SCUBA diving, CMAS
Discussion
To be honest, I can't find the attraction to dive in UK.
It has to be warm water diving.
Last year in Turkey we observed a family of squid.
Prior to this, I always thought squid as horrible things, but after watching them in the sea, they really are quite tame, and amazing.
These ones were a purple brown colour, about 18 inches long.
We were only about 8 meteres down, what a treat.!
It has to be warm water diving.
Last year in Turkey we observed a family of squid.
Prior to this, I always thought squid as horrible things, but after watching them in the sea, they really are quite tame, and amazing.
These ones were a purple brown colour, about 18 inches long.
We were only about 8 meteres down, what a treat.!
Angrybiker said:
Recommend doing the course in the UK completely, for a few reasons:
1. It's colder and visibility is shorter, meaning that when you go to Greece it'll feel really easy; and you'll spend more time enjoying the dive.
2. You won't waste any time on holiday getting qualified
3. The schools in the UK can be very good (especially if you go for a PADI 5 star place). PADI standards are the same worldwide but the teachers here can be a bit better than ones you get on resort.
Thats what I plan to do. 1. It's colder and visibility is shorter, meaning that when you go to Greece it'll feel really easy; and you'll spend more time enjoying the dive.
2. You won't waste any time on holiday getting qualified
3. The schools in the UK can be very good (especially if you go for a PADI 5 star place). PADI standards are the same worldwide but the teachers here can be a bit better than ones you get on resort.
Phud said:
That's good, however we get squid here, and cuttlefish and seal, dolphins.
Happy if you want to dive warm, please don't think you will see anything we don't. We get Mola Mola (sunfish) too, squid yes lots
Happy if you want to dive warm, please don't think you will see anything we don't. We get Mola Mola (sunfish) too, squid yes lots
...*anything* we don't? What, like:
- Anemone fish
- Octopus (mimic, blue ringed, etc)
- Rays (insert variety here, like blue spotted, manta, eagle, etc etc. Discounting Plaice of course which you could classify as a ray but really isn't quite the same thing)
- Sharks (white, black and grey reef, hammerhead, Blue, Thresher, epaulette, lemon, tiger, leopard, bronze whaler etc)
- Batfish
- Angel fish
- pipe fish (incl. ghost, harlequin)
- Pygmy sea horses
- Frog fish
- Leaf fish
- any of thousands of types of nudibranch
- flamboyant cuttlefish
- blue/black ribbon eels
- Cowfish
- Dragonfish
- Flying gunard
- Scorpion fish
- Lion fish
- Stone fish
- Trigger fish
- porcelain crab
- parrot fish
- box crab (and boxer crab)
- blue spotted urchin; fire urchin
- giant clam (like over 1m across)
- wonderpus
- leafy sea dragon
- barracuda
- sail fish
- harlequin shrimp
- etc
- etc
Perhaps when you thought 'warm' you thought just Mediterranean - which is good for beginners but fairly rubbish diving in the grand scheme of things.
UK has a little more than a lot of 'warm water divers' give it credit for, but the cold water and crap vis is a fair enough deterrent, especially considering the truly awesome species you can only see in certain parts of the world. There's a reason that all the underwater photo pros go abroad.
Angrybiker said:
...*anything* we don't? What, like:
- Anemone fish we have wrasse which folow you
- Octopus (mimic, blue ringed, etc) Yes we have then in UK water no blue ringed but they are really small if you have seen them.
- Rays (insert variety here, like blue spotted, manta, eagle, etc etc. Discounting Plaice of course which you could classify as a ray but really isn't quite the same thing) Blond, thornback and otheres no plaie is a fish and not the same.
- Sharks (white, black and grey reef, hammerhead, Blue, Thresher, epaulette, lemon, tiger, leopard, bronze whaler etc) Yes we have sharks, Blue, Basking, threser
- Batfish Bib
- Angel fish generic
- pipe fish (incl. ghost, harlequin) we have pipe fish
- Pygmy sea horses sea horses too
- Frog fish
- Leaf fish
- any of thousands of types of nudibranch So does the UK
- flamboyant cuttlefish
- blue/black ribbon eels
- Cowfish
- Dragonfish
- Flying gunard
- Scorpion fish
- Lion fish
- Stone fish
- Trigger fish
- porcelain crab
- parrot fish
- box crab (and boxer crab)
- blue spotted urchin; fire urchin
- giant clam (like over 1m across)
- wonderpus
- leafy sea dragon
- barracuda
- sail fish
- harlequin shrimp
- etc
- etc
Perhaps when you thought 'warm' you thought just Mediterranean - which is good for beginners but fairly rubbish diving in the grand scheme of things.
