:Gledder\’s diving blog…

I wasn’t going to do a report of my dive today. Just a last quick dive on the Moldavia before I go away with the kids, booked by Mark Emery but when he couldn’t come Mark Powell said he fancied a fun dive.

Mark phoned me last night to check the forecast as it looked dodgy but Steve said come on down. So I picked Mark up in Guildford and we hit Brighton bright and early. Conditions looked good. Erm…. “That is because the wind is coming off the land” said Steve. “It will be different out at sea”. And it was – oh boy it was….. I don’t feel seasick (or at least I haven’t yet) but felt sorry for those who went green.

When we got to the site I didn’t need much encouragement to kit up though and Mark and I hit the water first as we had the longest possible runtime. I managed to get hung up on the trail line from the shot but Mark sorted this out and we descended.

Down, down, down and – there is the wreck. Hang on – we are only at 20 meters – the Mol is at least 40 to the deck….

WOW!!! Welcome to the channel’s version of the red sea – with a better wreck!

I’ve dived the Moldavia twice before but have had poor viz both times and I didn’t really feel that I knew the wreck at all. This time we could see the whole thing stretched out in front of us – and there is enough light to enjoy it all without a torch.. This is why I wanted to do UK trimix diving - better viz and better wrecks deeper but this is the first ‘WOW’ one I had done.

Mark was leading and found a neat but very long swim through which we entered and made our way along – past a toilet which made me think of the Thistlegorm…. To get back into open water we had to swim up vertically through a hole in the roof where I exited – dumping from the front dump of my wing – to find Mark sitting there taking the mick out of my vertical trim at this point. I responded in the appropriate manner!

Past the gun and down towards the bow where I amused Mark by swimming right out beyond the end of the wreck….. in order to turn back and do my ‘gaze and soak up the atmosphere’ bit. I had figured the Mol to be very broken down bu the bow is still very intact and is massive – very impressive moment indeed.

Then in through another swim through – right by the bow. This, again, offered us a rather long penetration but I was reaching minimum gas and indicated to Mark that I would prefer to take an earlier exit a short way in.

Out on to the deck and we are surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of fish which we attack with our light beams as they are getting in the way of the wreck. I’ve lent Mark a Heser light for this dive as his primary had died and I turn to find he has deployed one of his back ups and is comparing the beams of the two. The sign he gave seemed to indicate that his is broken – which was odd as it appeared to be on ;o)

We make it back to the stern – that’s two and a half times the whole wreck in one dive – pretty much half of one length done inside as well. It’s time to go.

I call deco and, having discussed Mark’s views on deep stops, am toying with the idea of calling it slightly shallower than I normally would for his comfort. When we get to 36 metres I pause and realise that I can still see the wreck. That decides it for me – decoing in sight of the wreck after leaving it is to surreal for diving in the UK so I take us up to 33

My deco doesn’t break Mark – although it does bend his computer – and we surface with the sort of post dive grin I haven’t had since leaving Mexico behind. What a fantastic dive. Now we just have to get on the boat.

I figured that having to equalize my ears regularly on the 6 metre hang was we were moved around a great deal meant that the exit would be interesting – but I hadn’t figured on this.

Nauticat is a fair way away and isn’t moving towards us - doesn’t appear to be lifting divers either. I notice a trawler heading towards us and get a little bit concerned. I then realise that it isn’t a trawler – it is a container ship and it is a long way away – but closing fast on the position that Nauticat is in.

Steve is clearly and rightly protecting divers and we will be on our own until he is free to move. We turn and find Spartacat keeping watch on us – turns out Steve is hanging by two of Spartacat’s divers and they are returning the favour. Steve has to radio the ship to change course - wouldn’t want to get much closer than this.

Back on the boat for choccy biscuits for those of us who don’t feed the fish on the way home.

Days like this is what we dive for…. What a wonderful hobby

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After two days in quarries Fraser is feeling a bit more dived up after his absence in New York so it was time to head for some fun dives in the sea.

Friday night found us heading for Portland where we met up with Al at Breakwater. Getting there late we set straight for the bar, and the all important weather report which was showing 4s and rain – but most importantly – the dives looked to be on

We watched some vids and talked until the small hours again, but as the start was a relaxed 1 pm one it really didn’t matter. Unfortunately, I was woken about an hour after we did get to sleep by screeching brakes, slamming door and the sound of running feet. I looked out of the window and saw a man running right past it – he had dumped a car which had obviously been involved in an accident.

