Now with Emergency First Response and Rescue Diver!

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at July 3, 2009 in Denmark and Diving. 0 Comments
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Last week was really busy.

First the Emergency First Response (EFR) course Thursday and then Rescue Diver theory for 5 hours Friday evening.
Before that I had the joy of reading the Rescue Diver book - a really interesting book full of good examples.
The theory exam wasn’t that difficult, probably because our instructor Michael Jensen was really great and  I did spend a lot of time reading the book (full day)…

Saturday and Sunday was booked for in-water exercises in the nice cold Danish water. I guess picking a weekend in the end of June was a good choice by me, because it was full sun and 26C, so I did in fact manage to sunburned in the forehead and on the nose (no shock) and with a 7mm wetsuit the was was nice…  but ALSO because  there was a lot to do in the exercises - in was far from the usually concept of lazy diving to not spend too much air…
The exercises was great fun, but also somewhat hard (at least) and I’m looking forward to do some extra practicing in some of the areas - I guess this Rescue Diver is just like getting a drivers license - then you’re ready to learn, but the big difference is that you dont really hope to get the posibility to try your Rescue Diver skills (that would mean that somebody is in serious problems..).
Anyway I’m very happy that I did take the Rescue Diver course and I do feel good about getting to know about this - it might come in handy one day..

And in the end of the last day we did a bit of fundiving on a small wreck called U3…

Emergency First Response and Rescue Diver course in June

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NK
at May 16, 2009 in Diving. 0 Comments
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In June I’ll be back at the PADI-School-bench again doing first the Emergency First Response course and then just 2 days later the Rescue Diver course. And its going to be in the good cold Danish water around Køge - a little south of Copenhagen.

I’m looking very much forward to go diving again - even though its not “just” fun diving…  and especially the Rescue Diver course sound tough and really interesting with the focus on how to prevent problems and how to manage them if they do occur.

PADI describes the content as:

  • Self rescue
  • Recognizing and managing stress in other divers
  • Emergency management and equipment
  • Rescuing panicked divers
  • Rescuing unresponsive divers

And after taking the Rescue Diver course there’s further posibilites for education - maybe Divemaster in the future…  but let’s see..  on thing at the time..

White eyed Moray Eel

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NK
at February 8, 2009 in Diving. 0 Comments

I have seen quite some Moray Eels while diving and I always enjoy it - of course they are not beautiful like Turtles, Dolphins and Stringrays, but there is a bit of danger about them…  just like diving with Sharks and Barracudas.
But even though some people describe Moray Eels like Vicious and evil, they are in fact more shy and they only attack people in self defense. And I have never been attacted by a Moray Eel….
And no, its not true either that their bite is poisonous, but their backwards pointing teeth are full of bacterias, so they can make a nasty wound.

And because they are shy when it comes to humans I usually see them hiding in their small caves.

White eyed Moray Eel hiding in the cave

And another picture of the hiding Moray Eel with white eyes

I have most of the time only spottet Moray Eels when they were hiding in their caves, but sometimes I have been so lucky seeing them swimming… and they do in fact have a rather fat body, not really what you would guess from when they just look out from their cave.

A fat Moray Eel swimming by

Barrel Coral at Aow Leuk Bay outside Koh Tao

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NK
at February 8, 2009 in Thailand. 0 Comments
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I guess its the cold weather that makes me browse through some of the nice pictures from my diving trips…  and I just found some really good ones from diving with my friend Benjamin back in August 2007 - we spend some time diving at Koh Tao and had also a couple of great wreck dives outside Pattaya.

On one of our dives at Koh Tao the visibilty wasnt too great on the close west coast, so the skipper decided to take us round the south end to Aow Leuk Bay at the South East end of Koh Tao - quite a good choice, because the visibility was very nice and Aow Leuk Bay did have some nice stuff down there….  I especially remember this big Barrel Coral,

Barrel Coral at Aow Leuk Bay, Koh Tao

Jellyfish got eaten by the fishes

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NK
at January 31, 2009 in Egypt. 0 Comments
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At Ras Muhammed (the great underwater National Park close to the Sharm el Sheik in Egypt) I found some fishes busy eating a Jellyfish.
I must admit that I have never seen (or heard of) fishes eating Jellyfishes before - is that normal?

Benjamin Knudsen diving at Koh Tao

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NK
at December 1, 2008 in Thailand. 0 Comments
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Meet my good friend Benjamin Knudsen - I was on a Thailand trip with him back in August 2007.

At this picture he’s showing how much he loves the diving at Koh Tao.

Diving at Mosede Strand in Denmark

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at November 19, 2008 in Denmark. 0 Comments
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Back in August 2008 I was on my first dive in Denmark ever and it was at beach dive at Mosede Strand 20 km south of Copenhagen.
The visibility was in fact better than I could hope for and I might even try diving in Denmark even though its not to compare to diving at Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt or Koh Tao in Egypt, but even so close to beach and boats we did see crabs and had a nice first dives for my cousins who joined me.

