BSAC London No.1 Branch

Hi All

Just to confirm this Saturday 31st March at 09:30 for a 10:00 start.  Whipps Cross Hospital Decompression chamber for a dry dive.

Whipps Cross hospital is Whipps Cross Rd, E11. the nearest underground station is Leytonstone on the Central Line.  There will be a charge of £40 each. This covers the use of the chamber and a small donation to the friends of the Hospital.  It will take about 2 hours.

This will include a dry dive (it is quite big so there should be plenty of space). Also a presentation by the staff (an ex London Branch member) on the subject of decompression illness.

There are still a few spaces so if you are free & wish to go please email me.

For some newer members who perhaps did not know about this, it’s an oportunity to visit a working chamber.

While it’s best not to need one at all. In the event a visit is required in your diving career it may reduce the stress.

There is no minimum qualification required so please feel free to come along.  There is a very large Pub near by that the medical staff use.  Just need to have numbers for bums on seats.  So far I have Chris H, George V, Joe H, Alex M and Keith G.

Jim

Here is a quick update on the diver training that we are doing at the moment.

Ocean Diver
The latest batch of Ocean Divers have all but finished their pool and theory training. Nadia has two lessons left; the rest will be taking their first Open Water dives in Portland this weekend.

Sports Diver
I’m hoping to concentrate over the next few weeks on people who are halfway through Sports Diver. Anyone who wants to finish off their SD qualification please let myself or Matthew Gentile know what lessons you have done and what you have left so we can organise the correct lessons for you.  Once the current batch of Sports Divers have finished their training we can start a new Sports Diver course for our newly-qualified Ocean Divers. I hope to start this shortly after Easter.

Read the rest of this entry »

As a relatively new member of the club I found that the trip to the Farnes was the perfect place to learn about the club and diving, as well as somewhere to do some fantastic diving, so instead of the usual trip reports I decided to pass on my new found knowledge.

1. SMB’S

You can never have enough practise with an SMB. Possibly one of the first things I learnt (having found out what one was in Plymouth) as, after a dive to settle into the conditions (and the cold), I was handed an SMB and reel to look after. I also learnt that there is no way to get out of this duty until you are diving with a less experienced diver and can ask the famous question “Have you ever used an SMB before?”.

There is no answer you can give to this to avoid being the SMB bearer. Not even snapping a supposedly indestructible reel will get you out of this duty, as I found, I was just handed a new reel a the beginning of the next dive.

2. FOOD

One of the most important land based activities is eating. It ranged from the daily all day breakfast, the perfect way to warm up between dives, to the fantastic lobster feast prepared by Nigel and Dave (with all their helpers) one night. It was the biggest and oldest lobster I have ever seen (apparently about 50 years old) and had to be de-clawed before cooking in a bucket. That was probably the first time I have seen my dinner merrily boiling away in a bucket. Staying in the same house as Keith I also learnt how to get all the meat out of a crab, as every day there would be more crabs he had caught or acquired from fishermen to be cooked in a variety of pans, the baking tray being the most imaginative and interesting as the crab kept trying to escape along the work surface!

3. DRINK

The other important land based activity and a pleasant way to the pass the evening was sampling the local tipple (Farne Islands Bitter) in the best pubs Seahouses and Beadnell had to offer. Special mention has to be given to Paul at this point who looked after the kitty all week and made sure that our glasses were always full so thank you from everyone for this service!

4. THERE IS NO DIGNITY IN DIVING

As we all have to find out at some point, whether it is being bent over so someone can put your weight belt on because you have forgotten to, diving in your waterproof having forgotten to take it off before kitting up, trying to haul yourself into the RIB, spitting into your mask, trying to get in and out of a wet wetsuit in a car park or going out in the boat for the ride wearing possibly the least effective lifejacket in the world. [Not to mention seasickness… Ed].

5. SEALS

The main reason for diving in the Farnes is surely to “play” with the seals. We were luck enough to have them on at least 3 dives where they did everything from just swimming past and showing off their underwater skills to nibbling and playing with our fins and SMBs. It made those dives just magical, although they didn’t like being looked at for some reason so you had to watch what was happening to your buddy. The juveniles were particularly playful, a big fan of fin eating and showing off their acrobatics.

It is only seeing them so close you realise what skilful and fast swimmers they are, as well as realising how big they actually are, slightly scary when they get territorial and have a quick bite of your arm or leg. Luckily they are scared of one thing, torchlight, as Joe demonstrated with the light sabre on his dives (mind you most things were scared of that).

