If you are driving your metal cage around the countries crowded roads…. FOR GOODNESS SAKE LOOK WHERE YOU ARE GOING!!!!!!!!!

After almost being cleared up 3 times on my way into work this morning (a 3 mile trip on the motorbike) I am sick of these numpties just blindly changing lanes.  Maybe they are not awake yet, maybe they are just blind, but I am sick of almost getting killed most mornings by Little Jonny’s mother after she’s dropped him off at school and then pulls a U-Turn on a busy road!

That is all.

We were camping at the Riverside camp site which quite a few YDers will know, and its a nice site. We pitched our tents and were then joined by Spacehopper for a social tin or two around the tents.

The following morning, and we have to be down at Aquanauts for a little after 9am in order to get “checked in” and get ready for a 10AM ropes off.

After fettling kit and stowing it all on the boat, I realise with only a few minutes to go that my pony is only half full, so I popped up to the shop and they kindly sorted it on the spot, which was rather helpful, and I’m back on the boat ready to go. Everyone has arrived on time, and we cast off pretty much on the time, there are nine of us on the boat, one having had to call off through illness. We are diving from Trojan Warrior, which doesn’t have a lift, but the side ladder, the same as there is on Pamela Anne. It is having a lift made at the moment which should be installed in about a months time, so it should be a decent boat when thats done. We head out to the first dive site, the Scylla and as usual it gets a bit lumpy as we head out of the sound and around to Whitsand bay. Anyway, we kit up and plop over the side with a backward roll, and off we go.

For this dive, I am making up a three with Chas49 and Spacehopper, as that solves the problem of the ninth diver, and we have dived as a three before. We spend most of the dive at about 18 metres, not dropping below the second deck on the Scylla, and enjoying looking at the life on the railings and the deck. I had a swim through the gangways on the side of the boat, and enjoyed that, as its something different. The Scylla is definitely beginning to show signs of life now, she is quite festooned with colourful stuff, and there were quite a few Ballon Wrasse in the area as well. We went down the port side of the ship from the shot, around the stern, and then up and over the ship, ending up at the bridge windows, before returning to the shot and back up. A nice dive to start the weekend, and I really enjoyed seeing the Scylla again two years on from my last visit, the change is immense.

Back on the boat and we have a leisurely surface interval with lots of banter, and unfortunately about half the divers feeding the fish, and not with their sandwiches! After the break, we have moved over to the James Eagan Layne for the second dive, and its time to “shift our backsides, we’ve got ten minutes to get in the water” Hello Duggie

Anyway, we kit up in a lot over said ten minutes, and get in the water. This time its just me and Spacehopper, as Chas49 has decided he has had enough for the day, due to being ill, and not feeling right generally. So myself and Spacehopper descend down the shot and down the wall of the ship to the bottom, which today is in about 22 metres. I always enjoy looking back up at the hull of the ship there, and just around the side, as I find it quite a “haunting” image, just looming above you, and it really makes you realise just how special diving is, and just how serious you need to be really as well! Anyway, after having a look at the Pink Sea Ferns on the fallen panels (I knew that Seasearch course would come in useful) we head along what I think is the port side of the ship, having a look at the debris and wildlife along the sea bed there, until we come to the opening in the hull which invites you inside. In we go, and the vis is absolutely stunning, you would see the whole of that hold and more besides, with the uprights sitting at the end of the hold like some sort of ghostly guard of honour.

After a little look around the hold, we went through the uprights and into the next hold, where there was a group of divers doing a wreck line laying course. So we just had a little look around there before moving on, so as not to get in their way. I decided to head on out of the other side of the wreck, but not knowing the layout that well didn’t actually know eactly where I was heading, although with the vis and the general state of the wreck, pretty much any way is out from that area. (However, I did have a bit of a WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING moment, when I realised how easy I was suckered into believing how easy it was down there, and it was a really useful wakeup call for taking the same route in and out of anything in future.) Having had this thought I decided to be a bit more sensible, so we followed the wreck line laying lines back to their origin, and the edge of the ship, and exited out through the mangled side wall there. From here we headed back up the other side of the ship back towards the shot, but decided to send a blob up and do an ascent from about two thirds of the way down the ship, which was nice and simple.

What an absolutely fantastic dive though, I saw so much of the JEL that I hadn’t seen before, and the JEL is really “my” wreck, if you see what I mean. Back on the boat and everyone seemed to enjoy their dives, and we headed back into port before anyone else could be ill

After a few of us had had a quick pint and some potato wedges in the bar next door to Aquanauts, we headed back to the campsite where there were five of us staying, and had a quiet night in with fish and chips and some beer.

