Marc's World New Pages !

As for the year 2005 and 2006, I publish a new catalog of about 800 new pictures done along the year 2007. In addition, I constructed a new bunch of mini web sites related to my interests: watches, SCUBA diving, photography and computing.

Unfortunately at now, only the tribute to the year 2007 is bilingual. Soon English version of the rest will appear.




Happy end for 2007 !

The sad beauty of fall

Yesterday on Sunday, I went to visit "my" lake where I enjoyed so much last summer its blue-green waters, that helped me a lot to become familiar with my UW camera and to keep myself trained in snorkelling. The fall has no pity on time. The lake becomes slowly to freeze...The sad beauty of fall...

Doxa meets Seiko's in Hong Kong

A mission to South-East China, maked my Doxa watch meeting to new passengers from Seiko company in Hong Kong!...

A Love Story

The sea, diving, a watch, a dive watch! She is on my wrist tonight. We went altogether in the sea by 38m depth, more that it would have been maybe still reasonable, but perfectly safe. My Doxa and I, are in love...

Diving session in Marseille, France

Marseille, Fance, september 22-23 - 3 dives (22m 38min, 38m 26min, 26m 52min), an absolute dream under ideal diving conditions. Water temperature 22°C at 40m, currentless spots, an incredible visibility. My physical and underwater photography training during august were real benefits. I never hesitated in the camera commands and manipulation.





I am in love, of the sea, of the life, of Earth...I have never see something more beautiful, powerfully emotional. A though beauty that makes you crying...

Black and White....

During summer vacations I rediscovered the beauty of argentic B&W photography and those times where I learned how to process an manufacture a picture using a film camera.



Finally, is the principle so different compared to the digital electronic coding? The image is stored in a chemical memory deposited on the film and has to be revealed later on. While the digits are stored in a memory card in the digital camera.

The image is captured using basically identical lenses and all the rules of light managmement are valid.



processing differs completely of course, but once scanned, an argentic picture can be printed of modified as a digital one!! The shot is also different. The 36 exposures and the impossibility to check the result immediately make the picturing rather different. It recquires clearly more careness and the effect of slight changes in the light can't be seen directly.

Visual effects of black-and-white pictures are very specific and evocative in certain circumstances. It's even very pleasent to play with B&W processing of digital pictures.

Here is one digital pictures recently taken using my Nikon Coolpix L11 in its dive housing.



It was taken a cloudy day. I colorized the image using very desaturated monochrome blue and added a filter to mimick the grain of high-sensitivity film:



The large undetailed areas can be used to had a text for an advertising-like picture :



Or here in French with a reference to our dive-watch forum:



The magic of the digital processing to get multiple possibilities of tones otherwise very difficult, or impossible to get chemically of course.

Here is a copper-like version :



But I'm still waiting for finishing my roll and process the real film! Finding consumable for argentic photos is nowaday not so easy. A camera shop in Lyon, France still sells everything necessary (Leica Central Photo Centre conseil 22 rue Algérie 69001 Lyon). I was suprized of the numerous caution notes on the packages. Hydroquinone and hyposulfites are indicated very toxic for the environment...something that was not at all indicated in the 70's.

My Diving Watches

My present diving watches in action while training in the Lyon-Miribel's lake, France!

Incredible Strela's

Almost two years of love with those watches and their incredible story

The Amphibia Free Dive

No heavy SCUBA, just a mask, a snorkel, fins and the Amphibia!

My silent (micro) world

In just 70cm, sometime 1m, of soft water on this sunday august 5. Ground air temp. 35°C, surface water 23°C. Equipped with fins, mask and snorkel, and my new submersible camera. I spend more than 1 hour there taking pictures, observing this incredible micro-world, a few minutes away from human civilization, but already in another world...

Neptun

Neptun is, in the Roman mythology, the god of the seas, oceans and the aquatic kingdom. He is equivalent to Poseidon in the Greek mythology. Son of Saturn and Rhea, he was brother of Jupiter and Pluton...His attributes are the trident, the seahorse, the dolphin, and the shark... Incidentally Neptun also a specific series of nicely colored Russian Vostok watch of the same technical characteristics as Amphibia....

