Training with the Suunto Zoop

Earlier this year we purchased 10 Zoop consoles with the SK7 module from Suunto. Each containing a Suunto Zoop, along with an SK7 compass and pressure gauge. We have been using them for a few months now, and we’re glad that we made the move to using the Zoop within our dive school. We’ve used these computers/consoles on every level of course we teach from Try Dives and Open Water courses to the PADI Tec courses and alongside our dive instructors/safety divers these dive computers provide the cornerstone of our divers safety. Tracking multiple dives ensuring that each diver stays well within their deco limits, while also providing them valuable dive information, depth, time, safety stop details etc.

They’ve really been put through their paces and have seen all extremes of conditions, care and diving. They’ve been worn on tec dives where they were bent during extended nitrox deco, and then surfaced. They really didn’t like it with unmissable beeps and flashing warnings as we over stayed our air limits. Then they show the required SOS notice for 48 hours and are back in action by the next time we use them. They’ve been dragged through silt, stones, through wrecks and been acidently bashed into anything and everything a student diver swims past. They survived every knock. The easily replaceable screen guards are defintely recomended for school and every day normal use. Even when heavily scratched (as water fills the gaps) it’s still incredibly easy to read the screen, and simple and cheap to replace them as necessary.

Initially we thought that these may not stand up to heavy dive school use but Craig from Suunto promised us that they would and they really have.

As a dive computer the Suunto Zoop is recomended to any and all recreational divers looking for a great all round computer that’s built to last.

'Aquanauts' training for asteroid mission

Sixty feet beneath the waves off the Florida Keys, NASA on Monday will take some of its first tentative steps toward sending humans to an asteroid.

In addition to building a spacecraft and a booster rocket, the space agency also needs to develop new tools and methods if it is to successfully land astronauts on a large hunk of rock with virtually no gravity.

To that end, a crew of three “aquanauts” and a scientist will begin a 13-day mission Monday on the sea floor near Key Largo to begin developing the equipment and operations that would be used for an asteroid mission.

“We're not practicing asteroid exploration,” said Steve Squyres, the principal scientist behind the Mars Opportunity and Spirit rovers, who is part of the expedition. “What we're going to be doing is taking the first steps toward learning how to do asteroid exploration with humans.”

The crew will spend nearly two weeks living inside the school-bus sized Aquarius lab in the Conch Reef of the Florida Keys and working outside.

Although it is a NOAA lab, NASA has used the facility 14 times during the last decade as a proxy for space exploration.

“What Aquarius offers you, aside from the experience of living in close quarters like in a long-duration mission, is the ability to work in a weightless environment,” said astronaut Shannon Walker, who will lead the mission. “Once we go outside, we can weigh ourselves out to be neutrally buoyant.”

The Johnson Space Center has a large swimming pool at its Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in which astronauts can practice space walks, but the Aquarius offers the ability to do that on a larger scale.

One of the biggest challenges of working on an asteroid will be the lack of gravity. Astronauts can hold a handrail while working outside the International Space Station, but those will not exist on an asteroid.

Using submersibles and other tools, Walker and the other aquanauts — as astronauts are called when they visit the underwater facility — will try to determine the best way to stabilize themselves on or adjacent to an asteroid's surface.

“We want to know the best way to efficiently work and conduct science at an asteroid,” Walker said.

NASA does not yet have the spacecraft, rockets or technology needed to fly humans to its ultimate destination, Mars. In the interim, the space agency is focusing on more doable missions.

To that end, it is building the Orion spacecraft and a heavy-lift rocket needed to launch enough food, water, fuel and other supplies for a six-month mission to fly to and from a nearby asteroid in a decade or so.

The space agency hopes that by conducting such flights to an asteroid transiting near Earth's orbit, and perhaps the small moons of Mars, it can learn enough about deep-space travel to send humans to Mars within a few decades.

For now, at least, some of the first steps will have to be taken in the clear waters off the Florida Keys.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Aquanauts-taking-first-steps-to-sending-2219526.php#ixzz1axMjFdFA

Some video of the dolphin we spotted on the James Eagan Layne yesterday

OMG we videoed us with a dolphin in Plymouth Sound!!

Dolphin.AVI Watch on Posterous

Brian, one of the Aquanauts Team was on a commercial dive course on Friday, when a rather friendly dolphin came and interfered with the class. It was absolutely amazing! We’ve never seen a dolphin come this close and stay for so long. Normally they swim in pods of between 2 and 50 and although sociable and intelligent, wild dolphins rarely interact with people. This lone bull dolphin must have been craving some company as he stayed and played with us all for about an hour. On Saturday we got some footage of him near the James Eagan Layne, and on Friday Aquanauts Instructor John was teaching an Open Water class at the waterfront when the same dolphin decided to join in. Apparently he was trying to interfere with John’s demonstrations and every time he took his mask off the dolphin kept nudging him, he then swam with our students for 20 minutes. Let’s hope he stays around for a bit longer for our evening dives this week.

Scuba diving may benefit those with spinal cord injuries

A preliminary study finds that scuba diving may help improve muscle movement, touch sensitivity and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in people with spinal cord injuries.

The small pilot study, presented Saturday at the Paralyzed Veterans of America conference in Orlando, Fla., involved 10 wheelchair-dependent disabled veterans who had suffered spinal cord injuries an average 15 years earlier and who underwent scuba diving certification. Pre-dive tests checked the participants' muscle spasticity, motor control, sensitivity to light touch and pinpricks, plus depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Eight people completed the program and the study also included nine health controls who served as dive buddies.

Among the disabled vets, researchers found an average 15% drop in muscle spasticity, an average 10% increase in light touch sensitivity and an average 5% jump in sensitivity to pinprick. No one in the control group experienced any neurological changes.

On the mental health side of things, post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms decreased an average 80%, all of which could not be attributed to the fact that the scuba training was done in a lovely Caribbean setting.

"What we saw in the water strongly suggests there is some scuba-facilitated restoration of neurological and psychological function in paraplegics," said study co-author Dr. Adam Kaplin in a news release. Kaplin is an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral services at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

While cautioning that these are preliminary results and more study needs to be done, Kaplin has some theories on why water and weightlessness promote positive effects in people with spinal cord injuries. Water may provide buoyant resistance training they can't find on land, and when in the water, breathing isn't hindered by sitting in a chair. The participants may have also benefited from tissues being extra oxygenated from pressurized air, possibly causing improvements in muscle tone and sensitivity.

"There's a signal," said Kaplin of the results, "but only by repeating these results and showing significant improvements can we establish that. It's too early to know for sure."

The idea for the experiment came from Cody Unser, founder of the Cody Unser First Step Foundation, a New Mexico-based nonprofit raising money and awareness for those with spinal cord-related paralysis. At the age of 12 Unser contracted transverse myelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord that can cause muscle weakness or paralysis as well as pain or sensory issues. Unser, who is paralyzed from the chest down, has been treated at Johns Hopkins and told Kaplin that she and others in wheelchairs recovered some feeling in their legs after scuba diving.

It's not diving but this IS an Amazing Bike vid!!

Aquanauts Dive Club having a lot of fun in Gozo!

12 of our dive club members are currently sunning themselves over in Gozo, diving crystal clear waters and huge artificial wrecks. It’s kinda left the rest of us here back at the dive centre feeling a little bit jealous! Especially when we find photos from old club trips like this one... I wonder what they’re up to??? Meanwhile back in Plymouth it’s been perfect weather for the America’s Cup World Series, and perfect weather for divers to go to pubs!