I woke Al and we decided to call the police – who appeared very pleased that we did. Giving them all the details, we then went back to sleep – only to be woken a little while later by police units and the dog unit in the car park. More worryingly though the wind was picking up… Oh boy!

We woke eventually though to bright sunshine, and light winds. It was looking good. Al put the sets in (as Fraser was still asleep – having slept through the events of the night as well!) and we turfed him out of bed and went for breakfast. Examining the car brought the pleasant news that whatever it had hit had clearly been paint covered rather than human – so not quite as bad as it could have been.

Goose

A 1pm start meant that there was no rush – this one dive a day lark is something I could get used to. We were heading out over calm blue seas which promised a great dive – and Fraser was beaming like a Cheshire cat to be back.

HMS Boadicea
This WWII destroyer is a war grave in 52 metres. She was lost to German aircraft torpedo attack in June 1944 with 150 souls on board. She stands 6 metres high in some places. There are items of unexploded ammunition on her including depth charges.

We had been travelling about 40 minutes and were thinking about discussing our dive plan when Andy the skipper came out of the wheelhouse and said “Sorry boys, Top Gun has put out a Mayday – she has a fire and we must go to assist”.

Bugger.

We set off at top speed to get to Top Gun who was no longer on fire but had been advised that the Lifeboat would tow her back to port. Her divers who were due to dive the M2 would kit up and join us on Goose – that was it – dive off.

Loosing a dive due to weather is one thing – but at least you can look at the sea and say ‘well I’d rather not be out in that’. Loosing it for these reasons is a bit sickening….I wasn’t the only one off either boat tempted to just jump in But life is like that sometimes, and the wrecks will still be there tomorrow.

It was fun to see the lifeboat in action though – and hear the coastguard co-ordinate the rescue. Nice to know that they are there for all of us.

Andy tried to cheer up 12 pissed off divers on the way back by offering them a dive – but as we had missed slack everywhere – all he could offer was the harbour. We thought about it for a bit and then thought “What the hell, why not” so mindful that we weren’t going to waste a fill of 18/45 diving the Countess in 12 meters planned to dive stages.

This is when I got my silly idea

I have been concerned for a while about the prospect of diving three stages off a boat – which I will have to do later this year. I’m OK with them in the water, but the weight of standing anywhere with twin 12s, an Ali 80, a 7ltr and a 40 clipped off to me is daunting to say the least – let alone on a rocking platform waiting for the shot to come round.

Now, I already had two stages on the boat, the 7 which I was intending to use for the dive and an O2 stage, so I hopped up to Breakwater and picked up my 80 of 32 per cent. That was it then – I’d have a go on a 12 metre dive in the harbour – doesn’t get much easier than that for a first attempt.

Al helped me clip everything off as we were a bit tight for space, and I had to enter the water alone due to the order of divers on the boat – to then hang around on the surface to wait for Al and Frase. It was less a giant stride and more a controlled fall – but you know what – it was OK – and I’m going to stop worrying about having to do it now.

Viz on the Countess was incredibly patchy, and we’ve dived it loads of times so we just did skills and annoyed some fish for a while. Fraser laid some line, Al took it up and I just swam around feeling like an aircraft carrier with all those bottles – but we got wet rather than sulking back at Breakwater – and got an hours dive in.

Back at Breakwater we played on the beach with Al’s Gavin – to get it weighted for sea. Dinner at the Weymouth curry house was fun and we started looking forward to the Salsette which we would dive the next day.

Salsette
British steamship in 48 metres, torpedoed and sunk July 1917, fifteen miles SW of Portland Bill. Intact and lying on its side.

The Salsette was the last wreck that we dived as a team before Fraser left to go to the States. We had a great dive that day although the viz was not that good, and when we surfaced – not knowing if he would ever be coming back – he said “well ladies and gentlement, thank you. It doesn’t get any better than that”.

Now we would do it again.

Thank God the weather looked even better when we woke up on Sunday. With a 1:30 pm start and no fills to get we had the morning on our hands. We wandered into Portland Oceanering which we had never visited before and bought a few small bits and pieces. There was a picture on the wall of the Salsette – which studying it showed us that we had actually swam around the least interesting side of it before – peering through holes in the side rather than over the decks.

