Technical Diving

April has been yet another busy month for all at Werner Lau Tek.
First of all i would like to thank all guests for coming out and making our weeks that much better.

The first part of April saw 6 divers joining us.

Return guests Martin Kerr and Linda Pooley made the trip out to complete some CCR guiding. Due to an injured hand Martin could not dive with old instructor David 'Dinky' Armstrong and instead went out with Jim Dowling!
Martin was getting his newly upgraded from classic to vision black box wet and Linda was practicing her deco skills on the centres rental unit as her unit is still being built .

During the week the team of 3 completed some amazing dives on the thistlegorm, Thomas Canyon, Eel Garden canyon and for the first time for any of the 3 they finished off the week with a cracking dive on the Million Hope.

New guest to us Didier Lautrau was diving with his old instructor Leigh Cunningham. The team of 2 were also joined by Jim Dowlings student John Astbury. During the week the team worked on gelling together on the first couple of days on local and on the thistlegorm and then set off onto mixed gas to complete some lovely dives on the Lara Wreck and down the deep chimney between Eel Garden and Jackfish Alley.

Antonio Bresciani was joined by 2 GUE certified divers Raual Palucha and Pauline Papierska. The team of GUE divers apart from looking light a fighter squadron all trimmed out and in line on deco had a great week of diving completing dives on the Thislegorm, through Thomas canyon and on the last days they went off to Dahab to complete the Arch at the blue hole and the Canyon. And if that was not enough to cram into a few days they even managed to have a few plays on the scooters !!!

Everyone has got a couple of days to relax and off gas and then Jim Dowling is back off to the UK for another wedding whilst David 'Dinky' Armstrong and Antonio Bresciani hold the fort awaiting the arrival of return PADI student Ihab from Saudi who is completing his PADI TecRec instructor courses. Long Standing guest and CCR Peter Brookes is also back out to get another few weeks of Pelagian CCR diving under his belt and then Dinky is off to Dahab to do a JJ-CCR mixed gas course at Team Blue Immersion.

On another note we might have a new Ras Mo wreck.... check out South Moon. it looks a little more disastrous than the Alga on woodhouse a few months ago .

Will She go or will she be saved.... we are now accepting bets

For all your technical diving needs keep up to date with everything in the Red Sea and around by checking back in a few days for more updates.

So with March down we are headed straight into April and things are not only hotting as we head towards summer but its also hotting up in the centre too.

This month keep posted for updates on the new development in the centre and the spring cleaning ( there is even a reported picture of Instructor Jim Dowling trading a twinset for a mop!!! )

Also this month we are pleased to welcome all old and new guests so keep posted for updates on them aswell and all the activities they are completing from basic to advanced OC and CCR training and some just coming to fun dive.

For all your technical diving needs - Werner Lau Tek

In this blog we must a a wide range of congratulations to everyone who has joined us in the middle of March.

First set is to Sam Harrison for completing her TDI Advanced Nitrox with instructor Jim Dowling.
The course was very good with a few ups and downs especially whilst trying to

Congratulations and we look forward to having Sam back to complete her deco procedures with Instructor David Armstrong.

The second set goes to Nicko who completed his GUE Fundamentals with Antonio Bresciani.
Not only did Nicko complete his course and gain alot from the GUE philosophy but he also managed to visit the thistlegorm twice and do some PADI tecRec dives in Thomas canyon

The third set goes to Frank and Sean who completed their JJ-CCR x-over course with Instructor David 'Dinky' Armstrong. Frank and Sean traveled from Ireland to the warmer waters here. After an e-mail thread over over 185 messages we thought we had known them for years even before their arrival.

During a great week both got to grips with the JJ-CCR and how it was different to the Inspo..... We look forward to seeing you again soon for some more JJ action!!

The Final set of congratulations goes to James Cronin who has just finished his TDI Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures course with Instructor Jim Dowling. The course was enjoyed by all and even the instructors learned something about gases but all be it in a slightly different field as James is an Anesthesiologist!!

