Divers in romance (part 14) We swam with seals in zero distance潛水員的浪漫（十四）零距離與海豹接觸

There are a variety of bird species that engage in the search for food, including petrels and gannets. However, one particular bird stands out for its courage and fearlessness in snatching food directly from a human hand.

great-winged petrel (Pterodroma macroptera)
This remarkable bird possesses the ability to spot its prey from great distances and skillfully capture it while hovering in the air.

Beneath the ocean's surface, an array of formidable predators awaits, such as dolphins, seals, sharks, and whales. These creatures exhibit impressive speed as they engage in the hunt. On the final day of our sardine run expedition, while our boat rested in a bay, we were fortunate to witness a playful pod of dolphins swimming alongside us. Moving at a leisurely pace, they allowed Camilla and me to swim alongside them, mere arm's length away.

Having observed a group of predators in action, hunting the sardine fishes, we journeyed to Simon's Town, the southernmost town in our itinerary. This town is home to a naval base constructed two centuries ago and adjacent to it, resides a colony of African penguins and seals.

African penguin

The African penguin possesses two distinct characteristics that set it apart from other penguins: a charming pink eye shadow and a unique seven-star pattern adorning its chest.

African fur seal

African fur seal

African fur seal

Within the same vicinity, we encountered a species belonging to the fur seal family. It is important to note that fur seals and true seals belong to different families. While fur seals have external ears, true seals lack these traits and spend more time in water. The particular species we encountered is known as the African fur seal.

Camilla had made reservations at a historic two-story hotel in Simon's Town, which was erected 120 years ago.

Central Hotel Simon's Town

All the guest rooms are situated on the second floor, while the first floor houses various shops. Remarkably, the hotel stands just opposite the pier from which we embarked on our diving adventures. Originally, we had planned to stay at a larger hotel in closer proximity to the pier, but it was undergoing renovations during our visit.

The African penguins' habitat, known as Boulders Beach, is conveniently located a mere 10-minute walk from our hotel. These charismatic creatures freely roam the beach and venture into the sea in search of sustenance. To support their nesting and chick-rearing needs, several nurturing incubators have been strategically placed on the middle hill.

Before bidding farewell to South Africa, we made a stop at the Cape of Good Hope to witness its extraordinary wildlife firsthand.

Cape of Good Hope and light house

There is a farm to growth ostrich. Visitors may buy them food.

common ostrich

There are also a lot of baboon in wild. We spoted them crossing a road.

Chacma baboon

Divers in romance (part 13) Exploring South Africa潛水員的浪漫（十三）探索南非

Many people have a general impression about South Africa, which is poor, has a high crime rate and had the laws of apartheid that were lifted after 1990, so did I before I travelled there. 


As I mentioned in chapter 9, which said that we watched a documentary about South Africa, we planned a trip to watch sardine run, great white sharks and seals.

After Camilla had done a research about sardine run, she figured out that there are two options. She has become an expert to arrange a diving trip, so I always praise and commend her.

She consolidated 2 options that are table d'hôte and à la carte, which mean set menu and individual dishes.

For set menu, some operators make use of a sea side resort, Mbotyi River Lodge, as a base to organise a 9 days trip, which includes scuba diving, microlight plane and land safari. The package usually has seven days to travel by inflatable boat in the morning and has other on-land activities in the afternoon. 

For individual option, someone who just wants to have one or two days to see sardine run may make a booking from local shops, which mainly locate at Port St. Johns. They may book whenever they want. Having watched the sardine run in the morning, they might have other favourite activities in South Africa.

This is a map that shows the location of Mbotyi River Lodge and Port St. Johns.

Mbotyi River Lodge and Port St. John

We flew by South Africa airline in early July. After we have registered our record on their web site, we received an invitation to bid an upgrade. We chose the lowest price for this bid. They accepted our bidding 3 days before departure. I am very appreciative this marketing strategy because their extra cost is the service of their lounges to which most is fixed cost. I now understood why Cathay Pacific's business has declined. 

We flew to Johannesburg where Hong Kong has direct flight, whereafter we transited to Durban. As South Africa is its home base, it occupies the most convenient counters, which are just next to the exit of the custom, for their passengers.

