Derek’s Dive Domain

Oh boy, has 2007 been a terrible year for the weather so far.  We had that one good week in May and apart from a couple of odd days it has been so wet, and dull that it makes winter look like a spring day in the park.  Or something like that.

As a diver and a motorcyclist, poor weather is probably the thing I hate most as it restricts what I can do.  For diving, the rain does not affect me, but wind does, and we’ve had so many dives blown out this “summer” that its getting to the point where I feel like giving up.  However, I am determined not to do that, and have another weekend booked down in Dorset for this weekend, 2 dives in Weymouth on Saturday and another couple from Swanage on Sunday.  The forecast is mixed, some websites are saying fine and sunny, and others are saying wet and windy with flood warnings.  Typical English weather, eh ?

Same with the motorcycling, I have all the wet weather gear, but it just isn’t fun riding in all that lot.  I did a 200 mile trip in monsoon conditions recently, that really wasn’t funny…

So, when is summer going to start ?  The last long range forecast that I saw said that July and August were going to be complete washouts, so I think this is payback for 1976

Oh well… back to the grindstone to pay for a holiday somewhere warm!

Bloody Typical
Where my dives went this weekend :

Last summer, Lou told me I needed to get more salt in my diet, so I made an effort to put some money aside, and to do a few less dives at Stoney to try this idea out I sometimes wonder why I listened
Last weekend was supposed to be a dive fest, doing two dives out of Littlehampton on the Northcoates gig on the Saturday and 2 dives out of Gosport on the Sunday after grabbing a space on TerryH’s SUCS gig out to U1195 just off the Isle of Wight.
Got the message that the Saturday’s diving was off, so instead of driving down at silly o’clock AM, I got up nice and leisurely and drove down to the Littlehampton area, where I went to visit a friend who lives just up the road from Selsey.
Being curious and having never seen Selsey before, I decided to head down and have a look. Nice calm sea, and lots of sunshine (a little microclimate by the looks of it). Spoke to some divers who had just got back on a Rib, and they were saying they had had a lovely dive. Hmph.
Watched a very scary dive taking place. A group of four divers were going in from the slipway area at Selsey, and doing a shore dive amongst the moored boats there. One diver looked to be a newbie, possibly on an early open water dive. The rest were obviously experienced. They went in without a SMB, which I thought was a little odd near the slipway, and I was proved right, when one diver surfaced without a buddy, stayed on the surface for a few minutes, then popped down again. The space where his head had been was driven straight over about a minute later by a Rib returning to the slip. It looked like scary stuff to me. This diver had obviously lost his buddy as he kept popping up in different places and then going down again. No sign of the buddy ever appearing. Eventually they both surfaced at the same time… about 300 yards apart! Anyway, enough of that, I now know of a couple of shore dives in the Selsey area to experiment with next time I am down that way.
I had failed to find a campsite, other than one which wanted 20 pounds for a one man tent, so I said bugger that and got a B&B and went out for a meal in the evening. Only to get a phone call from TerryH to say, guess what, Sunday’s diving is off too. “Bother” says I.
So stayed overnight, and came back up yesterday 180 miles, 5 hours, torrential rain the whole way with flooding on the roads.
Not a good weekend… then I come back on here and find out that the rest of the country appears to have been diving.
I would however just like to claim the 5th, and say that Mattbin *was* down to be on both lots of diving this weekend, so I guess there is the reason!
2007 sea diving: 4.5 days lost out of 8 booked, or 8 dives lost out of 15 booked.
I guess there is always next time.

OK, so here is a brief report of the Farnes gig, on June 1,2 and 3.

The trip was organised by Ian@1904, and after being picked up by Chas49, we made our way north, arriving in Beadnell about 11pm, after a long trip up the A1.  The following morning dawned lovely. Nice weather, and totally flat calm seas.   So after a breakfast at the B&B, where we met the rest of the gang that we had not met previously, we headed down to the harbour, assembled kit and got onto the boat, from Farne Diving Services, Lee Hall’s lot, who were also providing the B&B.