Unbelievably, with 5 hours to get ready, the skipper is revving the engine waiting for Fraser to get on board and Al’s blood pressure is rising again! But then we get off – with sea state looking even better than the day before.

Al finding that Fraser intends to be late again

First team in we descend quite slowly, Fraser taking number one position to ensure that he is comfortable. Checks made at 6 and then down to the wreck which we hit in about 38 metres of water. A bit of a shake out and then we descend to the bottom – over the decks this time…. Wow!

We see the port rail buried in the sand and the sheer size of this ship is apparent and magnificent she is too. Viz is a stunning 7 or 8 metres and we are going to have a great dive!

We spot a fish which must be a rainbow wrasse (although I can’t find an image which looks like it on google) but it is huge and really colourful – almost like being in the red sea – but with better wrecks Moving along I spot what must be a bunch of eggs inside the wreck – like large teardrop shaped bunch of grapes – no idea what they are either.

Move forward to the bow, past a huge mast lying on the sea bed – stretching as far as we can see – which is quite a long way today. We swim past a small boiler, and Fraser spots the anchor which doesn’t look quite what I expect one to look like. The bow of the ship shows clearly quite how huge it is – we then turn and swim back a little more shallow.

I’m looking for congers, but don’t see any (Al does) but the wreck is just impressive in every way. There is a lot of machinery around, and I have fun trying to work out what much of it is. Not much in the way of life really – a few shoals of bib in the holds, couple of crabs and one or two large wrasse. Bit too early I suppose – if I’m cold they must be too.

I turn to question Al on deco, if he is running 45 average then we have hit max bottom time – if a 42 then we have a bit more time to go. He indicates that he is happy with a 42 average – a decision I agree with and we agree to swim on for 5 more minutes – but as we turn Fraser thumbs the dive. We were heading towards a 75 minute runtime at this point, in 7 degrees, so wise move

We had a nice ascent – although I’ll be pleased when the sea warms up a bit in the shallows – it does make deco a lot more pleasant. One little issue, my stage reg was bubbling air out each time I finished exhaling – which made my breathing pattern interesting.

When we had reached the end of our 6 metre stop and had 5 minutes to go on deco I started to cough and for a minute could not stop. I put a hand on Fraser to steady myself and whilst I was pretty comfortable that the cough was caused by a dry throat due to the reg breathing decided to take myself off my deco gas and go back to back gas – just in case the higher O2 content was acting as an irritant.

I went to unclip my reg and, on the ball as always, Al saw this and donated to me – thinking that I had a problem with the reg. I used this for a few breaths and handed it back to him switching to my back gas and restowing the stage whilst Frase took over the bag. Problem over – and we hadn’t budged from 3 metres throughout.

Thinking back to Fraser’s statement in October last year, I thought to myself, yup - it does get better – and it just did

If this is diving in April - I can’t wait for the rest of the year….

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We’ve lost our last five dives.

As we got nearer to the day, the weather looked OK but I then came down with a heavy cold on Wednesday, and got really depressed. As Bob was diving with us, I didn’t have to decide until the day as Al would still be able to dive if I dropped out, so I crossed my fingers and upped the vitamin C.

5:30 this morning freezing fog greeted us. Hmm… said Al, well at least if we are told that we have to get back up the shot line we have a cave diver with us who shoud be happy laying line but as we neared Brighton it cleared and the sun even (eventually) came out too.

It is a long ride out to the Moldavia - about two hours - so lots of time to catch up with people. Howard produced a bar of low carb chocolate which I promptly stole off him - he fought me for it and won

Mark Chase told me and Al that a diver was swept off the Moldavia a while ago by the prop wash from a large oil tanker (thanks Mark!!) and to listen out for engines….

Al and I haven’t really dived with Bob before so ran through a few bits on the boat. We agreed that I would lead off down the shot to see how my sinuses were - and thankfully no problem at all The vis was good about 4 - 6 metres) and when we got to the bottom of the shot we reordered so Bob could lead off - as he has dived the wreck before.

I was feeling OK before we jumped in but quite prepared to thumb it at 6 metres if I had problems equalising. I was very pleased to find that by equalising every half a meter, all the way down the shotline, I had no problems getting down to the wreck. And there is was - the Moldavia - a wreck I have wanted to dive pretty much since i first heard of it - and before I was qualified to dive it - our maximum dive depth today was 47 metres.

