Friday 12 May - Aeolian Sky and Countess of Erne

GLOC · May 13th, 2006, 02:48 PM

.....'Twas a millpond...pictures and report to follow. BIG

and big thanks to Clare for organising it. 10-15m vis on the Countess in the harbour and 7m or so on the Sky. Ace

**Howard Payne** · May 13th, 2006, 04:51 PM

Twas indeed a great day and likewise huge thanks to "Mum" for organising. Very nice to meet Bob and a few other new faces as well.
Two great dives, the top boat and skipper a free telly and great company - what more can you ask for? Many thanks x

**jb2cool** · May 14th, 2006, 12:18 AM

certainly sounds like you guys enjoyed yourselves. Got to see a few new faves and a few old ones. Just got to get my depth rating up a bit and i'll be there with you next time round.

Sterny · May 14th, 2006, 11:58 AM

Great weekend's diving, and thanks to Clare for organising Friday's dive - Wey Chieftain is *such* a nice boat. Flat calm, good vis, good company. What more could you ask for? Hope you guys all had a good dive today (you're probably going in about now, I guess)!

And, as a bonus, the wireless connection at the Aqua Cafes's working great!

Bonza

GLOC · May 14th, 2006, 03:08 PM

I will try and put a report together from my perspective but in the meantime here is a quick video which I put together this morning.

All shot on an Olympus 5050 in a PT-015 housing. The hardest part is the fact that I have an Eqoque DCL20 wide angle adaptor which weighs more than the camera and housing together underwater making it want to tip forward all the time. I need to sort out a tray so that I can hold it with one hand and move the attachment point forward so that the CofG is more central.

Without further ado, here is Wilbo, Rob and I shmoozing around the Countess of Erne in 10-15m vis on Friday afternoon. Well it was 10-15m where Wilbo was, not sure of the vis once it had got to me! Look out for Bob and Clare scootering down the outside about 1:05 into it, Howard and Marianne are somewhere behind them at about 1:30.

GLOC · May 14th, 2006, 03:55 PM

This will be the thread starter for the succesful UK DIR Nitrox day from Weymouth.

This trip had been planned by Gledders for sometime and was to based on using the Wey Chieftan III berthed in Weymouth run by Graham Knott; a nicer and more knowledgeable skipper would be hard to find.

Rob, Wilbo and I travelled down independently and met up at the Portland Heights Hotel on the Thursday for a quick one before retiring to rise at 06:15. When we woke up the weather was brilliant, no wind, slightly overcast with high cirrus and sunny! Yippee! Made our way down to the Brewers Quay and met up with the rest of the bunch; Clare, Bob, Iain Smith, Sterny, Howard, Marriane, Joe & Simon, plus Graham the skipper. As we hadn't decided which wreck to dive, Sky or St Dunstan we had some time to spare when the Sky was chosen.

As we motored out it was apparent that the fine weather would hold! Aiming for an 11:00 shot time we got there with plenty of time to kit and get ready. Shame I didn't use it make sure that the last 10mm of my zip was actually closed. Not to worry, the sea would let me know! Bob and Clare were first off with Rob, Wilbo and I next. I stepped off and felt some cold, thought nothing of it, just thought it was the normal cold feeling you get, then there was more of it. Bugger, I haven't done the zip up completely. Closing the autodump I filled the suit up to try and
minimise the ingress of water and made my way back to the boat. Signalled there was an issue and got back out. Quickly undid the harness belts, zipped up, and then back in the water. This meant there was no a queue on the shotline to go down. We stepped slightly off the shot and descended past them and hit the bottom. 6-7m vis and still pretty light.

We turned right as per Graham's directions and headed aft following the deck structures, making sure that we didn't snag anything on the way. The current wasn't that noticeable at this stage. We finally made it to the stern after peering in some holes and deciding that although they did look nice, entering wouldn't have been a very good idea! At the stern I could just make out the name but only by looking for the relief of the lettering; the large numbers of barnacles and crud obscuring the paintwork itself. Having had a look around the stern we made our way forward again looking in other gaps and cracks, plenty of life (don't ask me what, I don't do fish!), and some cave line tied off at an entry point, having a look inside to see where it went, mmm very dark!!

