Profile for joefish:
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- a member for 21 years, 5 months and 22 days
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» Trapped!
Have a bit of a thing for free-diving underwater arches.
First one I found was a hole through a fallen slab of rock in a large cave by Navaggio beach on Zakynthos - the famous one with the washed-up ciggy ship rusting on the beach, photographed from the neighbouring clifftop - the cave is clearly visible in most photos. You have to dive fairly deeply on the right-hand-side then ascend through the hole. First time I found it I half-expected to hear a 'pling' and find a rolled-up medikit.
There's another good one around to the right of the monastery peninsula in Paleokastritsa in Corfu, just before you come round into the natural bay you can look down on from the Monastery itself. Again, best to go past it, dive down and rise up as you come back through it. But best to do it accompanied and all at your own risk - though these aren't long tunnels so risk of getting trapped is minimal; so long as you're capable of making the depth.
However, I came a bit unstuck attempting a fairly narrow one near the island rock off Kampos beach (Kefalos) in Kos. It was quite a narrow underwater gully with two arches of rock criss-crossing at one point and flanges of rock either side of the exit. I managed it once on my back, taking a photograph upward. Second time I went through but finding myself short of air, rose a little too early. One ankle and flipper got wedged firmly between the rocks and stopped me short about six inches below the surface. This is not a fun situation to be in.
Desparately fighting the urge to panic and maybe tear my foot off, I pulled myself back down on my own leg, released the flipper, drew my foot out and freed both, before finally surfacing for air.
What I hadn't noticed until then was all the fire-worm stings embedded in my arm and back from faffing about in the tight space, nor the bits of coral that embedded in my back and gave me a nasty cyst just beside my spine.
Though there is worse - apparently there's a deceptive optical illusion in the 'Blue Hole' in the Red Sea, also known as the 'Diver's Graveyard'. It looks like a short underwater hole leading out to the open sea, but is in fact a conical tunnel 26m long that tempts divers down to 52m, and on their 30m dive gear they get nitrogen narcosis and run out of air long before they reach the end, lose bouyancy, and sink all the way to the bottom.
(Fri 28th Feb 2014, 16:22, More)
Have a bit of a thing for free-diving underwater arches.
First one I found was a hole through a fallen slab of rock in a large cave by Navaggio beach on Zakynthos - the famous one with the washed-up ciggy ship rusting on the beach, photographed from the neighbouring clifftop - the cave is clearly visible in most photos. You have to dive fairly deeply on the right-hand-side then ascend through the hole. First time I found it I half-expected to hear a 'pling' and find a rolled-up medikit.
There's another good one around to the right of the monastery peninsula in Paleokastritsa in Corfu, just before you come round into the natural bay you can look down on from the Monastery itself. Again, best to go past it, dive down and rise up as you come back through it. But best to do it accompanied and all at your own risk - though these aren't long tunnels so risk of getting trapped is minimal; so long as you're capable of making the depth.
However, I came a bit unstuck attempting a fairly narrow one near the island rock off Kampos beach (Kefalos) in Kos. It was quite a narrow underwater gully with two arches of rock criss-crossing at one point and flanges of rock either side of the exit. I managed it once on my back, taking a photograph upward. Second time I went through but finding myself short of air, rose a little too early. One ankle and flipper got wedged firmly between the rocks and stopped me short about six inches below the surface. This is not a fun situation to be in.
Desparately fighting the urge to panic and maybe tear my foot off, I pulled myself back down on my own leg, released the flipper, drew my foot out and freed both, before finally surfacing for air.
What I hadn't noticed until then was all the fire-worm stings embedded in my arm and back from faffing about in the tight space, nor the bits of coral that embedded in my back and gave me a nasty cyst just beside my spine.
Though there is worse - apparently there's a deceptive optical illusion in the 'Blue Hole' in the Red Sea, also known as the 'Diver's Graveyard'. It looks like a short underwater hole leading out to the open sea, but is in fact a conical tunnel 26m long that tempts divers down to 52m, and on their 30m dive gear they get nitrogen narcosis and run out of air long before they reach the end, lose bouyancy, and sink all the way to the bottom.
(Fri 28th Feb 2014, 16:22, More)
» False Economies
Poundland strikes again
Looking for a cheap carabiner clip-on compass to take on holiday (I keep breaking them), I saw that Poundland (Brighton) had a key-ring 'survival whistle' with a small compass on it. Tried a few, and saw they all pointed in different directions. Picked one out that seemed to point the right way, then after second thoughts decided to turn it a few times...
Turns out every single one of them was pointing not north, but towards the metal key-ring through the end of the whistle part; they'd all got a slightly magnetised key ring loop. Genius. Uri Geller should shop there...
(Tue 24th Jun 2014, 16:24, More)
Poundland strikes again
Looking for a cheap carabiner clip-on compass to take on holiday (I keep breaking them), I saw that Poundland (Brighton) had a key-ring 'survival whistle' with a small compass on it. Tried a few, and saw they all pointed in different directions. Picked one out that seemed to point the right way, then after second thoughts decided to turn it a few times...
Turns out every single one of them was pointing not north, but towards the metal key-ring through the end of the whistle part; they'd all got a slightly magnetised key ring loop. Genius. Uri Geller should shop there...
(Tue 24th Jun 2014, 16:24, More)
» Winning
How to piss off the English department.
I once won a prize for English at school. A bloody book token. Great.
I think it was the result of a book report, where we were given a small blank exercise book and had to fill it with a summary or review
of the story, and I crafted a crude pop-up book. It was on 'Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH', and being a creative sort I'd lifted a load of illustrations from the promotional material for the Don Bluth animated adaptation.
Anyway, the prize was a book token. We had to choose a book, buy it, and return it to the school for a grand presentation. Come the parents' evening, I was sick with a headache so my brother picked it up for me.
From then onwards, I was subject to derision and abuse from my barking mad, Victorian-attitude English teacher, and I had no idea why.
It was only much later that I realised that the deluded staff honestly thought they were instilling a love of literature in their students, and my choice of 'The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly' as a literature prize rather tactlessly highlighted their failings. It was apparently referred to as 'not even a proper book'; Doctors Ian Logan and Frank O'Hara apparently not on the department's list of acceptably tedious and departed authors.
(Fri 29th Apr 2011, 14:58, More)
How to piss off the English department.
I once won a prize for English at school. A bloody book token. Great.
I think it was the result of a book report, where we were given a small blank exercise book and had to fill it with a summary or review
of the story, and I crafted a crude pop-up book. It was on 'Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH', and being a creative sort I'd lifted a load of illustrations from the promotional material for the Don Bluth animated adaptation.
Anyway, the prize was a book token. We had to choose a book, buy it, and return it to the school for a grand presentation. Come the parents' evening, I was sick with a headache so my brother picked it up for me.
From then onwards, I was subject to derision and abuse from my barking mad, Victorian-attitude English teacher, and I had no idea why.
It was only much later that I realised that the deluded staff honestly thought they were instilling a love of literature in their students, and my choice of 'The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly' as a literature prize rather tactlessly highlighted their failings. It was apparently referred to as 'not even a proper book'; Doctors Ian Logan and Frank O'Hara apparently not on the department's list of acceptably tedious and departed authors.
(Fri 29th Apr 2011, 14:58, More)
» I'm Sorry I've Written A Joke
Why did the poltergeist not cross the road?
He was trapped on the other side.
(Mon 29th Oct 2018, 16:06, More)
Why did the poltergeist not cross the road?
He was trapped on the other side.
(Mon 29th Oct 2018, 16:06, More)