We found portholes with the glass still intact, the gun which was quite impressive, a huge lobster and loads of fish. One fish was caught in a line on the wreck and Bob went over, got out his knife and started to free it. Only problem with this was he then started getting tangled in the line himself. Al went in and started getting the line of Bob and, frightened that he would turn and make things worse, I told him to hold but he carried on cutting the fish free. Hmm… free fish - caught Bob - not a good exchange. Turns out, back on the surface, that Bob knew he was caught up but figured that while we got him out he might as well carry on freeing the fish. For those of you who are interested - the fish made it

The current picked up and carried us back down the wreck which was cool. Bob thumbed it and deco was uneventful apart from the fact that all of us felt that we were too far apart - Al and I thinking that Bob prefered it that way - and Bob thinking the same of us

We got up to calm seas, but a skipper who informed us that there had been an incident and the chopper was on its way. We stowed the kit and did what we could to help pack stuff away. Seeing the rescue helicopter come in was stunning - the skill of the skipper and the pilot evident. The casualty was taken away, symptomatic but reasonably OK, and the boat then returned for the divers still in the water - not perhaps surprisingly including Chasey.

What was very funny (well apt ) is that Mark heard the chopper and, given his story to us earlier, thought that a large ship was bearing down on him. Can’t have been nice for Mark but rather apt given his tales earlier in the day.

Mince pies and hot choccy afterwards. Howard resisted the mince pies - for about 10 minutes

And that was that… a good day out - always satisfying to sneak one in when you least expect it.

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The organisation had clearly paid off (as had booking the gig on the same weekend as the dive show) as we were able to secure three parking spaces in a row and also accomodate a lot of our divers on the bottom car park.

Luxury - leaving after breakfast for Stoney at a weekend - if I could do this every time I’d go there more often.

Howard, Diving Dude from YD, was there for his YBOD Mod 1 and was neatly pinned in by And, Ian and Bob - out numbered but not out gunned - Howard can give as good as he gets :o) Next to turn up was Mark Chase… who I was to fit for a harness.

It didn’t take long for it to look like a bit of a meet was underway… :o)

I had a really good dive with Mark and Bob, and then jumped in with Al on the scooters for a go round the shelf. Still finding it difficult - my arm is being pulled out of its socket and my wrist is being dislocated - it must get easier.

Final dive of the day was great. Al lead off with Alun, and Little Pete in tow, I brought up the rear with Howard (Radcliffe) who jumped in with us at the last minute. I had a really chilled dive apart from the fact that my wrist is still sore from the scooter dive. Howard is clearly a very skilled diver and I watch his use of light signals and his navigation through the tighter bits of the Stanegarth with interest. man

Saturday night found us in lectures given by Andy Carroll (who showed videos of recent DIR UK dives) Rich Walker (who covered the standard kit config) and Andy Kerslake who set out how DIR started in the UK.

A fun evening, made even better by the realisation when we got back to Willowmead that the clocks going back meant an extra hour in bed :o)

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Friday found me on my way to Stoney via Egham where I was to meet Daniel, a GUE Tech 1 diver from Brazil.

Royal Holloway is a beautiful college. I’ve been for a dinner there before in the painted hall, and the grand building is just like I remembered it. Daniel is easily spotted, with a huge divebag slung over his shoulder. I’m lending him some twins today.

We meet up with Jonathan (Tonytheteal from YD) and jump in for a swim. This is Daniel’s first UK dive and he feels a bit uncomfortable in fabers and has to sort out a few kit issues. We hang around at six meters until everyone looks comfortable and then I take us over to the Stanegarth, back to the helicopter and on a gentle swim back along the shelf again to let teh guys settle down.

Jonathan is practicing for his DIR F resit on Saturday so after Daniel leaves us we drop back down to run through the basic skills. All goes well and Jonathan is clearly well set for Saturday.

Over to the pub afterwards for a drink and meet up with Phill (Divingniknaks) to pick up kit for the following day. Then I drop Daniel at his hotel and go to Willowmead (best B & B near Stoney) to get washed up for dinner.

