yesterday I started cleaning the hull. For any reason was my second dive tank empty so I only had one to use and .. guess what..? I didn’t nearly got the hull clean with only one tank.. The growth was so big i had to scrape off around 2 inch of shells on the bad spots.
But my neighbors from the french sailing boat SAUVAGE have a dive compressor and filled my tanks.. Mahalo Nui.

So I did another dive today and because I wanted to let you share my experience I got my GoPro with me. I scraped and scraped and after I ran out of air again it wasn’t done as well..
So I got myself back on ZERO and changed the tanks and put another battery into my… where the hell is my GoPro??
I had it strapped to my head. I still had the strap but there was no more camera.? Damn! I lost it.
I set up the other tank and dove down to find it. I just gave it a go without organizing the “rescue dive” and I found a lot.. I found my sunglasses which went overboard yesterday night, I found the coffee filter from the aluminum espresso machine Brian lost a couple days ago and I found the stainless water bottle Brian lost too. I also found a couple plastic peaces which I collected to clean up once I was down there anyway. But what I didn’t find was the GoPro.
It’s unbelievable how fast a dive tank dies when you are working or locking for something. Didier from SAUVAGE quickly filled my tanks again and, after resting for over an hour, down I went again. This time i organized the dive and dropped my dinghy anchor with a long rope to extend the search in circles by going bigger for around 10 feet after every 360 degree round. I found a couple more plastic and some abandoned fishing gear. I could clearly see where ZERO was located when I did the cleaning because all the shells I scraped off where lying on the sandy bottom. So I estimated that the camera must be there as well. But it wasn’t. I wouldn’t hoped to find it when I hadn’t found the sunglasses and the other stuff because of the current coming from the Hanalei river. But when these things were still here why not the camera. I still had some air left and because I never give up I continued my search. I was almost at the end of the 100 feet of rope when I saw something lying on the ground approximately 15 feet out of my rope range. I let loose off my rope and yippeah there it was. I was soo happy that I found it. ZERO must have swung around at the moment I lost it because it was so far away from all the scraped off shells on the ground.



OK Back to business. I swapped tanks again and continued my hull cleaning. I needed another two tanks to finish the job. But now ZERO is free of any growth on the bottom, got new zincs and an exhausted captain.
Because nothing broke, neither the strap nor the camera housing, the screw must have gotten loose and fell off. I never found the screw but I think it’s a reasonable price I paid for that lesson, even it was one of the good aluminum one..
I was soo happy to have an invitation for dinner on SAUVAGE so i didn’t have to cook tonight..

I think they have to add one thing to the checklist you do before diving..

Camera secured..? OK lets go diving!!
ALOHA