Equipment Testing Day ! :)

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So today my diving buddy couldn’t make it and I had all this equipment I wanted to try out. I have been using each of the new equipment at different times but not all together so today was the day. The only problem is without a buddy I couldn’t push it to far otherwise it wouldn’t be safe.

When I got to the dive site I saw some guys getting in the water so I had a bit of a chat with them and we paired up as we each took turns taking our dives to various different depths throughout the bay. I wanted to explore around the ledges and stay down longer but because my buddy wasn’t with me and the fact that I didn’t set up the dive buoy meant it wasn’t a good idea to stray to far away from where I had initially taken the dive and where my spotter was positioned.

I started the day just doing laps across the bay doing freestyle just to get a bit warmer and to get my daily exercise. When I got out of the water it was freezing but I dried up, warmed up a bit with some tea and then quickly wet my body got into my wetsuit and went in for the dive.

I wanted to test the fins that I had just bought in some deeper water as I haven’t had the chance to try them at depth (only in the pools so far). It takes a bit getting used to at the start but once you get into the flow and the rhythm of the kicks it feels really smooth. I feel that my legs are still somewhat wobbly going down but after a few more laps in the pool I think it should be alright. I also feel that the Cressi Gara Modulars (with the default black fins) that I have are pretty stiff and really tough for surface kicking, but once you are underwater they are awesome. Thinking about it I might buy the green blades because they are supposed to be softer and better for surface and medium depth. Since im not going past 20m at the moment I think they might be better then the default black blades for now.

Anyway it was a good day until it was time to get out. Towards the end of the day the swells became huge and getting out of the water was difficult. I had my camera pole, I had fins on and no one to help grab the stuff whilst I got out. The waves were big and they where all breaking on the dive exit. A few people had gotten cuts on their legs throughout the day and one spear fisherman who had got in at the wrong time ended up with cuts and scratches on his face, legs and arms, so instead of getting out the normal exit I swam to the beach which was about 300-400m, got out and walked about 500m’s or so to where I had placed my gear 🙂

By the time I wanted to get out at the normal exit I was already exhausted and the break not letting me get out easily wasn’t helping. Using the fins for the first time made my legs tired and I could feel the lactic acid build up so the 400m paddle to the beach was tiring 😛 I have to say though, I would rather be tired then have cuts and bruises all over my body, so paddle to the beach I did 🙂

Btw just a one picture I took of a school of fish hanging around ….

My Free Diving kit upgrade

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Winter is coming and its getting colder here in sydney. Along side that, I plan to travel a bit this year so I wanted to make sure that no matter the conditions I would have sufficient gear to go diving. Made a few purchases, some that I am happy about and some that I might have to change, its fine though as the item I want to replace (the snorkel) isn’t to expensive.

I bought an Adrenaline wetsuit, not the top of the range by any means but its 3MM, fits very nicely and keeps me warm. Im already pretty tolerant to the cold because of my morning swims but this just gives me that added comfort and protects me from silly things like jelly fish and other such nasties in the water. I have used it many times since I bought it and very pleased with the fit, the comfort and the price. I know sometime in future I might get an upgrade but it wont be for a long time.

I bought a Cressi dry snorkel. The snorkel is great and I purposely sought out a dry snorkel because of the experience I had when I used to do basic snorkelling before. As opposed to my old snorkel now I can take nice mouthfuls of air at breathe up and when there are waves I don’t get water coming into the top, I have always enjoyed the dry snorkel.

Initially, I used to wonder why free divers used the basic flexible snorkels but only after taking this snorkel for a spin in the freediving scenario, I now understand. The previous snorkel I had was crappy but it was very small and thin length wise, so when I was moving around in the water I couldn’t feel it, this new snorkel however is longer and bigger. When I finish my breathe up, take the snorkel out of my mouth and start diving, I can feel the drag of the snorkel on the side of my head. Its not really that bad but it is annoying and different to how I used to feel before when there was almost no drag. I can imagine that with any other flexible basic snorkel it would be much more streamlined so I might make another purchase sometime in future.