We headed out to the Farnes from Seahouses harbour, as you do, and the first dive was on the Blue Caps.  We leapt in from the boat, and descended the wall at the edge of the rocks, finding the bottom at about 17 metres, as promised.  We made our way along this wall, dropping down to about 20 metres, just having a good look around.  I was admiring the sea urchins and dead mans finger which adorned every rock and crevice, and there were also quite a few inquisitive wrasse along the way which tended to follow us and be nosing around my fins every time I turned around.  Over the course of the dive we made a nice gradual ascent to about ten metres, from where we sent the blob up and finally ascended, avoiding the mound of kelp which was nearby and doing its best to swallow the line from the DSMB.  We surfaced to find that fog/mist had descended whilst we were in the water, and after almost getting on the wrong boat, we were picked up by Lee, and had a well deserved hot drink.  After heading around a few dive sites, it became clear that the mist was pretty widespread, and although there were times when we could have got in, it soon misted over again and getting us out of the water would have been interesting to say the least, so the second dive was cancelled and we headed back to the harbour.

We headed back to the B&B and after a couple of drinks in the local pub, we were ferried into Seahouses by Yazzy and LisaR to go to a recommended curry night in a pub, which wasn’t great, but was perfectly edible, before sinking some more beer and then heading back in what could only be described as a crowded car.  Poor old Chris’s neck and back will probably never be the same again!

Saturday morning dawned and we got out of bed, looked out of the window and said “&*$£”%^”.  The mist had rolled inland and it seemed pretty clear there would be no diving.  So after breakfast we headed down to the harbour and waited for the almost inevitable answer.  So instead of diving on the Saturday, people headed off in various directions in order to find things to do.  We headed into Alnwick and had a look round a massive book shop, before enjoying a coffee in the blazing sun which the whole of the country apart from Beadnell and Seahouses had all day, before heading back for another night in the pub.

Fortunately Sunday morning looked a lot better, so we headed on down to the harbour to find all systems go, and loaded the boat and got out quick before the weather changed again.  This time we went all the way over to the North Knifestone area, and did a dive on the remains of what I think must be several wrecks, as there was a boiler, a complete prop (which I thought looked great laying flat on the seabed - must return with a camera!)  This was a good dive as you could pretty much pick your depth, with ledges every few metres from 7 to 25.  We settled at 20 metres for a while, then slowly headed up the ledges, having a look along each one as we did so.  There was quite a lot of coral in this area, which is something I haven’t really noticed on a dive before.  I saw my first lobster on this dive too, or rather I found my first one, having had them pointed out to me before.  My observation must be improving!  There were also loads of jellyfish drifting along in this area as well, which we noticed on all of the dives.

Back on the boat and the weather was beginning to draw in again, but Lee knew somewhere where we should be able to get in the water, and hopefully see some seals too.  Hurrah, this is what I came for

So we headed over to Knox Reef, and after a brief delay to get a take on the weather, we dropped in here for a maximum 7 metre dive, and hopefully a few seals.  As soon as we got in the water one seal came and said hello. and swam around us several times keeping an eye on us before suddenly coming right up to me, getting withing inches of my face before turning with a swish and gliding away - was it something I said ?  :D  I was surprised by the size of them, I hadn’t realised that grey seals were quite so big, but they are not scary at all, or at least I didn’t find this one scary!  Unfortunately we didn’t see any other seals on this dive, so it was a 35 minute dive of kelp really, but we persevered just in case one of the elusive seals came out to play.  Again there were loads of jellyfish in the water.   After surfacing and getting back on the boat, it was clear that the seals were doing their best to wind us up, as everytime a diver surfaced, and looked at the boat, a seal would appear a couple of metres behind the diver and just stay there watching them, until the diver turned around, at which point the seal would dart beneath the waves again.  This happenned more times than I care to see as coincidence!!

