Oh no! I broke a buddy!
Mark's write up sums it all up quite well - a few bits from my perspective would be....
Getting up at 4:00am thinking "I must be mad - I need a new hobby" My husband then rolling over in bed saying "You must be mad". True huh?
My spirits improved slightly when I got on the road - and a lot more when I first laid eyes on the sea which was almost flat calm. I was first to arrive at Nauticat - by about an hour - so could have had extra time in bed. Grrrr.....
It is a loooong way out to the Mol - 30 miles - so chatted to Mark Powell and Finbar. Zak (EBT) who lives in Brighton had warned me off this trip on Monday saying sea state was awful - but Mark and Fin had encouraged us to come along and had brought chocolate cakes in case they had got it wrong!
Finally it was time to jump in. It was a difficult trip down the shot as it was running quite hard still. We had to go past Mark and Fin who were sorting something out on the surface but eventually got in sight of the wreck.
Almost immediately we were on the move, drifting over it and when we got our bearings we found that we had drifted into an overhead by a few feet. Turning back, we got into open water, but there was no green glow above us as it was too dark, and to avoid the same happening again we went over the side of the wreck to get out of the current, found the sea bed and the intact side of the wreck, and started a tour.
Viz was "interesting" but we saw a fair bit - including a conger out in open water. I was leading and given my reputation for missing stuff was chuffed to find both guns
Deco was fine - shorter than planned on the boat due to the shallower dive (low tide) and on surfacing found Nauticat right alongside.
As Mark described, we had a bit of a challenging time getting back on board. I was indeed very worried when I found Mark had gone to sit on his own - never a good idea after a dive - let alone an injury so had a chance to fuss
Turned out that Mark and Fin never overcame their problem on the shot and surfaced without seeing the wreck. A real shame as I would not have been there without their teasing - but at least we still had chocolate cake
Fish n chips in Brighton , followed by a beer with Zak who openly admitted to looking at the sea that morning and saying "jammy b!tch"
Maybe on reflection, all were right though, it WAS a fun dive, but conditions in early april are changeable and need careful monitoring.