The final upgrade I bought was a pair of fins. I was contemplating different kinds of fins and I had a few in mind that I had tried and wanted to buy. I was waiting for a discount either on amazon or some other site and by chance found the Cressi Gara Modular fins at a massive discount here in Australia. It meant, quick delivery, easy return if any problems and these were one of the fins that I had in mind, though I thought I wouldn’t end up purchasing them because of the price. However with the massive discount they fell right into my price range and I bought them right away. When you are used to using basic crappy fins or going bare foot, it takes some getting used to because of the fin’s length and hard blade material, but once you have the flow going these fins really propel you through the water nicely. Very happy with the purchase and now instead of burning energy and oxygen on moving my hands and my feet I have a chance to look around and spend more time in the water by kicking nice and smoothly whilst taking snaps and videos underwater. The fins are slightly big for my feet but using my vibrams they fit just right 🙂

Now that I have all the equipment that I need (bar my camera which I need to upgrade) im ready to go diving anytime anywhere ! The plan is to go to bali this year and dive the ship wreck at Tumbulen and if time permits past by Egypt and do the different sites there.

Winter swimming @ Shelly Beach … pictures of morning sun

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So winter is upon us here in Sydney. The water at shelly beach between the times of 6am – 8am are stable at about 18 – 19 degrees Celsius. The air temperature is about 15 degrees Celsius, so all in all, its cold !

I can see the normal faces that are usually there in the morning still *mostly* there but a few of the regular swimmers are becoming more scarce. Might be that they are just swimming just a tad later when the water is warmer or when the air temperature is warmer. At 6 – 7 am in the morning, its nice once you are in the water but once you get out thats when the cold really hits so it could be they are starting later 🙂

Anyway, I continue to swim at about 6am – 7am in the morning. Can’t start the day without it and the cold doesn’t really stop me to much. After the swim I just relax for about 30 mins, go for a run then get back to start work. They say the water gets to about 11 degrees Celsius at the peak of winter. I am not sure if I will be in Australia when this hits but if I am im surely going to try to withstand, that cold 🙂 If not, ill just put my wetsuit on and continue with my swim.

Regardless of the water temperature the weather has been excellent (no rain for the last 3 weekends) and the sun has continued to shine beautifully every morning. If this kind of weather continue its going to be pretty awesome.

The pictures kind of remind me of an artists depiction of a neutron star with its magnetic rays emanating from its center 🙂

Crazy Day @ Clovelly Beach

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WARNING: LOTS OF IMAGES BELOW 🙂

The beach, the ocean, the sun & the underwater world is beautiful and as you start to spend more and more time amongst it you learn lots of things about the wildlife (in my case underwater wildlife), the environment and about the dangers that exist within this environment.

When the conditions are not good for diving or even swimming you learn to respect what nature is saying and not force the dive simply because you want to. You learn that touching animals and even the coral can effect the environment and try your best not to step on anything incase you break it, hurt it or kill it. You kind of feel sad when you see people handling marine life with their bare hands worrying that the bacteria or viruses on the hands might effect the animal in some negative way.

You understand that by being in the water even though its all fun and exciting, you are not in your normal habitat and there could be wild animals that may bite you, sting you or think that you are food. As a result you always keep a lookout and try to identify all these dangers because of that respect you have.

Sometimes though as you get used to the environment and spend more and more time you can forget the dangers and thats when you can get into trouble. Today was such a day and boy does it get scary !

So we decided to go to clovelly today. Gordon’s bay & clovelly are kind of boring when you have explored all the places but when you are not sure of the swell at some of the more difficult locations and really want to get into the water then Clovelly and Gordon’s bay are pretty much a sure thing, yeah the visibility can be terrible but at least its safe.

Before we get into the water we usually sit down for a while, (about 10-15 minutes) do some breathing exercises, maybe eat a banana and have some water just prior to the dive. This time however we decided to walk around the corner of clovelly to shark bay just to see what the site looks like. Shark bay is (as far as I know) an advanced dive site and should only be taken for the more experienced divers. However I just wanted to see what the place looked like so if I do ever come with some more senior divers I at least can imagine the site.

