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Share your thoughts, experiences or questions and participate in discussions over our favorite topic : SCUBA diving!

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  • us Ksso
  • # CMAS 3* VDST / N4

  • Qualifications:

    PADI Ice Diver, CMAS Nitrox 1, Photography

  • Dived in: 法属波利尼西亚, 洪都拉斯, 牙买加, Netherlands Antilles, 美国, 墨西哥, 葡萄牙, 西班牙, 多米尼加共和国, 埃及, 泰国, 希腊, 塞浦路斯, 法国, 印度尼西亚

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Cressi Travelight BCD

by Ksso on August 01, 2011

If you're like me and like to take your trusted and loved gear with you whenever you're going for a dive, you'll love Cressi's latest BCD dubbed "Travelight". Check out this video from Steve demoing it. As you can see, despite the small form factor when packed it's perfectly full-featured.The Cressi Sub Travelight BC retails under 430USD and weights about 6 pounds / 2.8kg.

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Sci-fi Nudibranchs

by Ksso on July 26, 2011

I just got my attention drawn towards those two amazing nudibranchs... that just look like aliens from a Dragon Ball anime. (there's something of Frazer in them isn't it ? ). These Glaucus atlanticus (left) and Glaucilla marginata were washed up on Surfers Paradise Beach in Queensland Australia in 2007. The larger one is about 35 mm in length.The normal size of Glaucus atlanticus is between 5 and 8 cm in length. The maximum recorded length is 40 cm. It floats upside down on the surface tension of the ocean. G. atlanticus preys on other larger pelagic organisms: the dangerously venomous Portuguese Man o' War Physalia physalis; the by-the-wind-sailor Velella velella; the blue button Porpita...

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Back from holidays - Scuba in Thailand - Ko Samui

by Ksso on July 25, 2011

I just got back from a few days in Thailand in the Ko Samui area. I had high hopes from Thailand from a scuba prospective, and did indeed see beautiful fish, but a couple details got me a bit unhappy with the whole Ko Samui diving experience. Firstly, there are no dive spots in Samui... which means that in order to go diving you have to do a 1,5-2hrs speed boat ride to Ko Tao where the real fun is (and since I tend to get sea sick and the sea wasn't really calm the ride was bumpy and not really super fun for me). The visibility at that time of the year is fairly average and I couldn't get a real clear status regarding the rest of the year, so it may not be much better. The spots aren't...

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Diveboard holidays : back to the Ocean !

by Ksso on July 08, 2011

Finally after 6 months of intense coding, and months of frustration seeing the cool dives our users are uploading from Brazil, Italy, Egypt and many other cool places, we finally get to add new dives to share on Diveboard (that is if we find some network)!My diving gear is checked and ready to fly to Thailand in Koh Samui for more underwater pictures, and Pascal will be heading to southern France to pass his FFESSM/N2 grade (somewhere between AOW and Rescue Diver).Blogging will be slower and updates are being kept secret - ready to roll when we're back!

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Fish too need to decompress

by Ksso on July 07, 2011

At 4am (I was jetlagged), I ended up watching a very interesting short movie showing how fish are being fished and brought to those big city aquariums all over the planet. The interesting bit was when the fisherman showed something I actually never thought about : Fish need to decompress !!I never realized that although they do not breath gaz, they still extract the oxygen from the water they filter through their branchiae... thus there is gaz in their blood, thus some get fixated within their tissues.The video was showing a jack that was laying horizontal at the surface of the water, unable to keep its buoyancy, the abdomen totally inflated. The Jack had been fished in deeper water and...

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Diveboard Feature update: homepage, dive types, notifications

by Ksso on June 28, 2011

There have been a lot of updates over the past three weeks since our last "Feature update" blog post. I'll try and cover the major ones:Newly redesigned homepage: We were feeling the initial release of the homepage was gorgeous but not efficient in telling in a glimpse about Diveboard's mission and objectives. Also our visitors tended to believe they needed to register to enter the site, which is wrong since we have so much content available publicly. Richard did a brilliant job in creating a new version of the homepage which highlight the core features of Diveboard and hopefully will draw visitors into starting digging inside Diveboard.Dive types: Many users have asked for the ability to...

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Scuba in Disneyworld

by Ksso on June 28, 2011

I'm a big kid and I love Disneyworld. I was dazzled when last fall I visited the Nemo Pavilion in Epcot. Amazing species in a beautifully crafted giant aquarium. And now I found the ultimate reason to justify flying back there : you can now actually go for a dive in this aquarium ! Epcot DiveQuest is a 40 mins scuba dive managed by NAUI instructors in this huge 5.7-million-gallon saltwater tank and over 6,000 sea creatures—including sea turtles, angelfish, dolphins, eagle rays and sharks. 175$ but totally worth it.All Guests must be SCUBA certified and at least 10 years of age to participate. Guests ages 10 to 14 require a SCUBA-certified adult to accompany them.The experience lasts 3...

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Underwater magical encounters: when your chest starts pounding

by Ksso on June 25, 2011

This is a must-see video : National Geographic's Brian Skerry describes the exhiliration of an up-close encounter with a curious, 45-foot-long right whale. For any diver, this kind of feeling are something we all experienced at some level. I remember my first encounter with a shark - my chest was pounding so hard I could not help but swim towards them to snap a closer shot. But I just can't imagine how exciting this encounter must have been and how much experience and self control you must need to get a right shot in those conditions.

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Fish round-up: the Lionfish

by Ksso on June 13, 2011

Lionfish (Pterois) are beautful - and dangerous. Originating from the Indo-Pacific Ocean, they have been introduced by mistake in the Atlantic in mid-90s and have become invasive along the East Coast of the US. Lionfishes measure 6.2 to 42.4 cm with typical adults measuring 38 cm and weighing an average of 480 g.While beautiful, his tentacles ar poisonous making it a hazard to fishermen and divers.  Pterois venom produced negative inotropic and chronotropic effects when tested in both frog and clam hearts and has a depressing effect on rabbit blood pressure. These results are thought to be due to nitric oxide release. In humans, Pterois venom can cause systemic effects such as vomiting,...

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Diveboard Feature updates : Performance enhancements and bugfixes

by Ksso on June 08, 2011

We pushed a set of updates during the last few days here are the main ones worth mentioning :

Performance update : Limited dependencies to the FB Graph API. If FB Graph API is unavailable and your account is using FB connect and your session is still active, you will not even notice it's down

UDCF export : UDCF export was reported as being a wee bit buggy, it's now fixed and improved (and tested successfully with MacDive and DivingLog)

Video Embeds on Facebook Wall posts :  Now if you have youtube videos on your logbook, and it's your choice of featured content, when posting to Facebook the video will be shown as an embed playable from your wall. ...

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