Alicatt
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Posts posted by Alicatt
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Going through my late Uncle's photographs I cam a cross one of a favourite dive site of mine. This is just south of Wick on the north east coast of Scotland, the water there is about 22m at it's deepest and there are lots of interesting bits of old cars laying around on the bottom, including the engine and gearbox of a Willys Jeep that was dumped there at the end of WW2. But the pic shows what the locals call Scorrie Island (Seagull Island) there is a tunnel through from the seaward side and is navigable by a small boat, water is about 10 to 15m deep in the tunnel and is a nice feeling to dive through it from one end to the other.
Out of pic to the left (north) is another cave with a curtain waterfall covering the entrance, I could get my 16ft boat back into the cave for about 60m or 70m, it is full of sea birds and they don't half make a noise when you enter the cave.
Round the headland to the right of the pic lies the SS Rein, a Norwegian steamer that ran aground and sank in the 1930s, at low tide you can stand on the top of the boiler with your head out the water :)
Came across notes my friend David D. and I made when researching the Rein to go dive on her.
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First landing ... At least I could walk away from it :)
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was in the Cubs and the Scouts until I was about 14 when I left and joined the Air Training Corps as I wanted to be a pilot in the RAF.
My mother was also in the Scouts, when she retired from them she was County Commissioner for Caithness, that was in the mid 70s, she had been in the Scouts from before WW2
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Congrats, they grow up fast, make the most of the time you have with them :)
They soon make you a grand father :D
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Last night on the Around the Verse community video program Zane Bien was waxing lyrical about DCS A-10 through the Oculus Rift DK2 and how he was getting his inspiration from it for designing the HUD and user interface for the ships in Star Citizen.
Starting at 15:11
Alicatt
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PADI certified here.
most memorable dives...hmmm
Wall diving off the coast of Victoria Island British Columbia,Beautiful.First checkout dive for Cert down around 60 ft...panicked...damned near drowned.I lived tho,heheh.
Scallop diving for Scallop with shells the size of dinner plates on the east coast of Nova Scotia(fried them up with garlic and pepper for the girlfriend...she was very gratefull I recall...not sure which was better that or the dive??)
Thinking a SunFish was a Great white shark in Peggy's Cove Nova Scotia (wanna see a diver fly??Don't think I touched the side of the zodiac...when you see a big grey fin pop outta the water ya don't ask questions! felt very silly afterwards,but we laughed our asses off, went back and petted him or her on the nose and looked it the eye) Also did a moonlight night dive there as well where I just sat on the bottom and watched the fish swim by...very cool.
Discovering a tunnel like rock formation again on the east coast Nova Scotia. Called it the "Church Isle" cause it looked like being in a cathedral.
Cavern diving in Florida,the water was like air you almost wanted to breath it...met a Russian Cave diver who had paid for his trip with titanium D rings.He was with the US caveing Team and when you looked at them in contrast It was really kinda funny.The US team all had spiffy new high tech stuff while the russian looked like he just crawled outta the 60's.
My deepest dive to 120 feet for a wreck...dark...cold...loved it.
Ahhhh...memories...I feel like I need to get wet.
Ahh you bring back memories of a great holiday in Nova Scotia, no diving tho :( I was up north around the Grand Mira River and looking at property to buy as a holiday home, but between the black fly and the mosquitos I shelved the idea!
Nice house tho and prices were very good compared with the UK: Victoria Bridge, Grand Mira North.
One thing I did notice was that there were a lot of Micmac with the same family name as me :)
My deepest dive was around 38m (125ft) and that was diving for scallops too, that was how I funded the petrol for the 85hp outboard for my little boat, for a bag weighing about 40kg I would get around £125 (1995), two of us would do that a couple of times a month, it helped pay mooring fees petrol and air fills.
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Lots more pics here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/europeanspaceagency/with/15775658322
Really enjoyed listening in to the livestream, you can watch the recording here http://new.livestream.com/accounts/362/events/3544091
Tomorrow they are having a Google hangout for more info on what has happened over night.
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Yes, I will try this with the Bailong Torch I bought beginning of the year. Could only test it the Baltic this summer in the Finnish and Swedish skär waters. Lake Vättern was quite interesting, but I guess you know... ;)
I took this picture in Motala and even though it was the clearest water we found in the whole Baltic region, the view is still quite limited. But I guess that is due to some gale gusts we had that day...
