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Capenwray
The Capernwray Quarry is tucked away in the Lancashire countryside about 1/2 hours drive from Maldives home town. On arrival existing members show their cards and pay the £6 entry fee. Non-members pay £8 and are given a blank membership card which must be taken to the shop for completion - there is no extra cost and you are now a member and qualify for cheaper entry. After the long drive we decided to go to the Coffee bar for a drink. Given that you are overlooking a quarry, the view is quite amazing. There is food and drink available at very reasonable cost. The big question of course is 'Is it worth it?' The answer is a very definite 'yes'. It is bigger than Dosthill, but maybe not quite the size of Stoney Cove. It does, however have several significant advantages over the others. It is cleaner than Dosthill - Gullet is cleaner than Dosthill! The walk from the car-park to the water is much flatter and easier than both. I found the staff much friendlier, both at the gate and in the well-stocked shop than either of the other two. There are more attractions for the diver and the maps are accurate, there are even photos to help with identification! Why does Stoney Cove not update theirs and why does Dosthill not produce one?
Entry into the water can be achieved by either wading or stride, though wading is, in my opinion, easier. Our first dive was planned to explore The Cave (actually an old container), featuring a helicopter atop, followed by The Podsnap, an old WW2 minesweeper and finally The African Queen. The dive started well enough and we soon found the cave. A quick tour in and out and we were off to The Podsnap. This was well worth it. It is at an angle of about 40 degrees so one has to swim up and over to see the deck. Several minutes were spent exploring before we set off. Due to a slight navigation problem by Mark (who I promised I would not name), we missed The African Queen and ended up in the training area at 6m. There was nothing else to do but surface. An excellent dive and one well worth repeating.
The Surface Interval was spent refilling the cylinders and having food and drink in the cafe. Before long it was time to dive again. The second dive was in the 6m area to see the horses, Shergar and Lord Lucan. They are great fun and almost certainly unique. We also visited the Gypsy Moth which was good. Further exploration along the shelf yielded very little so we turned back to the stables again. As we reached the exit area and started our 3m safety stop, dozens of fish 'buzzed' us, presumably looking for food. In the event we spent 5 minutes or so just watching them before exiting. A fine day out, enjoyed by all. On the way home I couldn't help thinking 'Why not make a weekend of it and go walking in the Lake District or the Howgills on Saturday, then dive on the Sunday'. Why not indeed?
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Dosthill Quarry
General: The photos on this page are of Dosthill over a period of time, in no particular order. Dosthill is near Tamworth, close to the M42 Junction 10. Head for Tamworth, then turn off on Dosthill Road. Take Church Road on the right at the top of the hill. Entry fee and other details can be found on their website. The maximum depth is 24metres at the centre. There are quite a few wrecks, including a land-rover, barge, caravan, Parcel Force Van and small 'house'. It is possible to dive the circumference of the quarry in 30 minutes easily at depths of 10metres or so, longer time would be required if one pauses to play. The centre of the quarry is the deepest. Visibility is generally quite good, but the 22/24metre section can become quite silty if there are a lot of divers in the water.
Its weird isn't it? What is? I'll tell you! When I was about to do my 50th ever dive, I built it up as something special. As it turned out, it was a bit of a let-down. If you want to know the full details, see the report. My 100th ever dive showed a marked improvement and was done at Cirkewwe Bay on Malta - yes sir, that was a fine way to celebrate 100, but it took some planning - for about 2 months I was organising my diving calendar to ensure I didn't do it at Dosthill or Stoney, that would have been too sad for words - I even limited myself to two dives a day on a couple of occasions to ensure it happened the way I wanted it to. In the event I arrived on Malta with 99 dives under my belt (I love that phrase).
So, the 100th dive of 2003 and the 145th dive under my belt loomed large - where would it be and what would it be? A wreck?, a deep dive?, an extra long deco dive? Well actually it turned out to be in Dosthill on a very miserable wet Saturday in November. It lasted 6 minutes - yes 6 whole minutes, the bottom time was 2 minutes, the safety stop was 3 minutes and the ascent time accounted for the remaining minute. What happened? Panic, aborted dive? Well no, actually it was planned that way! I was there to complete the practical assessment part of my SAA Rescue Diver (or Diver Rescue - I never remember) which involves performing three deep lifts on an unconscious casualty, which in this case was a mannequin, plus a 10m-3m assisted ascent.
