Derek’s Dive Domain

Date: Sunday 28/5/06

Location: Gildenburgh Water

Buddies: Beardy (YD)

Max Depth: 17.5 and 19.2 Metres

Dive Time: 27 minutes both dives

Water Temp: 11′C and 10′C

Total Dive Time Logged to Date: 32:05

After swapping a few PM’s on YD, I had arranged to meet up with Paul at Gildenburgh as it was sort of middle ground between Ipswich and Leicester.  I have only dived at Gildenburgh once before and that was way back in 1997, so I had absolutely no knowledge of what the place was like, and compared to all the shocking reports, it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined really.

I arrived at Gildenburgh at about 8.25 and after getting everything sorted, air fill etc, and figured out how some of my new kit went together (!), we got into the water at about 10:15.  I was using my new OuterEdge drysuit from Sports Components, a new Mares Vector 1000 BCD and new fins for good measure.  This meant a very cautious start to the day was in order, so we surface swam over to the shallow platforms to the left of the entry slip, and dropped down to them.  After spending a couple of minutes getting used to the kit, and trying to establish some idea of bouyancy (not easy when you change so much kit in one go!) we dropped off the platform and down, and followed the guidelines to the double decker bus.  On my only previous dive in Gildy, I had just about swum into the bus before noticing it, but on this dive I was able to see it looming up, so the viz was clearly good

We mooched around the bus for a couple of minutes, and Paul went inside and up the stairs and out of the top windows, and then we headed off over the top of an old car over to a small plane fusilage where we had a look in the cockpit.

Basically then, we headed back towards the entry point, and did our safety stop by the 5 metre platform before heading out back up the slipway style entry/exit point.

It was a good dive, and I was quite pleased and confident in my new kit, so after a coffee and a natter on the surface, we got ready and went in for a second dive.  On this dive we dropped down and followed the guidelines out to the other bus, and then followed the lines to a boat, another car and back via the jet provost, all of which was new stuff to me, having had such limited experience of Gildy in the past. 

After this dive it was lunchtime, and we decided to call it a day there as we had completed the original two dives we had planned.  All of the new kit performed very well, and my initial thoughts on the new suit is that it is a very good purchase indeed.

Thanks for Paul for the dives, hopefully we can meet up again soon after I get back from my holiday for some more dives, as I really enjoyed them, as well as diving in a new environment.