We worked our way forwards and upwards; once we approached the top of the structure, we could see how strong the current was and decided to drop back down into the lee and do some more exploring. Soon enough we had reached our thumb time and we deployed the 3 blobs from 24m while staying in the lee (Graham wanted 1 blob per man). We decided to put 3 up one line to make things simpler. Upwards we went completing our stops, and having lots of fun trying to maintain a 3-point star around the blob while being dragged by the 3 blobs together. Surfaced after a run time of 56 mins to be quickly picked up by Graham.

Then the fun ensued. Unbeknown to us, a yacht had motored over the top of one of the SMBs that Howard had launched, and as soon as we were safely on board Graham chased after the yacht to be met be some 'git' who refused to acknowledge the seriousness of what he had done. However, I doubt he will forget the incident. Fortunately all that was on the bottom of the SMB was a telly, but that wasn't the point!!

We then motored into the harbour ready for a dive onto the Countess of Erne. My last experience of this wreck was last September when the vis was less than 1m and I didn't know you could swim around the inside. How surprised was I when we could see the wreck from the surface!

Being 2nd team down again we followed Bob and Clare who were off scootering. I was #3 and wanted to shoot some video on the Oly5050 I have. This proved fun as the Oly5050 isnt that easy to hold when you stick a large WA adaptor on the front and then using an AL80 as a stage as there was only 45 bar left in the 12's following the Sky dive. I shot 11 mins of footage which was reduced to 3 min and can be viewed here (22MB .wmv). This dive was great and allowed us to swim inside and outside the wreck, and forcing us to have good technique with finning and bouyancy to avoid silting out. Surfaced with a rather bouyant set of twin 12's and an AL80 with 35 bar in it! Holding the stops was somewhat difficult - need another kg if I am going to breathe them both down that empty!

Back to the quay and offloaded all the kit. How much was there for 11 divers?

Overall the trip was excellent, refined more skills, managed to meet some great guys (and girls) and in the evening managed to meet some more of the UK DIR crowd. Roll on the next one! Finally, a big thanks to Clare for sorting this trip out and managing to eat any chocolate that wasn't nailed down or wrapped up.

See you all the next time.

wilbo · May 14th, 2006, 07:51 PM

Quote: (Originally Posted by GLOC)

I will try and put a report together from my perspective but in the meantime here is a quick video which I put together this morning.

All shot on an Olympus 5050 in a PT-015 housing. The hardest part is the fact that I have an Eqoque DCL20 wide angle adaptor which weighs more than the camera and housing together underwater making it want to tip forward all the time. I need to sort out a tray so that I can hold it with one hand and move the attachment point forward so that the CofG is more central.

Without further ado, here is Wilbo, Rob and I shmoozing around the Countess of Erne in 10-15m vis on Friday afternoon. Well it was 10-15m where Wilbo was, not sure of the vis once it had got to me! Look out for Bob and Clare scootering down the outside about 1:05 into it, Howard and Marianne are somewhere behind them at about 1:30.

I hope that wasn't a pop at me cameraboy..

I told you.. it was the scooter duo that did it..

wilbo · May 14th, 2006, 07:57 PM

Excellent write up Gareth..

*Clare Gledhill* · May 14th, 2006, 10:47 PM

Glad you all had a good time

Scootering round the Sky with Bob was fun.... until my scooter stuck on

No dramas - I stopped it and Dad came back to help me get it going again

It is amazing how much ground you can cover on them - we zipped round it two and a half times in not much more than half an hour. Not much life on this wreck - but with reasonable viz we encountered a fair few of the other DIRXers.

Graham's reaction to the yacht which ran over Howard's blob reminded me just why we book to dive with him - shame all other sea users are not as considerate or responsible. Thank God we didn't have a diver under it at the time.

The last dive on the Countess I used Howard's Mini G - taking it for it's first sea dive. It was not weighted very well and proved a difficult dive - Bob who is more experienced with all things scooter related was able to manage it better so we swapped - and raced up and down the wreck countless times - the Standard Gavin keeping pace with the mini G very well. Andy Kerslake had a look at the mini after the dive and trimed it out a bit so Howard may fare a little better when he takes it back in. I'll stick with my Standard I think - although I can see that the mini would be fun and is a little easier to lug around.

