London Diving Chamber 2nd Feb

[JAG]

What a great evening! A few beers, excellent presentations by Leigh Bishop (some of his photos were truly outstanding)and Monty was on good form too, his short movie with the Manta Rays was mesmerising. Loyd Grossman's anecdotes were very funny. Met a few YD'ers, Janos, Mary, Andy Bloss, Paul Oliver, John Perrin, Tom, a girl I work with!, drysuit diver, there were a couple more but it's early and j.w. and I stopped for a couple more beers on the way home and I'm struggling right now

[rads]

Agreed.

Leigh's presentation was literally awesome.

Have started to plan my Britannic expedition, and have come up with a rough check list of outstanding requirements:

Rebreather.
Diving skills (not sure about the order of these 2).
Big brass cojones.

David

[DanE]

Has to be said that Loyd Grossman is surprisingly funny. I didn't feel the need to heckle at all

dan

[Andy Bloss]

And Raders, you did admit to being part of that .01% of internet forums users who would question Monty Halls about his diving kit config

[turbanator]

And Raders, you did admit to being part of that .01% of internet forums users who would question Monty Halls about his diving kit config

LOL.

I found his explanation (I felt it was not intended to be a justification) about touching the animals agreeable.
Personally, I'd not dived with penned dolphins, and nor would I, but have been perfectly happy to stroke a seal when it's come up to me on it's own terms, in the wild.

Feeding the sharks: well they have had a bad press and need some positive publicity, it's much better to alter their behaviour by feeding them than cutting their fins off. I also don't really think that a bit of limited feeding in scattered locations will alter 400 million years of evolutionary programming.

r
Paul

[rads]

And Raders, you did admit to being part of that .01% of internet forums users who would question Monty Halls about his diving kit config

If you rember correctly my diminuitive little buddy, I caught myself mentally critiquing the kit configuration of the Scuba Trust diver.
I know, I know - Straight to hell...
For anyone unaware of the Scuba Trust, seems a pretty worthy organisation. Have a look here.
http://www.scubatrust.org.uk/HTML/home.htm
(transparent attempt to regain celestial brownie points)
David

[tom]

Excellent night out. I hope the Scuba Trust earned a load of money from donations.

Leigh Bishop's presentation was just stunning I thought, amazing pictures. Inspired me to go and take some crap photos - wonder how you clip off a tripod?

Lloyd Grossman was very funny - I imagine it was a fairly standard after dinner speaker type routine for him, tailored just slightly for a diving audience. I didn't know what to expect from him, so it was a very pleasant surprise.

Monty was Monty, as usual - excellent stuff.

Only downsides were the queue at that bar (take a carry out next year I think and we didn't get to hear Dan heckling (unless he was the one making the odd noises during Lloyd's talk).

PS did anyone else's ears perk up just slightly when Leigh Bishop said the Wilhelm Gustloff (sp?) was in 50m? I'm never going to dive the Brittanic etc, but hmmmmm...... *ponder*

[vid]

PS did anyone else's ears perk up just slightly when Leigh Bishop said the Wilhelm Gustloff (sp?) was in 50m? I'm never going to dive the Brittanic etc, but hmmmmm...... *ponder*

how about a YD trip to the Gustloff (details are on Leigh's website) and it's not too far from Gdansk.

or

I've already asked two BSAC expedition groups if they want to pick poland as a destination!

vid

[JAG]

PS did anyone else's ears perk up just slightly when Leigh Bishop said the Wilhelm Gustloff (sp?) was in 50m? I'm never going to dive the Brittanic etc, but hmmmmm...... *ponder*

Did they effing ever Trevor!! Got my immediate attention as very doable..

[DanE]

PS did anyone else's ears perk up just slightly when Leigh Bishop said the Wilhelm Gustloff (sp?) was in 50m? I'm never going to dive the Brittanic etc, but hmmmmm...... *ponder*

Not so deep, but I recall reading an article that said it was very cold. Think it is covered in an issue of Beyond the Blue. Will take a look over the weekend.

dan.