Clare Gledhill(Offline)

4:30 am on Saturday found me heading via Bristol where I picked up Daz and then on my way to Plymouth to try out my new drysuit (report on that one in a bit).

E-aquanauts were doing an OHE course with Zak (EBT) ably assisted by Justin, visiting pain on three student, Daz, Neil and Sam. Al and I decided to go along to watch.

We were diving with Aquanauts - Brian A of this board - with Dougie acting as skipper.

Dive 1 and 2 were to be the Scylla. The Scylla is a wreck which was sunk on purpose to become an artificial reef. It is very barren still with not much life to be seen but is almost fully intact (apart from the handy holes in the sides) and makes for a good OHE environment.

Dive 1 - The Scylla

We took the Gavins in for their first outing in the sea.



The weighting was wrong, both were too light and not balanced, although I faired a little better with mine than Al did with his. Zipping up and down the wreck from bow to stern was cool though - we passed prharris (Paul) and his girlfriend (Kirstie) on the way We were using 80s as bottom stages so we would have full backgas to start a penetration dive later on.

I was using 5 mm gloves for the first time and hated them... couldn't;t feel anything. After about 15 minutes, I reached back to dump some air from my wing and the string came off in my hand (Jonas - you know you asked when it would be OK to use the front dump - I think this was a good time )

The look on my face must have been classic. Bugger!

My first thought was to thumb the dive but then remembered that I did have another dump valve I could use and we carried on for a bit longer. Scootering past lots of likely looking holes I did wish that we had left the Gavins on the boat as we couldn't dare tie them off outside with EBT and Daz around

Just in case I'd damaged the wing in any way, we found the shot line and came up with it in sight, but no problems.


Dive 2 - The Scylla again

After a quick repair on the boat (and a lot of tugging to try to ensure that I wouldn't face the same issues again) we jumped back in without the scooters for a real explore of the wreck.

I know that the Scylla is not a "real" wreck and it does feel very sterile but it is so intact that even I recognised bits and bobs. I led us on a real tour of the inside of the wreck, swimming through the crew accommodation (over and around the bunks, through the engine room (the gear section) and round the corridors, lining off where necessary and taking a great deal of pleasure that wherever we went remained clear and silt free after we had passed by.

We had trouble avoiding the OHE course students - it felt like every time we tied off on the outside we went in and there they were - but the course had to take priority so we gave way happily. It was a long dive and when we finally thumbed it and switched to O2 at 6 I thought that I was shaking so much from the cold that Al would think I was toxing.

Dive 3 - the JEL

The skipper had split the boat as some wanted to do two Scylla dives and others wanted to do the JEL. Al and I couldn't decide so did both!

Dropping down on the JEL after only 10 minutes or so on the boat I felt warmer than I had felt on the surface. Went poking about for congers but not many about.

We saw Bardo and his buddy swimming past and I saw that he had a new illuminated clear head on his cannister torch - it looked like the led's on boy racer cars.... and then I realised his back up light was on. I asked him to hold whilst I turned it off.... Apparently he spent the next ten minutes of his dive wondering what nasty trick I had played on him...

There was not much life but we did some drills and mooched for 30 minutes until we got so cold we thumbed it. Hot sausage rolls on the boat

Good days diving!

Sunday

We were diving today with Venture, Skipper Pete, again organised by Aquanauts.

Dive 4

Dive 4 was to be the Maine which is a long trip out from Plymouth but by all accounts a good dive. Unfortunately when we got there Brian and the skipper decided that the vis looked pants and pulled the shot. (Interestingly their version of pants was two to three metres which Al and I have come to see as acceptable - they are clearly soft in Plymouth )

So we set off to the Persier - a very broken up wreck in 30 metres (How did I cry diving that on the 21/35 we had for the Maine dive - but then Brian saw us OK on that - good man)


Picture from Divernet

Vis here was stunning - had to be in the region of 10 metres which just may account for the fact that this time I didn't miss the boilers (they are the largest thing there!) Lots of congers, some crabs and loads of fish, particularly on the swim throughs, with a particularly friendly cuckoo wrasse which clearly took a shine to its reflection in my mask and would not bugger off!

It was amazing to dive in such good viz in the UK in February - the sun was out on the surface and ambient light was clearly evident at 30 metres. We saw Sam and Justin, and Brian and Graham on the dive. W didn't see Daz who was diving with Zak but even taking water magnification into account this is understandable I suppose

When we called it after about 45 minutes we ascended to 21 and switched. Al then bagged up.... literally. He sent the bag up - without any line attached.... LOL! Cold fingers had meant that he had run the spool through the wrong loop which then came apart as the bag moved.

We started giggling and he started miming that he was 'a bit below par' in the universal sign language that we all seem to know and I got my bag out to send up. Feeling smug as I dive with my smaller bag preattached to a spool, I undid the bungy and dropped the spool

Bugger!