6. OTHER SEALIFE

There is lots more to the Farnes than seals as we saw on some of the other dives when we were not quite so distracted. We saw lots of crabs, some of which were edible ones and so went straight into the goodie bags along with a few lobsters. Richard and Nigel even managed to catch a flatfish in Richard’s BC pocket! We didn’t catch all of the sealife though, and left plenty of sea urchins, starfish, sprats, wrasse and even a few octopi for everyone else to look at.

7. WEATHER

All diving is dictated by the weather as we all know and apparently the likelihood of being blown out in the Farnes was very high. We were very lucky to get in 5 good days of diving before the inevitable happened on Friday and the wind changed to blow onshore. We dived in the rain, sun and wind and even saw a sunrise one morning thanks to Morgan’s dive planning. Luckily the dive was excellent and justified the early start, although it did meant that the breakfast/lunch venue had to be changed as we were too early for our regular haunt!

8. GETTING TO KNOW PEOPLE

There is no better way to get to know the people in the club than to go on a trip, and if that is a week long trip, so much the better. Of course some people you will get to know better than others, and I now feel like I know Claire very well having shared a bed with her for a week and given and received a fair amount of cuddles in the middle of the night (sorry Claire!).

9. UK DIVING

This trip was only the second time I have dived in the UK, having learnt in a nice tropical place and I was very surprised by how good UK diving is. There is so much to see, not just the seaweed and occasional fish through the murk I had envisioned. The only thing I still have to get used to is the cold. The North Sea in September did not seem very attractive and I was ridiculed at work for even contemplating it but it was slightly warmer than I expected. Now I just have to get used to having a dive dictated by whether you are shivering yet rather than how much air you have left.

After that (and having to struggle in to a very wet and cold wetsuit most mornings) the drysuit has quickly made the top of my “kit to buy” list.

10. COMMUNICATION

This is vital whether you are trying to signal something to your buddy underwater or deciding whether the early morning dive will take place. However, all communication can very quickly fail. The mobile phone signal is Seahouses is pretty much non-existent so at least one person had to leave their bed to find out whether the morning dive was actually taking place and then tell everyone else what the plan was. Also buddy signals tend to fall apart underwater if you are not careful, it is no good getting excited over something and trying to show them if your buddy has no idea what you mean (as we all found at some point).

We did learn some new signals on the surface, but knowing all the signals for different types of sharks was not that useful in the Farne Islands. Seal was usually just signalled by wide eyes and excited pointing, unless it was a baby seal in which case a mime of clubbing a baby seal was used by some people (no names mentioned!).

The Farnes was definitely a memorable trip for me and I am just sorry that the season is over so soon, but at least it ended on a high with lots of brilliant diving and on land experiences to rival those in the sea. Hopefully some of my new found knowledge will be put into use soon….

Hannah

Morgan, Tobias, Keith, Richard, Mathew, Hannah and I met up on a beautiful and sunny Saturday morning last August bank holiday, after a good nights sleep at the Mountbatten Centre. After a hearty full English breakfast (including a cherry tomato) we headed down to met the skipper from Deep Blue Diving. Due to past events including a certain Range Rover we would be using Deep Blue Diving’s rib and after a quick-debrief we were flying across the water to our first dive for the day. The first dive was very special, especially for Hannah and me, as it was our first ever in English waters (I hadn’t ever dipped my toe in the English Channel let alone dive in it!).

Apart from being my first ever UK dive it was also my first time dive off a rib, and before I knew it we were gently sinking into the deep abyss. When we finally got to the bottom I was amazed at how clear the visibility was, a lot better than I ever expected, but more importantly how much life there was. I think a lot of this praise has to be given to my dive buddy Keith who looked under every rock and crevasse to find more and more interesting things to see including my first ever Cuttlefish.

When the dive had finished and we were all safely back on the boat I found out (to Keith’s amusement) that the big junk of debris on the bottom was in fact the Glen Strath Allen and apart from being my first rib and UK dive was also my first ever wreak dive to!!

After lunch I was eager to get back out there and before I know it we were again skimming across the water to Hilsea Point.

If I thought the first dive was good then this was 10 times better, a lot of this praise has to go to the skipper from Deep Blue diving who dropped us right on the point. Again I was teamed up with Keith and had an enjoyable dive swimming in and out of the gullies.

