Although the highlight of the second dive (and another experience in the learning curve for this newbie rebreather diver) was getting back on to the reef after the dive and upon checking my gas finding I had approximately zero bar of O2 left, give or take a bar. Daves face was a picture when I tapped him on the shoulder, have the single for:
I have a problem
Small one, look at my gauge:
His eyes light up like two saucers and he scrambled for his octopus.......but not to worry, I already had it under control. I breathed the loop down to PPO2 of .25 and then switched to open circuit, which was plenty of time to get across the reef and to the exit point for the dive......whilst chuckling to myself the whole way about the look on Daves face.
Funnily enough Dave didn't leave me to my own devices on the buddy checks for the next few dives, and always took a look at my gauges.........bless.
P.S I always believe in acknowledging stuff "borrowed" from others site. The hand signal images used here are taken from Strobies web page. Thanks Strobie.
P.P.S. Before any rebreather divers start over analysing this story and want to make a huge thing about it, I know the cause, I went in on the dive with about 85 bar of O2 on the gauge and thought this was fine. I suspect that it was in fact much lower but the gauge had stuck. We tested it back at the shop with low pressures and below about 50bar the reading wasn't reliable. Gauge now replaced. And no it wasn't the original AP gauage...yadda yadda yadda.
P.P.P.S. If Steve Gould is reading this, please disregard the whole of this entry, I made it all up and I didn't run out of O2........and I don't need my ar$e kicking for poor kit up drills......and yes, I have learnt my lesson.........Oh crap, I'm dead when he sees me next.
3 comments:
Very interesting site! Hope to read more of your scuba diving adventures in here. Now I can see how important hand signals are in the conduct of dives, especially if you're running out of air. Moreover, it pays to have a good look at your scuba equipment prior to the dive.- gary
tee hee hee.
Wait till Mr G hears about flooding the loop ;-)
Yeah yeah "Mr Anonymous" I know who you are!!
I haven't mentioned the loop flood yet, don't go spoiling the surprise.
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