u/diverareyouokay

The top piece has brown paint instead of the normal blue like actually everything else in the ~24 lbs of pottery. Does anyone happen to know if it might be from a different period? Or is it just a different style or area?

Also, any ideas on the significance of the characters on the center shards?

Some of you might remember my posts from last year, where I shared a ridiculous amount of broken Ming Dynasty porcelain that I found on Verde Island here in the Philippines. Yesterday I went back and came home with around 10kg of broken porcelain. I haven’t had a chance to sort through them yet, but I did notice this piece, which appears to be from the Chenghua period (late 1400s). Either that or it was an apocryphal mark from the late Ming dynasty, which is possible since the shipwreck it came from (a Spanish galleon named Nuestra Señora de la Vida - “Our Lady of Life”) occurred on August 9, 1621.

If anybody can give me more information on this shard, I’d love to hear it. If you couldn’t tell from my earlier posts, finding these suckers on the beach has turned from a hobby into a pseudo-addiction. I don’t think that they are valuable in a monetary sense, but historically speaking, they fascinate me.

I’ll share some pictures of anything else interesting or noteworthy later, once I have a chance to look at each piece more closely. Although at least one is really interesting to me, because it still has the shiny glaze. It’s only a fragment (as are most of what I find) but it really looks like it could have been taken out of the kiln yesterday. The cobalt blue is very bright and the glaze very shiny… so I guess there must be a few boxes at the wreck site that are still getting cracked open (or at least, distributed… since the wood has presumably rotted away long ago).

Old posts from last year:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChinesePorcelain/comments/1jwlprj/went_back_to_verde_island_today_and_came_home/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChinesePorcelain/comments/1jqdhye/believed_early_1600s_ming_dynasty_porcelain_mixed/

I’ve been spending three months a year in the Philippines scuba diving for the last decade, and recently bought a kettle style grill (it’s very cheap, stamped aluminum, so I’ve been doing a two zone setup).

My neighbor wanted to make some steaks and I found a place that has Brazilian beef tenderloin, so I picked up a 1.2kg/2.6lb loin. Except it’s an odd shape. It has a thick head and a skinny tail…. I guess I could still cut it into 1.5” or 2” segments and grill those?

Anyway, any advice on how to cook? This would be appreciated. I believe we are using coconut charcoal that I usually light with my chimney starter..

I’ve got 4-5 pairs of fins in my closet, mostly stuff similar to Cressi Frogs, but for the last ~decade, I’ve basically lived in a pair of Apollo Bio-Fin Pros. Yeah, they’re splits, but they were comfortable and I’d eventually dialed them in enough to get the precision I needed for super macro work. I could even manage a “good enough” backkick in them if I tried.

A buddy mentioned the local shop owner had a pair of RK3s in the wrong size that he was looking to move for cheap. I missed out by a day (he sold them to one of the guides), but he pointed me toward the Tecline Lightjets (a Polish brand) at the local supply store instead. Since I get a 30% pro discount there, I figured it was worth a look.

They’re actually phasing them out, so they only had Small and XL left in white and light blue (which I actually like). I’m a size 13 US tennis shoe and 12 bootie, and since (according to Reddit discussions) the Tecline foot pockets run a bit smaller than the Apeks, I figured the XL was worth a shot. They were on clearance for half off (right around $120 USD) so I bit. I figure even if I didn’t like them, I could probably sell them when I got back to the States and recoup my money. Although from what I can tell, it doesn’t look like they have much presence in the US.

I didn't have my high-tops with me, and the fit was a little sloppy in 3mm shorties. The spring strap catch was riding a little high, so I grabbed a pair of 5mm Mares Classic NGs (another $52 USD). With those on, the fit was much better.

I took them out for three dives yesterday and the difference is night and day. It took a minute to adjust my technique, but once I did, it was intuitive. The best analogy I can give is that it feels like the training wheels finally came off my bike. They are significantly more responsive and nimble - my frog kick (which is my primary) is providing way more displacement per stroke than before.

I’ve also noticed I’m ending dives with more gas than usual. It could be a placebo effect, or just the fact that the water is warming up and the current has been mild, but the numbers are consistent. I did an hour today with the first 20ish minutes at 30m. Usually, I’d surface from that sort of dive profile with maybe 80 bar, but instead I had 100. It feels like the increased propulsion efficiency may be lowering my CO2 production and SAC rate (usually 0.8, though yesterday it was 0.6 for a short time, which is also unusual for me unless I’m just totally still), especially when I'm just kicking and gliding or holding position against a light current for a shot.

Overall, I'm really happy with the switch. I think I just got a little too comfortable with the old gear and didn't realize how much effort I was wasting. So, it looks like I’m keeping these and making them my new primaries.

TL/DR: I like jet fins and should have switched sooner

Edit: it looks like these are exact clones of the deep6 Eddys, which is.. interesting.

For the last decade I’ve been spending 3 months a year in SE Asia scuba diving, usually in the Philippines. I have a local apartment here, and absolutely love the diving, people, and prices. However, the food leaves a lot to be desired.

Maybe seven or eight years ago, somebody opened a Cajun/Filipino fusion restaurant in my tiny little town, which had me really excited, but it ended up not being popular and closed a few months later. Sad. Since then, I’ve started bringing a half dozen of both jambalaya and gumbo kits (and sometimes other stuff, like étouffée, red beans and rice, etc), along with other essentials like “slap ya mama”, community coffee (which is a huge hit with my French friends), etc.

Andouille sausage is virtually nonexistent here (and if you can find it, it’s incredibly overpriced). So, I make do with cervelat sausage and rotisserie chicken, plus veggies (bell pepper, celery, onion, garlic).