We booked from one of the trip operators, SEAL that means expeditions sea air land, and another operator mainly targets the Russians. They picked us up from the airport to the lodge. The journey was around 7 hours, so the sky has been dark when we arrived at the lodge. We picked up a room next to swimming pool. 

Mbotyi River Lodge

We were giving a briefing next morning. They require us to have a valid diving insurance that is not only a travelling insurance. The most common agent that provides such insurance plan is DAN, Diving Alert Network, which I mentioned in Chapter 7.
The below video shows what we expect to see.

After the briefing, we rode on the inflatable boat, which shows in below. We needed to push it out of the beach all together.

inflatable boat

After we have jumped on the boat, the caption drove it as a surf-boat to ride on the swells, which shows on the below picture.

inflatable boat

The caption was then patrolling along the coast, observing the weather, gathering of birds, sea conditions, and receiving the information from the pilot of microlight plane who was flying along the eastern coast  between the north of Mbotyi River and port St. Johns. 

microlight plane

Having found sardine swimming under water, the cape gannets dive into water to catch them as showing in the below video.

This is a video for our trip.

Divers in romance (part 12) Review of using full face mask with buddy phone潛水員的浪漫（十二）測試全面罩面鏡及水底通訊器

Testing buddy Phone

We bought a pair of OTS Guardian full face mask and buddy phone D2.

The buddy phones can communicate between 50 to 500 meters, which depends on the sea conditions and noise levels. The sound is digitised and transmitted through ultrasound using upper single sideband. This buddy phone operates by a 9V Alkaline battery. It 

Buddy Phone D2

Wearing a FFM with a buddy phone

is quite easy to install by following the instructions of its manual. The design of the Guardian full face mask is fantastic. 
1. The regulator is very easy to lock and unlock with the FFM.
2. It makes use of the tank air that is dry to blow the screen of FFM before we breath. This function prevents fogging effectively.
3. As the mask always has positive pressure inside, water is not possible to seep into the mask that occurs quite often on traditional masks. 

The below video recorded our communication underwater, which was extremely clear, but it has a drawback that makes us consume much more air than usual, especially when we speak.

For safety, the diver who uses FFM needs to bring a spare mask and learn mask removal and replacement. Removal and replacement of traditional mask is like riding a bike, but it is difference from doing on FFM. 

FFM is integrated mask and regulator, so you lose your sight and breath when you have removed it. You need to do both regulator and mask clearing at the same time. This is the reason why I said the actress who is in the film 47 meters down must be filmed on land.

Common scuba Myths

Once in an underwater conversation, she said she felt shiver, because she was during the period of menstruation. Then she asked whether she would have hypothermia.

Heat lost

I remembered I watched a programme of "Troubled Waters", which was on the show of Dataline NBC of Australia. They interviewed a couple who floated 19 hours overnight when they and their dive boat did not connect after a dive on the Great Barrier Reef. In the programme, they mentioned they experienced signs of hypothermia, as many people do not understand shivering and teeth chattering does not mean you have hypothermia. They think hypothermia and chilling are the same thing, but they are not. Hypothermia is defined as a core body temperature of less than 35 degree Celsius.

diving boat

The second myth is that they did not do any exercise to keep the heat in their core organs, because they thought blood would be sent to the muscles when doing exercises. The truth is that it is not always the case the exercise in the cold must only make you colder. Doing exercise in cold water can generate enough heat to match or surpass the larger thermal drain, depending on water temperature, work load, duration

of exposure, your body composition, and what you are wearing. It is true that exercise increases heat loss, but it is an important point that it does not mean that you will always cool. It depends how much heat you keep and how much you lose. If you generated more heat than you lost, you would be warmer than nothing to do.

The third myth is blood of menstruation will be as a shark bait that I mentioned in the previous chapter. 
According to a diver researcher who is Dr. Carl Edmonds found that Australia’s shark attack tracking system reported nine times more shark attacks on men, even though there was an even number of male and female swimmers.

Menstrual blood does not attract sharks. Neither does menstrual blood attract grizzly bears during camping trips, cause wine to sour as stated in ancient religious writings. As we saw in many sharks watching dives, they dropped a large amount of blood and dead fishes to attract sharks. How much of menstrual blood seeps from uterus in a dive? It had been difficult to measure before Camilla has used menstrual cup because of reducing the usage of disposal materials.