UK has a little more than a lot of 'warm water divers' give it credit for, but the cold water and crap vis is a fair enough deterrent, especially considering the truly awesome species you can only see in certain parts of the world. There's a reason that all the underwater photo pros go abroad.
I take you you have a few dives in the UK? If not try Oban, Aberdeen, Orkney and Scillies before you do the normal UK crap viz, I have had crap viz in Africa, Oman, HK and south China sea. Oh yes Ireland too.
As for your list, we have the same diversity around the UK, but I am happy to admit not the seemingly wonderous shapes,
Have you ever played with cuttlefish?
Crawfish? Seal? Leatherback of cardigan bay?
Angrybiker I think you might need to look at a few UK sites to see what life we have.
Are you a PADI instuctor?
Phud said:
No I did not mean that, I meant all warm water.
I take you you have a few dives in the UK? If not try Oban, Aberdeen, Orkney and Scillies before you do the normal UK crap viz, I have had crap viz in Africa, Oman, HK and south China sea. Oh yes Ireland too.
As for your list, we have the same diversity around the UK, but I am happy to admit not the seemingly wonderous shapes,
Have you ever played with cuttlefish?
Crawfish? Seal? Leatherback of cardigan bay?
Angrybiker I think you might need to look at a few UK sites to see what life we have.
Are you a PADI instuctor?
Yep, done fair share of UK diving and yes sometimes the vis is OK. The difference is sometimes the UK vis is good and sometimes warm water vis is crap. I do still have Scapa and Ireland on my list but I've been having way too much fun with the camera in SE Asia.I take you you have a few dives in the UK? If not try Oban, Aberdeen, Orkney and Scillies before you do the normal UK crap viz, I have had crap viz in Africa, Oman, HK and south China sea. Oh yes Ireland too.
As for your list, we have the same diversity around the UK, but I am happy to admit not the seemingly wonderous shapes,
Have you ever played with cuttlefish?
Crawfish? Seal? Leatherback of cardigan bay?
Angrybiker I think you might need to look at a few UK sites to see what life we have.
Are you a PADI instuctor?
Yep, played with cuttlefish. In fact I've actually talked to cuttlefish. The owner of a resort on Bunaken island had some resident ones, learned over the years how to make shapes with her hands and get them to respond, and she taught me. That was awesome.
Yep, been to La Paz in Mexico, if you go around 2nd week of September like I did then you can catch the baby seals getting their first taste of swimming away from their mothers. We did a whole week going back to the same few sites and I could have done 2. they really are the cutest things ever, especially when they steal your bandana from your head and play with it and tease you with it; and when they come and give you some play bites. Awesome as well (but a little inadvisable) is to accidentally get a little too close to the main group and have the massive males make near passes warning you off with ultrasound that shakes your whole body. Unfortunately my wide angle lens decided to completely break its autofocus that week so I have lots of amazing but out of focus and useless shots of that trip. Guess I'll have to go back sometime.
Also chased a 6m wide manta in Thailand - starting at 20 bar pressure at the end of the last dive of the trip - caught up with it and managed to cut it free from a big fishing weight that was wrapped around its tail. Holy cow they are quick. It did some circuits around me after that, I like to think in gratitude, as I gulped the last bit of air from the tank and controlled emergency ascent. Surreal and incredibly moving experience.
Turtles - 10 days in Sipadan - enough said.
Of course done the cliché feeding stingrays at stingray city in Grand Cayman. (there's also one site in Tenerife where you can do that too, if you ever get bored with all the rocks and black urchins that dominate the rest of the diving there)
Been chased off by a nesting titan triggerfish (very scary). chunk taken out of my fin (glad it wasn't out of me!)
Close encounter with Boris the 200kg grouper at Coolidge wreck in Oz, he gave my buddy a massive hicky on his stomach. laughed so hard I flooded my mask. Dead now, poor fish.
Many more treasured memories..
Yeah, PADI instructor. Did some teaching of a weekend years ago. Tons of fun but too busy now.
