Tony – Page 75 – Learn to Dive Today Blog

Newsletter: Halloween dive, wrecks and more

Hi everyone

Summer is closing in on us fast and the water is getting warmer, time to dust off your dive gear and get wet. The rays are back at Long Beach, whales are still around for a few weeks and the ocean is waiting for you to visit.

October has been a busy diving month. The trip to Sodwana was awesome and we are thinking about another trip early December or perhaps early January.

I have been lucky to have dived almost every day since the beginning of the month and congratulations to the following people on their certifications:

Open Water

Anna, Belinda, Richard, Gabby, Lorna, Kate

Advanced

Gerard, Justin, Kate, Sophie, Tami

Deep Specialty

Clare

Students at Long Beach — Richard, Belinda, Anna, Kate and Corné at Long Beach

Kate is here from the UK doing the Zero to Hero program with me. She started on the 13th October and has done Open Water, Advanced, and is busy with Nitrox and Rescue. Next week she will start her Divemaster program.

On Saturday I will finish an Open Water course and continue with a Rescue course. Sunday the plan is to dive the sevengill cowsharks and Boulders, perhaps see a penguin underwater.

Saturday we are having a Halloween night dive.

These are the rules:

you must dive in a Halloween theme something or another… use your imagination
you must find treasure… I will hide several prizes during the day at the site we dive
to find them you must… use your imagination!
we will have an egg cracking contest… underwater… where you must crack and remove the shell of a raw egg gently, so the egg stays intact…
coffee and ( ) on the beach afterwards… plus you get to open the treasure you found…

November

I am going to run an Advanced open water course, a Wreck specialty, Night diver specialty, and a Deep diver specialty course during the month of November. Dates are 6th, 13th and 20th. The Deep specialty will qualify you to 40 metres and the Wreck specialty will include wreck penetration for those keen to explore the inside of a sunken ship. Night diver will give you great confidence is low visibility diving conditions.

The Deep and Wreck courses are dependent on boat scheduling and detailed dive planning so book early if you are interested.

Best regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog
Diving is addictive!

Why I teach PADI

I do not profess to having much insight into how other certifying agencies equip their Instructors but I do know how PADI does.

As PADI Instructors we are kept up to date with the latest training information quarterly, and we receive an up dated Instructor’s Manual every year with all changes, alterations and additions to the curriculum. We attend forums where we are given the latest info, what’s new for the year, statistics and on the PADI Pro website there is a host of white paper topics relating to marketing, training and PADI programs, and an endless supply of diving related indemnity forms etc. For every program there is an underwater slate, detailing the requirements for each dive. PADI do ensure that we, as instructors have every bit of information available.

For every program, training course or any aspect of your diving business PADI has made all the info readily available for Instructors. PADI also continues to evolve an often leads the way in improving the training courses.

For example, the PADI Open Water course training materials – crew pack as we commonly know it – originally contained a manual and a dive tables. Today it also contains an electronic dive planner, your own set of DVDs, an amazing log book for all your courses (Open Water, Advanced, Rescue, Specialty courses, and forty odd fun dives), plus loads of information on specialties, and a booklet giving you some insight on the diving options you have. All this in addition to the manual!

Learning to dive in Cape Town with me at Learn to Dive Today means you also get a SURG slate on the common creatures we have here, plus free DAN diving medical cover for the duration of your Open Water course.

SURG Marine Animals of the Cape Peninsula slate

Newsletter: Time to get in the water again…

Hi everyone

I have been enjoying a busy week with a British Zero to Hero candidate, who has just completed her Open Water course and is well into Advanced. Today we did a peak performance buoyancy dive, swimming through hula hoops positioned at different depths. At first Kate collected a lot of hoops on the back of her cylinder, but soon got the hang of it and swam through them like a pro. The weather has been very pleasant, and today at Long Beach we saw lots of puffer fish, box jellies, and a big octopus who was clinging to a piece of kelp and pretending that we couldn’t see him.

Last weekend Long Beach was very festive, with a paddle ski race on Sunday that drew hundreds of cars into the parking area and all the way down the beach. My Open Water students had lots of spectators watching their every move!

Long Beach in Simon's Town is never this busy!

The weather for the weekend is not looking very good, but Long Beach or the Clan Stuart will be suitable for the training dives I need to do for my Open Water and Rescue students. If you would like to tag along as a casual diver on one of these dives (Saturday and/or Sunday) give me a shout and I will let you know times.

If anyone is keen for a night dive on Saturday, let me know – and we will definitely be doing a Halloween night dive next Saturday evening (perhaps even with a pumpkin to tempt the fish…)

Hope to see you in the water soon!

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog
Diving is addictive!

Hydrographic charts

Cape Town has an amazing stretch of coastline. Knowledge of dive sites, beaches and where to dive is greatly enhanced by decent scale hydrographic charts. Besides their value to mariners and the general boating public whereby you have detailed information on what perils lurk below the surface waiting to wrench a piece out of the keel of your boat, they also offer great insight to where you may find interesting dive sites not listed on the “popular” dive site list. All you need to do is sign up for a few of the major dive centre newsletters to see that most of them go to the same places at the same time week after week.

