Dear Members

Some of us were lucky enough to be able to attend the Royal Geographical Society to hear the lecture from Frank Gardner, Rick Stanton, Monty Halls and Terence Stamp.

For those that weren’t able to attend you may be interested in downloading the podcast of these from either London Diving Chamber website (link below) or from iTunes Podcast section, keyword search ‘London Dive Chamber’

http://www.londondivingchamber.co.uk/index.php?id=events&page=7

Happy listening

Chris

I am looking for volunteers to write up trip reports for a number of the trips taken during 2006. I realise that many of them are in the dim and distant past but all we need is a few short paragraphs (unless, of course, you’d like to write more). These are the trips that we still need to cover:

Southern Red Sea on Blue Seas
Littlehampton
Weymouth (August)
Plymouth

If anyone has already submitted a report for any of these (sent it in for the now defunct newsletter, for instance) then please let me know and I will try to track it down.

And, also, a gentle reminder to the following people who have already volunteered to write up reports:

Alan L - Diving for Life in St Lucia
Andy S - Pembrokeshire
Brian B - Sark
Brian B - Djibouti
Martin J - Tenerife

Final call for anyone wanting to do an oxygen-administration, boat-handling, engine maintenance or marine radio course, plus some diving. The diving would have to be for dry-suit only divers, but the courses can be done by anyone. Not necessary to do all 4 days either. Accommodation all arranged. Please contact me asap if interested and I’ll send you details (duration, cost etc).

Hi everyone

Fiona’s birthday is coming up and we are planning to go to the Two Brewers that weekend to celebrate her.
I hope a lot of you come and join us on Saturday 31st March.
For more information please email me.

Sonja

One of the most unusual locations where I’ve sported my dive kit to date must have been in Vauxhall last Wednesday.
No I didn’t have to rescue anyone from the jacuzzi in Chariots, I was next door in the AREA nightclub!

Let me tell you, I felt even hotter in front of those camera lights than in that fabulous dry dive chamber last year!
Especially after I had to clamber the bar counter and drape myself across like a beached mermaid.

All done to promote GLUG! The photographer was a funky Aussie and I’m sure it will all look terribly artistic when it appears in a forthcoming issue of AXM magazine. It will be an article on post-clubbing…like what other clubs there are to join and go to.

On the subject of night clubs. I wondered if anyone would be interested in having a GLUG table at this event (see below) next Thursday.

A kind of GLUG social night out, even if you don’t know Tallulah, I think it will be a funny and unusual night out.

I can get sponsors tickets for £10.

If anyone wants to come, email me or ring me and I can explain a bit more….

Gerhard

DFL (Diving for Life) is three-quarters full, so if you’re thinking of going, I suggest you get your booking in quick. This year it’s in Belize, 29th Sept-6th October. Come along and have some fun and do your good turn for charity at the same time. See their website: www.divingforlife.org.

The GLUG Chair and a buddy diving in Tenerife: Nov 06

The trip is only four weeks away and I cannot wait to land at the Aeropuerto Reina Sofia before watching a sub-tropical sunset over the Oceano Atlantico. It is such a nice feeling to leave behind the cold British winter and get off the plain feeling the warmth of Canarian winter. My excitement increases as I recall familiar dive sites and friendly Stingrays but also in anticipation of diving with different people and indulging in tapas or paella for super.

I have spoken to Yvonne at www.tenerifedive.com and we agreed that we will keep the bookings open till 25th of February (unless we fill in all the places before that date). This gives more time to anyone who likes to make decisions at the last minute.

So, what are you waiting for: book your flight and e-mail me your confirmation, which will secure your place on the trip. Please see Events Page and previous posts for details.

Hi Everyone

I still have 9 places left on The Cocos trip and, in an effort, to keep this charter gay/gay friendly, could I kindly ask everyone to have a think about possible club mates or friends who may, very well, be interested in this trip. I have emailed all our affilate clubs and only the Paris club bothered to reply.

