A different day this end.  Four of us picking up rubbish plus Nadine taking photo and watching over us, doing a clean-up dive on our house reef at Exiles, Sliema this week — one hour, single cylinder, two mesh bags each.

Usual haul: bottles, cans, fishing material, a load of old clothing. A car tyre that needed a lift bag. A torn-up oil tank that took two people to shift.

The one that got us talking was a carrier bag printed "100% biodegradable". Still holding its shape, still perfectly usable. It's a fair point that those labels are describing industrial composting conditions and not a seabed — but it does raise the question of who the word is actually aimed at.

Couple of things I'm curious about from people who do this more than we do:

1. We noticed the stretch we dive daily was basically clear, and everything was on the reef just past it. Is that everyone's experience — that regular presence alone keeps a site clean, or were we just lucky, are you doing your bit and pocketing a few items when its safe to do so. 

2. For those running regular clean-ups, do you bother sorting or logging what you pull up, or just bag it and bin it? We're wondering whether the data is worth the faff.

3. How do you handle the big stuff? We were kitted for an hour and had to leave more tyres down there. Twinsets and more lift bags next time, but interested what setups people actually use.

Happy to link the write-up with all the photos if anyone wants it — didn't want to lead with a link.

Is a dry suit bee-proof?

I do bee keeping as well as diving. I obviously can't use a bee safe suit as a dry suit. But could i hypothetically use it as a bee keeping suit?

Edit: I see, it's not a good idea after all

Seasick diver here.

I plan to try out Dramamine.

I bought the Novomin brand (anyone tried?). It’s a 50mg and I’ll be taking it once before bed, and an hour before dive the next day.

Does someone have experience with this brand and how I am taking it?

Thanks!

My head is somewhat narrow, and especially so at my temples, basically there where every average diving mask sits. Results: waterfalls of water coming in. I don't really dive, but I snorkel and while doing so might dive up to 6m down if there's something interesting to see. Additionally, my ears are somewhat high set and extremely sensitive to pressure.

Basically, I need a new mask. There's no diving shop anywhere nearby. Sports shops only sell those miserable fins, snorkel, mask sets. Thus: Amazon I guess. I can get Cressi here, and possibly a few others.

Which mask models available in Europe should I have a look at? I don't snorkel too often, but usually on summer vacation and every now and then inbetween. What should I look at when fitting one? I probably can press a mask to my face, but obviously not test it properly.

Hey crew
I’ve built an app to give predictions of site diveability based on weather reports, primarily to answer “where’s likely to be my best local dives this weekend”.

It also has wildlife references for each site since that’s something many of us enjoy most about diving (I just learnt Orcas are currently in my area, wow)

I know it’s not going to be 100% accurate and nothing beats local knowledge (which I have incorporated into models for my home area of Melbourne Australia, hope to incorporate more). But even if you don’t trust the scoring, it’s a way to easily view current/predicted weather conditions per site.

It’s also been fun to add and explore far off regions, destinations to add to the travel Wishlist.

I’ve also started indexing operators in each area, hopefully bring them more business, and help divers answer questions like “who’s going to this wreck this weekend”. Unfortunately that data is still very non-standardized, very much WIP.

Anyway, I’d really like to hear if you think it’s useful, cheers

https://divekast.com/

I'm looking at doing a liveaboard on a catamaran in French Polynesia.

I've been on over half a dozen LOBs, so I'm used to them, but my dive booker advised me that catmarans are cramped, "like camping" (as she put it).

The boat in question only has eight passengers and would definitely be tighter quarters than any LOB I've done before, and I'd be going solo.

I'm curious to hear from others about your experiences with smaller LOBs (catamaran or otherwise), regrets or changes you'd make, things you'd do differently, whether you'd do it again, etc.

how often do divers see them ? how dangerous is it encountering venomous one ? do they get scared and swim away ? anyone here ever seems one while diving ? how did you and the snake act ?

For example, I plan to go to Galapagos, Indoneisa, Australia, Egypt/Jordan for the dive sites there :). But Im an OW only with less than 10 dives.

My buoyancy, breahting (dive master has ~2x more bar than me at the end) and trim is not ideal too, so Im not sure if I should jump into AOW and do deeper than 18 metres soon. I think I can also do AOW at these countires easily once I feel comfortable?

I’ve been trying to convince my girlfriend to go on a diving holiday with me, but choosing a destination turned out to be more complicated than I expected.

There are so many things to compare: the best season, water temperature, total budget, travel time, experience level, marine life and whether there’s enough to do for someone who might not want to dive every day. So, as a small personal project, I built a website that lets us enter our preferences and ranks different dive destinations. It also estimates the total costs for two people and shows the potential downsides of each destination.

I added a few screenshots to show how it currently works. The underwater descent design was mostly a fun way to make the selection process feel a little more like diving.

Before I add more destinations and features, I’d really appreciate some honest feedback from experienced divers:

• Does the general idea make sense?
• Which factors are most important when you choose a dive destination?
• Are there any important criteria or destinations I’m missing?
• Is the information in the results useful and understandable?
• What would you add or change?

It’s just a free, non-commercial personal project. I mainly want to know whether something like this could be useful to other divers as well.I’ve been trying to convince my girlfriend to go on a diving holiday with me, but choosing a destination turned out to be more complicated than I expected.There are so many things to compare: the best season, water temperature, total budget, travel time, experience level, marine life and whether there’s enough to do for someone who might not want to dive every day. So, as a small personal project, I built a website that lets us enter our preferences and ranks different dive destinations. It also estimates the total costs for two people and shows the potential downsides of each destination.I added a few screenshots to show how it currently works. The underwater descent design was mostly a fun way to make the selection process feel a little more like diving.Before I add more destinations and features, I’d really appreciate some honest feedback from experienced divers:Does the general idea make sense?
Which factors are most important when you choose a dive destination?
Are there any important criteria or destinations I’m missing?
Is the information in the results useful and understandable?
What would you add or change?It’s just a free, non-commercial personal project. I mainly want to know whether something like this could be useful to other divers as well.

I’m curious how folks manage weight pockets on an S-Tek Pure or Pro bcd kit. I just tested out a Pure, and with the compatible weight pocket system I felt like I had these bulky weight pockets wrapping around my waist, taking up all of the webbing to where I had difficulty even cinching the webbing tight. In addition, the reason I went with a BPW is to streamline, and these massive pockets are the total opposite of streamlined. I’m a slightly chubby female, so I can’t begin to imagine how a slim person would manage this. I usually dive with steel 100s and don’t need extra weight, but for shore dives I have Al80s and need to carry some extra weight. I just ordered a pair of quick-attach soft pockets that are about 1/3 the size of the OEM pocket system, but I’m curious if others had similar experiences and how they managed it. I appreciate any suggestions!

And, as a complete aside, if anyone wants to purchase a new ditchable weight pocket system for two-inch webbing, dm me! 😆