The maps I have are:

SAN 1017, scale 1:10 000, this covers the coast from Kalk Bay Harbour to Fisherman’s Beach
SAN 1016, scale 1:50 000 which covers the entire False Bay area
SAN 1015, scale 1:15000 covering Kommetjie, Hout Bay up to Sandy Bay
SAN 1013, scale 1:36 000 covering the Table Bay area including Robben Island.

My favorite is SAN 1017 as this gives great detail on the areas I dive the most. The area it covers has many dive sites, some undived sites and many less popular sites. Any spot that seems interesting from the road, the dark patches you see from the beach could be kelp, rocky reef or some other manmade item from years gone by. Marine life gathers anywhere it can find even the slightest protection from predators, so a small kelp forest, an old submerged bridge foundation, or a wreck all attract marine life, many species setting up residence.

These maps are published by the SA Navy Hydrographic Office, and can be purchased from Chart World (telephone 021 419 8814) and Charts International (telephone 021 419 7700), both located on the foreshore in Foregate Square at the entrance to the harbour. The full chart catalogue can be found here.

Backward roll

On a boat dive off a rubber duck, all the divers roll backwards into the water at the same time. The skipper stops the boat, counts down, and everyone rolls backwards off the pontoon simultaneously. There are good reasons for the emphasis on doing it at the same time:

if there’s even a slight wind or current, the boat drifts
once divers hit the water, they start drifting too

Even a second’s hesitation can combine with one of the above to have you landing on top of another diver. It may not hurt you, but the diver already in the water is unlikely to be wearing a hard hat to protect them from your cylinder! If you miss the count down for whatever reason, WAIT on the boat. The skipper will bring you around and drop you again when it’s clear.

The alternative – rolling into the water on top of everyone else – will ensure that you don’t get invited back for more boat dives!

Ever wondered what it’s like to do a backward roll? Check out this video I took at the start of a dive on Bikini, Two Mile Reef, in Sodwana.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQr9t8vfFdI&w=540]

Diving as a career

Your final school year is almost over. After 12 years of going to school every day the idea of being free of that regime is a pleasant thought. But… What next? Many people have had their future mapped out for them by their peers and parents. Some however have no clue as to what they want to do. There are so many choices that it is not surprising the number of adolescents that have yet to decide what direction to take. A gap year is an easy solution, but not always affordable and slotting in to the job your parents want for you does not appeal to everyone.

If the outdoors, the ocean and travelling appeal to you then consider becoming a Diving Instructor. Take a year off after school, qualify as a Diving Instructor and then go to university and study something. As a Diving Instructor you will have part time work that is very enjoyable, way more rewarding than waiting on tables and you can work almost anywhere in the world.

Being a diving instructor is very rewarding

There are several centres around the country, in fact around the world, that offer career development courses (so-called Zero to Hero courses that will take you from never having dived right up to Divemaster or Instructor) and some will be free. In this situation you work as free labour in a dive centre and in return they train you. This option does give you a in depth insight to how a dive centre operates, but you run the risk of spending most of your time in a wet room being a slave.

My recommendation is to find a slot whereby you pay for the courses one by one. Avoid paying the entire amount up front as this sure fire way to ensure you have your training drawn out indefinitely. Get a price for all the courses you need, do them one by one and do them with different centres and different instructors if necessary. You will gain immense experience in different setups and your final stretch will be with a Course Director and then you will be set. As soon as you have been certified as a Divemaster you will be able to earn money, leading dives and even conducting some of PADI’s programs such Discover Scuba Diving.

Reach for a Dream

Learn to Dive Today is very proud to be associated with the fundraising efforts of Reach for a Dream.

At the Gala Evening being held tomorrow evening at the Westin Grand Hotel, one Discover Scuba Diving experience and one Open Water course will be auctioned, donated free of charge by Learn to Dive Today.

We look forward to supporting this good cause by doing what we love best!

Newsletter: Sodwana in pictures, diving this week

Hi everyone

Sodwana weekend has come and gone. We stayed at Coral Divers, a large dive camp quite close to the beach. The accommodation was in safari tents and wooden cabins, and the camp site was filled with monkeys who watched our every move – especially during meals! Dives in Sodwana are done via surf launches, so we had to help push the boat into the water, and then jump on before the skipper took us through the waves.

The reef we spent most of the time on, Two Mile, is a short boat ride out, and has the most incredible coral formations and colourful tropical reef fish. We were lucky to see a white tip reef shark on the deep dive. A few of us managed to squeeze a third dive in on Saturday and were lucky to see two huge turtles. We also had about 50 odd devil rays swimming in formation overhead on the last dive on Sunday.