So that was the end of the diving, we headed back in over what can only be described as lumpy seas, and dekitted and said our goodbyes on the harbourside before beginning the long journey back home.

 The Farne Islands are obviously an area where diving is a bit haphazard, in that weatherwise they seem a bit more at risk of being blown out than perhaps on the south coast, but the three dives that we did do, were some of the most interesting ones that I have done in UK waters, and I think the lure of the seals will mean that I have to head back there again sometime in the future.  I don’t think the Farnes have seen the last of me just yet!

Dive Data:

Dive 1:  Max Depth 19.6 metres, total dive time 37 mins

Dive 2:  Max Depth 19.9 metres, total dive time 34 mins

Dive 3:  Max Depth 5.8 metres, total dive time 39 mins

OK, so here is a tale of high drama, and exploits and general derring-doo. OK, so maybe it isn’t, but it *is* an account of our Bank Holiday weekend’s diving in Weymouth/Portland. I had never dived this area before, so when I found the online booking system for the shuttle boats from the Breakwater dive centre, I thought “Let’s sort something out”, so after a few PM’s and a thread, there were four of us booked onto the shuttles for various dives over the weekend.
The YD “Gang of four” consisted of Prometheus, Spacehopper, Chas49 and myself, and we were all heading down on the Friday evening and camping for the weekend at the seabarn campsite. I left work a little after 4pm and after getting home, departed in the car for Milton Keynes to meet up with Charles just after 4.30 I got a clear run down and after transferring my
dive gear into his car, we left Milton Keynes at 6.15 The journey down was interesting, but not too bad considering it was the start of a Bank Holiday weekend, but once we got to the bottom of the A34 it began to get nasty. I had a phone call from Gareth to say he was stuck on the M27, and later on found Chris had got stuck in pretty much the same place, such that although they were supposed to be getting to the campsite much earlier than us, we were actually second there, only a few minutes behind Gareth and Mary. We pitched the tents in the dark, at about 10.30 and after a quick much deserved beer, we all retired for the night as we had an early start the next day.

Saturday:

We all got up early, and made our way down to the Breakwater Dive Centre and had some breakfast there. I registered for the key system to get our own fills as required, and did the training to use the rig, and we filled our tanks ready for the first dive. After some leisurely kitting up, it was time to load our gear onto “Goose” for the first dive of the weekend.

Dive 1 - Black Hawk Bows (Lulworth) 17 metres, 41 minutes

We had a pleasant ride out on the boat, and after kitting up, dropped into the water and over to the shotline. We descended the shot, into the blackness, and knew straight away that visibility wasn’t going to be good on this dive. There had been at least one boatload on the wreck in the minutes before us, and I think things had been kicked up a little. We found the bottom of the shot, and after checking everything was OK, got the torches on, and had a little look around. The wreck is spread over a very large area on this site, and long story short, I think we dived the wrong area, as other divers on this dive found some much more interesting sounding parts of the wreck. I was diving with Charles and we found a couple of upright sections of metal, but nothing else there, and then we headed out along a flat section of wreck barely visable above the surface, and had a nice quiet mooch around on this section, and other bits sitting nearby. We didn’t really see too much, and the visibility was only about a metre and a half, but it was a good dive to get the weekend started, and to get the boat diving cobwebs out of the way. We sent up the blob after a little over half an hour, and made a nice slow ascent up and back onto the boat. Unfortunately the lift had broken when the first divers had surfaced (and not a Paul Oliver in sight!), so we had to drag ourselves onto the platform of the lift, and then climb up into the boat from there. Quite physical, but not a major problem fortunately! After a well deserved hot chocolate, it was back to the shore for lunch and surface interval.