We must say a big thank you to everyone for choosing us to expand your technical diving skills and knowledge and also for making the middle to end of March so enjoyable.

The Werner Lau Tek Team

Congratulations to Steve Ashton and Maggs Ashton for completing their Air Dil CCR course on the Inpo/Evo with instructor David 'Dinky' Armstrong.

During the course both focused on learning the new bouyancy and working techniques of the APD rebreathers.

With a couple of days off the beach to get to grips with the theory and the skills it was off out on the boat for a change of scenery and some more challenging conditions.

After a great week with a few up's and downs the course finished with a fantastic result and perfect dive.

Congratulations to you both.

Werner Lau Tek Team.

March is a busy month already and a sign of things to come.

The month kicked off with Pavvel arriving from the UK with a student to complete a Hammerhead mixed gas CCR course. During the week Pavvel was supported by the technical department in any way needed so that he could complete the course smoothly and efficiently and in the end it was enjoyed by all and it was good to catch up again.

Antonio started off the month with a set of PADI tec courses with Ihab.... the chief diving instructor of the Prince of Saudi Arabia!!!! After a great week and alot learnt Ihab has already booked to come out again in April!!!!!

Repeat guest Sam Ware is back out again gaining hours on his mini Meg and this time has had the pleasure of being guided by Werner Lau's Jannik Farrup who was delighted to get away from snorkel boats and DSD's and jump in on the JJ.
Upon his return (Holiday maker Jim Dowling ) from no other than the Galapagos Jim was immediately back in the water on the Meg to take over from Jannik....Unfortunately a Danish snorkel boat needed his attention .
Over the past week Jim has taken Sam to never dived before sites such as Eel Garden Canyon and also managed to fit in a day of scootering on the Werner Lau Teks resident scooters.

Instructor David 'Dinky' Armstrong has started another CCR course... this time back onto the Inpo and Evo units with guests Steve and Maggs Ashton. Both Steve and Maggs are highly experienced UK divers having completed their Open Circuit Trimix back in 2003 and now they feel it is time to take on diving with no bubbles.
Now 4 days into the course both are getting to grips with the units under the watchful eye of Dinky and today even admitted, Quote ' it was the first CCR dive i enjoyed.... i dont think i will sell the one i have already bought'

The rest of the month is looking as busy as ever aswell.

Jim Dowling is starting and Advanced Nitrox with Sam Harrison who is the new Tornado Marine Fleet operations Manager and then straight after is completing another Advanced Nitrox and Helitrox course with James Cronin.

Antonio is completing some PADI TecRec workshops with Nikko who was today part of the thistlegorm group.

David 'Dinky' Armstrong is starting a JJ-CCR course straight after the inspo course with new guests Frank and Sean who have just got brand new units from JJ in Denmark and then, no rest for the wicked , off to Hurghada for a deep south Safari and to teach none other than the owners of MV Tala the JJ-CCR along with a Danish diving magazine!!!! More news to come after the trip when we can release more information on rebreather safari's on MV tala!

Keep posted for pictures and updates coming very soon.

Today marks the last day of Laszlo Bagi's diving in Egypt.

Laszlo has been in Egypt a year with the Hungarian MFO section as a shift leader in the Military Police.

During Laszlo's time he started diving with Werner Lau and quickly became enticed by the dark side - Technical diving.

Over the last 6 months Laszlo has completed his TDI Advanced Nitrox, Decompression Procedures, Extended Range and Entry Level Trimix. Laszlo has been under the instruction of some of the Top instructors in the Middle East either on training dives in courses or on fun dives afterwards.

The most memorable dives for Laszlo have been a little trip through Eel Garden canyon with pristine visibility and his last deep dive through the Arch in the Blue Hole, Dahab.

For the last day of diving Laszlo has decided he would like to see what diving should be - Bubble Free on the inspo rebreather.

Thank you very much Laszlo for all your hard work over the months and a big thank you to Jim Dowling and David Armstrong who completed the courses for Laszlo and to Juan Manuel Rodriguez and Antonio Bresciani who imparted valuable knowledge to Laszlo during his fun days diving.