Sunday morning dawned nice and bright, and the weather seemed very nice and set for the day, which indeed it turned out to be. After breaking camp, and getting down to Aquanauts, we found there was only going to be six of us on the boat for the second day, as Lou and Caroline had been forced to bail out due to Lou’s suit flooding badly the day before, and Hebails had decided he couldn’t cope with the strokes any more and had gone off to join the real divers or something

So after some rejigging of the buddy pairs, this left Lee and Elaine (Airpusher and buddy), Chas49 and Spacehopper, and myself and W Wilberforce (Spunkmire as was). I buddied Will on his rebreather as I had the best SAC rate out of the three of us and Gareth and Charles use about the same rate, so it made sense.

The first dive today was on the Persier, and by the sounds of it we are the onlytrip who actually made it out there, as I know the others were canned for various reasons. We had a much flatter very unevenful journey out there, skippered today by Chris the trainee skipper and I think its Bob, who used to skipper the dive boat Storm.

In we go, and its straight down the shot (kindly provided by Glenn Lindsey’s Maid Maggie boat), and having heard that the wreck is in 30 metres, I was stunned to see a wall of metal at 18 metres. I didn’t realise there was so much on the Persier. What an absolutely lovely dive that was. We descended onto where the boilers are, which is where the shot was, and slowly made our way down to the stern of the ship, having a good look at everything on the way. The torches were almost unnecessary on this dive, certainly my trusty old UKD8R was! We went around the rudder/counterweight at the stern of the ship, I’ve never seen anything like that before, and back up the other side of the ship.
Will saw what looked like a tunnel, which was (as I know now) the propeller shaft tunnel. He headed down and asked if I fancied heading through it, so I had a look and signalled OK, so through we went. Again, the vis on this dive was really stunning stuff, you really don’t get many dives in the UK like these, adn I really made the most of it. What a great dive to log my 200th. From here we went up and over the boilers and had a quick look on the other side on the more flattenned parts of the wreck, but due to air and mostly no-deco time constraints on my computer, we had to take out leave all too soon, and start to ascend up using Will’s blob.

I would have loved to stay longer, but I would have needed to rack up some unwanted deco doing that, so it was back to the sunshine and the boat, for a surface interval involving donuts and flapjack.

After this we started to head back towards the Mew Stone and towards the Glen StratAllan which was going to be our last dive of the weekend. Suddenly a buoy was chucked over the side, and a shout of “man overboard port side” was called, as Bob? threw a drill at Chris to see how he would respond. It was quite interesting to see how it all works from on the boat. Anyway excitement over, we head further in,and it is clearly getting a bit more lumpy, so after a quick discussion we decide to bin the Glen and head over to the other side of the Sound and do a drift dive at Penlee point.

Suitably rested, we drop in and down,before sending up the blob from the bottom, as you always do on drift dives, and we spent a pleasant half an hour drifting around there looking for critters. There were some more Ballon Wrasse, and a bit of a kelp park. For some reason I got a fit of the giggles and started humming “Tiptoe through the tulips” with the words changed in my head to “Tiptoe through the kelp park” Narked at 13 metres, perhaps ?

We saw a lovely specimen of plaice in the sand, it was a really large one, and several large Edible Crabs. After half an hour Will signalled he was a little cold, so we surfaced into much rougher water than we had left a little earlier. Also as we bounced up and down in the swell, we couldn’t see the boat, eventually spotting it absolutely miles away. I think somehow we had dropped in at the point where the flow goes either side of a headland, and we managed to drift one way whilst everyone else seemed to have managed to drift the other. Whilst we were waiting, Alan turned up in Pamela Anne to confirm that we were OK, and to let us know that the boat knew we were there and would be over as soon as he’d finished picking up another pair.
Crisis duly averted, the boat soon headed over and we clambered back on board for the final time this weekend. Once the final pair had been collected it was back into the Sound and back to port to empty the boat and stow all the gear away ready for the journey home. We set off from Plymouth just before 5pm and I finally made it home at 11.30.
It was a really good weekend, and it was great to see so many friends again, and of course as always with YD trips, to make some new ones.

The dive boat was fine and although the ladder is not fun, it was perfectly manageable, and reminds us how pampered we divers are these days! It was a shame we lost a few of our number along the way due to kit issues etc, but I hope everyone had a good weekend, there were certainly plenty of smiling faces amongst the three YD groups down there this weekend, but the diving really was superb.
No pictures from me, and as far as I know, no one on the boat took a camera down with them, so I don’t think there will be any forthcoming!

