That dear friends is a pressure canister. Look at it. Just look at it! It’s geeky. Although I had taken my new right out for snorkeling, I still needed to take the whole thing down to at least 60 ft to see if the pressure would give way to flooding. While at the Neo event, Ilyong from Intel suggested I drop by Nautilus as they had a small pressure canister used to test for dive gear leaks.
You see, this was my dilemma: it is common practice to take a new underwater casing down for one dive with tissue paper in the stead of an actual camera to test for leaks. I had not the chance to do this in Anilao over the last weekend as I had a bit of work to finish. The catch is, my next dive would be in Apo Reef — one of the gems of biodiversity in the coral triangle of South East Asia and it so happens to be in the Philippines. A failed Apo – Tubbataha transition journey thanks to Expedition Fleet added to the fervor of really wanting to document this next trip to Apo. Bringing down my gear sans camera would waste one dive worth of documentation.
So I looked for options. According to Ilyong, Jerome had his replacement dive computer brought to Nautilus and submerged in water, sealed simulating the pressure increase to several dozens of meters below sea level. The pressure canister is a cylinder about the size of a beer keg with water and a hose for pumping in air to simulate an increase in pressure. I brought in my case, oiled the O ring, and dumped it in. In nearly 10 seconds, my case was subjected to the equivalent pressure of 100 ft underwater. Wow!
Oh and since I found out all about this during the Neo event, here’s a short commercial:
This is the “new” high end Neo B4105. Look at it! Just look at it! This affordable 14 inch lappie includes an Intel Core i5 430M processor at 2.2GHz (1066 MHz), 3MB L3 Cache, hyper threading and turbo boosting technology, 2GB DDR3 RAM, DVDRW drive, 320GB hard disk space and integrated video. It’s got a 1.3MP webcam, Bluetooth 2.1 and HDMI output. It comes with Windows 7 Starter. Buy it now for only 35,999 (PHP 3,000 0% 12 months). Buy it now!
Also, special thanks to Carol of Nautilus for letting me geek out on her cylinder. If you’re ever in need of a pressure chamber for dive gear and resin, here’s the info:
Nautilus Dive and Sports Center
839 A. Arnaiz Ave. (Formerly Pasay Road)
Midland Mansion, Unit 1/GF Makati City.
Tel./Fax
(632) 8177293
(632) 8122848
Cell No.
(63)9209541477
Office Hours
11:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Monday to Friday
11:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Saturday
Email address:
[email protected]
Contact Person:
Solomon Young / Carol Young