yes, i can still taste the salt! i had a great time re-visiting colleagues from last year's residency and of course swimming in the very cold but clear waters of the NW. as i had my dive hood, gloves and flns with me i could stay in the water for over an hour at a time and managed to do some underwater filming. most of this was done by snorkelling on the surface as i would have needed weights to do any attempted shallow free-diving, and i would not do that on my own, too dangerous. i did however manage to get some nice footage of my (unfinished) antennae chair floating in the turquoise water. the water is really deceiving, and on the surface it looks cold and grey, but under the water it is mesmerisingly colourful and full of life. the amount of planckton in the water suggested that the fish (and therefore seals) would be bountiful although my fishing attempt was unsuccessful. i also got a great wee snippet of footage of a fabric serviette sinking slowly downward (i was still thinking of the titanic) although i was struck with a sudden panic of loss at this symbolic sinking and had to dump the camera so that i could retrieve it, which meant a big effort from the legs to get my buoyant bulk down 7 metres or so to recover it. i had also forgotten how the pressure rapidly squeezes your ears. its amazing, at 10 metres the air in your lungs is at half the capacity that it is at the surface, quite a scary thought. i'll hopefully have some of the footage edited by september and i'll post some on this site.