Dive logs 156-165 (17/8/06-9/9/06)
Well, there has been a complete lack of dive log updates for months now so I have decided to rectify that. This isn’t for the faint of heart, so unless you want to know my technical dive details, look away now! Continue reading this entry »
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.
Sports Personality Of The Year (what a farce), and Casino Royale
This piece of news is related to sports, but moving away from diving. Last night was the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year awards in the UK. Now this is traditionally a celebration of all the sporting achievements of the last year, and a chance to look forward to next year. However, in recent years it has come under increased criticism over the trophy winners, and this year has been a bit of a farce to be perfectly honest. I have no qualms with St Helens winning the Best Team award - although I’m an ardent Wigan supporter, you’d be hard-pressed to find a team that deserves it more this year. They have basically won every individual and team trophy available to them and the rest of the rugby league community should tip their hats to them. Exposure in winning this trophy will also do the sport a lot of good. But let’s look at the other awards, and what better place to start than the Young Sports Personality Of The Year. Theo Walcott was the winner, and has done very well for Arsenal and England when he has had the chance, but let’s have a look at who came 2nd and 3rd this year: Paul Drinkhall (table tennis) and Elizabeth Clegg (blind athlete). Now I am sure these 2 athletes are excellent in their fields, and are much more sporty than myself, but did they really have any chance against someone who’s in the back and front pages of every tabloid newspaper in the UK every week? I somehow think not. Next, what is going on with this “Special Award” going to some comedian called David Walliams, who swam the English Channel in August. Now he’s neither the first nor the last person to do this for charity, and I can’t see how anyone could justify him getting this reward. I’m sure next year we’ll see these special awards being handed out to everyone who swims the Channel for charity. Then we can really be rid of any credit the show still has left. Ahhh… my mistake. He’s on the BBC payroll so of course he’ll get an award. I forgot that you need to be either an employee of the BBC or have a sport which is featured by them to stand a chance of getting an award. Which brings me on beautifully to the main award…
Without further adue I’ll get stuck in - how on earth did Zara Phillips win? Despite the fact that her horse (does anyone know its name) did half of the work and probably has more personality judging from interviews she has given (Zara, not the horse), but I just can’t believe the so many people voted for her. It’s either a case of me being silly in underestimating the general stupidity of the population; or the BBC having quite awful/selective vote counting procedures. Well done to the lass, but I really can’t see how she got more votes than everyone else. Darren Clarke coming second I can understand - he had a great Ryder Cup and performed especially well after what had happened just beforehand. As for the 3rd place winner, now I have been out of the country for 2 and a half years now and can’t keep up with everything going on. But I do like to track what is happening in most sports and keep up to date with names and winners, but I can’t recall having ever heard of Beth Tweddle. I’m sure she’s very good at what she does (although after reading all the reports I’m still not 100% sure at what she does), there are more worthy people to be up there. In my opinion, and probably that of the general British population and people who voted, the person who deserved it most was Joe Calzaghe. He has been an excellent fighter in recent times, is a good looking guy who comes across very coherently and honestly in interviews. He is a supreme winner in his sport (probably the toughest sport in the world), and has an excellent personality to boot. But, and this is a very big but, he doesn’t compete in a sport which is really featured by the BBC any more. Now I’m sure it’s just comspiracy theories that the top 3 people in the SPOTY award are competitors in almost the only 3 sports that the BBC still posesses the rights to. My top 3 would have probably been Joe Calzaghe, Darren Clarke and Nicole Cooke. And I might be very wrong (it is known to happen!) but I believe that the British sport-viewing public would support me here. I was speaking to my father on the phone last night about it and we were both in agreement about who should win it. Couldn’t believe we were actually agreeing about something related to sport - I must be getting old!!! It was very strange…
But after that little rant, I’ll go onto something better - the new James Bond film. Last Thursday I went to the cinema to watch Casino Royale, and I have to say I was highly impressed. A few people were complaining initially because they had never heard of this Bond, and that he had blonde hair, and basically about everything they could. But Daniel Craig (the actor playing Bond) has answered his critics in the best way possible - with an excellent debut as 007. Casino Royale makes a refreshing change and movement away from the gadget-driven Bond films of recent times to a more dialogue-driven film. Bond is cool, but not infallible, and even his physique makes him more believable as a spy (as compared to the middle-aged, slight pot-bellied Bonds in the past). The storyline has twists and turns galore, and the stunts and special effects are, unsurprisingly, superb. One thing many people are happy with is the return of the Aston Martin as Bond’s choice of car. The German BMW is a thing of the past and the British-ness is coming back into the films. Plus, the Aston Martin DBS is a thing of beauty, and to think they destroyed 3 fully working models of those during one stunt breaks my heart!
I think I’ll be going to see it again this week with one of my Japanese teachers. I’m confident I’ll enjoy it as much the 2nd time as I did the 1st. This is one of the few films I’ve seen over the past couple of years that I can’t wait for the DVD release of. Right - enough chat from me for now - will be in touch more later!
Tokyo weekend & Foo Fighters gig report (part 2)
Right - let’s continue my Tokyo report. Sunday was a beautiful day, weather-wise. And I had a really good day with a friend from Okinawa. She’s now living in Tokyo and we arranged to meet up at Shinjuku. We had a drink and then went over to Harajuku to have a look at the fashions and the people posing for photos. For those readers who might not be familiar with this, Harajuku is an area of Japan with what can only be described as… flambouyant fashion rules. All conventional rules go out of the window, especially on a Sunday when the streets are filled with senior high school girls dressed in the most outrageous outfits. The “goth”, “lolita”, “punk”, “mod”, and many other styles were all out in force, as well as inumerable others. I’ve become pretty interested in the Japanese fashions, and seeing the Harajuku ones was quite an experience. At the station, you could see groups of girls crouched down with little suitcases, applying make-up and putting their costumes on. They then go walking around, posing for photos and generally parading throughout the day. As the sun sets, they head back to the station, change back into their normal clothes and return to the faceless suburbs of the Tokyo sprawl. I read in a few places that a lot of these girls are bullied at school, and dress like this to assume a completely different identity for a day. When they change their clothing and make-up to this extent, seeing the person underneath is almost impossible, which I suppose, would be their aim in this situation. If is fascinating though, and something I would really like to find out more about (e.g. what motivates their choice of fashion etc). I didn’t take any pictures here, but will leave you with a photo posted on Wikipedia by a user called Mushroom:
