Technical Diving

Start off with a congratulations to Rasmus Dysted and Maria Bollerup who completed their Inspo/Evo course with Dinky on the 2nd of this month.
After the course there was a quick trip away and a return with the 3 new scooters!!! which are soon to be christened.
Preperations here are starting for a busy couple of months ahead which hold numerous courses, A visit from Dennis Vessey who is the head of Megalodon UK and the much anticipated arrival of a new shiny JJ-CCR which is being brought over by Dave Thompson.

HAPPY NEW YEAR
Hope everybody had a great evening and saw the new year in with a bang.
The tek team here are sending the best wishes to everyone for the coming year and we hope it includes everything you want. For us this is going to be a big year!! we have 3 more bonex scooters awaiting arrival and numerous sets of sidemount and of course rebreathers including the JJ-CCR and OSL Apocalypse which are being built as we type here and later in the year we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the SF-2.
The blog will be updated every month if not weekly to keep you updated on everything new out here in the red sea.
Hope to see everyone soon back out in the warm waters of sharm for some more technical diving in the coming year.

Werner Lau Technical Team

Christmas is a time where people generally get together and catch up on everything throughout the year and here in the red sea we have been extremely busy and have plenty to catch you up on before we give out our christmas wishes.
Going all the way back to the end of october saw the tek team back in the UK for the NEC diveshow in Birmingham. Apart from the cold weather and the constant threat of rain fun was had by all. It was really good to see and catch up with old guests, divers and students over a cheeky beer or pork roll and it was also great to see and meet alot of new faces.
Straight after the show we were into september and an extremely busy month with a miriad of different courses from beginner to advanced level and we also paid host to alot of divers coming out to dust off their equipment and get it wet again. Starting off the month we had Roger Partridge, Olivier Sonntag and Christian Kunz who all decided it was time to see what diving could be like and had a day trying out the inspo and experienceing slient diving for the first time. We also welcomed back resident deep CCR diver Stefan bol who was out completing some more deep dives during his 3 week stay. We also welcomed back Robin Clemes who was diving his Meg and Serena Barnard and Caroline Trewhitt who were out from C-Life dive school in the UK to do some diving on their new Inspo and Evo units. A great week was enjoyed with 5 different CCR Divers on the boat everyday. The first Open Circuit course was completed by Brian Forbes who came over from Qatar during some time off work to complete his Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures course with Dinky. Having done alot of diving back in the UK and the murky waters of Qatar Brian found sharm a pleasent change and was surprised that instead of a shot line he could actually look at fish during his deco Next up was a trip out of Sharm to Nuweiba. Dinky took the jeep with a boot full of CCR equipment to see Daniel and Sarah Pikarski who together own and run African Divers Nuweiba. During the time there both Daniel and Sarah completed their Inspo MOD 2 on both Classic and Vision electronics. It was a great experience to be away from sharm and diving somewhere new and for tek mostly un mapped or dived.... so watch this space for future trips and exploration with the Nuweiba Tech team.
Once back in Sharm we had a minor celebrity in the form of Mark Elyatt arrive to come and do some diving with us. During his time we all learnt alot and had some good discussions on what we think and equipment set-up. Whilst in town Bruno Moreina and Luis Rocha came over from Portugal to complete their Open Circuit advanced Trimix course with a final dive in the Blue Hole, Dahab. And who could forget the illustrious Sam 'the gekko' Ware who was out completing some more dives on his mini meg and keeping us all amused with his gekko dance on deco.... or was that just to hold bouyancy )" alt=")" class="middle" width="15" height="15" />

Moving into December now we started with twoo CCR Courses. Peter Brookes completed his MOD 1 Pelagian course and then continued to dive the unit for the remainder of his holiday after finally falling in love with the unit. Almost at the same time we welcomed Martin Kerr who during his time with us completed his MOD 2 Inspo Classic and Vision with Instructor Dinky. It was a great week with a lovely dive in thomas canyon to finish it off.
The rest of December has so far been dominated by Open Circuit!!! We saw Rikke Lovmand Vistisen complete her Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures and unlike Hans didnt get a ride in a RIB
Straight after this Neil Black, Kirsty Stenhouse and local OC tek god Leigh Cunningham started their sidemount course. It was great to see Leigh especially as a student again and also have the satisfaction of telling him to stow his long hose numerous times on a dive! All three completed the course and fun was had by all with the trio going to Mexico in the New Year for some more advanced training on sidemount cave diving.... Not Jealous Atall.

