Derek’s Dive Domain

Following on from my diving down in Plymouth, ”Stoney Cove? in August ? Why?” a question that I actually asked myself on the way to this dive at 6:30 in the morning.  Having had nice leisurely starts on the sea dives, suddenly having to get up at crack of sparrowfart to go to a quarry doesn’t seem quite as inviting as it has for the last year.  But its still a dive, so off I go.

I get to Stoney just before the queue for the bottom car park gets too big, so nice timing there, so after a short kip in the car its pay money time and then get let in down to the bottom car park.  Having blagged the space, its time to sort my kit out very leisurely before meeting Gareth (Spacehopper) to do a couple of dives.  Gareth is held up on the road, so it gives me a chance to fettle the kit a little, and I get a couple of bits done before Gareth arrives.  Whilst we are kitting up we get chatting to a guy, Matt who is there whilst his other half goes through her OW/AOW courses.  He’s got his kit in the car and is looking to blag a dive or two over the day, so we invite him to join us and make up a threesome.

We all kit up, and get in at the slipway, as the bus stop is now closed.  We decide on a plan of action, and I start my Zen navigation routine.  Little did I know that I was going to have one of those days…  We drop off down to 20 metres, and for once I didn’t land on the anchor.  This isn’t a problem as I know this bit of Stoney very well indeed, and I’ll just head out and bisect the chain on the way.  We fin on for a bit, and no chain appears.   Hmm, we’ve obviously drifted off to the right of the chain line, no problem, if we do a 90 degree left, we’ll come back to it.  Still no chain.  I’m wondering what on earth I’m doing at this point, so do another 90 degree left in case I’m just not compensating enough.  Just as I am about to give up, I see something looming up out of the gloom.  Hold on, thats not very Stanegarth-like….   its the bloody Commer Van!!!!  What’s going on ?  Who moved the Stanegarth ?   Why am I being such a muppet ?   all go through my mind at this point, but its no biggie really, we can just do the Stanegarth/Wessex/Commer Van loop in reverse.  So I look nonchalant, and pretend this was the dive plan all along, even though I know they know:)

So we head off from there and plonk ourselves on the Wessex for a few minutes, having a look at some of the wiring which is showing itself in the centre of the beastie these days.  After Matt has taken a few photos, and we’re bored of the Wessex, I take my Zen bearing from the nose of the Wessex and head off to the Stanegarth.   Much finning later, and still no Stanegarth.   Oh NO, I can’t have done it again!!!  Oh yes I have, I’ve missed the damn thing twice in a row, and we are into territory that I don’t think I have ever been in before as the bottom is pure sand, rather than the rocks we all know.  I decide to head back to the wall from here and take my bearing,and start to fin back.  Suddenly a mini looms into view, and this really throws me, as I know where the mini is, and we are certainly not there.  They can’t have moved the mini, thats not possible…  Of course they haven’t, its the other one, but I had no idea where that was, so I’m beginning to think “free ascent” time, rather than using the wall.  We fin a little more and suddenly this big mass appears right in front of me.  Its the bloody STANEGARTH!   I thought we were fairly near the wall, but nope, my second miss of the Stanegarth had put me down her Port side, so when I turned for the wall, it took us past the other mini (now I know where it is!) and we hit the Stanegarth sideways on, right up against the plaque…   oh well, at least no one can see you blushing underwater :D  We have a good look around the Stanegarth, and then do our ascent up the shotline on the stern, which is the first time we have done that.  Its very good practice actually, as I have some more sea diving coming up shortly, and I haven’t done many safety stops on a line or shot, so that was useful.  One surface swim back to shore later, and its out for coffees, and merciless ribbing for missing the Stanegarth.

The second dive, after a couple of hours out of the water, sees us go back down the shotline onto the Stanegarth.  (See I’m learning, you can’t miss it this way!)  We pottered about inside the hold/engine room, and then went over to the Commer Van and into the corner of the quarry for a look in another corner I haven’t been to before at bottom depth.  We have a little mooch around over there, and then come up the wall and back along by the green forest.  This was a good dive as it practised several things for me, and took in some new bits and pieces.

After dekitting, and more coffee, it was into the bar as usual.  A good day out at the Cove, despite wondering what I was doing before going earlier in the day.

 Dive 1 (85)  Max Depth 20.8 metres, total dive time 37 minutes

Dive 2 (86)  Max depth 20.6 metres, total dive time 51 minutes