Dive 2 - Dredger 8 metres, 24 minutes

Another nice bimble dive, this one. After a long surface interval we got back onto the other shuttle boat “Top Gun”, and were taken just outside the harbour wall area for this dive. The Dredger is quite intact, although pretty sunken in the sand these days. Also on this dive was Mark Powell with some of his students doing some coursework, they were line laying on this dive. Scuttler was also on this dive, although we didn’t know it until we were almost back at shore, but it was good to get to say hi.
We jumped in, and went down onto the wreck, and it was clear that the visibility whilst not great was much better than the first dive. After getting ourselves sorted, we went around the dredger a couple of times, stopping to look into the nooks and crannies that were around there. We saw Gareth on his own down there, without Chris (who had had some problems with his ears and had had to abort the dive) and he signalled that he was trailling Mark Powell’s group for the dive, so all was OK, so we carried on and had a good look along part of the harbour wall, and then out and over some of the sand, where I have never seen so many crabs. Large ones, small ones, and some absolutely massive meal-for-four sized ones. They were absolutely everywhere so this area of the seabed must be a very good environment for them. We do now have a new dive signal of hands next to the ears in a sleeping style, which means “I’m bored, lets go up”
After 20 minutes of mooching about on the bottom on and around the dredger we surfaced and returned to the boat. Certainly nothing special about this dive, but its still far better than sitting on the quayside!
After the dives, we got our gear packed away and made our way back to the campsite, via the supermarket, and had an evening of Barbecue and beer, which was great, albeit a little cold. I never knew you could have central heating in a tent, but Gareth proved it was possible and we found some warmth in his canvas hotel…

Sunday

Another early rise, and down to the Breakwater Dive Centre we went. The wind had picked up over the course of Saturday, and still further overnight, so we were beginning to wonder what the day had in store for us. Before loading the boat, Chris decided to leap into the water by the pontoon and see how his ears were, and we formed a plan based on that he would be attempting the dive, but if he couldn’t do it, then Gareth would join up with myself and Charles to make a three.

Dive 1 - White Nothe Landing Craft 22 metres, 27 minutes

I enjoyed this dive, but not the boat trip really. The wind had picked up a lot, and caused the boat to rock violently when we were at the dive site, which is the worst possible motion on a boat for me. Its not so much that I feel rough, although I didn’t feel great, more that that particular motion makes me very nervy. So I was quite glad to leap into the water, after a nightmare kitting up session where everything went wrong, but finally I took the jump, and immediately my DSMB decided to detach itself from the bungee holding it in place, and float around getting in the way. After trying to relocate it on the surface, I eventually decided to do it when we hit the bottom, as it wasn’t causing any problems as it was still rolled up, so we descended, and ended up as a three on the bottom, as Chris had not managed to make it down. I re-stowed my DSMB, and we set off for a good look around the landing craft, which was remarkably intact I thought considering how long it had been down there. The visibility was pretty good for the conditions, there was a good enough current on it, that anything stirred up had cleared itself away again within a few seconds, but not too much current as to make the dive annoying. We bimbled around the landing craft for a while, and I saw some nice fish inside it, including one very colourful fish, which we think was a wrasse. Very blue at the head, and with a long top fin, and turning into a more green colour as it moved down the body. As the three of us are relative newbies in boat diving, we were using the principle of ascend when someone hits 100 bar, and I got the “T” from both Gareth and Charles at the same time, which was surprising as I had just checked my air and I still had 150 bar. I think I must have stopped breathing on this dive or something
We sent the blob up again, and did another nice ascent, and then got back onto “Goose” which by now had a working lift again, thank goodness!
Back on shore, and Chris showed me a neat solution to the bungee problem, which should stop the stupid thing coming adrift on step entries in future. Back to port, and the wind was still picking up, which didn’t bode well for the afternoon’s dive.