Here’s to the next Plymouth trip, I do like it down there, I just wish it was a little nearer…
Gee that was long, my fingers ache now….

The diving was nothing to write home about as we got 3 metres of vis on the first dive to 22 metres on Black Carr, and then the second dive to 16 metres on Wuddy Rocks was slightly better with the vis being between 3 and 5 metres.  We lost one dive each day to weather and conditions, but I did briefly get to see a dry St Abbs with sun shining over it, and it looks very picturesque.  I hope to go back there later in the year and do some more diving, possibly some shore dives, but I’m looking forward to using Billy’s boat Wavedancer some more as its a lovely large boat with lots of room and a lift.  Lifts are quite rare up north

It was a good weekend, could have had better diving but it was nice to see somewhere new, and hopefully I will be back soon.

Actually I am off to the dentist in 5 minutes, so I will have to post something when I get home with a slightly less full mouth than I have now!

Anyway, I met up with my buddy there, and after a false start involving me realising that I had left all my money at home, and having to find a cashpoint that would take my credit card, I got registered and in the gates…

I only did one dive, which was a general tour of the quarry in a dive lasting 40 minutes, to a maximum depth of 22 metres, but I really enjoyed it.  There is quite a friendly atmosphere at Dosthill, which is a bit different to when I was last there in 1997, and I am looking forward to doing a few more dives there, as its a very handy site to keep my hand in at, and you don’t have the queues of Stoney. 

Oh and the pike stay still there, so my camera is going in next time

 Dive Data:

Dive 1 (160)  Max Depth 22.8 metres, total dive time 40 minutes.

We decided to head down to the 20 metre ledge, and after a big circle around the road, the cairn and the coach, we headed over to the Stanegarth, where Alex  tied off his reel around the anchor chain, and practiced some line laying skills.  This was the first time that I have seen this skill underwater, so I found it quite interesting to watch, and learn a little from.  After this we swam through the Stanegarth before heading back along via the tail of the Wessex, and a nice slow ascent up the wall there, before mooching around on the six metre ledge, stopping by the cockpit to do some hovering practice.  After exactly an hour we surfaced right by the steps and got out for a much needed coffee.

After a surface interval of nearly two hours, we got back in with the plan of heading down the road and over the pit, to find the Cessna on the far side of the pit area.  We went down the road, and proceeded over the pit area at about 22 metres.  I dropped to 25 metres without really realising it before correcting my mistake, which shows how easy it can be to do that.  We reached the far side, and after finning what seemed like a long way, during which I noticed a very dead pike on the botom, the Cessna loomed into view.  It has been a few months since I last visited this area of the cove, and I was disappointed to see that the left wing of the Cessna is now disconnected from the plane, which is a shame, as I have always liked seeing the wingspan loom up.  I wonder whether it just dropped off, or whether it had some outside interference…

We spent about 10 to 12 minutes at the Cessna, where Alex practiced some more line laying, by which time my no deco was down to 1 minute, so we ascended up to 10 metres, with me just keeping ahead of the no-stop times on the computer, never quite dropping into deco.  We came back most of the way at about 8 metres, before heading up to 5 when we got near to the base of the new building, as that area has a lot of fish life, and greenery and can be quite good to look around.  I must do a dive just to this area sometime, as it is one of the few parts of the Cove that I haven’t yet been to.  After this we headed back to the normal ledge, and pottered about on there whilst I practiced some buoyancy skills, and experimented a little with my weighting.   After a total dive runtime of 68 minutes we surfaced at the steps again and got out. 

These were two nice slow dives, and I saw some new skills in action, as well as getting to watch some more rebreather diving at closeup.  Alex is the only rebreather diver that I have had the pleasure of diving with, and I find it quite curious to see in action underwater.

Thanks to Alex for the dives, hopefully I will be back in the water again soon!
Dive 1 (158)  20.2 metres, 60 minutes total dive time

Dive 2 (159)  25.1 metres, 68 minutes total dive time

I managed to book a really cheap deal for a weeks holiday in Ibiza back in June, so Monday October 1st found my sister and I at Luton airport waiting for an Easyjet flight over to Ibiza airport.  We had accommodation booked at the Monterrey Apartmenthotel, and a hire car booked from the airport.  Excellent.  I had a five dive pack booked with Sea Horse Divers, a snip at 115 Euros for the five boat dives.  Hopefully they would prove a good outfit.  I knew a couple of the YD massive had used them and recommended them, so I had high hopes for the week.

