Derek’s Dive Domain

I’ve got a spare weekend before I head off down to Plymouth, so after a late call for possible buddies, Ian Hicks (Ian@1904) is willing to come and accompany me so that I can get some practice with DSMB’s and the likes.

We meet up at Gildy at 10.30, well, Ian arrives at the agreed time of 10AM, I’m stuck following several buses, horse trailers and idiots driving at 20mph on the open road, and am delayed by 30 minutes on route.  Its quite busy, so we know that visibility isn’t going to be great, especially by Gildy standards, but I’m fully expecting it to be better than recent dives at Stoney.  We kit up and drop in.  WRONG.    If anything its even worse than Stoney was last Saturday.  I’m beginning to understand what people mean when they say the sea is good.   Its about 2.5 metres viz, so we take it nice and easy and just follow some of the lines around the lake.  We both have no idea where they are heading at times, but we know the general shape of the path we are taking, and we end up out in the middle of the lake by the jet provost.  At this point my DSMB decides its going to get caught up on the line we are following and unravel in the middle of the lake.  Handily there is a training platform nearby so I just drop onto that and put everything back together, so at least it was useful practice.  We continue to the provost, where we decide its the only nearby flat place on a wing to deploy my blob from, bearing in mind this is one of the things I wanted to practice.  I spend a very amusing two or three minutes sliding around on the not quite level wing, before firing the blob to the surface successfully.  We ascend the line, and hold a safety stop before surfacing in the middle of the lake and having a nice gentle surface swim back in.

After a surface interval of about an hour and threequarters, we kit up again and head back into the water.  Ian has gone ahead to get in the water as its is really hot, and I wander across the front bit wondering why people are looking at me.  I get half way down the ramp, and I can hear something rubbing behind me.  I look down and in horror see that the bloody DSMB has unravelled again whilst bumping around while I was walking, and I have just wandered across the whole grassy area towing it behind me.  No wonder everyone was watching.  I just want to die, but have to put a brave face on it and roll it up and mackle up a temporary solution at the water’s edge.  I’m now about collapsing from the heat, and am glad to just step into the water, so I have a couple of minutes rest floating on the surface and getting myself together before we drop in.  This time we decide to do a complete circuit of the outer perimiter of the lake, hoping that not many divers will have been out there, and its partially successful as we get up to 4 metres of sight in patches.  At the end of the dive I blob up again, and all is well.  We surface after another safety stop on the line, and notice that the sun has gone in and there are some very black clouds approaching.  I also notice that my blob has almost completely filled with water as well, which is interesting.  It had been taking a little in, but this time its really gone for it, so the valve is obviously buggered, so its into the bin as we leave the water.  (To be honest I think thats a good thing as my new one has a press stud clip which stops it from unravelling, as well as being the proper colour and not faded :)  )  We’ve just about dekitted when the heavens open, so Ian dashes off as he had to get home anyway, and I throw everything in the car and take shelter in the bar area before heading home.

Big thanks to Ian for joining me for the dives, and being very patient and understanding as everything went wrong around me, and also big thanks for the help and advice regarding kit setups etc.  I’ve learnt a few new tips, and have already implemeted a few things he suggested.

Next stop Plymouth and salt water 12 years in the waiting!

Dive data:

Dive 1 (80)  max depth 19.2 metres, total dive time 41 minutes

Dive 2 (81)  max depth 13.4 metres, total dive time 48 minutes