On the 6th Feb 2013 Instructor David Armstrong 'Dinky' and Jim Dowling decided to have a little trip up to Dahab.
On the way the two dropped into Team Blue Immersion to supply some cylinders for a BBC crew arriving on the 8th.... more to follow.

The main purpose of the visit was to complete a dive in little Canyon.
Little Canyon is situated around 200m off shore and runs parallel to the shore for around 1km with average depth of 50m and maximum depths of just over 74m.

The main purpose of the days diving was to test the Suunto in relation to the two shearwater predators on the SF-2.

Both Shearwaters were running different algorithms. One was running GF 30/85 and the other was running VPM-GFS +2/85. The suunto was set on -2 personal.

The Suunto, even though it was the smallest computer on the dive, was extremely easy to read. The setout of setpoint switching is also very easy. Anyone who has ever used a Suunto will easily be able to navigate the menu's of the DX.
During decompression the DX ran exactly the same as the Shearwater set on GF 30/85 and 3 minutes faster on the 6m stop compared to the VPM Shearwater.

The suunto gave the first stop at 25m after a maximum depth of 63m and an average depth of 47m. From 25m onward we had a 24 TTS. The Suunto gave 1m incremental stops all the way up to 4m. Although slightly different to traditional 3m steps and other computers the Suunto was extremely easy to follow. The 1m incremental stops meant the diver kept mooving so the deco gradient was more of a curve. Also with the 1m changes the drop in ppO2 was alot easier to control compared to doing 3m jumps.

All in all the Suunto is a fantastic CCR computer. Although it does not allow deco planning on it or external plug in's for the cells the Suunto DX is an extremely packed CCR computer with enough on it to keep even the most hardened CCR divers happy.

The new Suunto DX dive computer is released.

Suunto have just brought out their latest computer but with a twist... it now has a CCR Dive mode

With a new release and testing needed Suunto needed someone to trust... for this they chose no other than Jim Dowling.

With the preliminary testing over and after receiving a new software update we believe it is time to test it some more and give you all a complete review.

To do this we will be using a combination of rebreathers-
Inspo Vision
SF-2
JJ-CCR
Megalodon
Poseidon MkVI

We will be using this range of rebreathers to see how the Suunto DX compares against a variety of different well establish computers.
As extra back-up we will also be taking in a VR-3, Heinrick OSTC mk2n, Shearwater Petrel and Predator.

Keep posted for more updates and comparison on dives ranging from 18m recreational dives up to 130m

SF-2 With dual Predators and SUUNTO DX ontop

To start off - HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE

The blog has been sparse of late to say the least..... Big apologies to all our readers. The instructors have been busy diving and sorting out the center but this will change as of this year.
With all that is going on in Egypt in general we will be posting weekly with sightings, Dives and congrats to disperse all the bad media that Egypt and Sharm is getting as of late.

To start the year off Dinky got all the cylinders cleaned off and marked up for a new year and all the kit serviced and ready to go. This year David Armstrong is joined by Jim Dowling and new addition Antonio Bresciani who will be taking care of the PADI side and offering the only GUE classes in the Red Sea.

January started off with arrival of new guest Mark Lawrence who came from, not so far away, Qatar to complete his JJ-CCR level I IART course with David Armstrong aka. Dinky

With a bad week of weather and the jetty's being shut this did not stop the two and they completed all the dives including a 3 hour photo dive for Mark off the beach.

Big Thank you and congratulations Mark. We look forward to seeing you again in Easter for more diving.

Meanwhile Antonio (Mr GUE) had is first ever guest coming from ITALY to complete a week of practice diving in anticipation of sitting his Tech 2 class.
Antonio and Frederico spent a week practicing procedures and multiple stage scootering culminating in a 240minute dive off Ras Umm Sid.
Straight after Antonio had finished with Frederico we were joined by Kirill Egorov of GUE who was out with 3 clients to complete their Fundamentals class!