Using a menstrual cup needs more care of being infected and leakage than pads. It needs to be sterilised before it is inserted into the vagina. I have learned how its usage is. Firstly, I fold it into a small size and insert into her vagina. When I release it, the cup reinstates to its original cup shape and creates a seal to save her from any leaks. After that, I  need to check whether it has opened and sealed properly by circling my finger around the base of the cup. The manufactures advise that the cup should be cleaned at most every 12 hours. I notice that the menstrual blood has never filled more than half cup. It is much less than this amount for an hour dive and it is not discharged at the same time. So, it can't play a role as a shark bait.

Divers in romance (part 11) Full face mask with buddy phone潛水員的浪漫（十一）全面罩面鏡及水底通訊器

47 meters down

Both of us enjoy to dive together, but we, sometimes, want to share somethings under water. It is difficult to just use hand signal to express all of them.
From a cult film, 47 meters down, we have been inspired by one of the equipments that is full face mask with under water communication device.

The trailer of 47 meters down.

I may talk about this film first.
The story is about a cage diving for watching sharks out of the coast of Mexico. For an experience diver, this story has many arguable scenes.
1. They swim freely without using fins.
2. The donning and un-donning of full face mask under water can't be as easy as the film. This scene must not be taken under water.
3. A tank can't supply air as long as the film stated under 47 meters.

Hopeless of Hong Kong

Lord Guan(關公)

On a Sunday morning, I looked outside through the windows of Camilla's room, which faces to the southern side of Hong Kong Island. Somewhere in the distance lay the horizon, and the sea and sky are seamless. By contrast, the scenes of violence of so called policemen have made us speechless. Most of the policemen have abused the protocols of what human rights have. Rule of law and justices would have gone, if they had ever existed. Their behaviours are as same as the 14K, which is a local Mafia. I have understood why both gangs believe in the same spirit, the statue of Lord Guan.

Taking our first video
When I was watching the distance yachts, she came to me with a back hug and asked: "Have you ever swum in nude?"

She asked me if we swam together. We then wore our bathrobes, as we were in nude. We went to her house's swimming pool. After we have swum several laps, I saw that her mother was watching us by the window. Swimming about 20 minutes, we left the pool and sat on the bench chairs. I massaged her to relax her tense muscle. Of course, I also stroked her breasts and clitoris. Reciprocating, she did massage for me after exchanging our position. Massaging for a short time, she swallowed my penis and waggled it hardly. I warned her I was going to ejaculate, but she had no intention to pull it out. She gargled it in her mouth. Savouring and swallowing my semen, she said its taste has a little rancid, metallic and salty. We then put on our bathrobes and returned to her room. 

Semen

I told her: "I appreciate what you did for me, but I didn't think semen is delectable. You needed not force you to please me."
Camilla said: "You didn't force me to ingest it. I volunteered to do. I know you take care of me. I just have interest to know what semen taste is."

She asked me whether I saw her mother what she did on the balcony. I nodded my head. I saw her took down her underwear to her knee. What we did by the pool made her mother so horny. I asked whether her mother would be angry with us. She smiled and shook her head. 

She said she has had an idea to take a video for us. If we used a stationary camera, it would be imperfect. She asked her mother to help her take a video. She didn't know whether I would agree with her crazy idea and had not asked for a long time.

I hugged her and said: "I would do whatever you wants and fulfill your wish. I was so impregnated to take a video with you." When we went to the dinning room to have breakfast, her mother was already sitting there. I saw her with embarrassing. She came to take my hand to sit next to her. She told her mother to take the video after breakfast. I told them to use my video camera that uses tape. This can guarantee no one can hack our video, which might happen on phone.

Sony VX2000 handy cam

We acted as porn stars and had a lot of fun. I found that I felt so intoxicated, when I knew someone was watching. 

After lunch, we sat in front of a huge tv and watched the video. Her mother filming technique was quite good.

cameraman

The angles that she took showed our enjoyment and she held the camera quite steady and not shaky. She said it was uneasy to hold steady, because we made her so horny and she drenched her underwear completely.