The magic of water

Something incredible, unexplainable, unbelievable...why the magic is always reproduced as soon as we are underwater? Under 150 Ft or while snorkeling into single, that's the same. The magic of the sun diffracting into a myriad of dancing rays...



Yesterday I returned snorkeling in Miribel near Lyon city just for training physically. I snorkelled during 1h30. I just saw a couple of cat fishes and a few others indigen species in thoses blue-green and no-so clear waters. And it was indeed as magical as in a marvelous corail garden..



A joke to the reality...

Sunday test mission

Both the Vostosk watch "Ministry" and second test session for the Nikon/Fantasea FL-11 camera.

We Discovered a New World...

A world of shinning jewels in a liquid crystal...

Horology and diving : two things lovely complementary but with specific cautions!

To celebrate that double fascination, we launched with my buddy Jean-Michel a new French-speaking forum that I am proud to announce here :

And the Dream Came to Reality...

Five months ago, I decided suddently to learn diving. In the middle of a dark and cold december, I passed my first qualification in a confortable pool heated at 28°C. I trained then methodically and physically in a diving association, still in closed waters. In juanuary, I imagined my first open water experience somewhere in May or June, during the fair days. I dreamed of my first open water dives that should logically somewhere on the nearest mediteranean French shores. On Thursday, May 17 at 3 pm the dream came to reality here :


In front of the Golden Island and Dramont beach (where the allied forces debarked on august 15, 1944 during the "Anvil Dragoon" operation) at the feet of Esterel massif, Var, France.


Quite shaked first by a strong wind in the little pneumatic boat for 20 divers, headed to the dive spot, I'm in complete confidence near my dive supervisor and my named guide for today.

It's now. Go Marc, go!

Picture credit : Plongée Plaisir 1 & 2, A. Foret, P. Torres, Editions GAP, 2005

God! What a shock! It's blue, it's green, it's salty and we are shaked by the waves. My experienced dive guide is Rosie, 32 and I dive with Aurélie, 23, first dive in open water too. We flush the air in the buoyancy jacket. Due to the stress, immersion is a bit tedious, but finally 2m, forward rotation, we go straight using our fins, 6m, 10 m. I compensate the pressure in the hears. Now we fall without the use of our fins. 15m, 20m, we now stabilize by reinflating gently the jacket to get a neutral buoyancy. Temperature 19°C. we are stable and everything is OK. I feel just perfect. I see now the landscape, the rocks, the green posidonea (the common mediteranean algae) meadows . The "saupes" fishes seem to laugh : "Hey did you see that guy with his new brand hardware??"

Photo © Claude Ruff

An enormous emotion that my guide clearly percepted through the mask. She was so happy to see us charmed...we are now explorating the site. We ascend effortless the rocks, explore extraordinary walls full of life, jump over the peak to fall with fluidity again on the other side. We are flying! It's magical. It's marvellous!

On the left wrist is my Suunto Vyper computer recording every dive parameters each 20s storing them in a database for offline analysis. On the right wrist is my fetish watch just repaired but Peter Maier the Vostok Europe N1 . My watch is shinning in the diffuse blue light of the deep water.



40 minutes after, we climb in a controled manner, slowly, and very slowly in the last 3m, controling any possible danger or obstacle that couls arise and we surface to the fresh air.

5 extra other dives followed until sunday with optimal weather conditions (2 dives per day separated by 5-6 hours to desaturate nitrogen dissoved by our organisms). In the last dive (total 43 min) we went for 5 min at 26 meters, one extra meter than the largest limitation for my present diving certification, with aspecial agreement of our guide, just to say hello to a kind murena (Murena helena) common in the Mediterranean sea.

Credit to Pony 33406 . Licence

The VE N1 resisted perfectly and worked remarkbly. Returned home, I just left it overnight in soft water to extract any residues of salt.

Sorry, I could not take underwater pictures during that session. I had already a lot of parameters to manage. But promised I will return soon with an adapted camera !!!