A question for the enthusiastic UK divers from a 'warm' water diver: Most of my diving experience is in Mexico and Egypt. In both locations, with sea temperatures between 27 and 29 degrees C, I've seen a whole range of temperature tolerance; some people wear board shorts and a t-shirt, whereas others need a 5mm full suit with a hood. In cooler months in Egypt I've even seen dry suits used in 24/25 degree water. My question is how does this translate to UK diving - the person who shivers uncontrollably if he or she tries a 3mm fullsuit in 29 degree water - how would they cope with UK diving? (in a dry suit, obviously!). Or is UK diving only for people who would happily dive in a shortie in 29 deg water?
RobM77 said:
A question for the enthusiastic UK divers from a 'warm' water diver: Most of my diving experience is in Mexico and Egypt. In both locations, with sea temperatures between 27 and 29 degrees C, I've seen a whole range of temperature tolerance; some people wear board shorts and a t-shirt, whereas others need a 5mm full suit with a hood. In cooler months in Egypt I've even seen dry suits used in 24/25 degree water. My question is how does this translate to UK diving - the person who shivers uncontrollably if he or she tries a 3mm fullsuit in 29 degree water - how would they cope with UK diving? (in a dry suit, obviously!). Or is UK diving only for people who would happily dive in a shortie in 29 deg water?
Rob77, now days you can buy drysuits and undersuits which means you sweat all year round, it is how you look after them is the issue.The hood and gloves are the key areas, cold hands, sod diving, so you can get dry gloves, if you want to wear semi dry, then maybe not all year for you.
It all comes down to cost, a good dry suit is quite expensive. And most UK divers are shall we say chubby!!! So we, OK, I, use the blubber covering to stay warm.
Hoods are thicker diving in cold water, this gives a few folks issues, claustrophobia feelings, so your movement on land is not as agile as the red sea.
To answer fully, there is the same range of temp tolerance in dry suits too, some folk wear winter undersuits all year, some just wear a vest.
I am incredibly bias, O'Three dry suits and PBB. Different dry suits have different thermal properties, neoprene and membrane. So no difference.
Cold water diving is for anybody who wants too. Ice diving is for the mad, it's great...
Phud said:
RobM77 said:
A question for the enthusiastic UK divers from a 'warm' water diver: Most of my diving experience is in Mexico and Egypt. In both locations, with sea temperatures between 27 and 29 degrees C, I've seen a whole range of temperature tolerance; some people wear board shorts and a t-shirt, whereas others need a 5mm full suit with a hood. In cooler months in Egypt I've even seen dry suits used in 24/25 degree water. My question is how does this translate to UK diving - the person who shivers uncontrollably if he or she tries a 3mm fullsuit in 29 degree water - how would they cope with UK diving? (in a dry suit, obviously!). Or is UK diving only for people who would happily dive in a shortie in 29 deg water?
Rob77, now days you can buy drysuits and undersuits which means you sweat all year round, it is how you look after them is the issue.The hood and gloves are the key areas, cold hands, sod diving, so you can get dry gloves, if you want to wear semi dry, then maybe not all year for you.
It all comes down to cost, a good dry suit is quite expensive. And most UK divers are shall we say chubby!!! So we, OK, I, use the blubber covering to stay warm.
Hoods are thicker diving in cold water, this gives a few folks issues, claustrophobia feelings, so your movement on land is not as agile as the red sea.
To answer fully, there is the same range of temp tolerance in dry suits too, some folk wear winter undersuits all year, some just wear a vest.
I am incredibly bias, O'Three dry suits and PBB. Different dry suits have different thermal properties, neoprene and membrane. So no difference.
Cold water diving is for anybody who wants too. Ice diving is for the mad, it's great...
Angrybiker said:
Phud said:
RobM77 said:
A question for the enthusiastic UK divers from a 'warm' water diver: Most of my diving experience is in Mexico and Egypt. In both locations, with sea temperatures between 27 and 29 degrees C, I've seen a whole range of temperature tolerance; some people wear board shorts and a t-shirt, whereas others need a 5mm full suit with a hood. In cooler months in Egypt I've even seen dry suits used in 24/25 degree water. My question is how does this translate to UK diving - the person who shivers uncontrollably if he or she tries a 3mm fullsuit in 29 degree water - how would they cope with UK diving? (in a dry suit, obviously!). Or is UK diving only for people who would happily dive in a shortie in 29 deg water?
Rob77, now days you can buy drysuits and undersuits which means you sweat all year round, it is how you look after them is the issue.The hood and gloves are the key areas, cold hands, sod diving, so you can get dry gloves, if you want to wear semi dry, then maybe not all year for you.
It all comes down to cost, a good dry suit is quite expensive. And most UK divers are shall we say chubby!!! So we, OK, I, use the blubber covering to stay warm.
