Hong Kong info

[John C. Ratliff]

Dear Folks,
I am the operator of Seawiscope and I have the SeawiscopeEY developed. I thank SteveTan for speaking out of his experience with SeawiscopeEY recently in this forum.

Stevetan is a friend of mine, and a fanatic of SeawiscopeEY. Stevetan got a SeawiscopeEY from us some time ago and he has obviously been excited with it. SteveTan has no finance interests in Seawiscope.

I am convinced that writing to this forum is effective to bring attention to concerned persons. Please do write to me if you wish to know more about of our line of products.

Hi,

I would like to start corresponding with you and Steve Tan because I will be in Hong Kong next February. My cousin is getting married, and my wife is from Hong Kong. I have been there many times, but never dived near Hong Kong. So if you could PM me I would appreciate it--may even try out the Seawiscope too.

SeaRat

 

[Seawiscope]

Hi,

I would like to start corresponding with you and Steve Tan because I will be in Hong Kong next February. My cousin is getting married, and my wife is from Hong Kong. I have been there many times, but never dived near Hong Kong. So if you could PM me I would appreciate it--may even try out the Seawiscope too.

SeaRat

Dear John,

Great to learn that you will be coming over to HK. Feb is too cold to dive with wetsuit (and I have yet tried a dry one !). There will be hardly any diving boat going out in HK in this season.

Day trekking (or rather walking) is however a great activity here. HK is small, and small enough to have sea and land activities readily accessible. A good day of walking, followed with a big dinner and lots of drinks is the winter life here.

Seawiscope

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Dear John,

Great to learn that you will be coming over to HK. Feb is too cold to dive with wetsuit (and I have yet tried a dry one !). There will be hardly any diving boat going out in HK in this season.

Day trekking (or rather walking) is however a great activity here. HK is small, and small enough to have sea and land activities readily accessible. A good day of walking, followed with a big dinner and lots of drinks is the winter life here.

Seawiscope

Seawiscope,

I was in Hong Kong about two and a half years ago, and remember going over to the far side of Hong Kong island, on a great beach for walking with a park and all sorts of park areas. But the beaches were the best...simply beautiful. Here are a couple of photos of my extended family:

Everyone was saying how cold it was, wearing long sleeves, even shivering at 65 degrees F (18 degrees C). But I've been diving last winter in river water that was 39 degrees F (about e4 degrees C), and last weekend was diving in the Clackamas River at 63 degrees F in my wet suit bottoms (Farmer John style). I could hardly contain myself from jumping into the water, that was at least 18 degrees C in the photos. That is WARM to me. I did walk barefoot in the water, but that is no match for actually getting wet. It was very difficult for this ol' guy to keep from jumping into the water. But all my family would have thought I was crazy. But a few years back I took some of our Asian engineers who came to Oregon for training up to Eagle Creek.

One of the engineers wanted to go swimming, so I told him how to get into cold water--gradually getting used to it, and we swam for ten or fifteen minutes in 4 degree C water (39-40 degrees F).

(I'm the guy on the right.)

By the way, getting back to the thread's theme, I have now put in three days of diving (five dives), and three of them were with the bi-focal mask I have. The other was with a silicone tri-view mask by Scubapro (the same one in my avatar). The tri-view SP mask was a bad experience; it fogged and I got internal reflections too. In contrast, my bi-focal mask worked very well, even climbing out of the water. I did have to be careful about my foot placement, but it went well. But maybe I need to get a Seawiscope to put onto my Dacor tri-view mask and try that too.

SeaRat

 

[Downing]

I never dreamed I'd see photos of one of my favorite local hiking trails here on ScubaBoard.

Thanks for that!

 

[idocsteve]

(I'm the guy on the right.)

Wow the water you're standing in is so clear I can't even see your bubbles!

Did you have any problem standing on the bottom without any weights?

 

[Seawiscope]

Seawiscope,

I was in Hong Kong about two and a half years ago, and remember going over to the far side of Hong Kong island, on a great beach for walking with a park and all sorts of park areas. But the beaches were the best...simply beautiful.

Everyone was saying how cold it was, wearing long sleeves, even shivering at 65 degrees F (18 degrees C). But I've been diving last winter in river water that was 39 degrees F (about e4 degrees C), and last weekend was diving in the Clackamas River at 63 degrees F in my wet suit bottoms (Farmer John style). I could hardly contain myself from jumping into the water, that was at least 18 degrees C in the photos. That is WARM to me. I did walk barefoot in the water, but that is no match for actually getting wet. It was very difficult for this ol' guy to keep from jumping into the water. But all my family would have thought I was crazy. But a few years back I took some of our Asian engineers who came to Oregon for training up to Eagle Creek.

One of the engineers wanted to go swimming, so I told him how to get into cold water--gradually getting used to it, and we swam for ten or fifteen minutes in 4 degree C water (39-40 degrees F)..

SeaRat

Truely, you pictured the best beach in town, though we have much better, fine and extensive beaches around. These beaches are accessible with boats, or on your feet.

I won't mind water at 18 deg C, but not to dive/swim in it. You must have a different genetic make-up to swim at 4 deg C.

 

[Seawiscope]

I am a new member to scuba board, and actually new to any forum. I am sorry to deviate a bit from the orginal thread.
I received a email requesting to enlist me as 'friend'. I have no ideas what friends are for (in a forum). Would somebody please tells me more on this, and shares their good and bad experience.
Thanks.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Truely, you pictured the best beach in town, though we have much better, fine and extensive beaches around. These beaches are accessible with boats, or on your feet.

I won't mind water at 18 deg C, but not to dive/swim in it. You must have a different genetic make-up to swim at 4 deg C.

Well, my biggest genetic make-up difference is that I tend to have a bit more blubber (body fat) than some. But anyone can get accustomed to cold water fairly easily. The trick is to get used to the cold water gradually, by starting with immersion only to the shoulders/chest level. Make sure that your head does not go underwater, as in really cold water there is a reflex to inhale, and if your head is underwater at the time, you can be in trouble no matter how good a swimmer you are. After a little while, immersing the face for a few seconds will complete the transition, and you can then swim for quite a while before "freezing out."

I remember when I was on swim teams in high school and much slimmer, before I bought my first wet suit, going snorkeling at Silver Creek Falls YMCA camp, and swimming there for half an hour in water around 40 degrees F (4.4 degrees C). Here's the only photo I have been able to find on YMCA Camp Silver Creek's pond:

I did the same thing with my first scuba outfit (a Healthways Scuba double hose regulator and 38 cubic feet tank, [about 1000 liters of air at 1800 psig, or 124 bar]) in the Santiam River and Detroit Reservoir near Salem, Oregon. I got out cold in each case, but stayed in about half an hour.

I have not worked the "Friends" part of this forum much, but I think it allows groups to exchange information in a more private manner. We can try it and see.

Now, I think the Seawiscope is a pretty good idea. We'll talk by PM on that.

SeaRat