We arrived to a warm and sultry evening, and picked up the hire car as promised from the BK Car Hire rep. in the airport car park.  Very cheap car hire, and good service too.  I had the task of driving on the wrong side of the road for the first time in my life, and it was fun driving from the airport on the east side of the island over to the west side and to San Antonio Bay, where our hotel was up in the foothills on the Port des Torrent side of the bay.  But we made it safetly and just after 2AM we were booked in at the hotel and in our rooms.   The next day we explored the local area, and I located the Sea Horse dive center in Port Des Torrent, a lovely little bay with the dive centre and sever beach bars around the bay making it a lovely place to spend a few days.

ibiza-october-231.jpg 

 Anyway, Wednesday morning dawns and it is time for the first dive.  I head on down to the dive centre, and meet up with the owner Jeff.  It looks like there are just two customers today, myself and Charlie Cornwell, a retired fireman from the London area.  A devoted rugby fan, as I find out later in the week. 

Jeff sorted us out with kit, and we loaded onto the boat, and headed out to our first dive site, the Margritas Caves.  This is a dive site where you pass through a series of small tunnels and overhangs, with plenty to look at.  Jeff went through everything on the boat, leaving no detail of the dive untouched.  It was the most thorough dive briefing that I have had in 150-odd dives, and I was quite impressed by his attention to detail.  So we dropped into the water.  Jeff was diving with Sam, one of the instructors, a British girl who is working out there this summer, and will be back there next year.  I was buddied with Charlie the other customer, and Jake who is a young man gaining experience and dives with the dive centre.  We descended down to 28 metres, which is always a wonderful experience when you can see the surface from down there, and the n we went into a rocky area, before heading into the first of the cave/tunnels.  From here on  the dive was a series of rocky overhangs and small caves, and tunnels, but all of which had easy escape should you feel the need.  I saw a whole host of sea life on this dive, including Wrasse, coral, pencil urchins, damselfish and starfish - all the normal critters.  As always the first dive on a holiday is all about familiarisation with the environment, and the people that you are diving with, and I was nice and comfortable with everything on this dive, especially as I was back on the BCD after a summer using my Buddy Tekwing.   40 minutes later, and we were back on the boat all too soon, although we had the second dive of the day to come just around the corner in the area of the wreck of the Petralis.

After a surface interval which involved cookies, and a load of good natured banter, we dropped in for the second dive.  This time only Charlie and myself were diving, as Jake was suffering from the cold (in 25′C water, for goodness sake!) and Sam and Jeff were looking after the boat.  So Jeff gave us the dive briefing, and we dropped in off the boat and headed over to our descent point.  We went down to about 20 metres, and we could see the wreck of the Petralis just below us, which is a concrete yacht sunk there deliberately as part of an insurance claim.  We didn’t descend onto the wreck as we had agreed a dive plan involving a max depth of roughly 22 metres, and the wreck was about 26-27 metres down, although to be honest there wasn’t a great deal to see there, and the wildlife in the area was probably more interesting.  We had descended down a wall, and we spent a pleasant 30 minutes having a good look around mostly in the 15-18 metre range, spotting more starfish, wrasse, and the usual.  We then had a nice slow ascent up the wall having a good look at everything on the way, before exiting at the arranged point halfway along the rock face, where the boat could see us.  Tow really good dives to start the week off.  Nothing really special, but really enjoyable pleasant relaxed dives, which for me is what it is all about.

The next day we were back at the dive centre ready for some more diving.   Again I was buddies with Charlie, as we were now a known quantity.  (Charlie is a regular visitor to the Island and the dive centre, and I had obviously proved trustworthy(!), as we were left to enjoy our dives with Jake for company, whilst Jeff and Sam looked after some less experienced divers on the boat)

ibiza-october-064.jpg The boat loaded and ready to go…

We headed out to the Haystack for this dive, which is a small rock in the middle of the sea, but not too far from the coast to be remote.  This is quite a well known dive in the area, partly because of its wonderful array of fish life on view, but also because some fun loving locals decided to drop a Vespa scooter in there a while ago, which now resides at 20 metres!  We made a nice leisurely descent whilst finning around the rock to the far side of the Haystack, before maxing out on this dive at 30 metres.  I took my camera into the water on this dive for the first time and came up with a few shots which I can only put down to beginners luck, which I have put on the YD site since my return home.  A really fantastic dive this one, which now resides at number 3 in my top ten dives of all time.  We saw octopus, barracuda, crabs and loads of other life on this dive.  There was a small ball of fish down at 25 metres, which seemed to surround us briefly before moving on its way. 

dsc00998.JPG  (A shot of me on this dive by Charlie which now has pride of place on my PC wallpaper!)