That evening we ventured across to Plymouth Old Town and headed to the infamous Platters. After enjoying the biggest portion of fish and chips EVER while trying not to stare too long at the guy in the doggy wig, it was time to head back for a last minute beverage before getting a good night sleep for tomorrows dives.

If there was some confusion over the Glen Strath Allen being classed as a wreck dive then the same could not be said for the James Eagan Lane, know as being the most dived wreak in the UK. Now this is what I call a wreak! Budding up with Tobias we delved in and out and even saw my first John Dowry. What a fantastic dive!

After lunch, and with everyone back on the rib about to head off for the second dive of the day Tobias’s dry suit zip broke and unfortunately he was unable to dive. This bit of bad luck was unfortunately going to continue, while I was diving I appeared to have a leak from my first stage, much to Matthew’s distress. This meant that the dive was made a lot shorter than my poor dive buddy Keith and I wanted.

Back on dry land the leaked didn’t appear as severe as it must of looked underwater and just involved tightening up my hose pipes so luckily (unlike Tobais) I was able to dive tomorrow.

That evening we again ventured to Plymouth Old Town and after negotiating our way through the hordes enjoying the sunny evening weather found ourselves a place to eat.

The next morning was very different and unlike before where we had had bright sunny weather we instead woke to very thick looking fog. I guess I can’t complain too much as the weather and conditions had been perfect up until now, still this wasn’t going to put us off as everyone (especially me) was excited as we were going to dive the Syclla today!

Now my knowledge of UK diving is pretty poor at the best of times, but even I had heard of the Syclla, which was sunk about 3 years ago to become a natural reef. Having heard many stories about this dive, one being how popular it is with divers / boats everywhere, it was to everyone’s joy we turned out to be one of the few boats there. Budding up with Morgan we stayed mainly around the first and second floor decks swimming in and out of the cabins, and holes that had been cut specially for divers.

I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy the dive as much as the James Eagan Lane which apart from being a much older ship had more aquatic life on and around it. Still the Syclla had only been sunk recently and in places was already looking to provide its objective of becoming a natural reef. Upon surfacing it became apparent, to the delight of the skipper, eagle eyed Keith made the first ever sighting of a conger eel to make its residence on the Syclla!!

The last dive of a very successful trip was back to Hilsea Point. Budding up with Morgan again we had a nice dive in and around the gullies, but it appeared to be Richard and Matthew that had the final find of the trip by stumbling onto a small cave, again much to the joy of our skipper who had been looking for this cave for ages!!

On reflection, I can’t thank Tobias, Keith, Morgan, Matthew, Tom, Hannah and Deep Blue Diving enough for making my first ever UK dive trip a most enjoyable and unforgettable one. I honestly had no idea that there was so much life, colour (and debris) right on my door step and honestly saw more interesting and wonderful things on those 3 days than I ever did in 6 months diving in Turkey!! I’m afraid that I’ve got the diving bug now and can’t wait for my next trip with BSAC no. 1.

Tristan

Finally, the day had arrived. My first real dive in the ocean. Ian picked me up at my flat early Saturday morning for the drive to Pembroke. Bank Holiday week-end, but the traffic was light, the sky clear and the sun bright. The omens were good.

Driving through Wales, I reflected on my odyssey from desk-bound banker to club member and soon-to-be “scuba diver”. Residing near the Seymour Centre, I joined the facility to socialise and to minimise the caloric consequences of too many business lunches and dinners. I spotted the BSAC ad in the glass display case at Seymour [instantly becoming quite possibly the first person ever to do so… Ed] and memories of the 1950s American TV hit, “Sea Hunt” came back. Lloyd Bridges, the star, somehow surviving adventures from “attacking killer whales” to unexpected bouts of “narcosis of the deep” had mesmerised me then and I still imagined myself in his shoes (or rather wetsuit). After a couple of wrong turns into the “sun parlour” and the squash court, I finally found the club room. Jim offered a trial dive and I was hooked. Weightlessly swimming in the pool, I had become Mr. Sea Hunt. I signed up immediately and paid my dues. Now almost a year later I was on my way to the real thing.

Ian and I arrived at the slip around 11:30am and started scanning the horizon for sight of the RIB returning from the morning run. What a beautiful sight as it came into view and tied up. We helped unload the kit and I felt like a long time member already. A light lunch and we prepared for the afternoon expedition. Jonathan was not due until later in the day and Keith was in charge until then. He decided the afternoon dive would be a shore entry at St Brides Bay. As I heard this I felt some relief, thinking it would be a leisurely walk across the pebbled sand and a smooth transition into the water. Keith must have taken pity on this novice and figured it would be safer and easier for me. Of course, what I didn’t realise was that beaches in the UK don’t look like beaches on Long Island!

