- Messages
- 2,580
- Reaction score
- 87
Crowley's Blog
- Thread starter Crowley
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
OP
I did push it one time with the cold thing. Well - several times actually but only once professionally and my nose - hmmm - exploded.
Big bright, red chunks of - er - something. The Sergeant Major fish were very pleased, even if the idea of fish eating my nose explosion is somewhat disgusting. Having said that, most fish do not leave the water to visit the lavatory and some other fish live in the proverbial u-bend of the aquatic realm and swallow any and all nutritious fish-poo that happens to have been propelled in their direction. Some fish survive on the explosion of nutrients that follows the grand coral spawnings and that is *illegal* in some countries.
Anybody who's ever met me would know that my musical preferences gravitate to tuneful '80s big hair metal. It's like looking at trees and saying " oooh, leaves!"
Cheers,
C.
Big bright, red chunks of - er - something. The Sergeant Major fish were very pleased, even if the idea of fish eating my nose explosion is somewhat disgusting. Having said that, most fish do not leave the water to visit the lavatory and some other fish live in the proverbial u-bend of the aquatic realm and swallow any and all nutritious fish-poo that happens to have been propelled in their direction. Some fish survive on the explosion of nutrients that follows the grand coral spawnings and that is *illegal* in some countries.
Anybody who's ever met me would know that my musical preferences gravitate to tuneful '80s big hair metal. It's like looking at trees and saying " oooh, leaves!"
Cheers,
C.
OP
Another double post, sorry.
SoccerJeni
Scuba Baby
Fun 
My post here is me subscribing to reading about your life. I'm excited to read your stories. I liked reading about what happened with the sharks and the revolution.
If I come visit you to dive, I will bring you some good wine. Wine = yum
My post here is me subscribing to reading about your life. I'm excited to read your stories. I liked reading about what happened with the sharks and the revolution.
If I come visit you to dive, I will bring you some good wine. Wine = yum
OP
I'm very glad you enjoy them!
If you bring the wine, my preference is for Spanish red Rioja.... Definitely = yum!
C.
If you bring the wine, my preference is for Spanish red Rioja.... Definitely = yum!
C.
CheddarChick
Contributor
Now if I remember correctly..Your favorite drink was...anything....
OP
awww CheddarChicky give me some credit - I was forced to drink Polar in the absence of any kind of other beer worth drinking. One advantage to living in Curaçao, however, was the most excellent wine freshly imported from Chile and available inexpensively
The minty green rum... hmmm well that's another story.
C.
The minty green rum... hmmm well that's another story.
C.
CheddarChick
Contributor
I seem to remember Gin & Tonics & Bloody Mary's
OP
That was Jeffie's doing...!
OP
If you have ever dived in Sharm El Sheikh, there is a high probability you have dived at Shark and Yolanda Reef, and there is a significant possibility that you have also experienced the - hmmm - entertaining currents there.
For the non-initiated, Shark and Yolanda Reef comprises a series of three large pinnacles close to the main reef plate at the very southern tip of the Sinai peninsula - in order from north east to south west: Shark , with its magnificent, sheer wall that drops off to around 750 metres, followed by a short plateau from which looms Yolanda, the largest of the three (named after the ship that struck her and sank in 1980) and then the small but not insignificant baby Yolanda, or Satellite, around which most of the debris from the wreckage is strewn.The wreck itself was tied to the reef for a time but she broke free in a storm and slid down the reef and today lies with the bow somewhere around 70 metres and the stern around 180 I believe, but she left an impressive array of porcelain-based sanitation equipment behind in the form of toilets and bathtubs destined for their final resting place in the newly constructed hotels of the fledgling Red Sea Riviera.
The reef is stunning - easily the best dive from Sharm if not the entire Sinai peninsula and ranks high on the list of top dive sites on the planet. Yes, because it is so great it is also very popular and it can suck mightily when a long succession of ignorant coral stompers gets in the way of your dive group, but when you get it just right, and the snappers and the trevallies and the batfish and the unicorn fish are schooling - all together - you really are in for one of the best dives of your life.