It was the latter that formed the 100th dive. We established our plan, did the buddy checks, dropped down to 10m and started the drill. I was to donate and started towards my buddy after he gave the 'out of air' signal to me. I removed my regulator and handed it to him in the traditional way and calmly took my spare. Now I have no idea why, but instead of breathing out, I breathed in, with predictable consequences, I got a lung full of water! Anyone who has done this will know what follows! Choking, coughing, a desire to be somewhere with less water around, but you can't - you have to get it under control and quickly. It seemed like forever, but it was only a few seconds before I could breathe again and we started the lift. It went well, but I was suppressing my urge to be on the surface. I could have got a better grip and been a bit better controlled but we did it, the assessor was happy and I passed the course. It was one of the longest 6 minutes of my life - that and the 6 minutes before my vascectomy.
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Gullet Quarry
General: Gullet quarry is controlled by both the Malvern Hills District Council and Maldives Scuba Diving Club. Permission to dive must be obtained from Maldives. It is about 5m deep at its deepest point and extremely murky. Visibility is no more than 0.5 - 1.0m at best and this rarely improves due to water constantly flowing into it from the hills and out via a stream.
The car park situation has changed considerably. There used to be space for 10 cars or so at the head of the quarry, the MHDC have now closed this for all but turning. The alternatives are to unload the gear here, then park at the end of the road, or drive past and take the narrow road along the South of the quarry. Parking here is free and convenient for access to the waters edge. The slipway is still accessible, but barely worth it as it is quite possible to enter from the South bank. It has not yet been mapped. Maldives are considering doing this in the future, but reckon it will require about 80 man-hours of work to complete.
Of interest are the hundreds of freshwater crayfish, an old car at the Eastern end, plus its free access and convenience. It is possible to walk to the jetty from the car in a minute or two. Entry to the water is from the end of the jetty which ramps in quite slowly for a metre or so, then drops to 3m. The nearest air supply is either Worcester (Sea-Style) or Cheltenham (Dive 90) - both are 30 minutes or so - come prepared! Maldives recently used the site for rescue drills as part of several Trainees assessment as part of their Club Diver awards. The photos on this page are of the rescue.
It has been dived there a few times since and is quite a fun place to explore and one feels that something new and unfound will appear out of the murk. The great upside is that it is quite possible to dive for over an hour on a single fill due to the shallow depth, but feels much deeper due to the murk!
Gullet Details: Location - On the Eastern side of the Malvern Hills near Castlemorton common. Depth: 5m. Visibility: Poor at best. Cost: Free. Access: Permission required from Maldives club or MHDC
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Horsea Island
Location - Port Solent, Northern end of Portsmouth Harbour. The centre offers a 1000m long seawater lake, which was created for use by the Defence Diving School for Army and Navy training. The lake is divided into 3 zones, each with two training platforms at 6m depth. A number of underwater attractions have been dotted about the lake bed, including armoured personnel carriers, helicopters, aircraft fuselages, a recompression chamber, and 30m of tunnels for divers wanting to practice wreck-penetration skills. Maximum Depth: 6.5m (Zone 1) Fills available on-site but only to 200bar.
Horsea lake is unusual for several reasons. It is an inland man-made lake, it is sea-water & it is owned by the MoD. Entry to the site requires pre-booking with the operators & visitors need to obtain permits to enter the site from the portacabin near the entrance. Given the nature of the site, we decided it was best to drop off our kit near the main diving platforms, and then park at the far end. Maps are obtained free of charge from the main office to assist with the planning of dives. There is clearly enough here to keep a diver happy for many trips without visiting the same area twice, although a surface swim to the far end would be a challenge.
It is quite clearly a site that attracts many dive schools, therefore many (PADI) divers with obvious consequences - at times low visibility, shouts of 'Pizza' from the water & the sight of divers dragging expensive regulators across the ground. Our dive plan was to follow the roped route from near the main platform, thereby ensuring we would see the most in our limited time. This route is at about 5.5m deep, but it is just possible (by digging a hole) to get 6.5m! We saw a number of attractions - the start is a small boat, followed by a Landrover, platform, ambulance, helicopter to finally a floating mine - which was not floating at all! Life underwater included eels, fish (some quite big) & about a million jelly fish from about 2cm diameter to 6-7cm diameter, all friendly. We saw other divers too, but not too many to worry us unduly, most are staying close to the shore practising their skills, but on the surface we did see a few groups of trainees heading off for a dive with a single leader. How an instructor keeps track of 8-10 trainees in murky water is beyond me, but that, as they say, is not my problem.
There was a mixed reaction to the dive. Me, I enjoyed it immensely, but others in the group didn't because there was 'nothing to see' & 'the visibility was poor'. Hmmm, I couldn't help wondering out loud what they expected in an inland waterway - dolphins, Whales, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, SETT levels of visibility? It is a military training area for heavens sake! The group spent a few minutes trying to convince me that I didn't actually enjoy the dive, & of course, failed - they obviously don't know me very well! Sadly I was out-voted & reluctantly had to agree to leave - One dive in a day is just not enough for me. The site staff have thoughtfully provided showers for divers' use, so we took full advantage & washed the salty water from the kit to save having to do it when we got home.