Ian managed to drive the car past the parking lot and half way to the “beach” where we unloaded the gear and I kitted up as he returned the car to the parking lot. By the time everyone else had arrived and kitted up, I was just figuring out how to snake my left arm through the dry suit sleeve, which somehow had disappeared. Finally I got everything on and found I felt more like a beached whale than Lloyd Bridges. Making my first ocean dive in my spanking new DUI drysuit, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t too light… 15kg on the belt, 2kg around the ankles and a few more kilos in the BCD pockets. I was determined to get under. What I hadn’t anticipated was the sheer exhaustion brought on by kitting up, traversing down the slope across slippery rocks, and then balancing and putting on my fins. I felt like I had just run a marathon, trying to catch my breath with my heart rate accelerating off the EKG chart. Too late to turn back…

After everyone else had gone in, Keith took me under his wing and explained clearly, “… just turn around and back in until we’re ready.”. I pulled down my mask, put the regulator in my mouth and suddenly felt as if I was in a tunnel unable to catch my breath. My expensive mask immediately fogged over and I was on the verge of sucking the bottle dry before we had even started. Keith’s words floated over, “just lie back and try to relax.”. OK, I’ll give it a try. All that damn weight… My mask was half in and half out of the water. Panic takes over. Despite the fact that I’m breathing, I feel like I’m drowning. I can’t find the inflate valve on my BCD to try to put more air into it, as I keep grabbing my pressure gauge instead. Can’t be me, must be the stupid Cressi design. Keith still very patiently asking, “Do you want to try to go under?”. That was the problem, I felt like I was going under! Calming down a bit, I signalled Keith, “Not today, let’s go back.”. Ever patient, he instructed, “Just stay on your back and fin toward shore.”. Still gasping for breath and my heart pounding, I realise I can fin and get back ashore… just need to calm down… and gradually I did, a bit. Keith gave me a hand, practicing his towing technique. Then, I was on my own to fin. The shore was only about 30m away, why was it taking so long. My legs were getting tired. Finally, Keith’s voice again, “You’re going around in circles.”. Now, I remembered… look over your shoulder from time to time (practical lesson for me!). Looking over my shoulder, I spied stern-eyed Joe up on the rocks looking down. Of course, this being BSAC No.1, we had to have a safety observer [that’s right Tom, my altruism in volunteering for shore cover had nothing whatsoever to do with my reasoning, “a shore dive, on sand, with no viz, balls to that idea…” - Ed]. Somehow, I thought my display of skill might go unnoticed, as if it had never really happened. Of course, as I finally did make it to shore I realised that all the other divers had already returned and were pretending not to take notice of me. Kind folks.

What went through my mind as I unkitted. First, I’m too old for this sport; and why didn’t I just PADI it! In fact, I might have just quit then if everyone hadn’t been so supportive. “Don’t worry about it… those things happen… it’ll be easier rolling off the RIB… not so unusual on the first dive…”. By dinner that night we could even laugh about it as we planned for tomorrow’s try at a first dive. The experience did give me some lessons. First, listen to your body; if it’s telling you to wait and catch your breath or even skip a dive, don’t be hard of hearing. Second, it takes a lot of dive experience to get comfortable in the water. Third, try a little less weight next time; and finally, BSAC No.1 is a great bunch of people. In terms of expedition history, though, I really don’t think we should characterise my effort as an aborted dive. I never got under the water; let’s just refer to it as an aborted swim.

Postscript

I did manage to make two dives the next day, first down the anchor line in 8m of water in an adjacent bay to the previous day’s fiasco; and more memorably 16m off Skomer Island, both dives under Keith’s guidance. Both dives also offered the benefit of search experience for Keith and then Joe and Morgan as my weight belt mysteriously dropped from my fingers both dives while boarding the RIB. Thanks to everyone who made Pembroke memorable for the right reasons.

Tom

February is generally a bit too cold and murky for a proper diving weekend, so a handful of London No 1-ers ventured off early this year on the next best thing: a boat handling course.