Using full face masks and buddy phones

2 divers who use full face masks

After we have done some studies about full face masks, FFMs, we read an article that published in the Sources magazine, which is an official journal of NAUI. The author tested several brands and recommended OTS,  Guardian.

original article of FFM at page 66

The article for testing difference FFMs

FFMs are designed to cover a diver’s face in a single volume that integrates mask and regulator, and offer more protection from the surrounding environment than
masks, which are commonly used by beginner and recreational divers. 
Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film of True Lies that I talked in the last chapter wear a FFM also, when he dive in an ice lake. It can isolate the cold water from his face.

Divers in romance (part 10) I helped her install the she-p for dry suit潛水員的浪漫（十）幫她成功裝好乾衣女性用小便裝置

True Lies

That I watched a movie True Lies made me know how a dry suit is used. It can keep a diver warm and dry under ice water. Arnold Schwarzenegger wear shirt under the dry suit. After he has taken off the dry suit, he can wear a tuxedo at once and go to a diplomatic banquet.
This is the scene of how Arnold takes off his dry suit.

After you have watched it, did you find a flaw from it?
The director uses a back-zipper dry suit for Arnold that must be unzipped by other people.
Had he used a front-zipper dry suit that can be self-donned, it would have been more convincing.
I also had another question from this scene. Can a shirt that was worn under a dry suit be as straight as a just ironed shirt? I did my proof later.

Dry suit with front-zipper

As I said before, the water temperature in Hong Kong is quite low in winter. There are several choices that we may use to overcome.
1. Dry suit
2. Thicker wet suit
3. Electronic heating warm diving suit

Electronic heating warm diving suit

Dry suit is the most expensive solution. It costed over HK$20000 (US$2600) per suit twenty years ago, but it has dropped to below HK$10000(US$1300) in most of the brands. 





Dry suit divers are required to take a lesson on the usage of dry suit, which includes a lecture and

Uridome

a practise in open water. You may learn how you use the deflated valve, handle the leakage of inflator, control the air that is trapped in the area of your boots, and practice the buoyancy control by using dry suit.

Uridome

Diving in water, we often feel to have pee because of the phenomenon of immersion diuresis.
Wearing dry suit can't urinate as free as wetsuit in which we may do whenever we want, if it isn't installed a pee valve. For men, their penis wears an uridome, which is similar to a condom but with an open end, to attach the pee valve. Therefore, the wearing procedure is very similar to wearing condoms with a little trick.

Pee valve

Wearing uridome

In the contrary, women can't enjoy such freedom. They used to wear diapers as their anatomy of genital is difference until 2006.
A female diver, Heleen who is a Dutch, invented a primary version of she-p, which was made by latex, because she had envied the freedom of male divers. As a lot of people had an allergy to latex. Nowadays, they are made by medical grade silicone.

The outlook of  the she-p

She-p is used to cover and adhere the whole female genital. 

An installation package of she-p

After we have bought our dry suit, we tested them at her home. I tried my uridome first, which doesn't require to shave, but shaving makes it easier to be detached. Camilla helped me wear it. She dried my penis and pull out my prepuce, the foreskin, as long as it can be pulled, because this provides the longest adhesive surface for the uridome.  

The genital after shaving

Wearing technique is as same as the usage of condom, but it has an additional adhesive surface inside. Finally, her palm held my penis firmly to apply force to make sure the uridome adhered to my skin of penis. I wonder men with short penis may not be suitable to use it because they have insufficient surface to adhere. I then connect it to the hose of pee valve. When I was urinating, my urine was coming out from the pee valve. 

Wearing She-p

razor

For she-p, it is much complicated for donning. Shaving is a basic requirement. She sat in the bathroom with legs wide open and I used a razor to shave all the hair surrounding her vulva. 

After shaving, I gazed at her genital. It looks soft and clear, when it has no hair.

Uro-Bond IV

She-p is required to clean by medical alcohol every time. After all alcohol has vaporised, I applied a thin layer of Uro-Bond, 
which is used for medical originally.

I dried her skin and applied another layer of Uro-Bond on her skin. The rear size of the she-p must be as far back as possible without covering the anus, while the front size of the she-p can't directly contact her clitoris that is why there has an open space in the middle by design.

Rear position of She-p

Otherwise, her skin will be pinched and gotten sore. As Uro-Bond IV is a pressure sensitive adhesive, the she-p can be

Applying Uro-bond on She-p

peeled and restuck for better positioning without reapplication. After it has been firmly adhered to her vulva, she wore two thong underware one on either side of the reservoir and followed by a pair of boyshorts pants, which is used for additional force to keep the she-p in position. She tried to

Applying Uro-Bond on the skin

urinate as men. Her urine came out from the host of she-p. We then checked whether it has had any leakage. It was prefect for the first-time installation. She tested once more when it has connected to the pee valve with dry suit on. 

