The SDA comes in a largish and pretty box, which contains the SDA, the tank transmitter, the USB adapter, a USB cable, a small Torx screwdriver for the cover screws, a quick start manual and a splash proof quick reference booklet. The full manual is available as a PDF download from the Uemis website.

The unit itself looks very well built, and is quite large and heavy. It resembles the Uwatec Galileo computers in general size. There’s a largish display, an obvious solar panel on the top, and 3 buttons situated next to the screen. Two of there buttons are actually dual buttons, as they can move both ways, so there’s effectively 5 buttons available. The entire top cover of the unit can be removed by removing 2 small screws, and optionally changed with a different color. Current available colors are black, gray, red, yellow, blue and pink. The cover includes the buttons, which use magnetic switches to connect to the internals of the unit itself. The SDA charges through USB, and through it’s solar panel.

The strap is a fairly clever one. It resembles somewhat the buckle used on the usual tank strap. You tighten the strap, and lock the buckle. Releasing it is a bit tricky at first, but as you get used to it, it becomes easy to do. The unit comes with the medium strap, and shorter and longer versions are optionally available, and easily and quickly replaced without tooling. The design is not failure proof, but it was easy to attach an extra bungee for extra security. I found the medium strap to work fine on my drysuit and gloves, but I think the shorter strap will be better when you’re wearing thinner garments.

The display is beautiful. The OLED display actually illuminates every pixel, and doesn’t need a polarization filter like LCD displays, so it’s visible from any angle, even in the dark. The colors are bright, and when the SDA shows a warning (orange or red) it’s hard to miss. There’s a charge symbol that indicates charge by USB or solar power.

When you enter the menu’s, the buttons work like cursor keys, and the OK button okays a selection with a normal press, and acts as ‘back’ on  a longer press. This works fairly well, but does take some getting used to. There’s lots of options to set, and the divelog is very comprehensive. In surface mode the display shows relevant information like surface time, no fly time and such. In dive mode the main numbers are the usual suspects like depth, No-deco bottom time, air time remaining, dive time and tank pressure. The buttons give access to extra information (among which is the option to see the information from SDA computer of your buddies), as well as set markers. The normal color is green, warnings are shown in orange or red, depending on their severity.

The tank transmitter is par for the course for such units. The battery cover is situated on the top of the unit, allowing access while it is mounted on the first stage. It doesn’t have a hole for a swivel spool though, so it can’t be mounted in place of a regular analog pressure gauge (or on a short HP hose) . I suggested this to Uemis, and they seemed to like the idea, and told me they would look into adding that feature for the next batch of transmitters. Uemis support has been great so far. I’ve just had some minor questions and suggestions, but they responded quickly.

The SDA does not come with locally installed software, but synchronizes with an online web-based service called MyUemis. The SDA connects to a USB port by connecting the USB adapter to the bottom of the device, then connecting it with a standard USB cable. When connected with a computer, the SDA behaves as an USB memory stick. Starting a webpage on the memory stick starts a Java applet which in turn connects to MyUemis. I’ve tested this with Windows XP, Windows 7 and Linux, and I suspect (and is claimed by Uemis) this will work on any modern OS. The data available is roughly the same in the SDA internal log, and on the MyUemis, although the latter has some extra graphs. All kinds of information can be added, like dive sites, coordinates, buddies and more. This information gets synchronized in both directions, so changes made on the SDA shows up on MyUemis, and vice versa. It is possible to renumber dives, and from the looks of things you can even copy data back from MyUemis to your SDA, should you lose your data (but I haven’t tried this myself).

So far I’m very pleased with the SDA, and I look forward to testing it further in Egypt in a few weeks.

Some observations:

• MyUemis/the logbook have some room for improvement. Nothing too major, just things like being able to input your own equipment instead of the preconfigured values.
• Uemis seems very interested in suggestions on how to improve their products.
• The USB adapted that clips to the SDA seems a bit flimsy.
• The safety stops seems rather strict, but that might just be that I’m too used to Suunto’s implementation (and bottom following ascents) of a stop anywhere between 6 and 3 meters. The SDA sets a stop depth, and keeps a much stricter margin to that setting. There are a few options that control this behavior to some extend, so I’ll keep experimenting with this a bit.

Since my last entry I’ve been to Egypt again, and did an ice dive when Maarsseveen was frozen over. Will be going to the UK next week, and for another two weeks of Egypt a week or so after that.

I recently returned from a week long diving trip to Marsa Shagra, Egypt, with Reinout and Jeroen. The divesite is run by Red Sea Diving Safari, and is a combination of regular stone buildings and accomodations, and tents. We opted for tents this time around.

When we arrived it was already dark. The transfer from the airport to the village was relaxed, and after we arrived we were first shown towards the restaurant. In the restaurant they serve 3 buffet-style meals a day, all of which were very good, as we learned over the week. After dinner, we checked in, and were guided to our tents.

The tents were relatively simple affairs, but plenty for our needs. Due to their light constructions, they ventilate well, so they cool down quite quickly at night. Night time temperatures were around 30 degrees C.