Here's the team....

Clockwise from top left...taken by RobDobson

GLOC, Bob, Graham, Simon (SoB) IainSmith, Howard, Marianne, Sterny, Joe Hesketh, Gledders and Wilbo

**Howard Payne** · May 15th, 2006, 02:07 AM

Oh how I loved that telly
Genuine late 1970's 14" B&W portable spidge
Marianne's face when I started hoofing it off the bottom was a picture.
Our 1970's ascent consisted of:
1 minute of "The Sweeney" at 15m
1 minute of "The Good Life" at 12m
1 minute of "Porridge" at 9m
followed by 6 minutes to the surface from 6m of Larry Grayson's "The Generation Game" and John Inman in "Are You Being Served"
I think the latter was a mistake coz I felt a little bent by the time we reached the surface

Shall we book the boat again later in the season and go and dive the Sky again?

Top report Gareth - great photos and video mate!

ATB

H

May 13th, 2006, 02:48 PM	#1 (permalink)
GLOC (Online) Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Fleet, Hants Posts: 1,964	.....'Twas a millpond...pictures and report to follow. BIG and big thanks to Clare for organising it. 10-15m vis on the Countess in the harbour and 7m or so on the Sky. Ace __________________ Gareth Images of Life Photography DIR Team Foxturd Travels Underwater and Further Afar If you don't have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it? - Stephen King

May 13th, 2006, 04:51 PM	#2 (permalink)
Howard Payne(Offline) Strokey Dokily Doo Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: London Posts: 1,202	Twas indeed a great day and likewise huge thanks to "Mum" for organising. Very nice to meet Bob and a few other new faces as well. Two great dives, the top boat and skipper a free telly and great company - what more can you ask for? Many thanks x __________________ The Foxturd Chimp

May 14th, 2006, 12:18 AM	#3 (permalink)
jb2cool (Online) Padawan learner Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Bracknell, Berkshire Posts: 798	certainly sounds like you guys enjoyed yourselves. Got to see a few new faves and a few old ones. Just got to get my depth rating up a bit and i'll be there with you next time round. __________________ http://jb2cool.bulldoghome.com

May 14th, 2006, 11:58 AM	#4 (permalink)
Sterny(Offline) New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: The limpid tropical lagoons of Ealing, West London Posts: 550	Great weekend's diving, and thanks to Clare for organising Friday's dive - Wey Chieftain is such a nice boat. Flat calm, good vis, good company. What more could you ask for? Hope you guys all had a good dive today (you're probably going in about now, I guess)! And, as a bonus, the wireless connection at the Aqua Cafes's working great! Bonza __________________ "I thought I had a great idea today, but it never really took off. In fact, it didn't even get on the runway. I guess you could say it exploded in the hangar." - Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

May 14th, 2006, 03:08 PM	#5 (permalink)
GLOC (Online) Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Fleet, Hants Posts: 1,964	I will try and put a report together from my perspective but in the meantime here is a quick video which I put together this morning. All shot on an Olympus 5050 in a PT-015 housing. The hardest part is the fact that I have an Eqoque DCL20 wide angle adaptor which weighs more than the camera and housing together underwater making it want to tip forward all the time. I need to sort out a tray so that I can hold it with one hand and move the attachment point forward so that the CofG is more central. Without further ado, here is Wilbo, Rob and I shmoozing around the Countess of Erne in 10-15m vis on Friday afternoon. Well it was 10-15m where Wilbo was, not sure of the vis once it had got to me! Look out for Bob and Clare scootering down the outside about 1:05 into it, Howard and Marianne are somewhere behind them at about 1:30. __________________ Gareth Images of Life Photography DIR Team Foxturd Travels Underwater and Further Afar If you don't have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it? - Stephen King

