Clare Gledhill(Offline)

Well, it's a while since I did a dive report - and as I'm not going to get to report back on the Salsette tomorrow due to the weather I thought that I'd do a quick report on my day out yesterday.

Mark Emery and I met up with John Kendall to go buzz around Stoney on scooters. John had a new scooter body and new undersuit to try out, and I'm still trying to get to grips with the Gavin as, whilst Mark seems to have taken to it really easily, I still struggle.

Mark was delayed on route so John decided to take his suit to pieces to fit new dry gloves in the carpark but having had a good look decided this was not the wisest of moves and put it all back together again. He was chuffed with his new undersuit though although John didn't quite look the same to me without his slashed armpits and gaffer tape

We started ferrying stages and scooters down to the waters edge and were eventually joined by Mark who did the same. John was trying out a new scooter body (curteousy of Bob) and took it in for a weight check but unfortunately it was too heavy when trimmed out with no weight in at all.

All of us wanted to work on skills as well as use the scooters so when we dropped in John led off with a shutdown to see how much manouverability he got in the new undersuit. What was very funny was that his heavy scooter acted as a sea anchor, digging in to the bottom of the cove to ensure that he didn't move at all - nice tip if you can get away with it :D

We then set off around the site with John in the lead. It was the most comfortable I have ever felt on a Gavin (although don't take that as complacency - I still find it hard) We went round the various attractions and then through the Stanegarth - two stages, one scooter - breathe in.....

On the way I had to ask the boys to stop for a minute as 5 degree water flushing over my 3mm wet gloves had started to hurt a lot. Mark took the opportunity to let me know underwater that he was fine in his dry gloves.... Git :D



Mark and lightsabre

We pottered around and then went to the base of the cliff and ascended. John's head broke the surface first (in a somewhat unconventional manner ).

"Bugger"

Mark next....

"Hmm.... should have used TomTom then"

We had surfaced at the far side of the quarry - about a 20 minute swim from the exit point. So much for navigation

John was wet through with 5 degree water - his DIY drysuit repairs in the car park clearly hadn't worked. So, regretably but understandably he decided to give the next dive a miss.

Gluttons for punishment Mark and I jumped back in and did shutdowns again (bit smoother) and then went off.

We surprised a diver who appeared to be lying on the bottom on his own - perhaps a weight check - and then went off back to the Stanegarth for another buzz round and some photos.

We came across a reel, just hanging there - obviously on a bag - but with no diver in sight. We buzzed round it for a bit but decided to leave it there as we could not scooter it back and an ascent at that stage did not appeal. Turns out that the diver who was attached to it had gone to the surface in an uncontrolled ascent just before we got there.

I had left my computer in the car (again - must stop doing that!) so bagged up and asked Mark to run the ascent which he did - albeit really, really slowly.... We got out freezing!

Hot chocolate and pasties in the pub afterwards... bliss

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