This was Kristaps' first decompression dive outside of his certification. Very exciting! As before, he dove with Lee of Divewise.

We chose the Um El Faroud because of its friendly depth (about 35 metres) and good looks. The wreck sits a short surface crawl (or in our case, bottom crawl) from Zurrieq harbour. With the outside temperature in the 30s—twice again the temperature at the bottom—we made to gear up quickly and stepped in. And found out quickly that gearing up quickly and a deco stage/camera pair aren't quite compatible. Suggestions? Clipping the camera rig onto the harness until safely in the water. Kristaps only clipped to the top harness ring; but in retrospect, would probably attach to the top and bottom rings to be tidy.

Equipment: twinset of around 30% oxygen, with a decompression stage of 50%. Turnaround time was 40 minutes or 80 bar. We planned on attaching our deco cylinders outside of the ship, penetrating the stern portion (the ship is in two parts) from the centre outward to the stern. All of us dove with dry suits; one of our trio used a sidemount rig.

Kristaps found his photography skills to be embarrassingly bad once out of natural light. Most shots are highly underexposed and needed to be basically re-exposed in post. Plenty of work to be done diving with manual mode in dark ships with a strobe! Working around the ship can be awfully tight, but there's certainly enough room for a twinset, wide shoulders, and a camera with a dome wet lens.

image gallery

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