My wife thinks i am at times,

My word, i have touched some nerves in here have'nt i...........Whoa, calm
down.........some of you will nedd to visit the medical center if you
carry on like this.
Take it easy.....chill baby............

What does it matter if a "dumb arse" asks questions in here or anywhere
for that matter, he may just be a "dumb arse" and cant help it....if he is
then either help him or leave the poor guy alone.

This conference or whatever its called is not yours, it does not belong to
you or any of you......you may moderate or contribute to it but by
creating it you make it open to all the arse holes of this planet, and
some E.T's juding by some of the responses.....

As for me.......well......when i thanked you all, i meant it......over the
past 2 years (its not a burning issue you see) i have visited Ferrari Car
dealers, telephoned Cartiers, looked on countless websites, and google is
my default home page......all to no avail, perhaps i used the wrong
keywords at the time......but the responses i got from where i mailed were
of no real help.....so while looking for another newsgroup in the long
list of them i saw......Ferrari.......i was not looking for it, i just
happened across it and thought .....hey, thats worth a shot......and
gentlemen it has been fruitfull.....i ask myself....why did'nt i ask in
here in the first place.......

I did'nt buy the watch, it was a gift for me from someone who could afford
to buy it, i have other things i spend my money on.......that something is
scuba diving......and Jag's.....

Just so that i dont just take and not give in here i post for your perusal
a recent trip report of mine...........just part of a holiday report.

I hope you view it as a contribution, something different for a change eh.

Our trip started of with a week in Dubai, i had wanted to dive on the East
coast of the Emirates but came down with a dreadful cold and heavy cough,
so that was out. Dubai was mostly overcast although warm, it is not a
pedestrian city, not from down on Jumera beach anyway, the quality of the
hotels is staggering compared with what we pay here for a night just off
the "motorway"....

Next stop was Manila for a few days, (neither of us will fly more than 8
hours now unless there is no stop) it was here that i read about the
Sipadan incident being "officially over".....
Manila is very warm and humid, it is also very, very inexpensive, for
shopping (the ladies would love this)and eating out, the hotels are of a
very good quality and very reasonably priced. Best place to stay would be
in the Makati district.

From Manila we flew to Guam, which is a U.S. dependency ? i think thats
right, it was U.S. immigration anyway, from there we flew 1.5 hrs to Chuuk
and noticed the weather was very overcast, the airport is just a bit of a
shed, Chuuk appears to be very poor, or very poorly managed, nepotism I'm
told is rife here, so is corruption.

We were met at the airport and transported by small boat out to our dive
boat SS Thorfinn which was anchored out in the lagoon, the boat itself is
an old Whaler, used to working in the Arctic. It can cater for up to 22
people although when we arrived there was only one other guest and he was
leaving for Sydney in two days time. The boat is all steel and very
sturdy, it never moved an inch whatever the sea did, in fact all the
cylinders on board were stored upright on the dive deck and none were
strapped in any way at all, it is steam driven and watching the crank and
pistons was a real treat. One good feature on Thorfinn was the jacuzzi on
the second deck, real hot water and a great relaxing treat.

The only other boats in the lagoon are the Aggressor and the Odyssey, i
dont think they had guests while we were there as they didn't move.
The diving was done by tender from Thorfinn, most sites were only 5-10
minutes away, for diving the outer reaches of the lagoon Thorfinn would
steam across at the end of the week to access those.
The cabins on board all have showers and w/c, also in all rooms is a tv
with video player and video library on top deck with diving and regular
videos at no cost.
Food on board was adequate, not always to our liking but we never went
hungry.
We were expecting clear blue skies and flat seas, we actually got overcast
skies, rain and rough seas, i think we had 2 sunny days and calm seas out
of nine days there. It did not spoil the diving though.
There is no current in the lagoon so no need for surface bags etc...the
lack of light and what i would term "poor vis" made photography and video
less than fantastic, the power on board Thorfinn would not charge my UK
400 either, not enough "umph"....
I always thought that the wrecks were Japanese Imperial Fleet, they are
not, they are the supply ships that were sitting in the lagoon.
The divemaster on Thorfinn (who didn't dive) was Dan, he knew virtually
everything there was to know about every ship in the lagoon, where it was
made, what it carried, how and when it was hit etc, he was exceptional
knowledgeable.
The dive guide(s) and the boatmen were excellent, the tenders, of which
there are 4 on Thorfinn, have no GPS or instruments but the guide could
find any wreck just by eye triangulation, and even drop anchor to the bow
or stern of the wreck you were diving, and the vis did not allow you to
see these wrecks from the surface, quite amazing.

The depth that we dived was down to 60 metres, a lot of the wrecks had
parts as shallow as 3-5 metres, which was handy while doing deco at
various depths. Thorfinn had a safety stop regime of its own, 4 stops on
the way up at various depths, and boasted no one ever getting bent.

The temp was around 28-29-30 at all depths, and the vis was mostly gloomy
due to overcast skies and varied between 10-20metres.

There was not a lot of coral growth considering 60 years had passed, some
parts of the wrecks were surprisingly clean. Port holes with glass,
torpedoes, tanks, motorbikes, trucks, big shells, and millions of small
arm rounds still in crates and also scattered over the decks, crockery,
cups, bowls, Vynal records ????, Binoculars, medical supplies, small
bottles of pills in their thousands still intact, and bottles of alcohol,
i have never seen so many bottles, they must have been pissed.....the
bottles were like large champagne bottles though, i didn't understand why
they were so big. On a sadder note....there were skulls and bones still in
these wrecks, bringing home that people had died here a long time ago.
The holes in the sides made by torpedoes were huge and had buckled the
structure.
We were able to penetrate the wrecks, at times quite deep, down to many
stairwells, to see engine room and massive banks of gauges, while in there
our torch decided to give out (there was only me ,my wife and the guide)
and we were left with the guides torch, amazingly he gave us this torch
while we had a look around, and he disappeared into the blackness without
a torch, what seemed like 5 minutes later he reaper ed with a skull that
he kept hidden from other guides eyes, the amazing thing was he being able
to navigate in total (and i mean total) darkness. We never felt stressed
while in these wrecks, even though there was no visible light, such was
our confidence and belief in our guide, Kent. We were totally at ease with
him.
There were always Nitrox hang tanks from the tender should anyone need
them, we didn't find the need but it was reassuring.
Once back on the tender and the big boat we never had to touch our kit, it
was taken off while in the water and we didn't have to touch it again till
we strapped it on the next dive, Thorfinn had fixed dive times for 5 dives
a day, the first being 8am, 11am, 3pm, etc, we only did 3 dives a day so
I'm not sure what the other times were.
Sadly our 9 days went far too quickly, we enjoyed all our diving there and
could recommend it without reservation, we were told by all we spoke to
that a boat is by far the best way to dive Chuuk, and not to stay on Weno
the mainland as it can be a little unsavoury, from what i saw of it there
is only the Truck stop Hotel and nothing outside that.

So, it was back to Guam and on to Yap for some diving with Manta's,
awesome.............
Now do i do the Yap report here and risk boring everyone to death or post
as another "post".......i suppose i should really get back to some work,
so, its another posting for the Yap report then.......i hope you all enjoy
reading this one, it was actually better than it sounds and if anyone
wants any info or tips then i should be only too happy to help if i am
able.

DaveM

Is anyone else disgusted by the appearance of one who would purchase a
$10k watch, but who can't operate a f.cking phonebook?

It's considered proper to define non-standard abbreviations the first
time they are used, or did you mean to say "the Egyptian god of music
and revelry"?