Liquid Archaeology

“Smurf Gloves” are those nice PVC gloves that most dry glove rings come with. Named such due to their blue, smurf like colour. The glove themselves are great. They are made for the commercial fishing industry (can be seen often on Deadliest Catch) and are designed to stay supple in freezing conditions while maintaining their abrasion and puncture resistance. Over all the best product for our application. However, there is a draw back. The price.

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NAS Sr. Tutor Chris Phinney giving some survey tips

 With the loss of our primary boat at the beginning of the season, things have been pretty slow on the project front. We have been mostly diving just for fun and doing research.

 It has been a busy season none the less, with several Liquid members becomming Nautical Archaeology Society instructors for Save Ontario Shipwrecks. Project Co ordinator, Chris Phinney has become the Sr. Tutor (tutor is an instructor) and Bryan Thomas is also a tutor. Putting our hard won experience to good use teaching others how to survey wrecks is very rewarding. Chris has spent the last few months adapting the UK course content to local diving conditions and laws.

 The first SOS NAS course was a roaring success and the new course content was launched in July. Feedback from the students was awesome. There is a write up on the SOScentral.ca site.

 For more information on NAS training in Ontario visit the Save Ontario Shipwrecks web site. For more on the NAS (UK), visit their web site.

In a previous post I showed you some land photos of housing mods and a wide angle lens that I got for my HD video camera. For a refresher I am using a Sony HDR SR11 Camera with Raynox High Deffinition (.5) conversion lens in a Clear Cam housing.

Here are two frame grabs from two dives I did recently. One without the WAL and one with it.

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Sony HDR SR11

Last year I started getting into video above and below the water. Getting the hang of editing and realizing that my PS camera in video mode wasn’t going to cut it, I hoped Santa would be kind.

For Christmas 2008 I was lucky enough to recieve a Sony HDR SR11 HD video camera. Since a housing was beyond my means, Chris Moore loaned me his universal Clear Cam housing.

The Clear Cam housings are a very simple design out of the UK. With no external controls you  press record, close the housing, go diving and edit later.  

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Split fins (newer technology) or paddle (traditional) fins. There are raging Internet debates over which is better. Divers from both camps cite data gathered with various methods. Each side has their merits, so I thought I would throw my analysis into the ring.

For the record, what I am comparing are traditional one piece stiff fins versus the newer highly flexable split fins. Traditional fins are pretty low tech and closely resemble the shape of a canoe paddle. Some are more flexible than others, some have vents, some don’t, but they are very similar in design. Split fins however are fairly new on the scene and have some radical design elements that make then very much like natures preferred propulsion method.

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Liquid Review E02

A video detailing the stripping of aluminum SCUBA Tanks.

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It’s that time of year again. Lots of training dives.
I got together with Chris Farrell for a little dive and to video eachother’s trim.
Video turned out good and showed us what we needed to see. Great analysis tool.