Huh, since I am a beginner, with little experience I will stick to the calm waters, so I guess Red Sea fits me perfectly... I only experienced slight currents so far, and found it challenging enough to navigate a long the curved reefs. On the second dive I ever made,my instructor and me - since the situation in Egypt was a little "tumbleweed", I had an instructor and guide for myself , so no mass-group-dives- I could watch a sea cow for 2 or 3 minutes and in this situation a current would have definitely got me lost... ;)
Nice picture :)
Couldn't afford a housing for my camera to take it underwater and the little disposable ones, well after 2m the buttons were permanently depressed so you could not operate the shutter release.
Tide Tables were the bible for diving around the coast in northern Scotland, most of the inshore waters were around 10m to 25m then a shelf down to aprox 50m, the majority of the North Sea is quite shallow comparatively.
Night Dives:
It was a club night dive in Wick Bay, we would be going in at Proudfoot close to the sunken SS Isleford ( http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/101904/details/isleford+north+head+wick+bay+north+sea/ )
Going in the surface layer of fresh water from the Wick River brings a layer of brownish peaty water usually only about 25mm thick but when the tide is coming in it can get thicker. Horrible stuff, it's ok going in through and under it but coming back out it coats everything and you really have to wash it all off thoroughly, not just the normal rinsing off of the salt water.
We went in about 70m from the boiler of the Isleford and swam towards it which we soon found. Then following my brothers instructions swam towards where the engine should be, along the way I found a brass plaque
Drawing of the plaque:
Also found some machinery but never found out what it was and never found it again!
After the dive I made enquires about the plaque but drew a blank other than the company made catering equipment.
On a subsequent night dive I found a 15" or 16" shell, hard to tell with all the barnacles on it, it was a solid shot, but still quite scary when I came across it :) there was a lot of ordinance laying around the bottom so we removed ourselves from the area and called the coastguard about it, the clearance divers came along later that summer and did a controlled explosion of material, man it was loud and sent a dirty plume of water a few hundred feet in the air.
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Same here, I coudn´t image how fast the colors fade with the depth and so thought I don´t need a red filter. For the next trip I will definitly get a red filter. I already have a torch now for some times necessary keel inspections while sailing and am really looking forward to the advance open water and night dive courses.
Night diving is fun, make sure you have a compass and be aware if you are diving around a wreck then the iron in it can affect the reading.
I loved to drift dive with the tide along the cliff face of the southern side of Sinclair bay, quite invigorating when you want to stop and you are fighting against a 3kt tide.
Because of the shape of the bay, the tidal flow along the south side was always in the same direction - out to sea on both ebb and flood- so boat cover was always required.
The further north you went the stronger the tide with it reaching an easy 16kt as it flows past John O'Groats, giving you aprox. 15-20 minutes of slack water when you can dive.
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Nearest I got to a shark like creature under water was an encounter with a sleeping dogfish which was a little over 3ft long, I swam up behind it and caught it in my hands...
It is amazing how flexible they are! I had caught it one hand behind the gills and one round the tail.
It wriggled and flexed then tried to bite the hand I had around the tail, it took all my strength to stop it. Then the next question arose - now I have it what do I do with it, my dive buddy was creased up in laughter and his head was in a cloud of bubbles.
I managed to "throw" it away from me as I finned backwards and it swam off out towards the mouth of the bay.
You can find them resting and sleeping in the kelp and seaweed during the day.
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Started diving with a PADI instructor but completed my training with a BSAC club.
Used to dive around the north coast of Scotland, lots of interesting sights there both natural and man-made.
My first ever dive was with my younger brother who had been diving for a few years, this was in the early 70s. I was given a little talk through on and practice with the scuba gear before jumping into the North Sea - no real training at all :) water was crystal clear and about 10m deep, I was diving in a gully between two fingers of rock jutting out into Wick Bay. Finning down to the bottom I found an old WW2 anti ship mine wedged in a crevice in the rocks, half the side of the mine had rotted away and it was an empty shell with seaweed and barnacles growing on it, you could see the horns of the detonators sticking out from the case but they were all covered in barnacles too. Most worryingly was the lobster creel sitting about half a meter from it, thoughts of what could have happened if a creel had hit the mine and set it off, the small creel-boats would not have stood a chance.
It was nearly 20 years later that I had my next opportunity to dive and that was with the PADI instructor, I had enjoyed my first dive and this next dive went flawlessly, we had a few more dives an I started to learn how to do it properly. Dave the PADI instructor moved away from the area and along with a few friends I joined the local sub-aqua club with was affiliated with the British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC) and completed my training as an open water diver.