Hoods are thicker diving in cold water, this gives a few folks issues, claustrophobia feelings, so your movement on land is not as agile as the red sea.
To answer fully, there is the same range of temp tolerance in dry suits too, some folk wear winter undersuits all year, some just wear a vest.
I am incredibly bias, O'Three dry suits and PBB. Different dry suits have different thermal properties, neoprene and membrane. So no difference.
Cold water diving is for anybody who wants too. Ice diving is for the mad, it's great...
Rob77
If you want your question answered, I would suggest a trip to O'Three at Portland, yes you need to give them time, however the service and time they will return should answer any question.
I will write it again, I am bias, but in my experience they are the best around and fit all sizes, the under suit is also my under leather winter bike suit.
Not cheap, but my last one managed 11 years so money well spent. Good hoods too.
No this is colour in the UK,
If you want your question answered, I would suggest a trip to O'Three at Portland, yes you need to give them time, however the service and time they will return should answer any question.
I will write it again, I am bias, but in my experience they are the best around and fit all sizes, the under suit is also my under leather winter bike suit.
Not cheap, but my last one managed 11 years so money well spent. Good hoods too.
No this is colour in the UK,
I dive a lot in the UK and a bit overseas.
I can see that people like the easiness, comfort and novelty of diving only in warm water, but you're missing out not diving in the UK.
It's also very expensive to go abroad enough to keep your skill levels up, which diving in the UK allows you to maintain, making overseas diving a bit of a doddle on the whole (obviously a dive to 100M is a challenge anywhere, but I'm really talking about recreational diving - Down to 30-40M).
The assumption that there's nothing to see in UK waters is so very, very wrong!
M
I can see that people like the easiness, comfort and novelty of diving only in warm water, but you're missing out not diving in the UK.
It's also very expensive to go abroad enough to keep your skill levels up, which diving in the UK allows you to maintain, making overseas diving a bit of a doddle on the whole (obviously a dive to 100M is a challenge anywhere, but I'm really talking about recreational diving - Down to 30-40M).
The assumption that there's nothing to see in UK waters is so very, very wrong!
M
Keen diver here - Although my motorbike hobby has taken over more recently.
Some of the best dives i've done have been in the UK - i love wreck diving and the UK coast is littered with gooduns'
Diving is a great sport thats taken me all over the world:
Thailand
Oman
Maldives
Egypt
Bonaire
But i'd still take a Plymouth wreck trip or a couple of days in the Farnes diving with the seals...
Night dives are my favourite, some great sites in Oman and didn't see another boat for a week, hopefully it's still the same.
Some of the best dives i've done have been in the UK - i love wreck diving and the UK coast is littered with gooduns'
Diving is a great sport thats taken me all over the world:
Thailand
Oman
Maldives
Egypt
Bonaire
But i'd still take a Plymouth wreck trip or a couple of days in the Farnes diving with the seals...
Night dives are my favourite, some great sites in Oman and didn't see another boat for a week, hopefully it's still the same.
marcosgt said:
I dive a lot in the UK and a bit overseas.
I can see that people like the easiness, comfort and novelty of diving only in warm water, but you're missing out not diving in the UK.
It's also very expensive to go abroad enough to keep your skill levels up, which diving in the UK allows you to maintain, making overseas diving a bit of a doddle on the whole (obviously a dive to 100M is a challenge anywhere, but I'm really talking about recreational diving - Down to 30-40M).
The assumption that there's nothing to see in UK waters is so very, very wrong!
M
Yeah sure there's lots to see in the UK, but the colder water and the viz (generally) means it's not completely an arbitrary or irrational decision to focus overseas. When I was teaching the vast majority of my students wanted to get their cert just to give them something else to do on a particular holiday. A lot of people don't evolve past that.I can see that people like the easiness, comfort and novelty of diving only in warm water, but you're missing out not diving in the UK.
It's also very expensive to go abroad enough to keep your skill levels up, which diving in the UK allows you to maintain, making overseas diving a bit of a doddle on the whole (obviously a dive to 100M is a challenge anywhere, but I'm really talking about recreational diving - Down to 30-40M).
The assumption that there's nothing to see in UK waters is so very, very wrong!
M
For the more experienced it just depends what you want to get out of diving. As for me, my diving has evolved into primarily photography and you just can't get the pictures that I look for, in the UK; and of a weekend I have lots of other stuff to fill up my time.
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