I dive there probably twice a week when I am guiding, and I never get bored of it and today, although the conditions were for sure not the best, it was still awesome. And yes, there was the posse of of divers from two other dive centres fighting the entire Red Sea as I drifted gently by in the other direction making a lazy signal to the effect of "current is running that way, *snicker*". There's Mr. Freshly-Baked-Open-Water-Diver (who should not be there in the first place) on the verge of panic and his insta-buddy, Mr. Tricked-Out-DIR-Diver, who is doing it right in terms of trim and technique, but in regards to the direction he is swimming, could not actually be doing it much more wrong.
Now - back to those of you who have been here. Some of you will know how hard the current can pump you around the outside of Shark and, if you're not careful, waaaaaay the smeg out of Dodge and off into the Blue, from whence I promise ye shall not return. At least not on that dive, anyway.
Actually, with a modicum of brains and a little bit of patience, even when the current is howling it's not such a difficult dive but part of that lies in making an accurate current check prior to jumping. At any given time of day, the whole of the Red Sea is trying to either get close to, or move away from, what is effectively a small wedge of sandstone stuck in a hosepipe of colossal proportions. It would make sense therefore, to know which way it's going.
The use of tide charts applies to a very limited number of dive sites because even during a falling tide (north to south), the currents for the reefs in the straits of Tiran, for example, can still be running south to north due to giant whirlpooling effects of deep sea currents being forced through a very small gap - Jackson reef being a great example - the north eastern saddle between Jackson and Laguna is very narrow and only 70 metres deep in places. Next time you take a bath, swish the water around a bit and see which direction the water is moving as it bounces off your rubber ducky, and then multiply it by a billion and add an almost permanent wind running south down the Gulf of Aqaba and your maps and your charts and your GPS and your internet predictions... and the guide book... mean nothing.
Quite simply, you have to jump in and check.
I see many dive guides following the standard procedure outlined in the most popular guide book here, which says to jump here and finish there - but if the current is running in the wrong direction, you jump here and also potentially finish your dive in the same place (or half a kilometre out to sea, in some cases), and never get a chance to see those famous underwater lavatories, because you ate all your air fighting a current that would have pushed you around the dive site in 30 minutes, if you'd jumped at the right end of it in the first place.
At some dive sites, the current check is pretty easy - it's either going one way or the other, or is so small it doesn't matter, but for other sites- those with points on the edges of bays (and everywhere in Tiran) there are splits and swirls and the occasional washing machine and whilst they are rarely un-manageble, they can be very hard work if you get it wrong. I have aborted dives after being stuck between strong opposing currents on the island reefs in Tiran only to watch a guide from another centre jump his group at the same place I am aborting...! Go figure!
In the worst case scenario, being unable to manage the current could prove dangerous.
As a guide, I have to be honest, it's impossible to get it right 100% of the time - if the fish are all swimming like crazy to stay in the same place then you can't fail, but when they are milling about aimlessly doing fish things and with no particular direction then it could go one way or the other half way through a dive. I've screwed up a few times, but only because I misread the direction or misjudged the strength of a current during a check, not because I jumped the group without bothering to do one.
If you've ever followed a guide through a current that is quite needlessly running in the wrong direction, ask why.
Cheers
C.
For the non-initiated, Shark and Yolanda Reef comprises a series of three large pinnacles close to the main reef plate at the very southern tip of the Sinai peninsula - in order from north east to south west: Shark , with its magnificent, sheer wall that drops off to around 750 metres, followed by a short plateau from which looms Yolanda, the largest of the three (named after the ship that struck her and sank in 1980) and then the small but not insignificant baby Yolanda, or Satellite, around which most of the debris from the wreckage is strewn.The wreck itself was tied to the reef for a time but she broke free in a storm and slid down the reef and today lies with the bow somewhere around 70 metres and the stern around 180 I believe, but she left an impressive array of porcelain-based sanitation equipment behind in the form of toilets and bathtubs destined for their final resting place in the newly constructed hotels of the fledgling Red Sea Riviera.