At the end of the Fundamentals class whilst Antonio was guiding David Armstrong 'Dinky' took Kirill through the SF-2 and JJ-CCR rebreathers with a slight GUE twist

More to come soon on this development

No rest for the wicked and with the departure of Kirill showed the return of Laszlo Bagi from the Hungarian section of the MFO.
After having completed his Advanced Nitrox and Decompression Procedures with Jim Dowling Laszlo was ready for the next challenge.
Because Jim Dowling was away testing the new SUUNTO DX Rebreather computer in Mexico!!!!! i.e. LIVING THE DREAM it was left to David Armstrong 'Dinky' to put Laszlo through his paces.
With the help of Juan and Antonio Laszlo had a great 2 weeks with a fun dive in the middle to the Dunraven and a final amazing dive through Eel Garden Canyon.

Check out the video on
http://gotecdive.com/gallery/dunraven-dive-with-laszlo-bagi-and-antonio-bresciani/

After Laszlo's final amazing dive Dinky was back to Werner Lau to switch back off OC to CCR.... Specifically the JJ-CCR for a JJ party (IART Level II Trimix course) with Henrick, Anders and Rasmus.

During the week Dinky with the assistance of fellow CCR diver Jim Dowling took the 3 great Danes through their paces with equipment presentations and at least 700minutes in water time

With such a fantastic dive there last time David 'Dinky' Armstrong decided to take the 3 musketeers and Jim back to Eel Garden Canyon.

All that is left to say is Congratulations! You earned it.

With an End to a very busy month and Jim back from playing with baby crocs in mexico and Antonio currently running a French IDC we are ready to face the month of Feb with the prospect of possibly having a New Dive site

The Alga is currently sat stranded on Woodhouse Reef

We will keep you updated on her progress of salvage or sinking

July started with David Armstrong ‘aka’ Dinky on holiday so the technical diving in sharm was quite slow. Immediately on his return he was joined by old student Soren Bowadt. Durin his holiday Soren refreshed his tek knowledge and did some Trimix dives culminating in a dive through the arch at the blue hole in Dahab. On the last day Soren took a day off from deep diving to try the JJ-CCR and for his son Andreas to try technical diving. Both loved it and watch this space for their next visit :-D

Soren with son Andreas and instructor Dinky.

After the depature of Soren the JJ-CCR was broken down to be immediately re-built again by resident Danish instructor Jannik FRarrup. Jannik has completed all his course up to entry level trimix with Werner Lau tek being taught by either Aaron Bruce or David Armstrong. After a couple of years on OC technical rigs Jannik has made the move to CCR. After a great course which was enjoyed by both instructor and student Jannik is now a JJ-CCR rebreather diver certified with IART…… all he needs to do now is order a JJ, or Emma might get him one for xms

August started with the Return of Rasmus Dysted (PADI tecrec IT and owner of kingfish dive and travel) and Maria Bollerup (blue venture) who were out for just over 2 weeks of purely CCR diving. Both Maria and Rasmus started off in the deep end and enrolled in their Inspo Mixed gas course with Instructor David ‘Dinky’ Armstrong. Over a tough 6 days both Rasmus and Maria emerged with a smile on their face after completing an almost perfect 60m dive through Thoms canyon.
Straight after the mixed gas course there was no rest for the wicked and over the coming week they both crossed over to JJ-CCR and Megalodon divers!!!!!
Congratulations on all your achievements and we hope to see you soon for advanced mixed gas and more rebreather fun.

On the 12th of July we welcomed a new face to Werner Lau Tek in the form of PADI Course Director and TecRec IT Chris Waterhouse. Chris was in Sharm to complete a mission he had set himself with a diving Instructor and guide that he trusted. At the same time as welcoming Chris it was a great day for Werner Lau Tek to welcome Mark Chilton as our PADI TecRec instructor!!
During the two weeks holiday Chris, Mark and Dinky got their heads together and hit the water with build up dives to his big goal. During the Dives David ‘Dinky’ Armstrong handled all logistics and planning and also managed the support team. One member of the team who we would like to thank very much is Robin Clemes who was returning to Sharm on holiday.
During the build up dives Chris and Mark worked their way through a series of dives culminating in Chris achieving his goal at 130m!!!
Big thank you to everyone involved especially to Mark and Chris and we hope to see you in the future as the project isn’t finished yet……….