Entering the water at Mosede Strand

I did of course bring my Sony camera in the underwater pack with me, even though I didn’t really know what to expect from the dive, but I did manage to make some social pictures of my cousins and Irina and I did also come across 2 crabs.

First Crab in the water around Mosede Strand

And another Crab

I must admit that the dive was better than expected, but not really much – the water in Denmark just hasn’t got that great visibility and there isn’t that much of a marine life. But I have heard that wreck diving should be rather good in Denmark – the waters of Denmark should in fact be full of wrecks in all sizes and with many special stories behind.

My cousins doing their first dive

Diving by the reef at the Straits of Tiran – close to Sharm el Sheikh

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NK
at November 18, 2008 in Egypt. 0 Comments
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One of the best places to dive close to Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt is the Straits of Tiran. The Straits of Tiran offers great water for rather deep drift dives but also some great water for snorkels if there isn’t to big waves.

The Straits of Tiran is known for both having manta rays, different kinds of sharks and whale sharks, but it highly depend of the season and some luck what you really end up seeing there.
On this August trip back in 2006 it wasn’t the big stuff that I saw.

Snorklers at Staits of Tiran

I still find the wreck position on the reef sort of beautiful and interesting – it looks cool, but the feeling of that big ship crashing into the reef does of course feel bad…  smashing so much of the reef… but it’s a great picture or?

Me coming up of the water after a nice drift dive at the Straits of Tiran

A small sea snake outside Koh Samet?

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NK
at August 28, 2008 in Thailand. 0 Comments
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I have already been writing about my dive outside Koh Samet (Thailand) back in April 2006 - a dive where we spottet at huge bluespottet stingray - the size of the stingray was a bit more than 1, 5 meter for the body….
On my second dive outside Koh Samet the divemaster Theep suddenly reacted and turned around to me holding something looking like a small sea snake…..  I did of course take some pictures of this little snake or?
But no, a bit of Googling and the mystery isnt that much of a mystery anymore - the small fellow is a Pipefish (Syngnathinae) who is part of a subfamily of small fishes, which in fact is in family with the seahorses.
The Pipefish does in fact look a bit like a straight-bodied seahorse with its tiny mouths, right?

I joined the 3rd Underwater Cleanup at Koh Chang in March 2007

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NK
at August 27, 2008 in Thailand. 0 Comments
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One of the great things about being a diver is that you always meet some fellow divers who are open and friendly - and suddenly you are full of new ideas for the next dive.
Back in March 2007 in Thailand I barely got of the ferry from the mainland to Koh Chang before I was talking with an English diving instructor called Matt. Matt told me that the next 2 days on Koh Chang was dedicated to the 3rd Underwater Cleanup - a project sponsored by the Thai Government and arranged by Project A.W.A.R.E - in brief a Underwater Cleanup is a 2 days cleaning the beaches and underwater event by the local Dive centres, their staff and some invited guests and thats where I come in - Matt suggested that I should join in, which I found a great idea! Matt told me first to contact Don the owner of the local dive centre White Sand Dive Centre, where I was planning to stay around…  Matt was going further down south Koh Chang, but I was of course also welcome to do the Underwater Cleanup with the dive centre Dive Point that he was working for…
Anyway I rushed to the White Sand Dive Centre where I meet Don for the first time - what a great guy! Don did managed to include me in the Underwater Cleanup on his boat and furthermore Don was really helpfull in finding a place to stay for the next couple of days! If you’re staying and diving at Wind Sand Beach on Koh Chang there’s only one Dive operation to dive with, if you ask me…
Participating in an Underwater Cleanup was certainly something different - no time to look at fishes and corals, but a lot of hard work cleaning after the fishermen who unfortunately dump such a lot of shit…
The Underwater Cleanup started early in the morning and ended with me getting tired home around 20.30.

After a cermony we went to the first dive site, which wasnt really a dive site, but rather a place where Thai fishermen dump all their shit…  nets, hoses, bottles, tires ect..  there we a such LOT of junk, and we quickly got our bags filled up…  I went up and down 5 times on that dive…

The next one was regular dive site and we did find some trash there, but fortunately its was in small amounts.

We found on the sites everything from whole tired to a toilet and on the first day the 16-18 particioating dive centres, their staff and guests did in fact gather (and remove) 5 ton of trash from the sea - I’m sure they got just as much home the next day, too…

The 3rd Underwater Cleanup at Koh Chang was started by a small cermony

And then time for a team photo before we went out - t’s Don with the shades in the middle, first dive since his surgery!
Can you find me?

And the it was time for the briefing before the first dive

My dive buddy on one of the dives - check out his bag…  we went up and down with sooo much shit from down there

And of course a picture of me in the nice blue water

So next time your in an area with a Underwater Cleanup I can only recommend you to join it and I wil for sure join any Underwater Cleanup I will be close to…  just say when!