Here the dive profile of my 6th dive extracted from my Suunto Vyper computer that recorded every parameters every 20s of each dives.



Just arrived at 24m, we add to practice how to empty a flooded mask. Our instructor asked to remove our mask, put it on back , and to empty it just by inflating the mask using the nose. It an easy exercise but it needs to control correctly the breathing. Aurélie dislikes that practise and she inflated to much her lungs causing an ascent of ca 10m. I had to respect the coherence of the group and to follow on the side. This the peak recorded on the left. After its only the normal exploration and the final ascending.

The D-Day is Approaching

The last three months I pursued methodically my diving training sessions. Twice the week with instructors and one or two free one (snorkeling) just to acquire a good condition. I practice swimming on a regular basis for more that 20 years and it replaced easily that exercise.

I had a look to my watch yesterday while swimming with fins + mask + snorkel : 1 Km in about 22 min, just comfortably and quietly. I continued by extra 20 min with just with fins then 20 min on the back and finished with cool litlle apnea dives.

I feel now quite OK for my first diving trip to Saint Raphaël, on the mediteranean shore, on may 17-20. Four days and 6 dives are planned...the D-day!


Meanwhile, I completed my equipement progressively.

• 3mm thick neoprene gloves (Tribord, Decathlon)
  
• 5/7 mm Cressi black wetsuit in Ultraspan neoprene
  
• neopren booties Beuchat

• Open-heels Mares Superchannel fins, light grey ans black
• A spare mask Beuchat Strato without correcting lenses as back up of my regular one with correcting lenses (Cressi Sub Matrix).
  

• My Suunto Vyper diving computer
  
• A ScubaPro K-4 stainless steel knife
• A no-name 6-LED torch

A safety set comprizes

• A rescue signaling mirror
• a flashing lamp
• An Aqualung parachute
  

More recently, I've found almost by accident a wishful configuration for the air cylinders. A new bi-bottles 2x7.5 l, service pressure 230 bars (3 m3). The weight 2x8 kg plus the valves, is less than a regular single 15 l cylinder.


It fits directly on the SeacSub Pro2000 BCD back pack without extra accessories. I tested it 2 days ago during the friday session for about 1h of exercises. Then someone else also used it for an extra session so I could see the system working properly.
Since I own my regulator system, I am still doubtful on the initial configuration. The spare second stage (yellow one) called "octopus" is an Aqua Lung "ABS" designed for a non-compensated medium pressure (I guess 9 bars or so). The Aqua Lung brochure just says that it is "non-recommended" to use that regulator with an "over-compensated" first stage as the Legend one (medium presurre compensated in depth to max. 15 bars). It may cause air escape through the regulator.

The vendor said that it is in fact not a problem, but another one claimed that is even "hazardous"...

Well, well. I could not leave the doubt installed.

I decided to have anyway the benefit of my second bottle valve by a modification of the system using a separated first stage regulator and that could be fully compatible with the Legend system.

Oh! what I said there : "No, Sir! Only legend octopus can fit Legend regulator", "That's impossible!", "Systems are accredited and can't be separated!"....I had to fight to obtain a clear answer only to known that Aqualung Legend and Titan series are fully compatible!!!!

Finally, I own now a Titan LX with DIN 300 bars connector. I connected the DS inflator, the HP manometer and the Octopus "LX". I can switch all to the Legend to dive with a mono HP valve or all to the Titan if necessary.


Someone else almost gave me also a Scubapro MK2, which is one of the most basic and reliable regulator that fits perfectly Aqua Lung ABS octopus.


I did not really appreciated those divergent opinions and vague information. There is something to do to improve the diving hardware business, indeed!

Anyway, here is the configuration with the separated regulators shown in a FlashPlayer animation

This configuration is closed to the SCUBA commonly used for cave diving. The two cylinders would be then separated to give a fully redundant system. Every 10 bars consumed the cylinders are best switched manually. This is a demanding additional manipulation to afford the necessary level of safety required (if something goes wrong, you can just surface...)