May 14th, 2006, 03:55 PM	#6 (permalink)
GLOC (Online) Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Fleet, Hants Posts: 1,964	Friday 12 May - Aeolian Sky and Countess of Erne This will be the thread starter for the succesful UK DIR Nitrox day from Weymouth. This trip had been planned by Gledders for sometime and was to based on using the Wey Chieftan III berthed in Weymouth run by Graham Knott; a nicer and more knowledgeable skipper would be hard to find. Rob, Wilbo and I travelled down independently and met up at the Portland Heights Hotel on the Thursday for a quick one before retiring to rise at 06:15. When we woke up the weather was brilliant, no wind, slightly overcast with high cirrus and sunny! Yippee! Made our way down to the Brewers Quay and met up with the rest of the bunch; Clare, Bob, Iain Smith, Sterny, Howard, Marriane, Joe & Simon, plus Graham the skipper. As we hadn't decided which wreck to dive, Sky or St Dunstan we had some time to spare when the Sky was chosen. As we motored out it was apparent that the fine weather would hold! Aiming for an 11:00 shot time we got there with plenty of time to kit and get ready. Shame I didn't use it make sure that the last 10mm of my zip was actually closed. Not to worry, the sea would let me know! Bob and Clare were first off with Rob, Wilbo and I next. I stepped off and felt some cold, thought nothing of it, just thought it was the normal cold feeling you get, then there was more of it. Bugger, I haven't done the zip up completely. Closing the autodump I filled the suit up to try and minimise the ingress of water and made my way back to the boat. Signalled there was an issue and got back out. Quickly undid the harness belts, zipped up, and then back in the water. This meant there was no a queue on the shotline to go down. We stepped slightly off the shot and descended past them and hit the bottom. 6-7m vis and still pretty light. We turned right as per Graham's directions and headed aft following the deck structures, making sure that we didn't snag anything on the way. The current wasn't that noticeable at this stage. We finally made it to the stern after peering in some holes and deciding that although they did look nice, entering wouldn't have been a very good idea! At the stern I could just make out the name but only by looking for the relief of the lettering; the large numbers of barnacles and crud obscuring the paintwork itself. Having had a look around the stern we made our way forward again looking in other gaps and cracks, plenty of life (don't ask me what, I don't do fish!), and some cave line tied off at an entry point, having a look inside to see where it went, mmm very dark!! We worked our way forwards and upwards; once we approached the top of the structure, we could see how strong the current was and decided to drop back down into the lee and do some more exploring. Soon enough we had reached our thumb time and we deployed the 3 blobs from 24m while staying in the lee (Graham wanted 1 blob per man). We decided to put 3 up one line to make things simpler. Upwards we went completing our stops, and having lots of fun trying to maintain a 3-point star around the blob while being dragged by the 3 blobs together. Surfaced after a run time of 56 mins to be quickly picked up by Graham. Then the fun ensued. Unbeknown to us, a yacht had motored over the top of one of the SMBs that Howard had launched, and as soon as we were safely on board Graham chased after the yacht to be met be some 'git' who refused to acknowledge the seriousness of what he had done. However, I doubt he will forget the incident. Fortunately all that was on the bottom of the SMB was a telly, but that wasn't the point!! We then motored into the harbour ready for a dive onto the Countess of Erne. My last experience of this wreck was last September when the vis was less than 1m and I didn't know you could swim around the inside. How surprised was I when we could see the wreck from the surface! Being 2nd team down again we followed Bob and Clare who were off scootering. I was #3 and wanted to shoot some video on the Oly5050 I have. This proved fun as the Oly5050 isnt that easy to hold when you stick a large WA adaptor on the front and then using an AL80 as a stage as there was only 45 bar left in the 12's following the Sky dive. I shot 11 mins of footage which was reduced to 3 min and can be viewed here (22MB .wmv). This dive was great and allowed us to swim inside and outside the wreck, and forcing us to have good technique with finning and bouyancy to avoid silting out. Surfaced with a rather bouyant set of twin 12's and an AL80 with 35 bar in it! Holding the stops was somewhat difficult - need another kg if I am going to breathe them both down that empty! Back to the quay and offloaded all the kit. How much was there for 11 divers? Overall the trip was excellent, refined more skills, managed to meet some great guys (and girls) and in the evening managed to meet some more of the UK DIR crowd. Roll on the next one! Finally, a big thanks to Clare for sorting this trip out and managing to eat any chocolate that wasn't nailed down or wrapped up. See you all the next time. __________________ Gareth Images of Life Photography DIR Team Foxturd Travels Underwater and Further Afar If you don't have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it? - Stephen King Last edited by GLOC; May 14th, 2006 at 04:13 PM.

