Fireworks & Burning Dogs <10.8.2008>

Every year during the summer months, Japan is celebrating the Hanabi season with huge – 90 min. long-lasting firework sessions.
One of the biggest ones was going to happen this weekend at Tokyo Bay.
And as this is easy to see from my balcony – I decided to give a small Hot Dog Party!

With the support of “Flo” we prepared the buffet ready for 24 Hot Dogs – which was just right for all 5 of us ;-)
The living room was transformed into the BBQ area and grill was ready to go.

Now we were ready to sit down and enjoy the show:

Considering that in this moment 1 million people were watching this fireworks around the Tokyo bay -> we definitely had Top Spot to watch the show at highest comfort ;-)

With a Big Bang

AQUOS Team - New Dive Buddies <2.8.2008>

Recently I got the chance to join my good old friend Yuko & her Dive team, who took me to a joint weekend at Izu.
They using the dive shop which is close to my office in Kanda – called Aquos:
http://www.d-aquos.com/shop/index.html

I highly can recommend them to anyone as they have brilliant service, a decent selection of diving stuff and great instructor called Ajima san. He put his whole heart in what he does and really try to take care about everyone to make it an enjoyable dive.

So hear come the main actors:

My dear old friend & colleague Yuko san and her best mates Masami san & Kanae san (from left).

We went Saturday morning to Izu by Shinkansen and started our first dives at Futo from the 2nd beach entry point.
It was pleasant summer day and we where just few diving teams, as most of them went to IOP for a special sunset dive event. We used that chance to enjoy most infrastructure just for us alone ;-)
The visibility was not so bad and also the temperatures where fine about 22 deg.
This dive site has unusual high number of those special anemones I find so funny looking:

The highlight today was definitely the moon fish – so called “mambo” in Japanese – unfortunately he was already dead x-)
We wish you a good (final) rest fellow…

The more lively ones you can find below:





We stayed tonight in a nice Ryokan directly in Futo before we head next day to the famous Mikomoto dive site – you remember the Hammers?!

Even the days before were very promising due to many shark sights, but we weren’t lucky that day.
We could not spot any hammer heads just some more hidden ones – can you find him?

SAD? … Not at all!!!
There is much more to experience than just the hammers – there is the CURRENT!!!
Believe me – it was a really strong current that day which made it a perfect drift dive. I really LOVE current.
Such experience you can hardly find anywhere else around Izu – enjoy it.
Below pictures might give you some idea what I am talking about ;-)

I love that one (^ε^)

Thanks to the good experience and professionalism of Ajima san we all had a great & safe day out in Mikomoto.

I hope to have soon the chance to dive with you all again

To my new friends