Al and I had arranged to meet Andy Carrol and Eleanor his girlfriend for dinner, they are staying in the same hotel as Daniel so I find an Indian resturant nearby and we go there. Entering the resturant we find Jonathan, Andy B (who passed tech 1 the day before :o) and Gary. Bob turns up later and we have a fun evening talking…diving of course :o)

From left to right:a
Andy B, Al, Daniel, Gary, And, Eleanor, Jonathan, me and Bob

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So Al and I went to Stoney to finish my divemaster course guided dive programme and to meet Adam from Capernwray who was bringing my new toy - a Gavin Scooter.

This little, very expensive, luxury is what will make diving in quarries over the winter interesting (as much as you can) as learning to use it to the standard necessary to take it in the ocean on a deco dive is such that it will take me some time. It will be fun learning though :o)

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This is cut straight from Al’s blog as he wrote the report - well said Al - I couldn’t say better myself so haven’t!

“Clare had organised a trip on Wey Cheiftan this weekend but unfortunately due to the weather being rubbish on Saturday this ended up being cancelled. On the off chance the three of us booked onto a dive on the Salsette using Breakwater dive center.

The Salsette was 5842-ton P&O express mail liner sunk by torpedo in 1917. She was described as “one of the most beautiful straight-stemmed steamers ever built”.

Got up at the B&B this morning and the weather was good enough, forecast according to Breakwater was 4-6. First minor drama of the day was Clare was missing her stage bottle. One quick hire from Underwater Explorers and we were all sorted. Nothing like being able to hire a properly rigged stage

We were on Goose with Andy skippering us and he kindly helped us load all the gear on board. Only 5 divers on the boat in total. We chatted to the two other guys and found out they were YD readers now and again. We set out and once past the Bill the weather was quite lumpy. I ended up having to hang onto my twinset as everytime the boat slammed down it got bounced around. Waves broke over the boat and I was very glad to be wearing my drysuit.

Got to the site and we kitted up and dropped in. We paused at 6m to do a bubble check and mod-s and then carried on down the shot. I was in position 1, Fraser 2 and Clare 3. I reached the bottom of the shot, flow checked, marked time and checked gas pressure. We set off towards the bow. Vis was about 3-5m so we got some idea of the scale, but given the size of the wreck it was a bit tricky. We went into one of the open holds and given the vis had to carefully make our way out. We kept going and reached the bow. Once there we avoided some line and made a U-turn. I passed a chunk of wreckage on the sea bed and then out of the gloom the massive bow of the wreck appeared. I had at least 5m vis and could easily make out the size of the structure. We carried on back the way we came and after spotting some enormous dinner plate sized crabs one of us hit minimum gas so we started the ascent.

Deco went to plan and we finished the dive at 70 minutes. Thoroughly enjoyed the dive, given the size of the wreck I reckon you’d need a couple of dives to see all of it. Definitely one to dive again.

The ride back was interesting with lots of white wave tops which wasn’t much fun, but worth it for the dive. This was my first mix dive after completing Tech-1 so it was nice to put it into practise.”

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When Fraser stopped faffing and finally decided to join me in the Red Sea after all, I jumped ship from the YD Grand Sea Serpent trip and moved to Hurricane - still with Tony Backhurst. Hurricane has mixed gases, supports technical diving and would let us do the Red Sea in a DIRStylee.

We got off to an interesting start when we got to the boat at about midnight to find the twinsets we had ordered for the week needed a lot of fettling to get them diveable for the week. Sorting the kit took until just after 3:00 am so the wake up call at 7:00am was not that welcome - until we remembered where we were

Hurricane - can’t complain about anything all week (although others did find little bits and bobs to groan about). The food was excellent, the equipment on the boat all worked, fills were completed as requested and promptly, accomodation was comfortable and clean. The dive guides Joe and Karin did not see their job as babysitters - they did not accompany you on dives unless you wanted guiding, they did not check your air, monitor your depth etc., although one diver who dived to 50 meters on single tank of nitrox on the spur of the moment was warned that this was not a particularly clever move

Hurricane - and Fraser

I won’t go through the dives in detail - there have been enough Red Sea trip reports posted here - but our itinerary was to cover Brothers, Elphinstone and Daedalus. Fraser did 15 dives in 5.5 days diving, I did 17 - out of a maximum 18. The highlight for us both was diving the arch at Elphinstone - our first mix dive since getting the cert - 56 meters, total run time 71 minutes. I realise that many people have popped down to the arch on a single tank of air (indeed some from our boat did) but we chose to do it our way, on 21/35, twins and 50 per cent for deco. This did mean that we got rather a lot longer down there than the alternative would have allowed - and got to spot white tipped reef sharks and take a photo or two.