Thanks in anticipation.

Charlie

If you’ve always wondered why, in the plethora of TV channels available nowadays, there isn’t one dedicated to Scuba…then wonder no more, because there is one! Click on the logo to view it.

Only available at present as an Internet stream (which means you’ll need broadband to watch it), it’s well worth a look - at present, there’s just a few programmes, typically about 5 minutes long each, but they’re quite varied, and there’s even one presented by Monty Halls.

You can also register you interest for certain types of programme, and they’ll send you an email when they’re scheduled.

If you’ve tried to access the website over the last week, you may well have found that at times it’s very slow, or doesn’t respond at all.

Our webhost providers are aware of the problem, and have promised to upgrade the server within the next week. Until then, I’m afraid we’ll have to live with it. If there’s no response from the website, wait 15 minutes or seo, and try again. If after an hour it’s still not responding, send me an email (to webmaster at glug dot co dot uk), and I’ll hassle the providers again.

Neil.

Common Stingray - a common sight in Tenerife’s waters.

The trip is five weeks away now and bookings need to be finalised soon. Please see Events Page or previous post for details and the Gallery for pictures from the previous trip. The deadline is Monday the 12th of February. After this date I can still take a booking, if any place is left, but I cannot guarantee the quoted price. Please e-mail me by clicking on the envelope on the top of this post if you are interested.

I’ve contacted La Tasca in St Martin’s Lane about an evening meal on March 10th. (Note: I’ve realised that it was previously on the Events Page as March 11th - apologies).

They’ve suggested that we choose one of their Party Menus (click the link to see them). The Menu Sevillano is only available at lunchtimes, while the Menu Valenciano is £17.50 per person, and the Menu Madrileño is £21.95 per person. The two menus are identical except for two additional meat tapas on the more expensive one.

(BTW - we get all of the dishes on the menu!)

My suggestion is to go for the Valenciano menu (and not just because I’m married to a man from Valencia!). However, if the majority is set on the additional tapas, then we can probably work something out. The vegetarian dishes are a little limited, but if we get enough people, we may be able to arrange to have an extra vegetarian dish or two.

We need a minimum of 8 people for the Party menus. I need definite names ASAP, please, so please leave a comment below if you definitely want to come. Please also indicate if you’re vegetarian.
I’ll be making the booking on 16th February, so please leave your comment before then. If others sign up after that, it will be subject to the restaurant having space available.

Please note that if you sign up below and then don’t turn up, you will be liable for the cost of the meal!

UPDATE: The Amazon links are now working properly!
If you use Paint Shop Pro on your computer, I’ve discovered that the Bring Back the Reds filter will also work with that - just drop the file in the plugins folder.

One thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes the photos come out with a slight purplish tinge. If you’re familiar with the Photoshop Levels… control, you can just tweak the result slightly to get back to Blue. In Paint Shop Pro, I think it’s the “Hue Map…” command that you want.

Finally on this subject, I’d like to recommend a book entitled “Adobe Photoshop for Underwater Photographers“. If you use Photoshop to edit your photos, this book is invaluable. It starts with simple effects, and builds up gently, covering all the things that Underwater Photographers are likely to want to do. Check it out on Amazon.

Anna recently asked me to upload some of her photos, from the GLUG trip to Tenerife last November, into the GLUG gallery. I noticed that a lot of her photos had the very blueish tinge that you often get from Natural light photos, and so I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to try out a new Photoshop Bring Back the Reds filter that I found.

As you can see, the results are impressive - this shot of a diver and stingray shows the original in the top left, and the filtered version bottom right.

The filter should work with either PhotoshopCS (for those who can afford £570!) or PhotoShop Elements (for those who can afford £70!). To use it, right-click on the link above and Save the file into your Adobe Photoshop Plugins folder.

Have a look at the rest of Anna’s photos (also Photoshopped) - you really can get great results with just a compact camera and Natural light!

Neil.