 Anyway, back to the dive centre for a pint of deco juice and a good old natter with everyone before heading into San Atonio to explore.  Charlie had mentioned a good restaurant calle La Torre’ which has a great view of the sunset across the sea, so we went to find this place and had a coffee there, before deciding to come back another evening to have a meal there.

Friday dawned, and another one dive day, due to Jeff being busy at the dive centre.  I don’t mind, as one quality dive per day makes the diving last longer into the holiday :)  Today we are diving the Torre De Rovira, which is a dive site that Jeff knows, and uses for Open Water training dives, as there is a combination of a nice dive down to around the 10 metre mark, but if you head around the corner, it drops to 25 metres and beyond, and there is plenty too look at down there.  Today I was diving alone with Jake, as Charlie was not diving, and Jeff was in with Neil a student doing his Open Water course.  On this dive I spent a pleasnt 45 minutes doing the scheduled dive with Jake, taking a load of pictures along the way, most of which came out poorly, proving my beginners luck status of the day before!  We saw another couple of octopus on this dive, as well as some parrotfish, and a couple of groupers.  When we had finished the scheduled dive, we were sitting underneath the boat at about six metres, and Jeff was still working with his student, so being as we had plenty of air, rather than head up to the boat we spent another 20 minutes on the bottom, and I played around with the camera, and Jake took a couple of pictures of me. 

 One of the pictures that Jake took of me, which we also used later to spot the problem with my first stage!

This was a really great dive,one of the best of the week for me, and I know Neil on his OW course was raving abotu the dive as well when he got back onto the boat.  As you can see from the picture, there was a problem with my first stage towards the end of this dive, you can see the “fizz” coming from the turret valve in the photo, which Jake pointed out immediately after he took the photo, and we had a look when we got back to the dive centre.  Myself and Jake disassembled the first stage and greased the O rings etc, with no effect, but fortunately it turned out that Jeff was an ex Apeks serice technician, and with his help we stripped the turret and cleaned the O rings, and the seating area within the first stage, before reassembling.  It has been OK on several dives since, so the problem appears to have been some limescale type buildup which managed to get underneath the plastic seating ring inside the turret.

Saturday morning dawned, and my last dive of the week…. Charlie was present but couldn’t dive as he had a spot of lurgy and couldn’t keep his ears cleared properly, so he sat this one out.  I again buddied with Jake, although the group of 5 all kept together on this dive, as it was more of a guided tour than a regular dive.  We powered round to a cove just around the corner from the Torre De Rovira site, to a site known locally as Snakes and Ladders.  This is a site which goes down to around the 25 metre mark, and twists up and down little passageways between rocks, and some walls, and also has a couple of good overhangs.   This dive was split into two parts.  Initially we all did the same dive, but when we got to 18 metres, myself Jeff and Jake headed downwards to look under some overhangs  and into some very small caves, whilst Caroline and Sam stayed above the overhang and finned along watching us down below, as Caroline was limited to the 18 metre mark.  There was again plenty to look at on this dive, and I saw a couple of scorpionfish for the first time in the week, along with loads of jellyfish at the surface, and all the normal groupers etc around the bottom.  There was a great variety of coloured plantlife on the walls where the water flow was reduced, none of which I would be able to identify by name…  We surfaced after 41 minutes into a gorgeous sunny blue bay, and just relaxed on the surface before getting back onto the boat and heading back into Port Des Torrent, where we slowly dekitted. 

ibiza-october-105.jpg  A nice blue sea on surfacing

In the afternoon, my sister took part in a try dive session, as she has seen me dive a few times, and I could tell that she was getting interested in what I was doing.  Unfortunately her nerves got the better of her, and she couldn’t get to the point of being happy underwater, but she could keep her head underwater for 30 seconds at a time, so she go to see the underwater world from a shallow perspective, and she got more comfortable as she went on, so I think another try dive may be in her make up sometime….  Sam the instructor was absolutely brilliant with her, not pushing her too much, leaving all the decisions to her, but between Sam and myself we got her to kneel on the bottom for a little while and she was able to see the fish in the bay and other stuff, so she still managed to get the general taster of what diving is all about, even if she didn’t get to do an actual “dive”

In the evening we went out for a meal with Charlie and his wife at the La Torre restaurant that we had looked at earlier in the week, the Swordfish was absolutely delicious, and we watched the glorious sunset over the rocks in the sea, a really pleasant evening, after which we headed to one of the English bars in the area, and watched the second half of the rugby, to see England beat the Aussies….  top stuff!

ibiza-october-172.jpg  Team photo from the week.  Back row:  Mrs Charlie, Jeff, Sam, Sam’s friend!, Me