The Numidia at Big Brother was also a great dive, with a similar profile but with rather different memories. The weather at Brothers was rough, whether we would be able to dive the Numidia was on hold for a day and a half as the wreck is at the far north of the island where the waves were rolling in very high. We finally got the OK about two hours before, which was the time needed to fill our sets. The dive was clearly going to be interesting when the Zodiac dropped us right on top on the wreck (it comes as shallow as 10 meters) but despite a negative entry we had to fight our way back to it, then shelter along the side of the wreck on our descent.

We dropped down to 54 meters quite quickly, noting how cold the water rising up from the drop off was. We had a good look round, a bit of a poke about inside and took some photos. Bottom time was around 25 minutes. When Fraser thumbed it, I took us through the deep stops and it was during this that we first started to notice a change in the current around 35 metres. The current was getting stronger and coming off the island now, out to sea. Rather than bag off and drift, we worked our way up the wreck, switching gas at 21 and had completed half our deco requirement when we hit the top of the wreck. With nothing left to shelter on we tried to swim back to the reef (not much more than 20 meters) but could not make sufficent progress.

We did our best to sit at 6 metres, swimming against the current but were washed around between 6 and 9 meters. Fraser bagged up at this stage and we padded the deco to make up for the washing machine effect, finally surfacing in sight of the island but north of it, being taken further out to sea. GIven that the dive boat was anchored south of the island and the ribs were patrolling halfway along, looking for divers being swept south rather than north things didn’t look great, especially as we were caught in rather large waves. It took a while but in the end, a rib was sighted when we were on the crest of a wave and I fired up my Salvo and flashed it back and forth. With much relief we realised that it had spotted us and after a bit of a mad scramble we managed to get aboard The rib had been looking for some YBOD divers who had been diving at the same time as us - I understand that they made it back by going much deeper where the current was less strong.

Back on the boat, Frase decided to sit out the rest of the dives that day - wise move - but I wanted to return to the water asap to cancel out any little spooks. I ended up jumping in, a couple of hours later, on a YBOD MOD1 lesson with Gary Fox - just a little pootle around in 25 meters tucked away from the current. I felt very noisy with my bubbles when with five rebreather divers but am grateful to them for letting me potter along.

Apart from these dives we had lots of uneventful fishy/corally dives - a few sharks, a few turtles and loads of normal reef stuff as well as you would expect. Our gas bill for the week (two twinsets of 21/35, two stages of 50 per cent, and nitrox for all other dives) was £280. Sounds a lot but I worked out that in the UK it would have cost around £200 so not that bad really.

Finally, the hotel which they transferred us to the Coral Dive Hotel was fine… very good standard of accomodation with appalling service and, unbeliveably, no lunch service in the main dining room.

I did like the bar floor though… very fitting with the theme of the week.

Hope you enjoyed the trip report and if you want to go to the Red Sea - you could do a lot worse than go on Hurricane to the South

Quote of the week… (from Fraser)

“A shark came up and eyed Clare carefully, but left her alone - clearly a decision based on mutual professional respect”

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I was to provide surface cover for a trimix course and buddy Andy Carroll on an evaluation dive today at the NDC.

Arriving at the NDC from the B&B - I won’t name it as I certainly wouldn’t recommend it - there were even more familiar faces to be seen. SimonA, Reikimaster and Finbar Taylor were with Mark Powell, Andy Carroll was there - with Eleanor his wife to be, and Justin and Neil were already running through their dive plans for the trimix course.

Helping the guys kit up for their first dive made me feel like a divemaster for the first time as there were forgotten bits of kit, hoses and crotchstraps left unattached, weightbelts forgotten etc. Its amazing how the pressure of a course makes people forget things which I have no doubt that they would remember normally but I have always been glad for help when struggling with gear - so happy to return the favour :o)

The planned dive time was just over an hour - so it gave me time to grill Andy on the finer aspects of DOTF - and for him to take the piss and declare that “it’s all bollocks really” over and over again. That phrase was certainly the theme of the day.

When the guys got out, Andy and I returned to the car park and kitted up for a dive with Frank. This was to be a basic skills dive and Andy led it - covering valve drills, s drills, stage swapping and smb deployment.

