Derek’s Dive Domain

Gee, what a comedown.  Its home from Tenerife, and the following weekend its over to Stoney Cove and normality.  I’m diving with a newcomer to YD, Graham Terry who posted that he needed a buddy, so I took him up on the offer when my possible buddy for the day couldn’t make it.

We met up at Stoney, and after early coffe duly dropped in.  My first thoughts were “Heck its cold”, closely followed by “The viz is naff today”, followed very closely by “Where’s my f*c&ing torch!”.  After remembering that this is what the UK is like, and that I didn’t really need a torch, things returned to normal!  This was Graham’s first ever visit to Stoney, and it didn’t start well when I had to wait an hour and a half at 7AM to have my cylinder filled!  As Graham didn’t know Stoney, we were basically doing the grand tour of the ledge and 20-22 metre areas.  Anyway, we dropped off the ledge and almost literally landed  on the anchor of the Stanegarth chain.  Followed this out and had a leisurely time pootling around the Staegarth, popping into the wheelhouse on the way through.  Then using my Zen navigation, we left the stern of the Staegarth, and headed over to the Wessex, hitting it bang on the nose (There’s a first!)  A quick plod round whats left of the Wessex, and we went and had a quick look at the white Commer van, before heading up the rock by the van and doing the blockhouses and nautilus on the ledge before getting out.  A nice first dive, and the first time I’ve hit everything I aimed for.  Graham seemed suitably impressed by my navigation and I considered letting him think that I was a Diving God, but I knew he would find out the truth on dive 2, so I admitted it was Zen and a bit of luck

The surface interval was always going to be governed by getting our cylinders filled, but due to a load of schools, and slight compressor problems, three hours was always going to be a bit boring!  Met a friend of Grahams who just happenned to be at Stoney as well, and had a quick natter, and sorted lunch, and eventually got our full cylinders and dropped back into the water.  This time the plan was to go back to the Stanegarth. and then head for the coach.  I’ve only been to the coach once before, as I seem to be jinxed in finding it, and this time was no exception!  We dropped straight onto the Stanegarth anchor again and did some more bits out there, popping into the hold area for the first time ever as well.  Then I tried to zen it from the bow of the Stanegarth, got it wrong and hit the anchor chain on the way back.  Oops.  I think Graham was laughing at this point as I’d made a show of working my bearing out with a waving of my hands as I was thinking “Anchor chain, there, bow, here, OK…. we go….. THAT way”.  Tried to correct, but as usual the coach eluded me, and I decided to cut the deeper part of the dive short and head up to the ledge, as even if we found the coach now it would be “Oh look, coach… time to go up”  We bimbled around on the ledge for a while, looking at the BOP, cockpit, APC etc.  before ending up over by and in the blockhouse laying on the bottom, watching the fish come and join us.  (Don’t ask, but it was fun!)

It was good to meet and dive with Graham, and I hope the next time he is bored and buddyless, I can head to one of his local sites, and he can give me the guided tour of that one!

Dive 1  (70)  20.6 metres, total dive time 49 minutes

Dive 2  (71)  20.8 metres, total dive time 59 minutes