So we sat around the rocks around shark bay for a while and just took in the fresh air and the ocean spray that was making its way through the air after the waves crashed into the rocks and splashed the white wash all threw the air. I decided to try to take some photos of the waves crashing upon the rocks and actually got some really awesome shots (as you can see below).

Damir decided to get closer to the ledge to see the action in closer view and to also have some of the water spray on him. We had been there for about 15 – 20 minutes and I started taking snaps. As Damir walked closer to the cliff face a MASSIVE wave bigger then all the others that had come over the last 20 minutes crashed on the rocks and made a MASSIVE white wall of water that came right over the top of the cliff ! It threw water everywhere and Damir was about 2 meters from the edge. At this time, I was probably about 6 meters from the edge.

When the water came over the top and came back down over the rocks, it began to pull us back towards the edge of the cliff where there was a 3-4 meter drop into more rocks and heavy seas with strong swells. When the wave came over and made the white wall, Damir had his hands out like the chick from titanic but when he realised how much water was actually coming over he got on all fours and held onto the rocks as it pulled him closer to the ledge.

He was lucky, it didn’t pull him over the edge, but he was close, legs, hanging of the edge, but it did bang him up a bit and left some cuts on his leg. Goes to show that sometimes you can have a small lapse in concentration, take things for granted (because the last 20 minutes the waves where small so we assumed it was safe to go closer) and without warning things strike. He was bloody lucky and in usual Damir fashion he was talking it down saying things where OK, but he sh*t his pants 🙂 I could tell … 😛 I actually managed to get snaps of this event unfolding, it’s not a video (though a video would have been good) just a few pictures. Now I can appreciate how dangerous and insane rock fishing is, specially in unpredictable swells such as this.

Pictures of the event below .. (note, in the image second row, last column, Damir is lost somewhere in that whitewash just 2 meters from the edge of the cliff, When i saw that gush of water coming towards me i pissed my pants because this was just the start of the white wash :P)

Short clip of “Bluey” the famous blue grouper from the Clovelly beach pools …

After this little mishap, we went back into the water, took a nice dive around Gordon’s bay, avoided a swarm of blue bottles that seemed to be hanging around the rocky area of the bay and enjoyed the rest of the day.

We then went back to the clovelly pools and took some pictures of the famous blue grouper Bluey and a few other fish there. Never really took nice pictures at the clovelly pools and the wildlife is actually pretty nice, lots of coloured fish, saw a few sting rays and schools of tiny fish swimming together.

Next week if the weather is good, the plan is to dive north Maroubra beaches and check out the Hereward shipwreck which is about 50m’s of the shore. My new Cressi Gara Modular’s are also arriving this week so that should make the experience much better too …

Anyway, enjoy the pictures below of Clovelly

Scotch Fillets with Capsicum, Eggplant & side of Lettuce

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When there is no food in the house the first thing I do is go shopping. Back in the day I might have found some potato’s fried them and ate them with tomato sauce just to fill up the stomach but now I know better 😛

Today we had that scenario, after a long day at the conference yesterday we were to tired to drive home, specially after another call at 11:30PM to some guys in the US, so at the end we just stayed in the city. Woke up the next morning with no food in the fridge accept for some bread and some cereal. Needed to do a lodgement and a few other things but couldn’t start any work on an empty stomach. Decided that it was time to hit coles so went downstairs and headed straight for the specials to find any meat that was at least +40% off.

Got lucky, had a choice of scotch fillets or porter house steak at +40% off, so this is what we bought

Scotch fillets on special, usually $15 now $7.85 for 3 really nice cuts
1 x Eggplant
1 x Capsicum
1 x head of lettuce
1 x bunch of Bok Choy

Total cost was $15 dollars

Cooking time 15 minutes

Heated Grill pan until it was smoking hot, placed a small amount of olive oil just to wet the pan. When the olive oil starts smoking I use that as an indication to start putting on the meat
used pepper, oregano, paprika, salt and parsley and mixed them all up the make a seasoning
Heated the second pan until it was smoking and put on the olive oil, after it was sufficiently hot, threw in the eggplant followed by the capsicum and closed the pan to allow the eggplant and capsicum cook in its own juices
Few minutes later on the super hot grill pan put on the scotch fillets and simply put salt
Added the seasoning (previously made) on the capsicum and eggplant mixed it up a little and again closed the pan
Chopped up the lettuce and put on a dressing of olive oil, vinegar, pepper, salt and parsley
Didn’t use the Bok Choy so saved for later

