James Eagan Layne

Adrian (tower), Chris (boat handler / assistant dive manager), Grant (assistant boat handler), Debbie, and myself (dive managing) launched from Mount Batten. Inital plan was to dive the shallow reefs off Rame Head, sheltered from a NW breeze. On site however (wind actually SW and we had a slightly bumpy ride out and back), we decided to look around the headland at sea state and possibly dive the Scylla. But buoys were missing from Scylla and position not in GPS, so we dived the James Eagan Layne; itself requiring location with the echo sounder.

Adrian and Grant went in first, Debbie made the decision not to dive, and boathandled - which allowed Chris and I to dive straight away. Shot lift successful after attaching bag to correct shackle and assisting through deck. Vis wasn't too bad at all - about five metres - and water was 7° and [I was quite pleased not to notice the cold - perhaps it was the excitement of diving - perhaps it was my layer of fat]. We had a good look round the holds. Lots of starfish, anenomes, hydroids, and plenty of fish - mainly bib, plus the odd cuckoo wrasse, 2-spot goby.

It was great day out: brilliant to be back in the water, and excellent training and practise.

I was able to try out the Green Magic underwater filter. Cut to size and taped inside Ixus housing. Very promising. I set white balance using my dive slate and colours came out very nice. But quite blurred - need to use higher ISO and need plenty of light (filter must cut out a bit). Discovered that I need to use auto white balance for close-up flash pictures. Picture above has a small amount of colour correction applied.