I sent the bag up anyway as we were in to deco and drifting. With 21 metres of line now above us and 10 metres below we had to sort it somehow (when we stopped laughing) I saw that we had two or three options, ascend and then pull up the spool at the surface; ascend and then cut the line at the surface or try to gather up the line in water.

I got a bit of a reputation in my training that I hate slack line and like to tidy it away but gathering it up without a spool seemed daft. So I got out my wetnotes and put a turn round the middle. As we ascended I wrapped the line round the right hand side of the notes. Whenever we leveled off I wrapped it round the other side until, when we hit 3 metres, the spool came up to join us once more

There was enough piss taking potential in that we lost the first bag so it seemed politic to avoid any more... All that was left was to untie the spool from the bag at the surface, shove the bound up wetnotes and spool into my pocket to hide the evidence and attach a spare spool to the bag so that we could hand up a nice tidy bag to the boat - so that was rule 6 satisfied then

What fun... only tempered by the fact that I lost my phone somewhere on the day

__________________

Interested in DIR dive training? Always happy to chat/answer questions so get in touch via PM or visit www.dirdiver.co.uk

Davey Willo(Offline)

LOL.. nice one Clare, amusing and envy promoting all in one trip report. :D

Brian Allen(Offline)

2-3m is pants viz!!! Soft? Hmmmm, i like to see it as selective
and no you can't get us to dive anywhere further up the channel... where you get pants viz all the time

Lots of congers! I didn't even see the one that swam across my twins, round my legs and fins and back into the wreck!!!

Nice write up It was good to have you down again :D

ps will keep looking for your phone

__________________
...dive planning again ...


GUE fundamentals and Halcyon Equipment Online www.ocean-explorers.co.uk

fraser(Offline)

2-3m viz is enough to give some divers vertigo around the Dover area - you South Western types are definitely spoiled!

Nice write up Clare, sounds like I missed another fun trip.

Frase.

__________________
Damn it feels good to be a gangsta

daz(Offline)

Well all in all a great weekend.

Sam, Neil and myself were doing our final dives for our OHE course with Zak Sherlock, assisted by his able DM Justin. Followed by pleasure dive on the Sunday.

Clare picked me up bright and early and we spent the trip down just talking dive crap and debating DIR and DID from our own respective view points, I find these little chats we have really interesting. I respect her opinion even though she is wrong

I loaded my twins and other kit on the boat while fighting my way through the ever increasing pile of stage cylinders and the two food blenders (as Zak christened them) that Al and Clare had bought with them. I particularly liked the way Clare told me it was going to get a bit tight on space if I took my one and only stage!

So first dive, buddy checks completed, long hose deployment checked and Sam, Neil, Zak, Justin and myself jumped in, only for Neil to discover a cold wet patch spreading across his torso and slowly filling his suit up. Zak did a real quick inspection to discover some undersuit trapped in the zip, so ended Neil's first dive before it even started.

We dropped down the shot doing bubble checks on each other and tested backup regs and off we went. Sam was laying the line, I was in number two position and Justin was assigned position three.

So with Sam performing tie offs and wraps, I had a relatively easy role of lighting or identifying points for wraps while Zak directed us on where to go and appeared to be able to be in all places at once. Zak choose a particularly tricky place to spring an out of air on Sam, when I was just coming through a smallish gap. Sam dumped the reel and the long hose was deployed and ready as Sam reached for it and it was basically a non event. I backed up to let Sam through and we reordered the team with Sam in front and started heading out following the line, leaving the reel in place. Once we were clear, Zak called the exercise and we circled around to collect the reel and wind in.

On this trip out following the line Zak managed to somehow reach from god knows where and flicked my primary off, so acceepting this as a drill I resisted the urge to just flip it back on and switched on my backup torch, unclip backup torch and tidy primary away. While this was happening the whole team had stopped and were patiently waiting having noticed the absence of my light.

So once clear and out on the deck I took the opportunity to just relax and let go a bit of overboard discharge. Unfortunately Zak decided he wants a shutdown drill as I'm mid stream so to speak!. Now when Zak indicates shutdown he means NOW. You don't sort yourself or get comfortable his theory being that if it happens for real you won't have the luxury so you ain't having it now.

I swear it was the quickest shutdown I've ever done, I just wanted to finish what I'd started and I find it difficult to pee and do anything else so the peeing had been put on hold.

So dive over, nice easy ascent and time for debrief. Overall not bad, room for improvement but ok.

Dive 2, Neil having had chance to dry stuff out was back with us and we headed down following the usual checks. Neil was led off to do a lost line drill, Sam and myself had already had a few goes at this and already completed the lost line drill so we were trying to keep ourselves amused for the next 15 minutes or so. So what do you do when bored? yep write abusive comments about the instructor in the silt in foot high letters.

