I'm back...

Hey, I'm back and diving...
For two years now I've had problems with my back, I had a nasty spinal disc hernia and terrible pain in my S1 and S2 nervs. Well after two years in got worse and I had to have surgery. Now the pain is gone and I'm back in action, which dosen't mean that I'll be better att writing my blog... :)

Earlier in the spring I did one DSD to a family and realised that I wasn't in any condition to dive, so I've waited... Now it's 8 months since I had the operation and I'm ready.

My friend, Mika called and asked if I would come and help him with attaching two buoys at a other friends (Tony) summer cottage. Well I couldn't pass the opportunity to go and try diving, it was probably the easiest two dives I ever done.

Mika came to my place and we tooked his gear and placed it in my car, we drove to Vuosaari and we where picked up by Tony and his grandfather, we unloaded the car and set of by boat to their island. Again we unloaded our gear and hulled it to the other side of the island where we would go in the water.

One of their buoy chains had gone missing during the winter, Mika and I dove where we were told and almost landed on the anchor. Tony's grandfather had approximate guess where the anchors where, he was of by, maybe 10 cm. :) It was just great listening to him telling where everything was. He know the place like the back of his hand.
We attached the chain to my rope and brought it up so that Tony could attach the buoy.

The second dive was a bit more tricky, this time we didn't have a exact place to dive down to, so we had to find the anchor ourselves. It didn't take long for Mika to find it. Now we knew where it was so we went back up to change the tanks and then back again. This time we placed my rope at the end of the chain and pulled it down attached it and unattached the old chain with had been "lost" for a couple of years.

Mika had his GoPro with him and filmed a lot, unfortunalety he didn't have the head strap with him so the videos are filmed free hand. Non the less, great material! Thanks Mika for the videos and still images!

The videos are to big so I uploaded them to youtube, and I know that the pics are a bit too big, SORRY!

Here we are attaching the new chain to the anchor

In this we separated the old chain, this one had been lost for a few years

This video is just to show what a great day we had and was to dive

The two handymen 

It's been a while

Hello, I know it's been a while since my last post and I hope there still will be somebody reading this blog. 

Today and yesterday I been assisting Tero to service two Poseidon MKVI rebreathers, that came from France. I had to take pictures and post them here, and maby help people understand why it's a good idea to do service on Your dive equpment... 

Here is a rebreather taken apart

This is a Poseidon 1st stage (before it's cleaned)

A view inside the 1st stage

Another view of the 1st stage

Here is a picture of the 1st stage cleaned (after it's bath

in citric acid and a trip through a ultrasound washer)

This is the DIN connector pre-wash

And after a citric acid bath and the washer

Here's WHY You should service Your dive equipment. On top is the new and the underneath is the old cup filter. 

Croatia, Poreč

Hrvatska (Croatia), Poreč.

I guess Croatia could be a nice place, but I didn't like it at all. Major road construction, with is good, but it was a bit confusing, especially for the locals, because they didn't know how to drive.

 

I thought that Croatia would be a cheap holiday resort, but it was as expensive as Finland, or even more expensive.

 

Diving center Porec, I recommend them. Very nice, friendly and helpful people. Maria had some problem with her BCD and the help/service was instant. We were happy with them, though we weren’t that happy with the locations. They were nice but not that exciting

 

This is a map of what we saw of Croatia

 

 

 

Maria found a nice hotel-apartment just out of the city center.

If you are going diving with the Dive center Poreč, and arrive with a car, you can leave it at the hotel parking a just walk down the path, it's the easiest way to get there 

 

 

The position of the two dive locations aren't exact, but for Lim Fjord is almost exact.



 

The visibility is OK!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just sitting here and waiting for you guys...

 

 

Just played with the macro settings and this guy was very eager to assist

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Austria, Attersee

Austria, Attersee.

Huh, what a week or so. Haven't had anytime for ourselves, we still haven't unpacked everything.
But any way, now I got a seconds to post pics and some text.

The first dive stop was in the beautiful country of Austria. I love Austria, would say that Austria is one of the most beautiful countries I ever visited.

We stayed at neat the town of Unterach am Attersse. It was a family hotel called Pension Sonnhof, I was very impressed with it.

 

Usually the first is the best, at least for me, and this time it was. Under Pressure was by far the best center this trip.

 

 

At UP we were treated like royalty. A BIG THANKS to You all!

 

 

Along the "cost" of Attersee you can find signs like this. It's like a mini map of the dive location that tells difficulty, depth, is there any fish and so on.

 

Entry point

 

Maria

 

One of the better pics of me ever, according to me.

 

This is a Austrian Dive Bell :)

 

The water was quite nice and clear ...

 

... thou the weather wasn't.

 

We found a small wreck, it wasn't that hard to find.

 

The difference between a divecomputer at altitude 0 (sea level) and a computer at altitude 1 (700 m-)

 

I had my Suunto D9 at altitude 1 and it had a minor variation to the other computers.

 

The Twin towers

 

Maria took this picture. All credit to her!

 

Our trip through Europe

Uhh, to be back at work, not funny at all.
We have been 3 weeks traveling around Europe, 11 countries and about 7 000 km.


This is how we drove;
Finland (ferry to) - Sweden (ferry to) - Germany - The Netherlands - Belgium - Germany - Austria (dive location) - Slovenia - Croatia (dive location) - Slovenia - Italy - Switzerland - Liechtenstein - Switzerland - France - Belgium (dive location) - The Netherlands - Germany (ferry to) - Finland.

The dive sites we visited where;
Austria, Attersee, Under Pressure. We did two dives and also did completed the Padi Altitude dive course.

Croatia, Poreč, Poreč Diving center. We made two dives the firsth day and one on our last, we visited Labyrint, Pal and Lim Fjord.

Belgium, Brussles, Nemo 33. What a place! I was a rebel, I when to 32 m with is my new SB and PB :) I know that I´m only allowed to go to 30 m but nobody asked or was looking...

I will return to and write about these dive sites and center's when I have some pictures and more time.

I got mail...

Yesterday when I got home, I had an envelope waiting.

This was waiting inside...

Upcomming

The end of August and the first two weeks of September will be interesting; we are going for our summer holiday. We have planned a euro trip with maximum amount of diving. We are trying to go to a dive park in Germany, trying to do the PADI Altitude diver course in Austria, the main goal for our trip will be Poreč, Croatia, and on our way back home hopefully we’ll have the chance to visit my friend Tim in Belgium and go to Nemo 33.

It'll be interesting to se how much and how many planed sites we manage to visit. :)

I'll update as we drive south from Finland and have access to the internet...