When Andy did his valve drill I took the opportunity to focus my new torch - and promptly fell foul of the screw in the EKPP reflector which is always incredibly tight - I struggled to undo it a tiny bit as it had stuck again - suddenly it gave way and undid quite a bit and the reflector fell off!

This left me an a tight spot - should I leave Andy to descend the two or so meters to the bottom to retrieve the reflector? No - he was in the middle of his valve drill and my place was rightly to stay put. Given that I was blinding us both with an uncovered 21 watt HID I turned the light off until he finished when I could dip down and retrieve the reflector. Andy had to put it back together for me as the screw was so tight I simply could not budge it - neither of us could focus it though.

Andy ran deco and bagged off on the ascent - when the bag floated back down towards us (Frank was playing tricks) he tried again and it came back down for a second time - Frank had removed the dump cover rendering the bag useless. Given that in a scenario where your bag fails it would be helpful to send up another, I offered to put one up and Andy OK’d this. I suppose it should not have been that much of a surprise when this came floating back down too. Nor is it a surprise that seeing I had mistakenly switched to my backup reg after inflating the bag, Frank pulled an out of air on Andy - so we were ascending with him on my long hose, each holding a bag and a spool which had just enough air in to prevent them from being restowed. Who needs a spare hand on ascent ;o) No real problems though - and I left the water with an Ali 80 having entered it with a 7 - result!

The trimix course guys went back in for dive two and I managed to talk Andy into jumping back in again so I could have a bit more time in the water in preparationg for next weekend. I led the dive and deco, bagging off at 21 without any issues. My torch, having been focused on the surface by Andy was much much better - and will be great for tech 1. My valve drill went much smoother on this dive as well.

A good couple of days out - not much time in the water given that I have spent two days away from home but I certainly learnt a lot from chatting to Frank and Andy.

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Al and I met up with Daz at Vobster for a few skills and a kit wash :o)

Al and me - ready to set off :o)

I have to admit to feeling somewhat nervous… I’ve done the majority of my diving with Daz or Al but this was the first time we would be diving together as a three.

Knowing that Daz would take the p*ss if we suggested that we did some skills on the dives, Al and I jumped in quick to do a few before he joined us. Wow… a month in the Maldives and diving off the south coast has left us rusty on valve drills - we boths found them a little tough compared with tech 1 - was it only really one month ago? This does show how important it is to keep skills current and well practised - so that they will be there when you need them.

Al volunteered to take his mask off on the dive. I suggested that he merely shut his eyes as the water is very cold still there - but we later found out that GLOC has dived in completely naked A small confusion as to whether level off meant dump air or just stabilise meant that we slipped down a little at 9 but the ascent went well, on time but in control.

Daz joined us for dives 2 and 3. He fitted in to the team really well when it comes to situational awareness, he really does have a sixth sense, every time I tried to creep up on him he turned round. One day…

Mind you I miscalculated at one point… hitting him for an out of air, I realised that I had rejected 32 per cent for tyre gas… and got a torch in the eyes for free Daz school of air donation… make it uncomfortable for the buggers and then maybe they will leave you alone next time

Dive 3 was stunning when we went deep and away from the areas that the students had kicked up. Mind you it was bloody cold - 7 degrees on my computer - did we really dive all through the winter in 4 degrees?… ugh not looking forward to that again.

Quote of the day for me had to be when we were all sitting in full kit at the end of dive three mooching over the dive when Daz leapt up and said ‘Jesus Chris, I’d better move or people will think it’s a DIR team’.

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We booked a team weekend at Portland and had our fingers crossed all week last week that the weather would permit us to get some diving done.

We arrived at in Portland late on Friday night and met up with Andy Carroll and Bob Cooper, who were diving off Wey Chieftain this weekend. Bob suggested that the way that the weather was looking we might end up shooting pool rather than diving which was not the most positive news. But on Saturday morning I opened the curtains to find a more positive sight, calm (ish) waters and even a bit of sun - unheard of on a bank holiday weekend

The team

Off for our first dive which as my last 20 hours in the water were in warm tropical seas diving a single cylinder (*sigh*) we had arranged to be a shallow bimble on the countess (on Maverick) before heading a bit deeper. What a good job we did as the problems I had with my wing inflator prior to going abroad resurfaced during the dive (despite careful cleaning) and I found myself having to dump air every two or three minutes all through the dive.