Dive 2 - Drift Dive 18 metres, 34 minutes

Possibly the best dive of the weekend, this one for me anyway. I do like a nice drift dive, but this is only the third that I have done, so they are still new I guess! We were supposed to be diving the Unknown Coaster over by the harbour wall, but the weather conditions were making it hard so we asked Skipper to suggest some alternatives, and he came up with this drift dive, where odd cannonballs have been found in the past. We had the boat to ourselves on this dive, which was great! We kitted up and leapt in. We were diving this one as a three again, and we descended down to the bottom and sent the blob up, as you do on drift dives, got ourselves sorted and set off. The first thing I learnt about drift diving, is that you do not turn round, and fin to hold yourself in position to look at something, when one of the other divers is not looking the right way. I stopped to look at a line in the seabed, one of quite a few we saw on the dive, which we are guessing are some form of faultlines, and the next thing I knew was I was walloped by a passing Gareth Fortunately no one hurt, and no masks dislodged so we just reformed as a line and got on with the dive… We spent a nice 25 minutes or so just floating along with the current, making only minimal adjustments to buoyancy etc, which is the reason that I love drift dives, you just float there and go with the water, wherever it takes you. All too soon, it was time to ascend and return to the boat and back to the harbour again. We unloaded the boat and headed back to the campsite, grabbed some food and then headed back down into Portland to have a drink in one of the pubs there.

Monday

Woke up in the morning to hear the wind howling through the trees behind the tent, and after wandering over to look at the sea across the fleet, there were loads of white horses…. bugger. We were meant to be diving the Aeolian Sky today, but it was clear that this wasn’t going to happen. To be honest none of us fancied going out on the conditions, so we packed up the tents, and we were just getting ready to go down to the dive centre to see whether any alternative site within the harbour was going to be offered, when we got the call from them to say that all diving was off, as there was no alternative dives available. Not a surprise and to be honest not all that unwelcome! So instead we set off home early, after a quick visit to Portland Bill to have a good look at the sea, which was somewhat choppy, with a lot of swell to say the least.
The journey home was truly dreadful, as we took 3 hours to do the first 80 miles, as every road out of Dorset was just completely clogged up with homeward bound traffic. After getting back to Charles’ place, I transferred the gear back to my car and finally got home about 7pm last night, completely exhausted.
It was great to meet up with a whole load of YDers over the course of the weekend, Paul Oliver, Gledders, WarmWaterDiver (modelling the new YD T-Shirts very well), Scuttler, and of course SKipper just to name a few. Using the shuttle boats worked quite well, and we got some decent diving in. The campsite at Sea Barn is pretty good, and appears to be used by an awful lot of divers in the Weymouth and Portland area, judging by the amount of Ribs around the site…

I’m not sure if I will get any more dives in before the Farnes gig, but this was a good weekend. Any time that you get 4 out of a planned 5 dives in the UK seas is probably a good weekend

This weekend sees the return of Team Rudolph to the world of salty sea diving

Having not been in the ocean since diving from Brighton between Christmas and the New Year, we’re off with a few friends down to Weymouth to do some diving on the shuttles that run out of Portland.  We have 5 dives planned, including the Aeolian Sky on Bank Holiday Monday lunchtime.  It should be a blast as we are going to camp and do BBQ’s etc.

In case you are wondering why Team Rudolph, as we are not in any way even remotely DIR, the picture below may help

 Roll on the weekend!