Megan, Alex, Jonny Wilmot (a.k.a. “Sicknote”) and Jon Chapper (as an ‘observer’) signed up for the RYA Level II course, which covers boat handling up to a level equivalent to the BSAC boat handling certificate. Joe, Tobias and I had already completed this course. We instead opted for the RYA Intermediate course combined with a BSAC Diver Coxswain assessment.

The weekend kicked off (as always) in the pub. Failing to find anywhere decent near our B&B in Selsey, we chose the nearest pub that had passable real ale. Unable to talk much over the pumping music we indulged in a pool competition, several pints, and a curry. Saturday morning took us to Wittering Divers, our base for the weekend. Taking a course run in a diving shop is definitely not to be recommended. Although the standard of tuition is high, the staff are all friendly and the tea and coffee flow like water, it is nigh-on impossible to walk past rows of shiny new dive kit several times a day without feeling at least tempted. I don’t think anyone got away without buying something, and Sicknote walked out with several hundred pounds worth of new drysuit!

Our course kicked off with a few hours of theory. Since we had all completed our Day Skipper theory course (or were in the process of doing it) this was fairly straightforward. We went over our knowledge of collision regulations, lights, sounds, buoy shapes, etc. We did quite a bit of chartwork, calculating set and drift of tide, and depth of water.

The last task before lunch was to form a passage plan between two points in ‘unfamiliar waters’. We were each given a start and end point on the chart. The job was to determine a route between the two, calculating tides, depths, etc. We had to write ourselves notes adequate to navigate the passage without resorting back to the chart. This was done by noting compass bearings, items of interest that we would see (slipways, buildings, etc), and the buoys and markers we would pass.

After lunch we went onto the water for an afternoon of practical skills. This started with a quick ‘play’ to get used to the boat, learning how she handled. We then completed the Level II assessment course (coming alongside, reversing, picking up buoys) to prove that we were competent enough for the rest of the weekend.

After that we took it in turns to follow our passage plans, one person behind the controls while someone else gave directions. I am pleased to report that we all successfully reached our destinations and all navigation (even mine!) was spot-on. The only slight incident was a minor argument with a sandbank, where our instructor’s final directions, “You’re getting too close. Turn to port. Turn to port. TURN TO PORT!!!!!!!!” were misconstrued as a turn to starboard. We got off the sandbank OK though thanks to a nifty bit of boat handling by the instructor, and the whole incident was watched with wry amusement by the twenty-or-so people racing dinghies nearby.

Saturday evening was a fairly muted affair. Everyone was so shattered from their day afloat that we were all in bed shortly after dinner.

Sunday took us straight back out onto the water to complete our BSAC Diver Coxswain assessment. This consisted of various tasks culminating in locating and shotting a dive site, putting divers into the water, then retrieving them. Joe went first, using transits to find a small WWII vessel just off the South coast. The transits were fairly dodgy to say the least. One was to line up a withy [local word for a wooden stake in the water, Ed] with a water tower, a task not helped when the withy is about two inches wide and half a mile away through haze. The second transit involved lining up a yellow buoy with a block of flats, only the buoy looked black on a grey sea, and was only visible every third or fourth wave.

Still, he found the wreck easily (as verified by sonar), threw in the shot and sent Tobias and I after it. That was probably not the best dive I have ever done. At two metres (never mind the bottom at 10m) visibility was down to zero. We could only communicate through touch. Luckily the only requirement for Diver Coxswain is that divers do actually submerge: no particular dive time is required. So we effectively ‘bounced’ off the bottom and back to the surface, thus ending Joe’s exercise.

My dive site was somewhat easier, being a small drop-off in a channel near Itchenor. To find it was simply a matter of motoring out from the shore (after finding the correct point using the chart) and watching until the depth on the sonar dramatically increased.

One shot placement, however, had to be seen to be believed. Dropping a shot is quite a tricky task for the boat handler, really. You have to drive in on one transit while keeping your eyes on one or two others, watch the sonar and control the boat. It shouldn’t be a surprise if at least one job gets forgotten about, so forgetting to slow the boat down and put the gears into neutral is entirely forgivable. Mind you, I wasn’t the one who had to toss a large shot weight overboard while under way at 10 knots. I just wish I’d had a camera handy to capture the look on our instructor’s face.

Once we had finished that exercise, had lunch, and the shotee’s nerves had calmed down, we navigated some more complex passage plans. These required much more careful preparation since we journeyed up tributaries that dried out, and we were bang on low water. All went smoothly again, besides one minor surprise. The boat handling mantra of “always keep a good look-out” was forgotten by all (including the instructor). It does rather shock you when you turn around to see a vessel five times your size right behind you!

