Derek’s Dive Domain

Its November 15th, and its time for another night dive in Stoney Cove, and another chance to practice getting used to night diving, something that I am decidedly short of experience on.  I head over to the Cove after work, and am diving with Freeflow again, so meet up in the car park, or in my case on the road between the car parks, and kit up.  Only one dive tonight due to time constraints, so we drop in at the newly reopened bus stop and over the edge by the cockpit, dropping onto and then following the road down to 22 metres.  After a brief look around the bits on the right of the road at 22 metres, where David chucks his rubber shark in the middle of a group of divers trying to get a photograph, and meeting with a slightly frosty response, we turn left and follow the drop off down to the pit along, and end up where the new cairn is being slowly built by passing divers.  After chucking a couple of rocks onto the new pile, we turn and head over to the coach and then over to the Stanegarth.  Instead of the normal tour of the Stanegarth, David heads around the stern, and out over the sandy bottom to the mini which is a little beyond the tug, and we mooch there, before returning towards the wall over by the Wessex.  My bearings are sometimes a little skewiff, and on this occasion I did not realise we were heading back to the Wessex via the Stanegarth, and I am so busy watching a pair of divers over to my right and trying to make out what they are flashing their torches at, that when I look back, I am about 3 inches and closing from the massive metal rudder of the Stanegarth!

One very large bruise avoided, but only just, we head over to the Wessex and come up the wall on an angle, looking for Crayfish and the like on the way, before finning around the Nautilus, disturbing some sleep fish on the way, before exiting and heading for the pub, as you do.

Dive Data:  (Dive 114) Max Depth 22 metres, total dive time 38 minutes.