May 14th, 2006, 07:51 PM	#7 (permalink)
wilbo(Offline) Chimp 4 Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Swindon, UK Posts: 873	Quote: (Originally Posted by GLOC) I will try and put a report together from my perspective but in the meantime here is a quick video which I put together this morning. All shot on an Olympus 5050 in a PT-015 housing. The hardest part is the fact that I have an Eqoque DCL20 wide angle adaptor which weighs more than the camera and housing together underwater making it want to tip forward all the time. I need to sort out a tray so that I can hold it with one hand and move the attachment point forward so that the CofG is more central. Without further ado, here is Wilbo, Rob and I shmoozing around the Countess of Erne in 10-15m vis on Friday afternoon. Well it was 10-15m where Wilbo was, not sure of the vis once it had got to me! Look out for Bob and Clare scootering down the outside about 1:05 into it, Howard and Marianne are somewhere behind them at about 1:30. I hope that wasn't a pop at me cameraboy.. I told you.. it was the scooter duo that did it.. __________________ Cheers! Wilbo DIR explorers: DIR Yorkshire Divers: YorkshireDivers One of the Foxturd chimps

May 14th, 2006, 07:57 PM	#8 (permalink)
wilbo(Offline) Chimp 4 Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Swindon, UK Posts: 873	Excellent write up Gareth.. __________________ Cheers! Wilbo DIR explorers: DIR Yorkshire Divers: YorkshireDivers One of the Foxturd chimps

May 14th, 2006, 10:47 PM	#9 (permalink)
Clare Gledhill(Offline) GUE Instructor Site Admin Pacman Champion! Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: UK Posts: 1,541	Glad you all had a good time Scootering round the Sky with Bob was fun.... until my scooter stuck on No dramas - I stopped it and Dad came back to help me get it going again It is amazing how much ground you can cover on them - we zipped round it two and a half times in not much more than half an hour. Not much life on this wreck - but with reasonable viz we encountered a fair few of the other DIRXers. Graham's reaction to the yacht which ran over Howard's blob reminded me just why we book to dive with him - shame all other sea users are not as considerate or responsible. Thank God we didn't have a diver under it at the time. The last dive on the Countess I used Howard's Mini G - taking it for it's first sea dive. It was not weighted very well and proved a difficult dive - Bob who is more experienced with all things scooter related was able to manage it better so we swapped - and raced up and down the wreck countless times - the Standard Gavin keeping pace with the mini G very well. Andy Kerslake had a look at the mini after the dive and trimed it out a bit so Howard may fare a little better when he takes it back in. I'll stick with my Standard I think - although I can see that the mini would be fun and is a little easier to lug around. Here's the team.... Clockwise from top left...taken by RobDobson GLOC, Bob, Graham, Simon (SoB) IainSmith, Howard, Marianne, Sterny, Joe Hesketh, Gledders and Wilbo __________________ Clare . "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions....Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great." Interested in DIR dive training? Always happy to chat/answer questions so get in touch via PM or visit www.dirdiver.co.uk Last edited by Clare Gledhill; May 15th, 2006 at 02:57 PM.

May 15th, 2006, 02:07 AM	#10 (permalink)
Howard Payne(Offline) Strokey Dokily Doo Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: London Posts: 1,202	Oh how I loved that telly Genuine late 1970's 14" B&W portable spidge Marianne's face when I started hoofing it off the bottom was a picture. Our 1970's ascent consisted of: 1 minute of "The Sweeney" at 15m 1 minute of "The Good Life" at 12m 1 minute of "Porridge" at 9m followed by 6 minutes to the surface from 6m of Larry Grayson's "The Generation Game" and John Inman in "Are You Being Served" I think the latter was a mistake coz I felt a little bent by the time we reached the surface Shall we book the boat again later in the season and go and dive the Sky again? Top report Gareth - great photos and video mate! ATB H __________________ The Foxturd Chimp