So that is what has been happening here. We hope you all have a great Xmas and get everything you want (Not sure a CCR will fit down the chimney!!).
Enjoy the food and Wine and we will catch you for another update before the new year.

September was a great month for CCR diving and courses. We did have some open circuit divers doing courses as well just to keep the balance.
First up was Hans Hetebrugge and Tom Ludvigsen from Denmark who both completed their TDI Advanced Trimix course. We had some great dives, one being at Ras Bob where we had a great Hammerhead cruising above us for a few minutes. Jackfish Alley we had a Grey Reef and a Whitetip Reef shark and numerous Turtles on the other dives. We finished the week with a nice ride on a RIB, didn't we Hans??
Angyal Balasz and Sergio Anderson who are both keen Inspo Vision divers decided that they were feeling a little left out with all the Meg divers we had out, so they both opted for the Megalodon Deco X over course to see what they were missing. They won't admit it but i can see two yellow boxes being neglected very soon.
Olaf Bontes from Holland came out for 3 weeks of Inspo diving and managed to complete his Deco upgrade. On his last dive of his holiday he managed to clock up his 50th hour on the unit. Well done mate.
Also out diving for a week on his Inspo was Jacques Marzan from France. Jacques has been out a few times over the past two years but unfortunately he had to cut the diving out after suffering a perforated eardrum whilst snorkelling with his wife. Proof that Rebreather diving is far safer than snorkelling
Wolfgang Mueller came over from germany for a few days diving. In this time he managed to complete his TDI Sidemount course with Dinky. He enjoyed it so much that he borrowed the sidemount kit for a weeks safari he had booked for after the course.
Megalodon divers were out in force this month and a big congratulations goes out to Diane Stanning who completed her TDI Advanced Mixed gas course. Her husband, Pete Stanning and friend Dave Norton were out daily diving on the Megs, but as they are getting a bit old and decrepid they opted for the scooter (DPV) course so they didn't have to fin anywhere. They managed a dive from Shark Observatory, over to Eel Garden Canyon then down to Jackfish Alley on a two hour dive before they called it quits.
Travelling all the way from Brazil for a taste of the red sea was Federico Rabello who was also on a Meg. Although only here for 4 days of diving we managed some great dives at ras Mohammed and of course our favourite, Thomas canyon.
So, well done to all those who completed their courses and a safe journey back to all those who have travelled near and far to dive with us.

Well summer hasw just about come to an end. It would have been nice to say that it was a really long hot one, but i have been in the UK and missed most of it!! Hence no witty banter for the last few months. Never fear though, i am back................
So what have we been up to?
Simon Booth and Julie Perry were out again for a week of daily Tek diving on trimix, sampling the delights that Sharm has to offer. George Ionita and Stefan Lehrer were out for a week of daily Tek CCR trimix diving and Lars Norup came out and spent a week daily Tek CCR diving on his Poseidon Rebreather.
Course wise, we had Sergio Anderson and Katja Erhardt doing thier Sidemount course. Alan Westley and Mark O'Donnell did their Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures Sidemount course. Didier Jeanrenaud completed his Advanced Notrox and Decompression Procedures course. Sergio and Charl completed their Gas Blender course. Well done to all those who passed and to the unlucky few, don't give up!
We hosted the guys from Wetnotes Magazine who came out to do a few photo shots about Tek Diving in Dahab and Sharm el Sheikh. For those of you who dont know Wetnotes, it is a German Technical Diving Magazine owned and run by Patrick Scholl with our very own Thomas ( former Werner Lau Instructor) as one of the main Photographers. You can see the great piece about what they got up to in Wetnotes Magazine in the next few weeks.
That brings us up to the start of September, but i will fill you in on that at the end of the month