Front Row: Teresa (Jeff’s wife and fellow dive centre owner), Charlie

And that was it on the diving front.  On the Sunday we explored up in the hills around San Antonio, and had a look in the aquarium on the north west side of the bay, before heading back to the hotel, and an hour in the swimming pool before packing and slowly dragging ourselves back to the airport for the journey home.  As usual, we didn’t want to leave, and I really hope to be able to return back to Ibiza again next year for some more diving, and to explore some of the other parts of the island that we didn’t get to do this year.  The holiday package deal that I found on flightline.co.uk worked out perfectly, contrary to what I thought might happen, being so cheap, and I can well recommend them for late deals!

ibiza-october-176.jpg  Me on a wall in Ibiza, looking sunny

My hold luggage was bang on the 20 kilos, and my hand luggage was a further twelve kilos when bagged up, and the hold bag was a bit bigger than the allowance, but getting to your flight first with Easyjet seems to help, and I got to checkin right as it opened and they just waved all my bags through, no problems at all.

On to the diving, and we decided to go to a place called Lillebaelt-Soebaddt in Denmark, which translates to Little Belt, and is in the shadow of one of the bridges between two of the islands that make up the country of Denmark. 

The best way that I can describe the dive site, is in a reasonably well looked after area, used by various watersports clubs, in a sort of a National Park type environment.  Think of it as a bit like the Menai Straight, but with better wildlife under the water

We kitted up, and entered from the shore.  I was using my regular kit plus tank and weights hired from a shop, I was using my BCD for the first time in months, as it is lighter to pack on the airline than my wing, and my buoyancy was a little off as a result, but not too bad.  We went in and gradually descended to about 6 metres, and then went over a little shelf to 10 metres, and then another one down to 17 metres.  There was a slight current, but we had hit the water at roughly its most slack, so it was nice and comfortable to drift along slowly and look at the creatures.  There were starfish absolutely everywhere on this dive, I have never seen so many in one place, in all sizes.  I also saw loads of sponges, and some coral, hermit crabs, a couple of nudibranch and even a member of the Scorpionfish family.  The water temperature was 18 degrees, yet the wildlife on show was reminiscent of the dives in Tenerife last year, just without the colourful fish!

We drifted along for about half an hour, before ascending up to 10 metres for a short while, and then onto the ledge for the  final few minutes of the dive, before surfacing to find we really hadn’t drifted along that far at all, and were only a hundred yards of so from the entry point!

Whilst we were in the water the heavens had opened and everywhere on land was suddenly very wet, so we stayed in our suits whilst we ate some apples from the tree in the car park (very handy!) and our sandwich, before kitting up for a second dive on the same site.

The second dive was quite different to the first in that we entered a little way further up the coastline from our original entry point, and the current was much, much stronger on this dive.  We spent the dive n the upper ledge this time, and had a look in some of the nooks and crannies in this area.  The current was quite strong by now, and we spent about ten minutes of the dive, hanging onto a handily placed chain whilst studying some fish and critters in closeup.  All too soon, it was time to head out again, and we surfaced and walked back to the car park to de-kit.

Two really good dives, I was so glad that I had taken my kit with me on the offchance of these dives coming together.  The first dive of the day was my 150th logged dive as well, and what a lovely dive site to reach such a milestone

My buddy Filip, or Felix as he is known:

 Felix is a Commercial Diver by trade, he currently works in an aquarium in Copenhagen, but in the past has worked in the field, and his dive skills consistently put mine to shame on the two dives, despite not having dives in open water in quite some time…

Dive 1 (150) Max Depth 17.5 metres 48 mins

Dive 2 (151) Max Depth 10.7 metres 33 mins

A few days later we tried to get some more diving in on the coast of Sweden, we were hoping to do some diving at the foot of some cliffs, I can’t remember the name of the dive site, but we had not bargained against the dive season finishing in Sweden and Denmark on 31st August, all the dive shops only open at weekends after this time, and we were trying to dive midweek, so we were not able to hire any cylinders.  As a result the second dive trip was canned, but we still went to the coast on the east side of Sweden, to a National Park area at Stenshavud.  This was another area with a beautiful beach, and we donned the kit and snorkelled for an hour or so in about 2-3 metres of water maximum, but there was a lot to see.  There were jellyfish everywhere, and loads of shoals of very young fish milling about, so plenty to keep you occupied.  It was one of the most relaxing things I have done in a long time, just floating on the surface, head down in the water watching the life pass by.  Being as I was not diving, and would be flying in a couple of days, I borrowed one of Felix’s old drysuits for this, so as mine would definitely be dry for the flight home.