OK, so Stoney Cove isn’t a wonderful dive off the coast somewhere, but it is the perfect venue for me to dive my newly acquired Buddy TekWing for the first time, and try and get used to it so that I can dive it at the Weymouth weekend in a fortnights time.
I had arranged to meet Spacehopper there, in an absence of anywhere better inland to go to, so I arrived at 9AM this morning, knowing that I wouldn’t get anywhere near to the normal car parks. I was quite correct here, and I am placed up almost in the far corner of the car park up cardiac hill, but thats OK, as I’ll just kit up and walk down in my kit and get the car down later when it is time to pack…
Gareth arrives at about 9.45 and manages to get on the road between all the car parks (how unfair is that!) so after a leisurely coffee, we sort out a plan of action. I have already adjusted the straps on the Wing into what looks like a vaguely sensible fitting arrangement for me, and I have also changed the hoses over on my rig to accommodate the Buddy over the old Mares BCD, so after getting the tanks filled we split to get kitted up.
I get chatting to some guys from Coventry BSAC who had already been in, and were just doing the one dive, and apart from being a little green, its not too bad in there by the sounds of it, although I still needed my winter layers to keep warm.
Anyway, we kit up, and Gareth helps me on with the Wing, and I get everything into place, including getting the pony mounted next to the main tank on the wing, and we wander down to the waters edge, dropping the car keys in at the shop on the way.
We reach the water and start to get ready when Gareth complains that he’s forgotton to rinse his mask. I then start to complain because I’ve forgotton to bring my mask down from the car. Oh Bother said Pooh. Well, something like that anyway. So, its back up the car park, get keys from some very amused shop staff and trudge all the way up to the middle car park to get the mask. Back at the waters edge and I’m completely knackered as its warm, I’m in three layers of kit, and in a not so moment of wisdom, hadn’t bothered to dekit before going to get the mask. So I kit up and get in the water to cool down. After five minutes or so of relaxing on the surface and getting my breath back and getting myself back ready to dive, we drop down into about 4 metres, to do an initial check. First thoughts on the Wing ? Interesting…. I seem to be pulled to one side slightly, and not the sinde on which the pony is mounted Anyway, I establish buoyancy, and do a couple of little tests, and then we head along the ledge, before dropping down over the wall and down onto the 20 metre section. Its quite green down there today, and we mooch around a little down there whilst I get used to the new kit, then we see the Stanegarth anchor chain and I decide to follow it to the left and out to the tug. After following this for a minute or so, I stop to rejig my Octo, which is not quite sat right and is bugging me, and as I hover there doing this I look down and see the Stanegarth’s anchor. Hmm, left wasn’t the right direction then… I really hadn’t got my mind switched on in terms of the content of the dive, too busy thinking about and learning the new kit I think. Anyway, we decide to head up the wall nice and gently, as Gareth is feeling a little chilly, being the hard diver that he is and not wearing gloves or a hood. We ascend nice and gently up to the ledge and spend about fifteen minutes playing with hovering, and trying to hold stops etc, all good practice, before getting out for a nice warm coffee and some lunch.
During the surface interval, we adjust the straps on my wing some more, getting D rings into the right places etc, and after a nice long relaxing gap, we get back in for the second dive. This time we just stay on the six metre ledge, using the dive purely for practice on the buoyancy and a few other bits and pieces, although we spend a few minutes hovering almost on the bottom by the Nautilus gently stirring the bottom up and watching the fish come within an inch of our masks feeding on the silt. The problem from the first dive of feeling that I am being pulled to one side does not appear on the second dive, so I can only assume that I did not have the straps adjusted equally on the first dive and the wing was not sitting on my back quite correctly as a result. The dive is made more difficult by the fact that every third fin stroke, we have to take evasive action to avoid other divers, its obviously the height of the early season training season. Eventually it is time to get out again and we exit at the steps, and de-kit. We bring the cars down and load up before adjourning to the pub to partake of the local offerings, and fill the old log books in etc.
A good couple of dives, as I feel I already know the wing quite well. I decided to control my buoyancy on the wing rather than the suit today, to ensure that I can do it correctly, and also to compare the diving styles. I may well decide to continue to do it this way, as I like the way the wing holds you in the water. I have one more evening at Stoney on May 2nd before heading down to Weymouth the following weekend, so this will be another good chance to try things out. All I need to do now is work out where to stow the reel and blob, and spare mask etc, all the stuff I used to keep in the BCD pockets

Dive 1 Max Depth 21.3 metres, total dive time 37 mins
Dive 2 Max Depth 8.7 metres, total dive time 43 mins

  Its time for that joke again! 

Well, last weekend saw the annual pilgrimage by divers down to the Custom House area of London, just outside docklands to the Excel exhibition halls for the London Internation Dive Show for 2007.  I must say that I was quite disappointed by the number of retail stands this year, there didn’t seem to be anywhere near as many as in the past, and so few with the manufacturers.   I did have a great time chatting to a load of the holiday companies about what the diving is like in their areas.  I do fancy another trip to Tenerife, although I would quite like to do some boat dives to a few different sites, in addition to the sites I already know.  I would also quite like to do Sharm at some point in the future, so I kept my eye out for deals in these areas. 