Well summer is here! Each day it gets hotter and the water slowly heats up. We are all now out of our drysuits and are diving wet!:>> So what have we been up to?? First off Melanie Stommel completed her Extended Range course, so a big well done to her!! There would have been some nice pictures to go with this blog but we managed to flood the camera and housing whilst i was taking photographs of her doing skills She did forgive me though. Our male model Rob Bartlett was out to complete his Advanced Mixed Gas CCR course on his Meg, as well as some scooter diving and sidemounting. WE had a blast on most dives as always there is never a dull moment when Rob is out diving. The funniest thing was when he lost his new Force Fin whilst on his 15m deco stop and it floated to the surface. Angel and i had to then tow him along the reef to do his deco. We were in hysterics. He found the fin afterwards but managed to fall down the same hole TWICE in recovering it. By this time Angel and i were on the floor with sore ribs........ Unfortunately that is the last we will see of Rob for a while as he is off to Thailand for a year to do some shopping. So Long, Farewell, Auwedersehen, Adeau ( the sound of music) Sandra Hicks came out with her newly acquired Kiss Classic to complete her Level 1 Deco Course. I think that the Kiss is one of the harder units to learn on as the work of breathing can be hard if not in the right trim. Sandra got it off to a Tee within the first few dives and sailed the rest of the course. Well done. Scooters were the big thing next when we had 4 scooter courses to run over a two day period. Jonas and Jacob Gindesgaard managed to get a day to themselves for the scooter course. The two guys are teachers for a large Danish Sports College and they came out with 58 students to do the open water course with Werner Lau. They all had a great time and managed to get another day fun diving with the scooters. Markus Daase and Marko Schnick were up next for the scooter course. WE were lucky enough to be in the water before the 58 students jumped in so we managed to destroy the Viz before they did Again there were some great pictures taken, so when i have reduced them in size i will put them up for all to see.

And we are still busy...............................

Sidemount...It's Not Just for Cave Divers Anymore!
Sidemount diving has been a staple of the cave diver’s toolkit for a generation, but these days, more and more non-cavers are wearing their bottles at their sides.

There are probably a handful of things happening in the dive industry that we could peg as the latest and greatest idea or innovation. I’d add developments in lighting technology, dive computers, and thermal protection to my list, but surely the hottest trend right now has to be sidemount diving (wearing a totally independent cylinder and regulator system slung on each side of the diver’s body).

Any technical diver old enough to remember “Friends” as a new television series may also remember when sidemount was a very specialized technique with a small and almost cliquish fellowship restricted to England’s Mendip Hills and North Florida’s Karst Country. Finding sidemount training and uncovering a mentor to help you progress in the technique was a lot like joining a mediaeval secret guild; you had to know someone, or have a solid recommendation from an existing initiate; and those outside the circle suspected witchcraft.

In the early days, gear was centered on mostly hand-sewn adaptations of the classic open water stab-jacket style BCD, a few welded bolt-snaps, and lots of bungee cord. The application was ALL about exploring small silt passages; what a good friend of mine describes as “a mighty tight squeeze.”

But that was then and this is now. Times and attitudes have changed. After all, back when NBC first aired “Friends,” the largest sport diving agency had branded TDI’s popular nitrox courses as too complex for the average diver while decompression diving was totally verboten. Now of course, nitrox is the usual choice for most divers regardless of which flavor C-Card they earned as an open-water diver. Most weekend charter rosters include at least a couple of divers planning staged deco; and often a full boatload of weekend warriors all planning for a deep, long dive.

These days, it seems that sidemount really has come out of the closet. To begin with, gone are the hand-wrought BCs. Mainstream manufacturers such as Dive Rite, Oxycheq, Armadillo, Hollis and OMS are producing beautifully crafted harness, butt-plate, wing combinations specifically for sidemount diving. Cam bands – used to convert regular tanks to sidemount tanks in an instant are in several manufacturer’s catalogs. And plenty of stores sell “regulator conversion kits” – an assortment of custom-sized hoses and 90-degree fittings designed to help make the transition from traditional backmounted doubles to sidemount a one-step process. Perhaps best of all, sidemount instruction is readily available and several agencies –SDI and TDI among them – offer specialty ratings and sidemount options for their existing curriculum. This is available to all skill levels in addition to the more traditional cavern and cave.

The real kicker perhaps is that sidemount divers are beginning to pop up on dive boats and at open-water sites, proving that the equipment isn’t just for cave divers anymore. On a brilliant Saturday morning at a popular quarry in Ohio this past summer, I noticed a handful of “tech divers” wearing sidemount kits. On local charter boats too, sidemount divers are starting to make a showing, especially among divers who are trained to execute wreck penetration.

