Diving at Kadena North, plus a mask with HUD display
Although the weather is getting decidedly wintery here in Okinawa (a chilly 25 degrees at the moment!), I did manage to get in a couple of dives this weekend. The temperature isn’t the main problem during the winter months, but the wind direction is. From mid-November the winds start to shift and blow from the North West. Now considering that most of the diving is off the west side of the island, it does make diving a little more challenging and not always a certainty. But I met up with Brian and Jenny at 7am at Kadena Marina and we elected to head up to Kadena North. Northerly winds were blowing at around 8MPH which made some of the more “exciting” sites undiveable, but conditions would still be ok on the seawalls. As for the 2 dives we did, they were nice but nothing spectacular. I always see getting into the water and diving as a bonus though. We saw a couple of cuttlefish, one of them being pretty big, and a pretty black & white lionfish (I think its full name is pterois Volitans). Jenny could do with getting some booties and full-foot fins though. After 5 months here, she’s still getting into the water in some sandals and then changing into full-foot fins. The sandals offer absolutely no grip and little protection on the algae-covered steps and reef and a pair of felt-bottomed booties and fins would be a great Christmas present to herself. Of course, that’s only my opinion. I just don’t want one of my dive buddies either: a) slipping on the steps, falling and messing up their back like I did earlier this year at school; or b) cutting their feet to shreds on the rocks or stepping on an urchin or worse.
On Saturday evening I went out with a friend to a lovely little Nepalese curry restaurant that very few people know about, but which does some excellent food. Planned to dive yesterday (Sunday) too, but when I got to the marina at 7am, me and Brian decided to call it off. The wind was strengthening out of the north and the waves were picking up. So instead we headed to the (new) Starbucks in Chatan for our fix of caffeine. It’s crazy that there are now 3 Starbucks within 400m of each other in Chatan, and Okinawa now probably has over 10 Starbucks. A huge number for such a small place, especially in Japan. I’m sure that the military presence has a lot to do with that… the same can be said of the number of fast food restaurants, a large number of which are situated around the bases. So instead of diving yesterday, I caught up on some sleep before wrapping my Christmas presents up that I’ll send to my family later on today. Express delivery from Japan to the UK is a little expensive, but it will probably be the only way to ensure everything gets back before the 25th.
The rest of today’s entry is just going to be a couple of bits of news or comments about things. First off, is that I still haven’t mananged to locate my OWSI card. And despite emailing PADI over 10 days ago about this matter, I’ve still to hear back from them. Once you get their attention, their customer service is decent, but the time it takes for them to return an initial contact email from one of their instructors is far too long. If I don’t hear anything tonight then I’ll give them a call and hassle them about it tomorrow morning before work. When I call them they don’t have the option of not answering! I’m still pretty annoyed with myself about losing it. One of my friends said it would be worse losing my Alien Registration card here in Japan, but I disagree. If I lose my Alien card, someone would hand it in and it would make its way back to me. As for this diving card, it might get handed into the police, maybe to a dive shop, maybe to a guard on one of the military bases, maybe just thrown in the gutter… it could be anywhere. But hopefully I’ll either be able to locate this one or get a new one in my hands early on in the New Year.
The second bit of news is diving equipment-related and quite cool if you (like me) like your gadgets. This has taken an age in coming, but the first commercially available SCUBA mask with computer heads-up-display is going to be available in Spring 2007. Courtesy of Oceanic, the Datamask HUD will feature an LCD display in the bottom right hand corner of the mask which will tell you everything about your dive, courtesy of a couple of buttons on the outside of the mask. It will have a wireless transmitter and give you tank information too (i.e. giving you a dive time remaining estimate, giving your current breathing rate, tank pressure & depth). It can handle nitrox mixes up to 50%, as well as having practical features like user-replacable batteries and audible alarms you can acknowledge and stop with the press of a bitton. Basically, it is immensely cool and will retail at around $1,500. It is very nice, but is probably out of my price range unless I can teach quite a few courses at the start of next year. Plus, with things like masks, there’s always the fear that they could get knocked off or lost more easily than other pieces of equipment. Knowing my track record with loseable items, I’m not sure whether or not to trust myself with this one! Find out more about the mask here: http://www.oceanicworldwide.com/p_computers_iddm.html
That’s it from me for now. Take care, dive safely, and keep warm in the winter months.
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