Despite our few minor mishaps, we all passed both our RYA Intermediate Powerboat certificate, and the BSAC Diver Coxswain award. Those on the Level II course all passed too. I have been assured there were no mistakes or mishaps on the other course – either they are all naturally gifted boat handlers or they have made a vow of silence to each other. I’m sure we will find out one day. You will also note that I have chosen not to name the high-speed shotters or boat grounders, in order to protect those who can’t answer back for the next three months…

It was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend, for us at least – I’m not sure about our instructors. It was also very educational, and taught us a lot both about practical boat handling and general seamanship. I do however now realise why the club is not keen on us using Percy Too for boat handling courses!

Morgan

Carn Base, at last, 2004

…or how Conger Dick was nicknamed.

I’ve dived in Cornwall nearly every year with the club since 1987 when I joined, we’ve had some great weeks diving, and some rough weeks camping!! With Cornwall it’s usually one extreme or the other.

We have attempted to dive Carn Base several times but, due to the difficulty in finding ‘the spot’ and the difficult weather and tides, have not had any success. We once found the site but had misjudged the tide. We dropped the shot and I think I could have water-skied in the current! Fortunately, we now have a chartplotting GPS on the boat which makes locating the site much easier, (just ask Jeff where the Bucks are…), and now there is also a bloody great buoy on the seaward side.

Anyway, this year we thought we’d have a bash again. The weather was superb, the sea was calm and we had an idea of when slack should be. We set off from Lamorna, taking extra vigilance around the newly discovered Outer Buck, and set a course in the direction of Carn Base (head for the Longships and turn left a bit). The new chartplotter guided us directly to ‘the Base’ and after scouring the general area for a bit we located a promising looking drop off and prepared the shot line. At the spot the shot was dropped and we circled it to establish the strength of the current, disappointingly it was too strong but we knew we were early so things should improve. Our attention was attracted to the buoy in the distance, and were surprised how far it was away, and it’s size when we got there. With time to kill we made the most of some photo opportunities whilst waiting for the current to slacken.

I was to dive with Richard, whose diving was coming together quite well as the week progressed. We returned to our shotline to check the current and things were now looking promising, kitted up and after the usual checks we dropped in and made straight for the buoy, a swift exchange of OK’s and we started our descent into the 16 metres below.

The bottom came into view as I descended first and then I caught sight of a large free-swimming conger eel. I dropped to the bottom and pointed at the eel for Richard. I could see he had seen it as he was watching it with interest, getting closer and closer as he descended. I thought, how brave, getting so close to a large eel on your initial dives. He kept getting closer and was now putting his hands out as if to grab the eel. I thought whoa!! that’s not what your supposed to do. At the last moment he had second thoughts and decided not to touch it, with a lot of back paddling with his hands he just crashed straight into the bottom with his knees akimbo with this magnificent conger escaping from between. Strangely, since this incident his buoyancy control has quickly improved. Oh how we laughed!!.

The rest of the dive was impressive to say the least. Ten metre gullies with bright white sand at the bottom, loads of life and jewel anemones everywhere. All too quickly, and after all the excitement, Richard, sorry Conger, was getting low on air so it was time to surface.

At the BBQ that evening the story was re-told and Marian came up with a nickname to be proud of … Conger Dick.

Nigel

In early June, a group of us made our way down to Portland, following the bouncing acid head directions from our hotel’s website (to quote Joe, “it’s the coolest damn map I have EVER seen (and I’m not easily impressed…)”), for the rescue scenarios weekend. Arriving at 9:30pm, we managed to interrupt a mammoth session in the hotel bar by Tobias and Alex and gave Alex an excuse to wimp out – the only time I’ve ever seen him leave a pint unfinished!

The following morning, buddy pairs sorted, we headed out to the breakwater for what seemed to be a normal dive. One by one, we were called up to see Dave and Mel in the bow for our secret briefings, while Morgan ‘volunteered’ to be the first boat handler/response co-ordinator.

Ten minutes later, Tobias surfaced, having managed to loose his novice, Jamie, who happily carried on having an enjoyable dive on his own. Morgan ably managed to locate all his remaining divers, had some fun driving the rib at top speed [followed by a slap on the wrists as divers were still in the water at the time… Ed] and the ‘novice’ was recovered with no harm done.