A quick trip to UE when we got back to Breakwater sorted this out with a new inflator and after a fortifying fish finger sandwich and a chat to Frank and Justin (e-aquanauts) we headed out to the Frognor on Goose. I haven;t been on Goose before but it’s a quick boat and made short work of the longish journey out.

The Frognor was a 1,476 ton Norwegian Steamship measuring 260ft long and with a 37ft beam. She was built in 1907 and sank on the 29th April 1918 after being hit by a torpedo. She lies in about 38 metres of water, lying North to South and has been extensively salvaged. Vis was not great and there was not much in the way of life either so it was not the most memorable of dives. Keeping the team together on the descent was challenging due to the vis and the current but we made it to the bottom together and did a quick tour around.

Al

Two ribs turned up as the skipper was shotting the wreck and they asked whether they could shot it as well. Given that it is a smallish wreck this made for quite a crowded dive and I was mugged by an inspiration diver about ten minutes in (two fins full in the face as he swam right through the team -straight over my head). On 40 mins Al thumbed the dive as agreed and I ran the ascent which went according to plan. A good return to UK diving

We met up with Andy and Bob again for dinner, and were joined by Greg Roach (he of suba aqua UK). It was a fun evening which was only brought to an end when Fraser and Al could no longer stay awake - they blamed it on my deco - rather than the fact that we had all been up to 2:30 am nattering before getting up at 7:00 to get fills.

Day two saw us heading to the Alisa Craig. This 600 ton British steamship was sunk by a torpedo in 1918 while carrying a cargo of coal. Measuring 200′ in length it was partly salvaged but is remarkably intact and made for a fun dive - absolutely covered in fish. I was bit concerned when I saw a trawler complete with nets out a few hundred meters from the wreck - being trawled up from a dive doesn’t sound that much fun to me!

Fraser

I led the dive around the wreck but to be honest I’m absolutely useless at working out where I am and so Fraser took over to do a ‘wreck tour’. He found the boilers, the anchor, the prop etc. and then started signalling me to look at the base of the boiler. I’ve never actually seen a conger eel properly. I’ve missed loads, when everyone else has seen them and Fraser was intent on pointing one out to me on this dive.

He pointed and I looked - nothing.
He pointed again - I couldn’t see a thing - apart from a huge beam along the base of the boiler.
He went in closer and shone his light along this huge beam - and then it wriggled and turned and looked at me
I squealed through my regulator - very high pitched too due to the helium - I had no idea they were so big - I had been looking for something the size of a moray eel - this was more like a dinosaur

I had to keep my light on it as we swam off as I was a bit worried that it might be following Needless to say Al and Frase found this very funny.

Al thumbed it a couple of minutes early which suited me fine as we had been slightly over our planned average depth for a good portion of the dive and this way we could vary the deco and still be within the 60 minutes we had told the skipper. Al ran deco on this ascent which again went according to plan - and the gauges clicked over to 60 minutes as we broke the surface. Another great dive - and my 250th.

250 dives - and I celebate with a nosebleed

A quick surface interval and then off for a drift on the bow of the Black Hawk. It was a rush getting ready and getting gas and turned in to a bit of an anticlimax after the last dive and as a team we said we could start to see why one dive a day is more attractive when dives get longer and a bit deeper. There was very little to see (apart from a small cuttlefish) and the drift was just dull so we thumbed it very early - about 40 minutes was enough.

I got horrible cramp in my foot on the ascent and limped back to the boat. We were the first team back on the boat which just never happens with us and so I got to see the skipper warding off other vessels from the divers - which I have never seen before. Well, all I can say is there are some complete tossers out there - a huge gin palace came on a direct course towards divers in the water, and Graham the skipper had to go on a direct collision course to ward it off :angry:

We joined the boys for dinner again, this time joined by Howard Radcliffe. They had been diving with scooters and had a great dive on the Everston - Greg had got a plate from the wreck - not that special but intact and it has been under 50 meters of water for forty years so fun to see. This time I was starting to flag (Al’s deco to blame then ) so we made our excuses and set off on the journey home.

From left - Me, Greg, And, Bob, Howard, Al and Fraser

All in all a great weekend - good diving and good company. What more can we ask for - apart from the chance to do it all again sometime soon

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