Installed She-p

We dived in winter and some places where water temperature is lower than 15 degree. We were ready to go to South Africa trip.

Both of us have satisfied  the dry suit and pee valve to provide an comfortable experience that we have never held a full bladder to surface and rush to toilet again.

Can shirt keep stright?

I wanted to prove whether True Lies is true. I wore a shirt with tie as undergarment. When I have been descending, the water pressure has been applying pressure on the dry suit and squeezing the

Dry suit with shirt and tie

undergarment. For shirts that make of mixture of polyester and cotton can stay wrinkle-free quite well, but pure cotton cannot stay when it has worn several times.

Mensuration

Camilla used to use tampons for her period before. Tampon is a roll of cotton and rayon that is inserted into vagina to soak up menstrual blood. Using she-p solves this trouble too because it collects blood also. Afterwards, she has gave up to use tampons in wearing wet suit, because blood was diluted quickly. Someone ask whether the blood attracts sharks to attack. I will explain this question later.

Divers in romance (part 9) Sadin Run in South Africa潛水員的浪漫（九）南非的沙甸球

Girl with black clothes

A Candid Conversation

I have stayed in Camilla's home for a few days and I found that her mother has also taken a leave after she heard the accident. This was the right moment that Camilla and I were able to talk to her as a witness, because we read many speculations that were posted on webs had no ground and they didn't know what happened actually.

Her mother had a lot of questions to ask me of my personal, although I have known Camilla told most of them to her.

Her mother asked why I had not dated Camilla until the Cocos

Island trip. She said her daughter had been so frustrated before, so she has been encouraging her to act dominantly, but she worried whether it was because she was not a virgin or I would reject her after her confession. Her mother has always told her that she thought too much. Therefore, she invited me to her birthday party to meet me personally, and she facilitated a situation to make us living in a room of the Cocos Island trip. Then I fully understood why she had blamed herself of Rohina's death.

I explained that her daughter is such allure. I have been fond of her since we met in the diving courses and I have appreciated her to take care of me, but the financial gap has made me to hesitate to express my feeling to

her or I am timid. At last, I bottled it. Her mother corrected me that her daughter is not rich, but her family is. She is just a freelance and self-employed tutor and doesn't earn too much in the term of rich people. We had a candid conversation that has made me know the behind story of Camilla and so did her mother on me. The whole picture has been added up.

Her mother pulled me towards her and whispered a secret of her daughter. I said I would keep a lid on it. She said I am her daughter second boy-friend and would be the last one. She wished her daughter broke up with her ex-boy friend, after the first time she met him, because he looked like a Casanova and flirted every where. He betrayed her several times. Camilla had kept the relationship because she lost her virginity to him. 

Sardine run in South Africa
This night, we watched a documentary about South Africa, which

South Africa fur seal

dolphin

films sardine run, fur seals, penguins and white sharks. Between June and August, an immense amount of sardines swim and head north up from Cape Town along the coast of eastern South Africa. Many animals chase and hunt them, as they are delicious food for them. Usually, the sardines swim in a group, but the bottle-nose dolphins are very clever. They start to chase the sardines to the surface, and drive the shoal together into a bait ball. This technique is called bubble-netting. 

African penguin

Cape gannet

Then an enormous amount of hunters join the fray. They are Bryde's whales, bronze whaler sharks, Cape gannets that hunt through plunge-diving and Cape fur seals. You may see from the video, the scene is spectacular and impressive.

Camilla said she wants to see next year. I told her that I just got a message from Undersea Hunter. They have offered us having two free seats to compensate for our last trip that was terminated early by an accident. This company did very well to have such offer within such short period, which is fair to their guests. I told Camilla: "We will try to ride the submarine to explore the deep sea next trip."

submarine descending

submarine

This is the video of our next visiting of Cocos Island.

Cleaning of Camilla's teeth

We went to dive in Hong Kong before the end of my holiday.

Camilla tested whether cleaner shrimps also clean human's teeth.

The answer is in the below video.