Zak returned and regrouped the team and off we went laying line, dealing with failures and other various skills until finally I got picked to reel out. I'll treasure the moment when we finally cleared the hanger and Zak spotted the grafitti written on the deck, as I was last out I could almost see him mentally working out who had done it before he worked out that ample opportunity had presented itself to me earlier in the dive

Day 2.

So everything on the boat. I've done checks, double checks and generally made sure everything is where I expect it to be over last 30 minutes and the skipper finally does the "Right have you got everything?" and we are off, exactly as the lines are cast off I end up with the job of going into the wheel house and telling the skipper "Some W*nker has forgotten his drysuit". Who's that say's Zak (never one to miss the opportunity to take the piss)... umm that will be me then

So with a quick leap onto the dock, a mad rush up to Aquanauts store and I retrieved my drysuit and lept back on board and we are off.

So Clare's covered the vis issue on the maine and the general concensus was lets just do something with vis as we had an alternate.

I was buddied with Zak and we were first in, so "ok's lets go" on the surface and I proceeded to follow the incredible plummeting buddy down to the wreck. Now I'm not know for being slow on descents and it was somewhat refreshing to be down in swift time, we did all the usual safety checks, bubble checks within the first 6 metres, tested backups but we were still down quick enough to bugger off sharpish before the Al and Clare got down and kicked the crap out of the vis

Overall a good fun dive, couple of swim throughs that Zak was in and out like a greased racing snake, the first one I got a bit caught up on the exit but with Zak signalling "If a fat bloater like me can get through, a short little twat like you shouldn't have a problem", it seemed to give me the encouragement I needed

So swam around a bit more, saw a few big congers, spider crabs, a lobbie and a cuckoo wrasse that seemed to really take a liking to Zak. It spent a good few minutes pressed up against his mask (No accounting for taste I suppose). I also found a mask with a bit of rummaging but ditched it when I showed it to Zak and he asked me where the head was

So we started our ascent as Zak was getting a tad chilly, we switched to 50% at 21m, deployed a bag, (although I did manage to attach the bag to a spool and also keep hold of the spool during the ascent - Not very DIR at all apparently ) By the time we hit 6m Zak was doing a credible impression of someone suffering an O2 hit. I could see he was freezing (having made a poor undersuit choice) so I proceeded to have a piss, complete the stops I had planned and then.... add a couple of minutes on for good effect . So dive over.

So back on the boat and Zak had finished off one bowl of chilli before I even got my set off, he was still suffering a bit from the cold but he soon brightened up at the sight of a DSMB flat on the surface. With a cry of "Please let it be a halcyon bag, please let it be a halcyon bag" he retrieved the bag in preparation for some quality piss taking at the expense of the owner.

So overall a good weekend, I had a great time. It was a good crowd, with liberal piss taking, lots of laughs and more importantly some diving

Daz

P.S One other thing that I almost forgot... I got congratulated 3 times on my DIRF provisional pass. Let me state now for the record, I've never done a DIR-F course, I'm not planning on doing a DIR-F course and I doubt I ever will... It was a wind-up! I've let the little joke go up to now but I swear if one more person congratulates me I'll punch their lights out (or as high as I can hit anyway)

EBT(Offline)

Yep, there were some quality moments and it appears the syllabus for tech 2 is expanding almost by the hour

Switching from the otter undersuit back to the DUI was a mistake though, the DUI thinsulates arent good for more than about 50 dives, this one must have more like 300 on it (last year) and its about as warm as tissue paper.

Kudos for the weekend definitely went to;

• The skipper (pete on Venture), for his cracking chilli and the heated pole in the cabin!
• Graham, for notching up more food from the local bakery
• Aquanauts, for sorting out our gas overnight so we had an easy ride.

On the drysuit front, I recently changed to a trilam with an integrated hood and I have to say I really do wonder why more drysuit people dont integrate the hood. It makes an amazing difference to how warm you stay and frankly, if the dive needs a drysuit it needs a hood too, so why not attach it permanently?


/Zak

ps. washing soddy salty stuff off my kit, yet another reason to prefer caves!
pps. Claire/Al, next time i really do want that choccy malt whizzed up with your blenders

Little Pete(Offline)

Awesome report folks, remind me why I left Plymouth and came to Norwich where I get to dive Gildy and more Gildy?

Frank Bruce(Offline)

Oh Dear - Did I forget to mention that pole and union street....best get yourself down the vets again.

/F

__________________
/F
Web : www.e-aquanauts.co.uk
Skype: frank-e-aquanauts

limeyx(Offline)

Nice report. Now I want to go wreck diving!

Red Sea Explorer(Offline)

That sounds like a lot of fun.

I hope to make it to the UK for some wreck dives some time soon.

__________________
You watch me switch.
www.redseaexplorers.com