I managed to be incredibly unsympathetic to my two divers suffering from a bad air fill and then proceeded to leave Joe floating face down on the surface for, I am assured, 4 minutes and 36 seconds. That’ll be a hint to get some kit in a colour other than black, then! [Never! - Ed]

Morgan demonstrated that the hours spent in front of his bathroom mirror planning the acceptance speech will not have been spent in vain, with an Oscar-winning performance of a diver with a missing finger. Unfortunately he not only left behind part of the finger, but also failed to bring up the lobster which removed it, meaning that we had to head into Weymouth for the evening meal.

This took a while to be served, leaving time for several rounds of drinks and much hilarity over Alex’s confusion between hamsters and guinea pigs (think Richard Gere - allegedly - and you’ll be in the right ball park). Following the meal we ordered the dessert to share, with 9 spoons, which came in a three gallon bucket and was demolished by the group in 10 seconds, despite Gillian Brown showing unexpected territorial possessiveness, not to mention amazing tug-of-war skills.

Gillian and I were sharing a room and she managed to alarm me by stating that she never sleeps past 6:00am and likes to be up and out soon after for her open air tai chi. Needless to say, the stress of all the accidents managed to take the edge off Gillian’s plans and I actually had to wake her up in time for breakfast – I’m sure that it had nothing to do with the bitter in the bar the night before!

Tobias, waiting for the signal to surface, gave a fantastic performance of a diver turning purple with the need to pee, and missed out on his Oscar only because there was no acting involved! Still, he now has a pee zip fitted, so we’ll not have to witness the speed disrobing onboard the boat again!

Dave exhibited the patience of a saint teaching me how to reverse the trailer onto the jetty. [an amusing concept if you know Castletown beach - I assume you meant to say slipway?! - Ed] My thanks to him and also to the owner of the camper van parked directly opposite for unselfishly providing me with an obstacle course to test my to-an-inch manoeuvring. Having managed to get the trailer down to the water edge, Joe drove the boat on, managing to mangle a prop on the sea bed in the process, although apparently the engine dropped down of its own accord. Many of those viewing obviously thought this looked like fun and were later tempted to try damaging props or jockey wheels of their own. There will be some intense competition for the rubber prop award this year…

Overall a really enjoyable and well organised weekend, helped by the good weather. We all made some mistakes, had a few laughs and learnt a hell of a lot.

Megan

This year’s Pembroke trip got off to an inauspicious start with nearly nowhere to stay. The regular campsite, Foxdales (rubbish toilets, great breakfast bar…), had suddenly decided this year that it didn’t like divers, or at any rate was of the opinion that they didn’t mix with families. Those keen on maintaining a rufty-tufty image would no doubt derive some satisfaction from this expulsion (a certain Groucho Marx quote springs to mind). However, despite the charm offensive mounted on ‘Mrs Foxdales’ by tough city lawyer (and assistant marshal on the trip) Jon Chapper (I believe the argument ran along the lines of “…no, but we’re really very nice, honestly…”) local obstinacy won out and we were forced to go elsewhere.

An alternative campsite was found closer to Martin’s Haven. One of only a few groups on the site, its unpopularity was not hard to fathom as you trekked a quarter-mile across knee high grass to a shower block even more condemned than the one down the road.

Only five of us were around on the first day’s diving, though conditions being pretty marginal we restricted our diving to sites around the Haven (just out from Dale Harbour). After some judicious guesswork (abandoning the GPS marks which seemed accurate enough only to place you in the correct hemisphere, we followed some ill-remembered details about a couple of southerly cardinals) we ‘located’ the wreck of the Dakotian. At around half the stated depth and somewhat less impressive a vessel than the description Jon had read from the book, my dive (with Tobias and Gillian B) was pleasant but a little disappointing. Uncorroborated by Jon and Keith who followed us in only to spend half an hour on a featureless bottom, it wasn’t until later that evening when Jon checked his guides that we worked out that we’d located and dived a different wreck (that of the Behar) completely by chance.
Much later that evening (thanks to some apparently awful traffic), everyone else arrived. Morgan, sensing it was getting late and that he was leaving civilisation behind him had sensibly stopped off to buy some sustenance at the last petrol station before Marloes. So what do you buy when you are tired and hungry after a seven hour drive - a 12 pack of beer obviously! Equally prepared was Tatiana who, on arriving at 01:00AM, then stood in the driving rain reading the assembly instructions to her tent. The girl guides clearly never made it as far as France…!
Not a bad trip all round, and despite some Olympian faffing (even by London Branch standards) on a few days we even made it into the water before noon… Some other highlights:

Gillian B wading back out to the boat with her drysuit zip undone. Those of us who’d spotted this from the beach might well have been able to shout out a little sooner/louder, but where’s the fun in that…?