Chris after his 130m!!!!

Left – Right. Mark ‘Chill’ Chilton, Chris Waterhouse, Robin Clemes and David ‘Dinky’ Armstrong

There’s no rest for the wicked and after Chris’s departure Mark ‘Chill’ Chilton took a couple of days off from gas blending :-p and Dinky started another Inspo Trimix course with Martin Kerr.
After completing his deco course over a year ago it was nice to see a familiar face again. On the first day we hit the water and everything went well from there. All skills needed a slight polish but after the first 90 minutes in the water Marting was well above speed so we increased the depth again culminating in a 60m dive through Thomas Canyon. Congratulations on your latest achievement Martin.

Martin and Mark Chilton checking gases in a briefing

The depature of Martin saw the arrival of Rob, Neil and Jules or to us Shrek and Beaver :-p
Regular returning guests Rob and Neil came out to Sharm again for a week of Mix diving. During the week the team led by David ‘Dinky’ Armstrong did the bottom of Thomas canyon, 115m ledge on Shark Reef, Woodhouse Drop off and Jackfish Deep Caves.

Rob and Beaver in Tiran Before a dive

During the beginning of September we were also joined by Roger Jenkins of Emperor Divers. Roger has been wanting to have a look at the TDI route and start to guide technical diving for a while. During his coveted days off Roger crossed over to TDI and completed his Tek Dive Master with instructor Dinky. It was a great few days and even Taffy Duck got an outing!!!!!!

Roger and Dinky in their colourful attire

With a couple of days to relax Dinky was back at the dive centre preparing for the arrival of simon booth and Julie Perry who had booked onto do sidemount and DPV courses. With a couple of days to spare instructor David ‘Dinky’ Armstrong decided to give open circuit a try again to see how his breathing rate was!!!!!
With the arrival of Simon and Julie on the 9th of September the courses were started on the 10th. During the week we were joined yet again by Ben hawkes who also participated in sidemount classes. During the sidemount section everyone got to grips with at least 4 different sidemount rigs and slowly developed techniques to carry multiple sidemount slings, proper gas switching procedures and then later on how to utilise it with scooters!!!!
After a great week a big congratulations to all 3 for passing both courses with flying colours.

Julie, Simon and Ben on a sidemount technical dive.

Julie on the scooter

At the same time dinky was completing his TDI courses Mark Chilton was completing a PADI Tec 65 with his repeat guest Terry Hamilton. I am told that after a rigorous week of training Terry passed with flying colours. For more updates check out Chill-Tec on Facebook.

Moving into the second half of September we have been inundated with rebreather divers. On the 13th we were joined by Rob ‘The Face’ Bartlett who will be working his way up through the instructor ranks here over the next few years. Rob and Dinky were also joined by Jacques Marzin who was back with his camera and also the third member of team doom and gloom…. Disaster ‘Marko Schnick’ was back for some 45m deco diving.
Whilst Rob was learning the ropes of guiding David ‘Dinky’ Armstrong started another Megalodon CCR air dil course with Marting Green who came all the way from Australia. During the 6days Martin got to grips with the Meg and how to set it up and dive it to a maximum depth of 30m. The course was finished and then a couple of days later the team of meg divers consisting of Martin Green, Sam Ware, Rob Bartlett and David ‘Dinky’ Armstrong went to the thistlegorm for a lovely 2 hour 20minute no deco dive exploring all the holds.

Martin Trimmed out on his final dive

Team of Rob , Sam , Martin and Dinky behind the camera on Fiddle Garden.

Setting up kit on thistlegorm day

Now at the End of September Sam is still with us working back up to some 60m Mixed gas diving and Dinky has started another JJ-CCR course.

Thank you to everyone for joining us over the last couple of months and congratulations to all who have achieved the goal. We hope to see you again very soon.
Werner Lau Tek Team