Scuba Diving in Manchester

Seal diving in Farne Islands is my favourite diving in UK. If you have not done that yet, you are missing great FUN!! When diving, we, scuba divers, are just visitors normally. Well, it is not the same when seals are around!! When divers jump into the water, they look as "play mates". Do you have black fins for your diving? Well, change them to white or yellow! Something very visible in water. Then it will be 99% sure that they will come to play with your fins! My pink fins did well this time.  Water temp was about 11C. I prefer diving in September/October when the water temperature is still better. When hitting 11C, you want to make sure you have good thermal under suits to let you feel a bit more comfortable.   (pic by Terry W, DM Club) We were a group of 16 divers this time. It was great fun. Boat was very comfortable. I love it when they have a lift. There was not such thing in Malta. When UK divers were talking about "a lift on the boat",...

Malta - Some say "It is the Pearl of Mediterranean"  This small island has a lot to offer to Scuba Divers. You probably know about Malta for the Knights and the Maltese Cross. Whole country is the World Heritage. Mdina Old City, Three Cities, St. Paul's Catacomb, Mnajdra Temple, St.John Co-Cathedral, Casa Rocca Piccola, etc. There are so many places that you love to visit on the islands. How about under the water? Oh yes!! Malta is well known for Wreck divings and rock formations. You may not find many fish like in Red Sea or Indian Ocean, but its crystal clear water is perfect for wreck divings and its photography. Until I started diving in Malta, I was a "Fish" diver. I loved Indian Ocean and tropical water colourful fish like Nemo. Once I started diving in Malta, my idea about Scuba Diving changed forever. They look gorgeous in water!!! Working in Malta as a full time instructor for over 5 years gave me so much joy with Wreck Diving. (picture from DM ...

In old days, dive computers were some options for divers if we used or not when diving. Many divers planned their dives with Diving Tables and dived with Depth Gauge and Dive Watch and executed their dive plans. By doing so, divers could enjoy diving with safety. Thanks to the modern technology. Using Dive Computers is becoming modern standard for Scuba Diving. It may sound luxury equipment, but in fact, it is not really so. There are many types of Dive Computers available in the market at all different price ranges.  Even the cheapest Dive Computer in the market does perfect job for divers, of course. Whatever the brand you choose, they all do the job!! It is still better to get the cheapest one rather than diving without Dive Computer for your own safety. When I did my Discover Scuba Diving, I already had Dive Computer. It was a local regulation and every diver had to have a Dive Computer. If not owning one, you had to rent one. It was quite stric...

When diving in crystal clear water with bright sun light in relatively shallow depth, you may not need to think about Diving Torch unless you plan to go out for Night Dive; however, even in such condition, colours will be lost in water as all divers know. When you find some colourful fish, for example, it will be still beautiful without torch light. With the torch light, it will be even better!! One thing for sure is electric devices and water do not like each other. Scuba Diving Torch has stronger body with good O-rings to avoid water to touch the battery (as you may already know). If you like camping or any outdoor activity in which you want to use torches, I would suggest everyone to get Diving Torch for that reason. I have small hands, so I do not like to have big chunky torch. I love to have smaller handy torch. My husband is not. He likes chunky heavy torch, feeling more "Big Boy" torch. I show you 3 different torches from the same manufacture. Military is a B...

When starting scuba diving, first investment is not so small. First thing is first. You will have to spend some amount for your certification courses in order to start diving. What is next? When I started diving, it was not my plan to begin with. I went to a beautiful island with my X and we both fell in love with the beautiful sea. So we did Discover Scuba Diving and then took the course for Scuba Diver. The turtle was right below us with Open Water Divers but we could not go below for our maximum depth was only 12m. Next thing we planned was to upgrade our certificate to Open Water Diver. So we did. Then we wanted some equipment. The first item we bought was Dive Computers. Why? We had to use computers from Day 1 for the local regulation. For expats like us, Dive Computers were small enough to travel together and we thought it was one of the most important item for our safety. The computer served me well over 500 dives till I get the next one. When I reached n...

When you are diving in water, you are basically visiting the water world where you do not belong. You do not want to disturb marine creatures and they do not want to come too close to us. We keep good distance and enjoy the experience. Some divings; however, are not within this rule.  Seal Diving in UK is one of them.  Unlike most marine creatures, seals are soooooo playful. The moment you meet them (or rather they find you), you become their play mate. Watch the video. You see what I mean. The first time when I dived with Seals in Farne Islands, I could not believe what I was doing. They were coming around me, playing with my fins, letting me touch their bellies or chins like puppies!! I had, by then, over 2000 dives (I'm still logging it, so it is not an estimate number but actual logged dive number) and that was my very first experience to become one of them!! I was sooooo excited!!! I did not want to come out from the water AT ALL!!! It took me ages to finish m...

Stoney Cove Diving Quarry is about 2.5 hour driving for Dive Manchester. It is a bit special occasion for us to go there. We had Advanced Open Water Diver course and Deep Specialty Course. So we took this opportunity to have our DM Club Diving Day.  It was a beautiful day for diving! We love to come to the Stoney Cove for Deep Diving lesson dives. For AOW diver course, we can actually finish in Capernwray; however, it is not quite "deep" enough for the lesson to be honest. Once you are certified as AOW diver, you will be treated as AOW divers who can go down to maximum 30m. As an instructor, I strongly prefer to take the divers to that depth for lesson dives before let them go out to the world unless we have some difficulty to have the dives in deeper dive site. Because all the courses I taught in Malta had easy access to that depth, I never certified divers with Deep diving lesson shallower than 25m. I had some students narked a little bit at that depth. Now, if they d...