Coral in Sodwana — The reef life is incredibly diverse and colourful

To everyone that made the trip I would like to say thank you. The diving was great, the drive and flights entertaining thanks to our resident clowns and jokers and we all had fun. Congratulations to Gerard, Tami, Sophie and Justin, who are now all pretty much done with the Advanced course and qualified to dive to 30 metres.

Justin and Giraffe set off on their navigation swim

Several awards due here.

Strangest behavior award: Fritz for struggling to adjust to the water in his hair (never dived without a hoodie before)

Musical award: Gerard AKA Giraffe… for singing “how to throw up” songs for the seasick passengers

Where is my weight belt award: Sophie, for forgetting her weight belt every day

Picasso award: Tami, for changing my fin colour to pink seconds before the dive

SMB perfection award: Justin Gootman for sitting at the safety stop with a perfectly inflated and stable SMB on the first attempt.

Best hair band award: Mariaan… for having a hair band wider then her head.

Gaudy wetsuit award: Justin J for the brightest wetsuit on the beach.

First lady of chum award: Clare, however this was closely contested by Tami, Mariaan and Justin G

Group photo on the beach — Group photo with Dean the Divemaster right back, on the left - me the only well behaved one - with Justin, Gerard - no sorry Giraffe - Fritz without a hoodie, Justin in purple being supported by Sophie, Clare, Mariaan and Tami in front.

We will definitely be organising more trips like this in the future, possibly the first week in December so keep an eye on the newsletter for more details.

Diving this weekend

I have an Open Water course running this week with an Australian pair, and a new course starting on Saturday for a Swede, plus three students doing their qualifying dives this weekend. Saturday morning we will slot in a Discover Scuba diving group of three so there is one spot left. Saturday night I will do a night dive if the weather permits.

We will also continue the Rescue course this weekend so if you see me flailing around in the water looking like a panicked diver… It’s practice… Don’t rush in and rescue me unless you have coffee and doughnuts!

Thursday we have a Zero to Hero course starting for a British student. This is a diver doing all the courses from Open water all the way to Divemaster, including sixty dives in 60 days. So you can be sure of finding us diving almost every day to achieve this.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog
Diving is addictive!

Simon’s Town railway repairs

You may be wondering what the railroad repairs have to do with diving. Well, the ocean is an amazing place in that whenever something new is dropped into it permanently, a diverse array of creatures quickly colonise it and make homes.

I followed the sinking of two barges of the coast of the Cape Vidal area a few years back and the wrecks were visited monthly by divers for the purpose of establishing what would find its way there. Several kilometres away from the nearest reef, month by month new species zoned in on these barges and have now made them home.

The repairs to the railroad near Simon’s Town will offer the same opportunity for many creatures. Long sections of narrow sandy beach are being covered with trucked in rocks to protect the rail lines from the sea and there are now several hundred meters of “new” reef area for the ocean’s creatures to find homes.

Railway line between Glencairn and Simon's Town — This section of railway line between Glencairn and Simon's Town is under repair

Once work has been completed I want to dive specific sections monthly and film the changes.

Newsletter: Bye for now…

Hi everyone,

Claremont Virgin Active - note the scuba divers at the end of the pool!

We spent Friday in a 24 degree swimming pool with a bunch of kids aged 8 and up. We were conducting Bubblemaker programs, open to all kids 8 and older and it was amazing how quickly they took to scuba gear. A small 10 litre cylinder looks huge when strapped to an eight year old, but within minutes they had the concept, good buoyancy and were off to explore the pool.

The wind was not kind in False Bay this weekend but we managed to dive with Open Water students on Saturday and Sunday in a calm and pleasant Simon’s Town yacht basin. Saturday afternoon we braved the rough ocean for Rescue diver course and despite the rough surface conditions we had good viz and pleasant diving. Many divers, eager to get wet, braved the wind on Saturday and I reckon there were easily 50 divers in the water.

The Sodwana weekend is here and 10 of us are off for a taste of warmer water and a relaxing long weekend. We leave on Thursday and will be back on Tuesday 12th. Gerard, Tami, Justin and Sophie will return as Advanced divers and Clare will complete her Underwater Navigator speciality. I hope to be armed with lots of humorous stories and many, many incriminating photos. Did you know you can make a fortune selling your friends’ incriminating evidence of them misbehaving purely buy using this statement: “How much will you pay me to keep this photo OFF facebook…?” Hehehe… Very profitable…

I am starting a new Open Water course on Wednesday 13th so I will be in the water every day from Wednesday to Sunday.

I plan to book a boat again for Saturday 16th to visit another wreck in Smitswinkel Bay. We will also simulate a few rescue scenarios on the trip so it will be fun. The last dive we did there was pleasantly rewarded with whales right next to us as we surfaced.

I am keen for a night dive again on Saturday 16th, I have torches and cyalumes. Sunday the 17th we plan to dive at Boulders and see if we can coax a few penguins to pose for us for a photo shoot… Underwater that is…

Be good, have fun, and go diving.

Don’t forget to get your dive permit from a post office.

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog
Diving is addictive!