Oonasdivers have a good package for dives and accommodation at the moment, although I am yet to find a reasonably cheap flight.  Mind you the offer is open until the end of November so I have plenty of time to find one, all being well.

I had a good look around the retail stalls that were there, and got a couple of items from the bargain buckets, for example a brand new shot belt from one of the Beaver stands for a fiver.  Neat.

I also picked up a few bits and pieces, including a couple of single ended clips for holding things like my contents gauge to my BCD, and a spare mouthpiece for my regs, as I tend to have a habit of chewing my way through the rubber flanges eventually.

I was planning to go to the meeting suites to listen in on the talk about diving with sharks, but I lost track of time and it had already started by the time that I took a time check, which was annoying.  I understand that the talks were quite good again this year.  I know I enjoyed the ones I sat in on last year.

I had a chat with Hazel and Helen on the MV Valkyrie stand, and saw Janos and others around there as well.  I missed Vonny on the Scuba Trust stand though, which was annoying.  I entered all the competitions, but didn’t win anything, but I guess thats not really surprising

So, it was quite a dull show for me this year, just several hours of wandering around looking at stands, no try dives on the rebreathers, no buying loads of kit…. there is nothing that I need that is in my price range at the moment!

So its now time to change the kit around a bit, I have a few ideas for tidying stuff up, and re-routing some of my hoses, so now that I have the clips that I wanted, I will do that once I get my regs back from servicing (more expense - gulp!)

I haven’t posted much on here recently, so this is a quick catch up post…

 Diving:

18th February @ Stoney Cove

 Two quick bimbles with Charles Rogers from YD.  The first dive we went down the road, around the cairn and the coach, before coming up the wall and plodding around the ledge.  The second dive we did the Stanegarth and the newly repositioned APC before coming back up.  Boy were these cold dives, despite me using the new Northern Diver thermalskin layer underneath my undersuit.  I’m beginning to wonder whether these winter dives are worth it…. but then I remember that its better than working or sitting around bored

Dive 1 (122) 21 metres max depth, total dive time 33 mins

Dive 2 (123) 20.4 metres max depth, total dive time 32 mins

Water temp 7′C - I’ve dived in colder, but my old suit was a lot thicker!

25th February @ Stoney Cove

This was the Sunday of the Freeze Your Bits gig, and we nearly did.  I was taking part in Mark Powell’s skills workshop day, and it was a really good day, and I got to practice a few things, and come away with a few more ideas of things to practice and work on.  The first dive was general buoyancy practice, and also a little look at finning techniques, as I would quite like to learn to frog kick, as I am sure it could prove very useful in the future sometime, as I know I can be a bottom stirrer with my big heavy ND jetfins sometimes :(  The second dive was doing ascents, deco stops and stuff life midwater deployment of DSMB’s etc.  I have never done this before, so it was quite useful to do one and it worked pretty well.  I surprised myself actually…  
Two very useful dives, and the humour in the briefings was typical YD stuff.  God I love it really

Dive 1 (124)  Max depth 5.6 metres, total dive time 25 mins

Dive 2 (125)  Max depth 10.0 metres, total dive time 28 mins

 3rd March @ Stoney Cove

 Another couple of practice dives with Alex, who is a rebreather dive on an inspo.  I had never dived with a rebreather diver before, so it was quite a good experience to get used to not having any bubbles from my buddy to keep my eye on, and also good to experience a walkthrough of a ccr kit, in case I ever have to deal with anything.  Two chilly, but copeable dives of about 40 minutes, spent simply holding ascent positions, and trying to hold set depths for 3 and 5 minutes.  Some success, but some failure too.  I wouldn’t really want to see the profile of these two dives printed out, to be honest it might scare me!  But all practice is good practice.  I definitely need to work on these skills and also putting my DSMB up on more dives….

