DFD Zeeland

So ok, it's been a week since the DFD dive trip to Zeeland (well tholen to be precise).

I took off on Fryday 1200, car was packed the day before, thank god, it was stuffed to the roof, and I still had a guy to pick up.

After a prosperous journey to Maarssen (ehem, Roundabouts suck ass when you don't know the route) I picked up Juriaan, and we even managed to get all his shit in the car.

From Maarssen we went to Scharendijke to pick-up Jur's rented suit end for a dive on the reefballs.

First dive with Jur, but a succes! good buddy!!!

At the reefballs we saw what we thought were Cod, although we couldn't say for sure because no pics...

After meeting up with Vasco, Don Luut Jordi and Frans is was of to the restaurant for some much needed food :D

After dinner it was off to the camp site.

After some beers and more laughs it was time to hit the sack.

Being in no mood to set up my own tent i hyjacked part of Frans' matrass and went to sleep there.

Frans was going on a boat-dive on the OS on Saturday, so he had to drive off to the ship at 0600.

That wouldn't have been a problem if he thought about the gate of the campsite opening a 0800 and him having his car on the wrong side of the gate....So frans went with us on saterday :-p

On saterday we had 2 dives planned with a possibility for a night-dive.

First dive with Stans at Bergse-diepsluis, ohh boy, what a beauty of a dive!

This pic is made on the platform by Stans, pretty damn amazing i'd say!!!
Stans gets a spot in my personal buddy top 3!

more tomorrow!

Groene Heuvels With Seaword Crew

Ok yesterday we went on a trip with the Seaworld crew.

Destination: Groene Heuvels (eng. Green Hills).
Its lokated near Nijmegen so it was a pretty long trip, especially considering the fact we were driving in convoy (slooooooooooow).

Anyway once we got there it was quite buisy with other clubs that piced the same spot.
Forutnately, most of them were packing up to leave (bye bye!!!!! now leave us be :-p)

The water was pretty darn clear, bottom still visible at 6 meters.
Its nothing compared to tropical water, but still way better than the normal merky liquid we're used to.

First dive:
Me and Andre teamed up as buddy's for the first dive.
It wasn't our first dive together so we new how the other dove pretty well (I like that).
Well all in all it was a pretty uneventfull dive (ok blimmin boring would have fitted just as well).
Despite the clear water and the ,according to Koos, 99% chance of seeing tons of karp we saw 2 freshwater lobsters, and 2 perch, thats it.

Second dive:
Second dive we did in a three buddy team.
Andre and me we joined by Roger who's buddy got cold or something on the first dive.
We dicided that visiting the wreck would be fun, so we swam to the buoy and decended there.
2 other thought the could do with a compas and find it anyway, i sugget that next time they either decent at the buoy or learn how to navigate because the ended up probably as far away from the wreck as possible.
Anyway, the wreck was pretty nice, good visability, and we had some fun swimming in and out whilst trying not to kick up dust (and managed pretty well thank you!).
But a small wreck isn't enough to fill an hour so after 20 minutes we decided to head towards shore, during the swim to the shore we saw absulutely nothing accept plants.

All in all, nice diving but we could have done with a wee bit more fish :-p
I'm definately comming back to this place.

Dive with Vasco @ Tynaarlo 080906

Yesterday i've been diving with Vasco a buddy from duikforum.nl.
He was at a customer all day close to my dwellings, so why not combine work with pleasure ey!
So we went to Tynaarlo, which was poor to put it mildly the last time is was there, but word was it had improved.

And some improvement Tynaarlo has made in the last 2 weeks!
From being a murky putrid pool to nice and clear and full of life!

About 4 minutes into the dive we crossed paths with a pike that was well, rather impressive!
If i'd have to guess, about 80/90 Cm in lengthe and 13/5 cm think on the thickes part.
All in all, the king of the pond so to speak.
Then we came across about 4 juvenile pikes in 30 meters of water, love those their spot pattern is really sharp, great foto material, that is if i'd have a scuba-cam......

after being pulled back by my fins by Vasco we found a nice thick eel hiding in the plants, which was skillfully "coached" out of the planst by Vasco.
The eel was easily over a meter long.
The second eel was swimming around the open water but we lost him quite quickly in the chase.

The best part was when it became a bit darker, shining around with a lamp it looked like a starry night, silver flashes every where! thousands upon thousands of tiny stickle bass!!!!!

All in all, one of the best dives of the year!!!!

First entered dive 24-08-06 Location: Tynaarlo, backside

Ok this is the first entry in the Blogbook, from now on they'll all end up here.

Before the dive:
Yesterday i made a dive at Tynaarlo (yeah yeah map will follow).
First to the school, damn Suunto started whining about a new batt. last week but its up and running again!
Obviously we drank enough coffee while we were there to keep us bouncing all night, but hey why let it get cold and nasty just sitting there!
Finally we got moving (ok only 4 minutes late, but still, 4 long minutes if you're standing there with a tank on your neck).
The weather was pretty lousy as we arrived, rain rain and then some more rain.

Buddy
But it cleared up once we started donning our suits.
I had a buddy i din't know, come to think of it, I still don't know the guys name.
Anyway, as soon as we got is it was clear,this guy was going to need attention flopping around like a distressed pinguin. ohh well.

The Dive
Now to the conditions, everseen a dust storm in a desert? well this comes pretty close.
As soon as the depth exceded 2 meters visability was instantly reduced to zero, although its a nice training getting around while not being able to see anything, doing so with a guy who's on the verge of freaking out isn't the brightest of ideas.

Although the visibility sucked bigtime, the toplayer was teaming with life.
Tons of small undifined fish were darting away constantly (hmm, could it be 50 watt halogene lights are to bright???).
Some small pikes were nice enough to stay putt until i had a close look at them, the second one unfortunately was obscured from sight quite fast by the clouds of dust produced by my buddy who clearly didn't follow a peak performance bouyancy course......

Conclusion:
All in all, a nice dive, but it isn't getting near the top 100 any time soon.

Facts:
Duration: 45 minutes

Depth: Max 6.1 (quick peak alone)

Visibility: 0-2 meters max

Temperature: surface 22, bottom 17

Rating (1-10): 2/3