TechDiverWithHDcam
Guest
Hi all,
I dived the Zenobe in Cyprus for most of September (10 dives) in beautiful Cyprus hich is a big island in the eastern medeiterrian sea.
I dove with an outfit called Dive-in Ltd which has 3 branches in Cyprus.
The wreck itself sits a mile off Larnaca which is a town in the south-eastern part of the island. I picked these guys beacuse they were literally 5 minutes from the wreck and I wanted max bottom time not sitting in boats!!
I typically dove doubles (they gave me double 15 litres which is Steel 104 I think in the US). Since the wreck is only 140 feet deep I dispenses with the stage bottle and dove Nitrox 28 .
Dives were typically 75 to 90 minutes longs with time in the wreck being typically 30 minutes. The wreck itself is fantastic being over 550 feet long requiring many dives to say that you have evan scratched the surface!
Water was 70 F but there was a thermacline at 80 foot and the temperture dropped to 61 f making me glad I was diving with my new DUI Drysuit with merino sweaters underneath!!
Most of the divers were brits , some coming back mutiple times. The Dive-in outfit knows the wreck very well having dived it every day! Most of the Brits wore 7mm wetsuits and slowly switched to drysuits because of the cold.
The vis was clear over 100 feet at times,and of course no tide in the Med so no current!! This makes for easy Tech diving and great wreck diving as low vis and fast currents was absent!!
Wreck penetration was fun, but it is very dark inside requiring canistry HID lights. We get to see CARS, Trucks, dug eggs, various 80's stuff and lots of long overhead passageways making excellant wreck training!
If you a begining to intermediate Tech dive this is the place for you!.
I used a VR3 on the dives usinbg VPM algorithium. At first I set it to 10% conservation thinking that will not be enough as I thought VPM is aggresive. Nope it was way conservative requiring 30 minutes of deco at one point after only 30 minutes at 120 feet!
After switching the conservate factor off, it gave times almost identical to RGBM (e.g 120 feet for 30 minutes required only 6 minutes deco). I doubled that in practise as that seem too aggresive for me and I did not want to beat my spinal cord so easily!!
Most of the divers deived Bulhman algorithum as I was always the last diver up holding up the show!
The diving itself is great, not that much fish life but enough to be interesting! Lots of overhead diving in the wreck which had mutiple car decks (I did upper and middle, but sadly not lower). Two visting Britsih tech diving instructors were there and they were exploring the lower car deck, trying to open a door wuth spanners to reach a control room! It look like hard work to be sure as they returned time a'"nd time again saying "I more bolt, I more bolt". Oh the joys of wreck diving. So reseach the Zenobe on the web and book your next wreck tek trip to sunny Cyprus, you get a holiday and a great wreck diving in one!
Happy and safe diving!
Tony Constantinides
P.S. Yes they speak english there!
I dived the Zenobe in Cyprus for most of September (10 dives) in beautiful Cyprus hich is a big island in the eastern medeiterrian sea.
I dove with an outfit called Dive-in Ltd which has 3 branches in Cyprus.
The wreck itself sits a mile off Larnaca which is a town in the south-eastern part of the island. I picked these guys beacuse they were literally 5 minutes from the wreck and I wanted max bottom time not sitting in boats!!
I typically dove doubles (they gave me double 15 litres which is Steel 104 I think in the US). Since the wreck is only 140 feet deep I dispenses with the stage bottle and dove Nitrox 28 .
Dives were typically 75 to 90 minutes longs with time in the wreck being typically 30 minutes. The wreck itself is fantastic being over 550 feet long requiring many dives to say that you have evan scratched the surface!
Water was 70 F but there was a thermacline at 80 foot and the temperture dropped to 61 f making me glad I was diving with my new DUI Drysuit with merino sweaters underneath!!
Most of the divers were brits , some coming back mutiple times. The Dive-in outfit knows the wreck very well having dived it every day! Most of the Brits wore 7mm wetsuits and slowly switched to drysuits because of the cold.
The vis was clear over 100 feet at times,and of course no tide in the Med so no current!! This makes for easy Tech diving and great wreck diving as low vis and fast currents was absent!!
Wreck penetration was fun, but it is very dark inside requiring canistry HID lights. We get to see CARS, Trucks, dug eggs, various 80's stuff and lots of long overhead passageways making excellant wreck training!
If you a begining to intermediate Tech dive this is the place for you!.
I used a VR3 on the dives usinbg VPM algorithium. At first I set it to 10% conservation thinking that will not be enough as I thought VPM is aggresive. Nope it was way conservative requiring 30 minutes of deco at one point after only 30 minutes at 120 feet!
After switching the conservate factor off, it gave times almost identical to RGBM (e.g 120 feet for 30 minutes required only 6 minutes deco). I doubled that in practise as that seem too aggresive for me and I did not want to beat my spinal cord so easily!!
Most of the divers deived Bulhman algorithum as I was always the last diver up holding up the show!
The diving itself is great, not that much fish life but enough to be interesting! Lots of overhead diving in the wreck which had mutiple car decks (I did upper and middle, but sadly not lower). Two visting Britsih tech diving instructors were there and they were exploring the lower car deck, trying to open a door wuth spanners to reach a control room! It look like hard work to be sure as they returned time a'"nd time again saying "I more bolt, I more bolt". Oh the joys of wreck diving. So reseach the Zenobe on the web and book your next wreck tek trip to sunny Cyprus, you get a holiday and a great wreck diving in one!
Happy and safe diving!
Tony Constantinides
P.S. Yes they speak english there!