 Dive 1 (126)  max depth 22.3 metres, total dive time 41 mins

Dive 2 (127)  max depth 20.6 metres, total dive time 40 mins

And that is basically the diving brought up to date… LIDS report to follow sometime!

It was the end of January, and as normal reports are coming in all over the forums that the weekends diving is going to be blown out again.  After a couple of messages, Gary (WWD) is happy for a plop into Stoney Cove, so we meet up there at about 7.30 or so, and after an early morning coffee, we get kitted up and get in at the Slipway.  We hadn’t really got anything planned for the dives, so it was the usual drop down to 20 metres, and head out to the Stanegarth trying to beat everyone else there before the place gets the silt kicked out of it :)  We have a quick look around there, and then head over to the two minis, and then head back in the general direction of the main wall to ascend there.  As it happens we fin almost into the APC, in its new position, so this is where they have placed it now.   After committing the location to memory, we head over to the wall near to the Bedford van and make a nice slow ascent up there, which is a good chance to practice horizontal ascents, before a gentle fin across the 6 metre area, and out at the slipway again.

After some nice warm coffee, and a 90 minute or so surface interval we kit up and head down again for a shorter dive, dropping down to the Wessex, before going over to the coach and coming back up the road.  I come out after this dive completely freezing, I am definitely going to have to get another layer before I dive again in these winter waters. 

Time for the bar and a quick drinkie before heading off home…

Dive 1 (120) 20.5 metres, total dive time 37 minutes.

Dive 2 (121) 20.3 metres, total dive time 28 minutes.

Total Dives last year: 73
Freshwater Dives: 41
Saltwater Dives: 32
Of those 73 dives, all but 2 were arranged either directly through YD, or indirectly by arranging with other YDers.

Stoney Cove 35
Tenerife 24
Gildenburgh 4
Plymouth 3
Swanage 3
Brighton 2
Covenham Reservoir 1
London Aquarium 1

Total dive time last year 48 hours and 38 minutes or 0.55% of the year spent underwater!!

An absolutely top year for me last year… I started the year with a total of 46 dives under my weight belt, most of which had been done in the mid 1990’s. My first dive of the year was the Freeze Your Bits off gig at Stoney, and my last dive was the Last Gasp gig at… yup, Stoney!
Living 10 miles and 20 minutes from Stoney does mean that you are going to log a lot of dives there, and I’m glad I got the eventual total down to under half of my dives for the year
The year was a learning curve for me, I completed my Nitrox, PPB and Deep Diver specialties, thus completing my MSD requirements, and I also had the chance to observe a lot of different divers, and pick up ideas and tips from them as I went along.
Memorable dives for me this year were the dives on the Scylla and the James Eagan Layne in Plymouth in July, and a fantastic drift dive down in Swanage in August. The strangest dive of the year was a dive in the London Aquarium main tank wearing a 12 bolt Siebe Gorman set of “Standard Diving Gear”
I have met so many great people through YD, diving with about 30 different people over the year, either by buddying directly, or meeting on boats and doing group dives etc. I’ve also attended a few YD socials, and met another whole bunch of you. Heres to meeting you all again soon and more of you this year.
The highlight of my year was managing to achieve something I have always wanted to do, to go on a Diving holiday. In fact I did this twice, with two trips to dive in Tenerife with the gang mentioned earlier on in the thread. Out of these trips, I have found my most regular buddy in Spacehopper, and we have done 35 dives together this year.
My 100th dive fell whilst on the second trip to Tenerife, and was a fantastic dive, which we celebrated along with many other things on that trip
Already for 2007, I have the Farnes trip planned at the start of June, and a trip to Appleton Roebuck to do a chamber dive to 50 metres for experience, both arranged through YD.

Anyway, it was a fantastic 2006, so heres to another great year in 2007.
Thanks everyone, and YD generally for making my diving year so great.