Footnote: On our way to Selsey yesterday, we called in to check out the site & whilst doing so, came upon the Historical Dive Society. They were busy kitting up a diver in lead boots, hard helmet & traditional gear as would have been worn by early divers. It was fascinating to watch them get the diver ready - it must have taken over half an hour to complete. Once in, he was down for about five minutes before surfacing, followed by a further fifteen minutes of de-kitting. The air supply was provided by an old-fashioned pump worked by hand! I could just imagine the reaction from Peakwoman if I bought home ½ ton of lead boots & helmet & suggested we nip down to Dive1895 to purchase a hand-cranked pump. 'But it will be good for your arms darling'. 'Sod off darling'
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Hyperbaric Chamber
On Sunday 11th May, a group of divers from the Maldives club visited the Hyperbaric Chamber at Arrow Park Hospital on the Wirral. The intention was to see what it would be like to dive to 50m without actually messing about with all that regulator, dry suit and water rubbish that is normally associated with diving. So it was that we arrived by mini-bus at about 10:45 on the Sunday morning, armed with food, drink and warm clothing for the unique experience. Prior to the 'dive' we were given a lecture by the head of the hyperbaric unit who gave an extremely interesting lecture about the chamber and its' many and varied uses - apparently, diving related problems account for about 10% of their work - and we thought 3.5 million quid had been spent just for us divers! The majority of the work is related to the promotion of healing by pressurising patients and giving them oxygen rich gas to breathe. Some of their results were quite astonishing in the success of healing. The lecture lasted about an hour, after which, we moved downstairs for the dive itself. The chambers are quite small, so we had to divide ourselves into two groups. I was in the first and have to admit to a certain amount of aprehension as we entered the chamber. I was quite concerned for my ears, normally it takes me a few minutes to descend even to 20m, so what would 50m be like? I didn't want to let anyone down by calling a halt. Luckily, they have an anti-chamber that can be used to evacuate anyone if it becomes a serious problem.
Several of us had bought our computers for the record and a bucket of water had thoughtfully been provided for their use. Apparently, dive computers get very upset at pressure when dry. We had a quick brief on what would happen and then the door closed. We could hear and feel the pressurisation starting immediately. Continual swallowing was necessary to equalise the ears and I found myself worrying about keeping up. I managed until about 35m when my mouth ran out of saliva and I had to ask for a pause. I soon cleared and we recommenced. At about 45m, Monkey had a similar problem and again we stopped for a short while. Eventually, we were all happy and bottomed out at 51.6m for about 3.5 minutes, giving us a bottom time of 10 minutes. The feelings are amazing. On the way down, the vocal cords tighten, so one quickly acquires a Mickey Mouse voice to the amusement of everyone else. Being 'narked' aids the humour and we were all having a fine old time. At 50m, the air is thick, moving a hand felt like moving through treacle, and talking had an odd gritty feel to it. The tongue 'tasted' metallic. We all observed that it was easy in a chamber, but imagine being in 50m of water and having to retain sense and order. One is not out of control, but simply does not care. It is euphoria, rather than drunkeness.
All too soon, we were told the dive was over and we would start the ascent. The chamber was quite warm at this stage, but as soon as the ascent started, condensation formed and the environment chilled considerably. We had been told to bring in warm clothes, partly because it felt cold, but also to stave off any DCI effects which would be more likely on cold skin. On the way to the 'surface', we had two safety stops, one at 6m and one at 3m before finally reaching zero. We were all surprised to find that we had been down for 25 minutes, it had hardly seemed any time at all. We clambered out, all of the 'narking' effects now completely gone and the second group entered and repeated what we had done whilst we watched with interest and amusement at their actions and high-pitched voices. We were provided with a sandwich lunch and chatted to the staff for some time before leaving. It had been an excellent experience, worth repeating at some point in the future and I would recommend anyone to do it. It is educational and great fun.
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Malta 2010
Traditionally, the season draws to a close around the end of October/beginning of November when the water temperature begins to cool to the low 20s. Andrea and I decided we wanted to do a dive at Cirkewwa as she was off for an operation the following day which would put her off diving for several months.
We decided to do the Right Arch, followed by a long swing around to the Rozi, then a leisurely drift up the reef towards Suzies Pool. Being just the two of us and both being instructors, we were soon ready to go. In fact, we noticed several groups at the car park who were kitting up before we arrived and we were still in the water well ahead of them! I had decided to use my twin set for no other reason than I love diving with it and Andrea had a 12l. We were both using 32% to maximize our bottom times.