Lamar Hires, head of Dive Rite and one of the early promoters of sidemount diving, files the reasons for using sidemount into two main categories – Lifestyle and Mission Specific. Let’s use Lamar’s definitions as a starting point to explore the overall features and benefits of SM diving.

LIFESTYLE
The ubiquitous North Florida Cave Diver’s Rig consisting of a backplate, simple harness, wing and manifolded doubles, began to establish itself as the gold standard for technical divers sometime in the early 1990s. By the time TDI opened its doors in 1994, this kit configuration, with long hose on the right post, backup regulator and SPG on the left, and a generally minimalist approach to gear selection was what technical divers wore almost universally. But its one-size-fits-all approach and promotion as the universal solution to all dive applications has lost some of its luster over the years and technical divers have looked at other options with an open mind.

With a sidemount configuration, the tanks are carried independently of each other and can be attached to the diver in the water or close to the water. This makes pre- and post dive prep easier on the diver’s back and knees, since the stain of one tank is about half of the stain of two. A good buddy of mine swears that diving sidemount has helped her enjoy dive trips more and use aspirin less!

“There’s no way to describe how good it feels to take all my tanks off in the water, attach them to an equipment line and then walk up that boat ladder wearing nothing heavier than my harness and drysuit,” she says.

Also, the sidemount diver’s gas supply is fully redundant and carried in completely separate systems each with a first and second stage plus an spg (and usually a LP hose). This offers similar gas management options as a set of doubles (some argue more options than doubles) but the valves and first stages are within full sight at the diver’s side rather than behind her back. This obviously makes options during either simulated or real situation shutdowns very simple! There is never any guessing which first stage is giving the diver grief… real or otherwise. This alone has many SM divers-including myself- arguing that there is a safer option in the case of a free-flowing second stage, runaway wing inflator, runaway drysuit inflator or other gas leak

The final “lifestyle” benefit has to do with the ease sidemount diving when traveling. Number one: An SM harness doesn’t have a heavy backplate, keeping luggage within airline baggage allowance. Number two: renting “bottles” at one’s destination is easy! Standard scuba cylinders can be ready for service as sidemount primary tanks quickly, with minimum fuss, and very little extra gear. The addition of a couple of cam straps to the traveler’s luggage makes conversion of almost any sized scuba cylinder the work of a few minutes, making standard stage bottle kits very workable in a pinch.

MISSION SPECIFIC
Going back to the genesis of sidemount diving, we arrive at the original reason to move one’s primary cylinders from one’s back to one’s side: low ceilings and flat bedding planes. While this reality has informed the decision making of cave divers for more than a generation, more and more wreck divers feel that sidemount offers real advantages inside a wreck.

The interior of most wrecks, even those intentionally sunk and cleaned out ahead of time, present special challenges because of the likelihood of entanglement with overhead cables and other debris. A staple of the traditional Advanced Wreck class is a great session to take advantage of. The diver learns the best techniques to free oneself or a buddy from the clutches of a couple of metres of electrical wire and rotting wood typically found in various doubles. Not to say that entanglement in this sort of situation is a non-issue in sidemount, but the number of potential line-traps behind the diver’s head is significantly reduced when he is wearing sidemount kit.

I also find the inherent lateral stability against the effect of roll while wearing a sidemount setup is a huge benefit when scootering; but perhaps that’s a story for another day.

APPLICATION
All this said, it is important to remember that no single kit configuration is right for ALL applications. Sidemount is not the silver bullet and is certainly not the best option always and everywhere. However, a growing number of tech and sport divers are finding SM an interesting and enjoyable way to dive in many different environments.

If you’re curious about Sidemount diving, find a workshop-it’s a great way to learn about the best ways to route hoses, hang lights, and configure deco bottles. Having a very flexible alternative to the traditional tech diver’s kit for many divers is worth the extra effort.

Take advantage of the NEW Sidemount program offered by SDI & TDI and of course, Werner Lau Tek.

No one can say that we are not at the cutting edge of Tek Diving or think that what we do is enough to entice more people to us here in the Red Sea!
The fact is that we are always trying to offer you more and over the past month we have been busy doing courses and buying new equipment to make sure we give you the best.