The reef is stunning - easily the best dive from Sharm if not the entire Sinai peninsula and ranks high on the list of top dive sites on the planet. Yes, because it is so great it is also very popular and it can suck mightily when a long succession of ignorant coral stompers gets in the way of your dive group, but when you get it just right, and the snappers and the trevallies and the batfish and the unicorn fish are schooling - all together - you really are in for one of the best dives of your life.
I dive there probably twice a week when I am guiding, and I never get bored of it and today, although the conditions were for sure not the best, it was still awesome. And yes, there was the posse of of divers from two other dive centres fighting the entire Red Sea as I drifted gently by in the other direction making a lazy signal to the effect of "current is running that way, *snicker*". There's Mr. Freshly-Baked-Open-Water-Diver (who should not be there in the first place) on the verge of panic and his insta-buddy, Mr. Tricked-Out-DIR-Diver, who is doing it right in terms of trim and technique, but in regards to the direction he is swimming, could not actually be doing it much more wrong.
Now - back to those of you who have been here. Some of you will know how hard the current can pump you around the outside of Shark and, if you're not careful, waaaaaay the smeg out of Dodge and off into the Blue, from whence I promise ye shall not return. At least not on that dive, anyway.
Actually, with a modicum of brains and a little bit of patience, even when the current is howling it's not such a difficult dive but part of that lies in making an accurate current check prior to jumping. At any given time of day, the whole of the Red Sea is trying to either get close to, or move away from, what is effectively a small wedge of sandstone stuck in a hosepipe of colossal proportions. It would make sense therefore, to know which way it's going.
The use of tide charts applies to a very limited number of dive sites because even during a falling tide (north to south), the currents for the reefs in the straits of Tiran, for example, can still be running south to north due to giant whirlpooling effects of deep sea currents being forced through a very small gap - Jackson reef being a great example - the north eastern saddle between Jackson and Laguna is very narrow and only 70 metres deep in places. Next time you take a bath, swish the water around a bit and see which direction the water is moving as it bounces off your rubber ducky, and then multiply it by a billion and add an almost permanent wind running south down the Gulf of Aqaba and your maps and your charts and your GPS and your internet predictions... and the guide book... mean nothing.
Quite simply, you have to jump in and check.
I see many dive guides following the standard procedure outlined in the most popular guide book here, which says to jump here and finish there - but if the current is running in the wrong direction, you jump here and also potentially finish your dive in the same place (or half a kilometre out to sea, in some cases), and never get a chance to see those famous underwater lavatories, because you ate all your air fighting a current that would have pushed you around the dive site in 30 minutes, if you'd jumped at the right end of it in the first place.
At some dive sites, the current check is pretty easy - it's either going one way or the other, or is so small it doesn't matter, but for other sites- those with points on the edges of bays (and everywhere in Tiran) there are splits and swirls and the occasional washing machine and whilst they are rarely un-manageble, they can be very hard work if you get it wrong. I have aborted dives after being stuck between strong opposing currents on the island reefs in Tiran only to watch a guide from another centre jump his group at the same place I am aborting...! Go figure!
In the worst case scenario, being unable to manage the current could prove dangerous.
As a guide, I have to be honest, it's impossible to get it right 100% of the time - if the fish are all swimming like crazy to stay in the same place then you can't fail, but when they are milling about aimlessly doing fish things and with no particular direction then it could go one way or the other half way through a dive. I've screwed up a few times, but only because I misread the direction or misjudged the strength of a current during a check, not because I jumped the group without bothering to do one.
If you've ever followed a guide through a current that is quite needlessly running in the wrong direction, ask why.
Cheers
C.
Similar threads
