Saturday 4th September will see the beautiful fishing village of Roundstone transform into a Dive Mecca. Monty Halls, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group and Scubadive West are putting on a show and everyone is invited. So round up the family, friends, divers, non divers and even the dog, and head to the West. Entry to this festival is €30 per person. All proceeds will go towards the purchase of a pontoon for refloating stranded whales and dolphins. The festival itself will feature photo presentations, talks by adventure expedition leaders, try dives for beginners and a giant hog roast that evening. Click on the invitation below for details on booking your ticket.
Roundstone Dive Festival Invitation
Scubadive West forges ahead with the PADI Tec Rec courses. Last weekend saw our second Tec 40 course of the season take place. The students arrived for this 2.5 day course on Friday afternoon. The course culminated in a 40 metre dive, decompressing for ten minutes on a 40% blend. Well done to Michal Dzikowski and Paul Devane, the newest entrants to the PADI Tec ranks. Our next Tec 40 course is on 22/23/24th October; this course is now full. However, spaces remain on our Tec 40 course taking place on 26th, 27th, 28th November.
Anyone already in possession the Tec 40 qualification can enroll on the next course; that is Tec 45. Scubadive West will run Tec 45 on Saturday & Sunday 2/3rd October.
Last week we played host to five students, all undertaking their PADI Openwater Diver course. A windy start to the week failed to put a dampner on this enthusiastic bunch. Fortunately, the weather and diving conditions from Wednesday onwards proved significantly nicer. Our final dive of the course took place at Carrickaddy Reef on Friday; a sumberged reef with steep walls to eighteen metres and an abundance of marine life. Youngest on the course was William King, all of eleven years old. Well done to William, Aisling Donovan, Andrew Donovan, Martina Diskin and Craig Davis.
Big well done also to Greg Dyar who completed the final dive of his Openwater Course on Sunday afternoon. A free swimming, two metre long conger eel made an appearance during the dive, making for some very memorable moments.
On the way back in from Carrickaddy on Friday morning
It was not just us intent on grasping the remaining rays of summer this weekend. On travelling back from a dive on the Julia T Sunday morning, our skipper caught a glimpse of a rarely seen fin in the distance…that of an ocean sunfish or mola mola.
Cillian donned mask and fins for a quick entry into the water to get some footage. click the link below to play.
Sunfish At Scubadive West, Sunday 29th August 2010
A quick search on Wikipedia this morning returned the following:
The ocean sunfish, Mola mola, or common mola, is the heaviest known bony fish in the world. It has an average adult weight of 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). The species is native to tropical and temperate waters around the globe. It resembles a fish head with a tail, and its main body is flattened laterally. Sunfish can be as tall as they are long when their dorsal and ventral fins are extended.
Sunfish live on a diet that consists mainly of jellyfish, but because this diet is nutritionally poor, they consume large amounts in order to develop and maintain their great bulk. Females of the species can produce more eggs than any other known vertebrate.[1] Sunfish fry resemble miniature pufferfish, with large pectoral fins, a tail fin and body spines uncharacteristic of adult sunfish.
Adult sunfish are vulnerable to few natural predators, but sea lions, orcas and sharks will consume them. Among humans, sunfish are considered a delicacy in some parts of the world, including Japan, the Korean peninsula and Taiwan, but sale of their flesh is banned in the European Union.[2] Sunfish are frequently, though accidentally, caught in gillnets, and are also vulnerable to harm or death from encounters with floating trash, such as plastic bags.
Closing date for our 2010 Photo Competition is midnight on Wednesday 8th September. That leaves just one week to upload your snaps to our dedicated competition website:
http://www.competitionssdw.com/
Remember entry is free of charge. This year’s prize fund is in excess of €3,000; with generous sponsorship received from SCUBAPRO, Suunto, Fourth Element, Oonas Divers and Renvyle House Hotel.
Below are some of the entries so far. This competition is strictly amateur and we welcome all photos, however modest one might deem them. There are two underwater categories and one overwater category in this year’s competition.
Media Affairs, Upcoming Events | admin August 30, 2010 | 
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