  Me in borrowed drysuit, on the beach at Stenshavud National Park, on the east side of Skane, emerging after a long snorkelling session.

As of this evening, I have the following trips booked, or about to be booked:

Trip One:  For the August bank holiday week, it looks as though I will be flying out to Copenhagen, meeting a friend who is working out there, and staying at his place in Sweden for a week.  He is a diver, so we are hoping to do a couple or more dives on the Swedish coast, which would be fantastic.

 Trip Two:  At the start of October, I am flying out to Ibiza with my sister, for a week in nice sunny weather, and will hopefully get half a dozen or more dives in during the course of the week.  My sister is a non diver, but its been arranged with diving in mind, and a little lounging around the pool at the hotel with beer

Trip Three:  Hopefully, but to be confirmed is another trip, purely for diving in Spain for the first week in December.  I am just waiting for confirmation of the flights being booked, but all being well this will go ahead.  I have the holiday reserved at work, and can just about find the money, although its cheap flight time :)  This should be a top week, and diving a whole new area that I have never dived before, although with the water being about 15-18 degrees, I think it will be drysuit time.

 As they said in the D:Ream song, “Things can only get better”.  The futures bright, the futures underwater, perhaps…

 This was my weekend report to YD…

 An Interesting Weekend

OK, my diving this year has mostly consisted of blown out dives, like so many of you, and it was with some hope that I arranged 4 dives in Dorset for this weekend, but the weather forecast looked OK after Friday so I decided to go for it.
I left work at 4pm on Friday, went home and loaded the car, and got under way about 5.30pm to head down to Weymouth.

Thats when things started to go wrong….