I have dived on a WW1 German Destroyer, the V81, which had been rescued from the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow in 1919 only to founder in bad weather when under tow to Rosyth, she sank a few km north of Wick under the eye of an old Viking stronghold called Lambaborg ( http://www.caithness.org/caithness/castles/lambaborg/ ) I have stood inside the steam turbines of the ship, the low pressure end is over 2m in diameter and the seabed is strewn with impeller blades from the turbines, I do have one memento of that dive, a deck cap from a pipe:
The entry in my log book!
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Well, not exactly.
2nd - Have a light barrel on that HMG which will decrease your accuracy but lighten the recoil (I think?);
A heavier barrel lessens the felt recoil, it is one of the reasons why match target rifles have a much heavier barrel, but not the only reason.
Carlos Hathcock, US Marine corps sniper, used a modified M2 as a sniper rifle, firing it in single shot with a locked breech, he made his longest kill at 2500 yds.
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Thanks Chris, looking forward to seeing it.Yes we will post a video of the show, just will take a while to process it.The landing bug fix will be in the next DCS patch so I had to get her down slightly differently to make sure she didn't grind to a halt :)
The landing bug has only struck me once, it was like hooking the arrestor wire, but even in normal landings she pulls up very quickly without having to resort to the brakes.
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Are u guys going to post some video?
Enquiring minds would love to see it :)
Please:worthy:
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If it has wings, an engine, and can fly, then I love it :D
Grandson loves the F4U Corsair
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I know I'm going back a few years...mid to late 70s :) when I was an engineer working at Grampian Records
We used Calrec 1000 series mics in the main, which actual model depended on the characteristics of the performance being recorded. If the performer was particularly sibilant then we would use a Neuman U67 mic as it had better sibilance reduction.
But then again in the band I played in we used Shure mics - mainly because we could not afford the Clarecs
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Just make sure your boss doesn't walk in and find 600 full colour pages to a "computer game" lying on the print tray. I would expect a pretty painful disciplinary in the wake of that =p
In reference to my B&W A10C manual - the clarity and contrast of the images is more than good enough to work with. Colour is a luxury - most definitely not a necessity.
I think for 200-300 pages a nice ring bound B5 booklet would be perfect ;)
That is an idea I can get behind, I have the official bound manuals going back to the original limited edition LOMAC.
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That will come with the EFM as it's a restriction we have with the SFM.
Ah ok, understood, thanks.
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Oh look the pedals can move in those ones ;)
It's the only thing I can really fault in the Hawk, is that you don't see the pedals move when you input some rudder, it's not a deal breaker though :)
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EFM purchased :) transaction was correct @ $39.99
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When it didn't work the first time I unzipped the files into a temp folder then moved them across in to the correct folders and ran the activation, it looked like it worked but it had not, it was in having to confirm admin rights to move the files across that gave me the clue as to what was wrong, and after giving 7zip the elevated run it unzipped into the correct folders without a hitch.Hmm okay I think my problem is a bit different thanks anywayWhen I ran the activation again and copy/pasted the key in to the input box it looked the same as the format in which Chris had supplied, on the previous attempt it was pasted into blocks of 4 characters and all though it confirmed, it had not activated.
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I'm having a few problems activating to, do you know what you did to fix it?
I had to give 7z admin rights so it could unzip the files into the proper folders. Then running the activation again it went fine.
I'm running Win7 64 Ult, it requires Administrator rights to place files within the "Program Files" folder.
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After having a couple of problems getting the module to install and activate, I decided not to waste a flight and as the gear would not retract I tried to see how close I could get to the water without crashing. The main gear is well animated and articulated even when touching the water :D
Never managed to get a screenshot tho, but this is close enough!
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You guys know if this document is available anymore, or is it just the bbc2 website blocking foreign IP addresses?
On all the UK tv channels, foreign IP addresses are blocked. Even though I pay a UK tv licence I still cannot get access to the BBC iplayer without using a proxy.
I still have the recording on the DVR, but it is one of those systems that won't allow it to be downloaded, thanks Telenet for disabling the USB port.
When I return home in November or December I plan on picking up a Freesat DVR that will allow me to download the recording to USB etc.
Best bet is to try and use a proxy to mask your IP address
Anyone here scuba certified?
in Chit-Chat
Posted
Yes generally we had great vis, but during the summer the kelp growth really limited how far you could see, my favourite time to dive was February and March, you could get 20 - 30m of vis then, water temp would be around 11c.
What we did have to watch for was the tide...