Total time 15 minutes total cost $15 feeds 3 people satisfactory, no problems 🙂

e27 Ignite Event 2013

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Amidst the busy schedule of getting all the new software ready and primed the team went to the e27 conference today. It was important that we attended because it was all about the south east asian technology scene and how it is shaping up. It is important we get a clear view because we are about to launch our software within the region in the next month with our sales partners. As a result we wanted to get the news directly from the people involved within these regions to see how these regions are shaping up.

What we pretty much heard from all the speakers was as we had expected. The market is growing so large and fast yet still being ignored by many entrepreneurs due to much focus still on the traditional hubs such as the US. It was also pointed out that getting in early would be great strategy to adopt in this point in time.

There were experts on the panel from such regions as Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and much discussion about regions such as malaysia & vietnam. It was a great event because it was confirmation that we are moving into markets that are about to explode and where the next wave of users seems to be coming from. Regions such as Indonesia have had massive growth in the use of smart phones and the use of Facebook and many of the other social media platforms has been spearheaded in the recent years by users coming from Indonesia and other nations within the region.

This means that as the population becomes more tech savvy at such a fast pace, they will consume internet and mobile technology at the same tremendous rate. The key is to get the technology and product right and to find the right channels into the market.

There were also some great pitches from various startups at the event and some of the highlights I thought were from mathspace, workdivision and soundgeko. I thought these where the cooler of the startups because being a tech-head I could imagine the technical expertise it would have taken to build these products and it really is amazing.

All in all it was a great day, its been a long time since I had to sit in a conference for so long but it was well worth it. Met many great people that I will certainly be contacting in future.

Only took a single photo though 😛

Little Bay, “A little touch of paradise” – (Sydney Australia)

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Little bay is a little bit of paradise in the great city of sydney. It’s a nice little bay with white sand, clean blue waters, beautiful rocks and is very secluded and hidden in amongst the other beaches, golf courses and apartments. The format of the bay is such that there is an inner part of the bay where kids can snorkel, swim and be as safe, however there is a slight opening that leads out to the outer part of the bay. This opening into the outer part of the bay has a very strong rip that can pull you out if you are not careful. (so parents make sure your kids dont get to close to this opening)

I had planned to go to little bay to check out the underwater life and go for a dive but on this particular day it was highly unsafe because of the swell.

According to the locals this particular opening from the inside to the outside of the bay has a permanent rip which pulls you out to the opening of the bay close to the open ocean. This is actually not an issue if your goal is to dive but because of this powerful rip divers don’t normally come back through the gap as its very hard to swim through it again once you are out. The normal entry and exit for this dive site is usually to make your way into and out of the water through the rocks on the left side of the bay. This is simple enough if there is no swell but when there is swell it can be very dangerous.

There are stories of lots of fishermen who love to rock fish there (as it is a great place) but because of the large swells are sadly killed when they are washed under the rocks.

I wish I could have done the dive but in the interest of safety I just enjoyed the atmosphere and the beautiful surroundings. Found a few golf balls within the inner part of the bay just snorkelling around 🙂 To be honest there isn’t much to see other then sand on the inner part of the bay snorkelling wise, but for the younger kids its safe and fun. When I get enough golf balls I might sell it back to the golf course near by for lunch money 😛

Lots of pictures below …

Thanking the Brass Monkeys for a great Saturday Morning !

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Today was a great start to the day ! Damir got to my house at about 6:15am in the morning so we could drive down to Shelly beach to go for the usual morning swim and then make it on time to have a BBQ organise by the Brass Monkeys.

The Brass Monkeys are a morning swimming club based in the Cronulla (Shelly Beach area) and for some members, its been a place where they have been swimming for over 40 years. The cold water, fresh air and the friendly atmosphere, i’m certain … contribute to good healthy and well being of all the members and this definitely shows ! The members of the swimming club wakeup at the crack of dawn (around 6am) and swim their laps before starting the day.