I had read, and seen all the traffic reports, which basically said avoid the M1, A34, M42, M40, M6 and M5 before J6. So I thought I would be clever and take the M69, then the A46 across to Tewkesbury and head down the M5 from a couple of junctions south of the problems. Easy eh ? Bzzzt… WRONG!
I got as far as the A46 near to Warwick, when the queues started for the M40. This cost me about 30 minutes, which was OK, as I was now moving on the A46 near Stratford, although there were lots of large flooded kerb puddles to avoid. But I was moving along OK. Then I got about 10 miles from the M5 and it all went titsup.com Everything ground to a half, as a roundabout was flooded. Even though I was only in a Fiesta, borrowed, I thought I can get through that, and duly did so, along with most of the traffic. But I only got another mile or so before everything ground to a halt big time. After an hour and a half of queueing, and slolwly edging forwards, we are met with the police speaking to each driver in the queue.
It turned out that the road up ahead was flooded, quite deeply, so I asked what alternatives were available, should I head back from where I came and take another route. Then the police woman drops the bombshell. The flood behind you has risen over the last 90 minutes and is impassable, as is the flood in front and there are no other junctions on this stretch of road. Oh bother, said Pooh. Shortly afterwards I am on the phone to Chris who is already down in Weymouth, and my mind boggles as about half a dozen guys in drysuits are wandering down the road towards me. It turns out that there is an RAF base just up the road, and they have dug some gear out of the stores I suppose to come and help. Not a scene I expected to see, but I guess I was only just up the road from the village there 62 people where airlifted out. So, I am stuck there for another three hours, until the water subsides enough for me to get through the flood ahead of me - almost drowning the car in the process… very very nearly got stuck in that one, thank goodness I kept the revs very high and slipped the clutch to help them stay high! So I am finally through the floods, and am only 3 miles from the M5… hurrah, everything will be OK now! Bzzt!!! Wrong again! I take about another 40 minutes to get to the Tewkesbury junction of the M5, where I am met by the most incredible sight, some of which you will have seen on the news since. I approach from the Evesham side, and am stopped by the police and told to basically park on the overhead roundabout above the M5 and just give up… I soon see why they are telling me to give up, as when I get out of the car, I nearly fall over in shock as all six lanes of the motorway are completely submerged, and you can’t even see the central reservation in places. It is now 1.30 AM Saturday morning, and I have been on the road for 8 hours already. I walk down to the pub just off the junction which I know is there, just to see if they are open for a coffee, and the staff there are being great, laying on free coffee and tea for everyone, and generally providing shelter. I get a coffee and settle down for a few minutes to watch the scenes on Sky news on the big screen, and the first thing I see is footage of me driving through the big flood That was an experience, seeing just how high the flood water came on the car! Then its back to the car to try and get a bit of kip, as we are going nowhere for a few hours. I only got an hours kip before being too stiff to sleep, so I go for a walk around the junction, and enjoy a bit of “Dunkirk Spirit” with some other motorists… I resist the chance to get my drysuit out and go for a dive on the M5, which would DEFINITELY have made the news I seriously think my computer would have registered a dive there!
Anyway, juat after 4AM, the water on the southbound carriageway starts to subside, and at about 5:15 it is clear enough to get onto the sliproad, and finally get moving again slowly, until Junction 11 as there are patches of flooded lane, but after junction 11 the road is clear, and with a couple of stops for coffee, I finally get to Weymouth at about 8.30
Total journey time 15 hours bang on.
I’m by now running on bad coffee, so pitch the tent and grab a couple of hours kip, as we are not diving until 2pm, although I’m still buzzing so its not great sleep. Just after midday we get all the kit together and go down to Weymouth in Chris’ van and get ready and load the gear onto “Goose” for a dive on the Aeolian Sky. This is my second attempt to dive the Sky after being blown out earlier in the year and I am looking forward to it.
We head out to the dive site, shot the stern of the Sky and kit up. 3 rebreather divers with expected long run times drop in first, and then it is our turn to go in. Troy the skipper brings us round to the shot, and on the horn, Chris is straight in, followed by myself. Even before I hit the water, I knew my diving for the weekend was finished. I don’t know what I did, but as I took the step off the platform, something just “twanged” in my thigh, and I am in a lot of pain as I hit the water. I struggle over to the shot, and join Chris there, telling him that I have a problem, and to stay there. I try stretching out my leg, in case it is some kind of cramp, but nothing is working, and I know from struggling to the shot that I am not going to be able to fin, and there is no way I am capable of doing any dive, let alone a 30 metre one in that condition. So I have to tell Chris on the surface that I can’t do it, which was strangely hard even though I know there is no way, and he signals to the boat to come and pick us back up. I struggle over to the boat, and grab the towline, and Troy checks that I will be able to make it onto the lift, which I manage to do by getting my good leg on it first, then carefully getting myself onto the ladder, and we are back on the boat. I am helped out of my kit by Chris, and another couple of divers, who had decided not to go in as they had suffered kit problems. I spend the rest of the trip out struggling to move my leg, as I can barely bend it and feeling terribly sick, as I had eaten a big lunch, having missed meals whilst on route in the car, and generally being miserable…
We head back to port, and I immedately let the Dive Dorset people know that I won’t be on the second planned dive, and after chatting to loads of other YDers down in Weymouth on various dives - Milldog, Jimbob, Weaselz, WWD, Clare Gledhill, Mark Powell and Frankie Price to name just a few, I dekit carefully and get some pain killers down my neck. I then wait for Chris to get back, as he has gone out and teamed up with someone else for a dive on the Countess of Erne.
So after everything is finished, we join a load of the guys for some beer and a meal in the local pubs before returning to the campsite, where I have another beer and then collapse into bed to recover from a very long two days.
We get up this morning, and the leg is still very sore indeed, and after packing up and getting ready to leave, we decide to head into Swanage where we had a pier dive and a dive on the Kyarra planned, to see how I felt when I got there, with a view to doing just the pier dive, and to pay for the now not required Kyarra dive. I had already phoned ahead and spoke to the lady there, to see if anyone else could use the dives on the Kyarra.
We get there, and my leg has stiffenned up again whilst sat in the car for an hour, so after initially saying lets try it, I quickly reconsider, and realise that its really not a good idea, and we kick the idea into touch, and go down for a wander along the pier and to pay our dues at the shop. (If they sold the places again we will get a refund, but I don’t suppose anyone would have turned up that late in the day)
I enjoy some fish and chips on the sea front in the beautiful weather, and we marvel at the fantastic looking viz under the pier Mary Jo had just arrived back at the pier, and the smell of perfume from the Kyarra is overpowering. The skipper of Mary Jo is told by another boats people that his ship stinks Once in the shop, whilst we are paying for the non-dives a diver in the shop introduces himself to us as Sidthejedi (Sorry, I can’t remember your real name already!) and we have a chat, and he tells me the one thing I REALLY didn’t want to hear, that the viz on the Kyarra is just awesome today. Ar5e.
Anyway, after this we decide to get a head start on the traffic leaving Dorset, which was mildly annoying as the weather had turned so beautiful, and I spend the next 5 hours heading back to Leicester.

So, all in all a dreadful weekend, and very expensive to get nothing, but as is always the case with diving, there is always someone to talk to, and more YDers to meet, and a good social weekend was had if nothing else…
And at least I got up the A34 before Oxford flooded

Finally, thanks to Chris for being so understanding as a buddy, as his weekend was also ruined of course, and to the YDers and other divers for being sociable