The next morning we had a checkout dive, and the diving could begin. The way RSDS works is that you buy a diving package, typically for the whole week. Included in the package is unlimited air and lead, unlimited (unguided) dives on the house reef, free use of the zodiac service on the house reef, and two truck dives a day to nearby dive sites along the coast. There’s also a few excursions to other sites like Elphinstone and Dolphin House, at extra costs.

The house reef is stunning, and seems to be very intact, although admittedly I’m hardly an expert. We did one truckdive to Abu Dabbab, but with the house reef being as great as it was, we didn’t feel that was necessary. We typically did 3 dives a day, including a night dive. While we did venture deeper once or twice, we rarely went below 15m.

One extra excursion we made was to Abu Ghusun. This is 90 minute drive by bus, which showed the countryside in detail. Impressive desert, and lots of garbage along the road. The main sight of Abu Ghusun is the Hamadi wreck, a small coaster that carried plastic pellets. The pellets can be found all over the beach. The wreck is covered in he hard and soft corals, and bottoms out at around 18m, so it’s a fairly easy dive for any diver. We made two dives there (and discovered that a wet wetsuit is surprisingly comfy in the desert sun), then had lunch at a restaurant in a nearby mangrove national park.

We saw a lot of beautiful fish, sharks, turtles, squid, murays, lionfish and much much more. The week went by way too fast. I will definately be returning here :D.

Based on intel from other divers, we tried our luck at the Zeelandbrug divesite. High tide was at roughly 12:15, so we entered the water at 11:45. We swam around for a bit, and saw lots of life, like nudibranches,various crustaceans, but no sepias. We followed a hunch, and went a bit deeper. At about 12 meters, we found them: a sizable group of sepias (accompanied by an equally sizable group of divers :P). We spent the rest of the dive studying these magnificent animals. They were completely relaxed about the divers, mating with and fighting other sepias, but ignoring the divers completely. Many swam past within hands reach. Marieke took pictures and movies, will upload them when I have them.

After we returned to shore, we warmed up in the sun, and decided we wanted to to another dive, so we dove to the Den Osse divesite in the Grevelingen.  Getting to the point where we actually started the dive turned out to be a bit exciting. First, fully dressed in 70 lbs worth of gear, I lost my balance and went down. Luckily the only damage was my ego, as I felt it coming, and went through my knees and rolled. The second exciting part happened when I entered the water.

I dive in a drysuit. It keeps the water out though tight seals for your hands and head, and you enter the suit through a large, watertight zipper in the back. Somewhere down the line I forgot to ask my buddy to close that zipper. So, when I entered the water, I had this chilly sensation (normal), followed immediately by a cold and wet sensation (not normal :P). I figured out immediately what the problem was, climbed out of the water again, got out of my gear, drained as much water as I could, closed the zipper, and got my gear back on. Luckily my thermal suit actually works pretty well when wet, so while not completely comfy, I wasn’t cold for the rest of the dive. The rest of the dive was uneventful, with plenty to see.

These two dives also fulfilled my  requirements for the CMAS 2* diving certification, so that’s over and done with as well :D.

Sacramento airport looked crap after Portland. It could do with a facelift. Got picked up by the SuperShuttle van, and was dropped off at the hotel. The suite is a nice 2 room one.

Had a good walk around this morning. A few things come to mind. Things are built big here. A lot is built cheaply, or at least cheap looking. Americans love oversize cars. I knew this, of course, but actually seeing that every third car is huge is different.

As part of my 2* (AOW) diving course, I have to make a couple of specialty dives. Today I made two dives in Zeeland. The first in the Oosterschelde, at the Zoeterbout divespot. The second one was in the Grevelingen, at the Nieuwekerkweg divesite near Den Osse. I now completely understand why Zeeland is rated as high as it is. While the visibility was relatively poor in the Oosterschelde, both sites were teeming with life.  Everywhere you looked there were crabs, lobsters, gobies, gunnels,  lumpsuckers, jellyfish, starfish, anemones, sea gooseberries and many more.

The Oosterschelde dive was 38 minutes, max depth 16 meters, the Grevelingen was 1 hour, max depth 9 meters.

To give an idea of what it’s like, have a look at this youtube video (not mine)

(note: links don’t work currently ,server maintenance ate my post)

Reading:

Empress (Godspeaker Trilogy, part 1) - Karen Miller

Read:

The Neutronium Alchemist (Night’s Dawn Trilogy, part 2) - Peter F Hamilton
The Naked God (Night’s Dawn Trilogy, part 3) - Peter F. Hamilton
The Silent Miaow: A Manual for Kittens, Strays, and Homeless Cats - Paul Gallico
Kushiel’s Justice - Jacqueline Carey
A Quantum Murder - Peter F. Hamilton
The Nano Flower - Peter F. Hamilton

Pages: 4471

I bought myself a new car: A ‘98 Fiat Barchetta

So far I’ve sent out 5 cards, to Taiwan, the USA, Poland, Germany and Finland. Finding actual postcards is a challenge these days…