Members of the club are also responsible for taking the water and air temperature every morning and posting it up within “the shed” billboard so that anyone swimming at the pools can tell whether the water is to cold for a morning dip or just right. The shed also contains the water and air temperature from the previous week so that swimmers can compare the change in temperature over the weeks. I managed to meet many of the members today at the BBQ to say “hi” and it seems that there are members from all different parts of the world all with lots of stories, from being in the olympic games to having, had lots of exciting and different travels throughout the world. Regardless of all the differences the one thing in common it seems, is that every member loves the sea water and love to start the day with a nice morning cold swim at Shelly Beach !

Today was the BBQ day organised by president of the club, Bruce with his wife who was kind enough to do much of the preparations for the food, so just want to say … thanks for that 🙂 Also this particular morning picked for the BBQ couldn’t have been planned any better. It was the best that I have seen in a while. There was almost no wind, the sunrise was extremely beautiful, the air was quite warm in comparison to the last few days and the weather was just right, no rain, lots of sun and just a few clouds.

I have a planned trip to go overseas towards the end of June where I have to take care of work related matters and I can already picture having mornings without the morning cold swim and I am already feeling a bit of dread ! “How am I going to start the day without that cold swim to wake me up and feel refreshed ?!?!” 🙂

Anyway, it was a great day, thanks to Bruce and all the others that organised the BBQ day. I have also added a few pictures from this mornings BBQ ! So … Enjoy 🙂

Free Diving Cronulla – (Oak Park – Shelly Beach)

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Finally … It’s been over two weeks and the weather in sydney has been good enough that it has provided decent conditions for some free diving on the south side beaches, in this case (Oak park and Shelly beach).

We spent the whole day diving on sunday starting at 8:30 in the morning all the way to 4.00 in the evening. I tried to get there early enough to take shots of the sunrise but woke up way to late so instead of rushing decided to just relax and arrive at a decent time instead of trying to see if i could make it at the break of dawn risking double demerit points seeing as this was (kind of) a long weekend.

The beach was full of swimmers, divers and surfers and many of the people that arrive in the morning around the same time I did were still there until sun down ! I think everyone knows that this kind of weather wont be common again for a few more months specially as we are heading straight for winter here in Sydney so they wanted to make the best of the day.

Free diving at oak park was pretty nice today, swell was pretty low throughout the day, lots of scuba divers coming in and out and the visibility was decent. The only problem is the water is getting extremely cold and as a result we had to get out of the water every 30 minutes or so as Damir was starting to get cold. I was using a shirt that kept me warm so I didn’t really feel the cold. Will probably be buying a wet suit sometime this coming month so that should be even better in keeping me warm during winter dives.

For lunch we had soup, yeah …. Damir brought the pressure cooker from his house, that he used to cook the soup to the beach and we used a ladle to put the soup into Styrofoam cups so we could eat. People were looking at the two weird guys eating soup out of a pressure cooker on the beach but who cares, the soup was delicious and the perfect pickup during lunch before more diving after midday.

Didn’t get to take much pictures just the one video displayed above. 🙂

(Valentine Mashup Mix) – Awesome Bollywood Dance

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Been so busy as of late I haven’t had time to catch any new movies and see whats new in 2013 though there are a few that I had heard about in late 2012 that I want to go and checkout. However I have been browsing the songs on youtube and found this absolutely awesome dance mix.

It has many of my favourite songs from the different movies up tempo’ed with a dance mix background. Awesome ! 🙂 As of now it has about 2812 hits but its relatively new so I think it will definitely increase this year.

My attempt at translations below 🙂

यह मह मे बाहुत वयसत है तो नए हिनदि movies देखा नही है. लेकिन वह साल , कुघ आछी movies मे देख चाहते. Instead मे हिनदि music, सुन कार राहे है आैर यह नाचे mix पाया कार राहा है ! आरे वा ! मे बाहुत पासानद हौ totally awesome !

य़ह mix मेरा प्रिय songs है and the beat is awesome 🙂 अबी hits 2812 है लेकिन मे सोचता क्योंकि नए है.