Derek’s Dive Domain

So, its back to familiar old Stoney Cove, and after an evening of fun and Chicken Risotto with Kath and Gareth (Kath247 and Spacehopper) its off for an early start at Stoney.  We arrive and get the tanks filled without too many delays, unlike the last timeI was there, and just before 9AM drop in for the first dive.  I’m diving with Spacehopper and its his first dives since coming back from Tenerife, and still early drysuit dives.  We settle on the first ledge, and fiddle around with kit for a couple of minutes, and once we both are happy, we drop over the ledge and down onto the Stanegarth anchor.  Off we go, and spend a pleasant 10 minutes out on the Stanegarth swimming through the passage, and popping into the wheelhouse etc, then its the usual head off the back of the boat over to the Wessex and the white van.  When its time to head up, we are at the white van, so we are going to head up the wall and settle onto the ledge for a bit of bimbling.  We get up to 13 metres, and then Gareth attracts my attention that he is having trouble staying down.  He has too much air in his suit, and although he is venting it, its taken hold and he’s bouyant.  We link hands and I dump the contents of my jacket to try and balance it all out, but its not going to happen, and after I am pulled out to 8 metres pretty rapidly, we break apart, and Gareth is forced to surface and sort himself out, and I drop back to 10 metres whilst re-compensating for suddenly becoming negative.  I quickly sort myself out and I’m just settling onto the 6 metre area to do my safety stop, as I can see Gareth and all appears well.  He drops back down and rejoins me very quickly, and we carry out an extended stop before surfacing.   Fortunately there are no after effects for Gareth, but we have an extended surface interval to be a little more sure, before we go in for the second dive.  A valuable lesson learned about drysuit diving for Gareth, and he won’t make that mistake again!  The second dive is the same plan as the first except after leaving the Stanegarth I take a bearing for my nemesis, the coach, and finally at about the 5th attempt in recent dives, actually managed to find it!  I feel like partying underwater after such a minor thing going right, but it really has eluded me for so long!  We spend a pleasant 20 minutes or so down at 20 metres on this dive, and after the problems of the first dive, we have decided to do a very gradual ascent up the road, which will give Gareth more time to keep his bouyancy adjusted, and also have better reference points, having a sound base underneath him if he wants to stop and adjust anything at any point.  This works quite well and his bouyancy looks a lot better on the ascent this time as we head up the road and then come out at the cockpit.  We have a quick look around that and then we surface and come out at the steps.

Dinner time, and another refill of the cylinders and then we decide to do a third dive, a nice gentle bimble around the ledge,  which we duly do, visiting every point on the ledge, and then ending up at the blockhouses, spending time settling  on the bottom and letting the fish get used to us being there and then watching them come very close in and pick at the sediment stirred up by us settling down.  Found the turtle on the Nautilus and moved him to new home nearby.   I wonder where he will be next time.  After 61 minutes we call it a day and surface for a much needed pint.  A great days diving, and some good practice for Gareth in his drysuit.  Hopefully more diving to follow soon, as we are very similar divers in terms of the sort of diving that we like doing.

Dive 1 (73)  20.8 metres, total dive time 45 mins

Dive 2 (74)  21.7 metres, total dive time 45 mins

Dive 3 (75)  7.3 metres, total dive time 61 mins