A musical diaporama in FP format (6min50).

Diving : Practice!

What a pleasure to be a very "beginner" at the age of 48! Since I got my basic diving qualification on december 17, 2006, I am applying methodically my learning plans. First, I registred to a local diving center to practice with experienced divers.  Twice the week (sometine 3 or 4 if I decide to add fins-snorkeling sessions), we train with fins and snorkel on tuesday night and with the SCUBA hardware on friday.

Last friday, during my fourth pool dive (!..), I finally used for the first time all that beautiful equipment shown before. The Seac-Sub BCD and the Aqua-Lung Legend regulators went to water for the first time. 

I installed an air bottle (half inflated here) on the BCD. I did not hesitated in the strap passing order in the strengthening buckle. It's even written on it : 1-2-3-4 and the scratch finally. Then, I installed the regulators. The main respirator should on the right. The spare yellow one, the pressure manometer and the BCD inflator pipe, on the left. While maintaining the window of the manometer front to the soil for security, I opened the main valve fully then returned half a turn. Read the pressure. If I open the respirator valve, the pressure decrease. Finish by checking the whole system  before wearing it.

This time I wore the SCUBA, sit on the pool seat and went to water using the "straight jump". With your BCD inflated, you stand fully equipped on the edge of the pool (that should allow enough stability!). Check if the area is free of any obstacles of other diver. Breathing already through the respirator, protect your mask and respirator with one hand, your instruments along the body with the other. Looking straight ahead, you make a big step ahead and that all. Once in the water, you check if you kept everything with you and you make the sign OK to your instructor.

We revisited the use of the respirator under water. It was really necessary because the last time, I completely forgot that one can empty the water from it just by pushing the exhaust valve! 
I was pushing that water like in a snorkel. If you have enought in the lungs, it's OK but if you are already empty...
I almost drowned my buddy during a respiration exercise with as single respirator for two divers due to that stupidity!

Most of the work now will be to practice enough to control to the best the descending and ascending speeds. They vary a lot with the deep due to pressure difference. It must be control using the lungs as a ballast and, by small touches, the BCD.

Will need sometime for sure...

to whom is those strange things in the bathroom?..

 

Happy New Year 2007!
Bonne Année 2007!

May this new year afford you happyness and prosperity!

This is a new year again and my wishes are not so superficial as they could appear. Yesterday night, the peacefull evening at home started very sadly. 

Around 7h30 pm I was afraid a big scratch sound coming from the street. 

I went to the window and I did not realized immediatly what happened exactly. There were no apparent accidents 
just a car that looked strangely parked. It turns out that the drivers just had a heart attack and when unanimated, bumping four cars parked along the walk side. The rescue medical doctors did cardiac massages and artificial respiration for more than one hour but, very sadly, they failed to save the poor man from a certain death...

A sort of story that recall you that life is indeed a so fragile thing and we should  spoil a single minit.

In 2007, I am very motivated to pursue my discovery of SCUBA diving as well as developping my hobbies related to watches and computers. Please note that I could combine them altogether easily. For diving I will need at least a watch and a deep meter that could be convieniently mixed into a diving computer!

Santa afforded me the principal hardware that I will complete progressively. 

My basic set is at now :

• Fins (Beuchat, Marseille, France)
  
• 2 masks : one Scubapro CrystalVu and a Cressi which is beeing adapted to my view.
• a snorkel (Technisub, a group of Aqua Lung Company)
• a 3,5 mm thick shorty wetsuit

My new BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) is a Pro2000 Seac Sub  with a total buoyancy capacity (the L size) of 21.2 Kg/46.6 lbs.

My regulators are from AquaLung company (series Legend Supreme LX)

 

At now I use for fum my new Vostok Europe "Rocket N1" that gave complete satisfaction for my initial training.

I have posted either on my 2006 album or wus forum other pictures of my fetish watch of the moment (1, 2, 3, 4) that will accompany most of the coming diving trainings. The next diving club training is January 9 but I will go to the pool swimming before this week (fins/snorkeling).