Megan, who after three or four unsuccessful attempts at climbing into the boat whilst it was held in the bay, finally managed to clamber in, receiving tumultuous applause from the assembled crowd of bird watchers waiting to catch the Skomer ferry.

Jon playing underwater swapshop, managing to lose two knives and one glove but find a UK400.

Alex, who after many months free of gastric calamity at sea, finally succumbed to old habits and was left helpless as his lunch did an encore in the waters of South West Wales. Those who might for whatever reason like to keep track of such things will be pleased to know he has since completed the tri-nations by polluting Scottish and English seas as well.

Tobias, who most embarrassingly got lost on the drive home. After phoning me to chart my progress and receiving the response, “I’m on the road to Fishguard” then proceeded to drive all the way to Fishguard himself, miles out of his way and in completely the wrong direction. He has since been forced to spend hundreds of pounds on an ‘Anti-Fishguard Device’ (a GPS unit for his Palm Pilot) in order to maintain enough navigational dignity to be able to continue to bait Morgan for his now legendary directional dysfunction. He’ll no doubt try to tell you that I got lost too, though this is, of course, complete rubbish! Ha ha, to (mis)quote Mel Brooks, sometimes it’s good to be the editor…!
Joe

My first diving trip of the year was, as is traditional, an Easter Weekend in Plymouth. We had the benefit of both Friday and Monday off work to make a long weekend and get some good diving in, prior to the season ‘proper’.

This kicked off in style on Friday morning with a trip to HMS Scylla, a new ‘artificial reef’ sunk in Whitsand Bay. You will probably have heard of her, as her scuttling was televised two weeks previously on BBC News. She lies within spitting distance of the James Eagan Layne in about 20 metres, with a slight starboard tilt. Huge holes have been cut all down her sides to allow the slightly more foolhardy to neb around inside.

We were joined at the Scylla on Friday by about two-thirds of South-East England’s diving community. TJ helpfully suggested giving a unique signal to the boat upon surfacing, so that we would not mistakenly pick up other divers. Unfortunately several other boats had the same idea, and the same signal. If we had a little less selectivity in our pickups I’m sure that, after picking up our twentieth pair of divers, we would have noticed something odd.

Saturday morning brought a repeat trip to Scylla, so there must have been something interesting there. There were less divers (we could see them all on the Eagan Layne), but still not much aquatic life. I think we can all now claim to have ‘done’ the Scylla, as no-one seemed particularly keen to dive there again the next day.

Sunday saw us speeding out to the Eddystone Lighthouse. We had a beautiful, still, clear day with sea like a millpond. The outward journey was somewhat better than the dive, however, with the sort of temperature and viz that you would expect swimming in chocolate milkshake. A few of us left the RIB to visit the Eddystone itself and clamber about the rock. This was interesting for a few minutes, and I’m glad that those in the RIB decided to pick us up … Eventually.

Other diving during the weekend included such Bovi standards as Hillsea Point, the Mewstone and the Breakwater (both inside and out). The Mountbatten Centre once again served as our base, providing welcome refreshment from its first-floor bar.

Our evening entertainment only involved one trip across to Plymouth Old Town. For anyone interested, I can confirm that the proprietor of Platters has not significantly increased in size, and that his syrup still (just about) fits. Our pre-Platters drink was rather odd, as a local TV presenter (quite famous in ‘those parts’, apparently) walked into the pub, complete with full complement of camera and soundmen, producers and assistants. Tobias and Alex may have had their fifteen minutes of fame, being filmed having their girths measured to see who is the largest. Alex made friends by asking, “Is he local? He looks like it”, to an extremely local-looking regular.

After such a large meal of fish n’ chips, a few of us decided to take a stroll around the marina to wear off dinner. This proved slightly longer than expected, and made us miss the ferry; but provided an interesting look into other parts of Plymouth. Highly recommended. [unlike relying on the boy Peat for navigation, which is most definitely NOT to be recommended… Ed]

All in all, a very good trip; the short break seemed much longer than it was. We were very lucky with the weather, although the water was slightly cold. We even saw a (kind of) celebrity: Louise Trewhatshername (from DIVER magazine) was based out of Mountbatten too.

Morgan