WHEN ONE TANK IS NOT ENOUGH........
I have recently come back from the UK having attended an IT workshop at PADI International in Bristol. The workshop was for a very few selected IT's from other agencies who's name was synonamous with technical diving. Myself along with 10 other IT's from the UK, Spain, Norway, Germany, Switzerland and Cyprus spent 2 days going through the IT workshop to enable us to teach PADI's range of Tek courses up to INSTRUCTOR level! This means that students who would like to become a Tek Deep or Tek Trimix Instructor can do the course with us instead of a Course Director. So you know where to come first.........

NEW SIDEMOUNT COURSES.
WE have just purchased 3 new sidemount kits from Oxycheck to enable us to offer you course specific sidemount courses with SDI and TDI OR complete any of the PADI Tek Deep or Tek Trimix courses whilst using sidemount equipment!
We were very lucky to have one of the UK's premier male models out this week modelling for us. Rob "the face" Bartlett tried the sidemount kit out and did a course whilst out on holiday. Below are a few nice shots of him in the kit with his new look, " cold steel".

So that was the month of March done and dusted. Again we were busy entertaining lots of CCR divers with a first for one rebreather unit here at Werner Lau.
The month started off with a fortnight of Pelagian CCR diving with our old friend Dr Grant. We had some great dives at Jackfish Alley on a number of days but the best was when we had 3 Eagle Rays, a White Tip and a Grey Reef swimming all over the place on a piece of reef that jutted out from 30ish meters. We didn't know where to look first!!
Next up we had Kev and the 2 Martins out for a bout of Inspo mixed gas diving and to finish off their course. We were trying to get up to Dahab to do our favorite dive site at the Little Canyon but the weather was against us. Still the course was completed and on the last day we managed to play out on the scooters at Jackfish Alley again where we saw 2 Blacktips! Summer is on the way................
The Hammerhead CCR made its debut appearance at the dive centre this month. Pavel and Bill came out with their brand new shiny units and were not disapointed with what the red sea had to offer. Lots of pictures were taken which will be uploaded as soon as. Hmmm, shiny.
We do also teach Open Circuit as well!! Two lovely ladies, Katya and Mikala came out to do their Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures course. Unfortunately the weather was not great so they did not manage to get to some of the best sites but were still rewarded with spectacular diving in some very quiet dive sites!
Well done to all those who passed their courses and comiserations to those who did not.

Wow, February is over already! It just seemed to start and before you know it, March comes along. Well February was another good month with plenty of diving going on with a few courses thrown in.
We started off the month with Soeren Bowadt completeing his Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures course. With dives at Thomas Canyon and the Bles Hole in Dahab Soeren had a great time and is looking forward to his next trip to complete his CCR course.
The next two weeks saw the centre looking like a megalodon factory with pieces of Megs on every table and surface that could be had.
First up was Michael Bennett who wanted to do an update and review as he had not dived his unit for some time. All went well and Michael got back into the swing of things with his unit.
Next up Sam Ware was back out for some more torture as he completed his Mixed Gas CCR course. Sam made things a bit more interesting as instead of doing the drill and scenarios for the course he ended up having to do some of them for real, especially the flooded loop one He did get his own back by managing to get a photo of himself walking on water

The intrepid duo of Rob Bartlett and David Armstrong, collectively known as team "Doom and Gloom" both did their crossover to the Megalodon eCCR. Both opted for the Manta Lung system with Shearwater Predator secondary systems. It would be fair to say that there was NEVER a dull moment during the course.

Much of it was at Rob's expense!!)" alt=")" class="middle" width="15" height="15" />

Marko Schnick, complete with his newly purchased Inspo Vision was back out for some diving and to complete his Decompression part of the course. Of course he joined team "Doom and Gloom" to make it team "Doom, Gloom and Disaster"!!!!

Ahmed Kassem came down from Cairo for a few days diving to join in with the fun and frivolities of the CCR lot. With his own Inspo Vision it made for a few good days out as we were 6 CCR divers out on the boat to ourselves!!!

All in all it was a great month for CCR diving as we had the dive boat AND the dive sites to ourselves!! You don't get that very often in Sharm.
There are more great photos on our facebook page, so drop by and have a look.