14 Sep, 2006
One of those weekends
I found myself driving down to Exmouth convinced that Saturday wasn't going to happen because the forecast really wasn't promising. Unsurprisingly it was blown out so I headed over to the north coast for the day. It was flat as a pancake there, so no surfing to be had either.
Sunday and the wind dropped away. It was far better than had been forecast and the sea was nice and flat. We headed out to an unknown which lies in 57m.
Down the shotline and the viz wasn't too brilliant. There were quite a lot of bits in the water and it was dark, though not completely as you could still make out the outline of the ship.
The ship itself lies on its side. In the relatively poor viz, it wasn't easy to make out what was what. There were a lot of pipes, so possibly it was some sort of tanker.
The ascent was uneventful. I decided to just use my 50% for deco as switching to 80% was only going to save me about 5 mins. So I had a total dive time of about 75 mins for 23 mins on the bottom.
Then came the long drive home complete with obligatory crawl past Stonehenge. So not the greatest weekend. A lot of time and money spent for one pretty average dive. The joys of UK diving. Can't win them all.
3 Sep, 2006
Puddle Diving
The last time I dived a quarry was Vobster on the 8th Feb 2004. I still had a 30% fill from Bank Holiday Monday's cancellation and the planned diving out of Gosport didn't look like it had a chance of happening. Gales were howling up the Channel.
Some friends were going to NDAC near Chepstow, so I decided that it would be an opportunity to wash my kit and get a trimix fill if nothing else.
Now it's very important not to wear a cotton top under your drysuit. You need something that wicks otherwise the cotton gets cold and damp and makes you cold. Football tops are ideal. Sadly I didn't have a Czech Republic one so had to make do with an England one as I drove over the Severn Bridge.
10 minutes in Wales and then back into Gloucestershire and the NDAC. I was quite impressed that they give you mats in the car park so you don't have to put your kit in the mud. I've only been there once before and the ratty old landrover that ferried you down to the water's edge has been replaced by a couple of much better minibuses.
We jumped in and went down to about 28m. It was at this point that I wished I'd worm my 3 finger mits and not 3mm gloves as it was 8C down there and freezing. I spied my first piece of underwater life, a dead leaf, as I caught it in my torch beam. This was followed up by some twigs. At this point I turned the torch off.
To be fair, we did spot a fish. It looked a bit unhappy sitting on the bottom. I think it was freezing cold just like me. As we came shallower it did get warmer, about 12C at 12m which was actually quite pleasant. I saw another fish which looked a bit more lively and there was a sunken boat.
Getting into the shallows at about 6m, it was 14C and there was some weed, quite a few fish and I thought it was the best bit really.
2nd dive and my buddy, who'd been there several times before and was leading, said we'd go off to the plane, which we promptly missed. Did find another cruiser, some pipes and cases to swim through. I managed to contain my excitement.
Up the top and they did me a trimix fill while I waited which was handy. Let's hope next weekend isn't blown out too. I suppose it was better than vegging out in front of the television, but I'd still prefer the sea any day of the week. Even those smashed up wrecks in Portland harbour.