Dropping in, we headed off towards the arch spotting the odd Barracuda on the way plus the normal abundance of Damsels, Bream and others milling around. Swimming past the arch we started to curve around and drop down to about 30m. In this area, the bottom tails away to over 40m but because of time and gas mix, we stayed at around the 30m level. It is rare that we dive in this area, although it is a nice part of the reef, mostly because clients want to see either the Right Arch and spent time there or go directly to the Rozi. Fair enough, it is their dive and they are paying for it! For us, finding somewhere different is always nice, especially when you don't have to worry about anyone but yourself.
We were slowly making our way towards the Rozi when we spotted a school of about six or seven Pipe Fish. Now Pipe Fish is the family and these are 'Cornet' fish, often called 'Trumpet' fish in the Red Sea. Either way, they are the big cousins of the Sea Horse which is also a member of the Pipe Fish family. They are a wonderful sight as they seem to move without actually doing anything and often at a good speed! I tried to get close to take some photos but they had other ideas and began to scatter. The ones I did get were as they swam past trying to get away from these strange creatures in their world.
We cruised past them and down to the Rozi where I spent a while searching for Nudibranch, eventually being rewarded with a beautiful white and red example. Time was running short and I noticed my computer indicating I was into decompression. Andrea had hovered above me, keen to avoid any deco time as I had threatened her should she show any deco time!
We left the Rozi, but I couldn't resist visiting the anchor nearby just in case there was a sea horse in residence - this was the location of my first ever spotting of a sea horse. I had a good look around, checking the weeds that grow there as that is a favourite hiding place, being almost the same colour. Of course, today there were none so, having now accumulated ten minutes of deco, I headed up to join Andrea some 10 - 15m above me.
We made our way into Suzies pool area to spend whatever deco time I had, plus extra to be on the safe side, then made our way out. The dive had been almost an hour with a maximum depth of 33m and a most enjoyable way to spend a morning. Quickly changing because of the North Westerly that had started to blow with a vengeance we headed for the cafe for a warming coffee before heading back to the dive school happy with our dive and the last for some time for Andrea. For me, I'll probably be diving somewhere tomorrow.
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Malta Diary
November 2010It is getting very cold now and diving is not seen as a popular sport, but staying in the dive school and drinking coffee is the preferred option. Roll on the summer time.
October 2010
Well, the weather here on Malta has taken a sharp turn for the worse! It has been raining for days now, fortunately during the night mostly, but today it is raining in the day time which is not right. Your reporter is sat in the dive school, being the 'Shop Tart' due to having a rather nasty ear infection. I've been lucky I suppose, it is the first for some years, but was agony on a dive so I have been dry for days now (rain apart!).
The season is beginning to wind down a bit, but having said that we have had a large group of Danish diving with us who have endured the less than perfect conditions with great humour and at the end of the week, we have two new starters doing their Open Water Course. I will hopefully be back in the water by then and will have the luxury of three Divemaster trainees to play with!
The week of 9 - 17th has been European Shark Week and the Nature Trust Malta in alliance with Sharklab and Greenhouse have been showing a series of films at the University. The first was 'The End of the Line' about over-fishing and I have to say that Malta got a dishonourable mention regarding its Blue fin Tuna trade! The second was 'SharkWater' about the illegal shark finning trade and something of a sick eye opener. The final film 'The Cove' is about the awful Japanese dolphin trade which describes how they catch and kill dolphin, some for the amusement parks and others for food. Personally I will never visit a dolphinarium or water park where they have performing dolphins - when you see how they get there, it makes you sick!
There have been a few serious downpours over the last couple of weeks. The last one saw Mick and Adriana sitting on the back of the van in their wetsuits with boxes on their heads trying to stay dry and failing miserably. Oh well, it least it was warm in the water when we braved walking down with thunder and lightning all around!
Micks camera housing finally arrived so be prepared for hundreds of diving photos to hit the website soon!
Attila is close to completing his Divemaster now, with just a few skills and drills required, but a good bit of reading to do! Miranda hasn't been seen for weeks but Belasz is now doing his Rescue Diver, EFR and will then move straight on to DM, promising four days a week.
We have had a few try dives to keep us wet, including a group of Hungarian lads who had an excellent dive in Sirens Bay; we managed to spot a barracuda, flying gunard and a large octopus who, in spite of the best attempts to lure him out to play, stayed put!
We still have Open Water courses, Advanced Open Water and even a few Enriched Air Courses to keep the totals heading upwards
Adriana completed her DiveMaster qualification some time ago so is busy helping Mick out with Try Dives, Courses and guiding and doing a fine job too, but can now only come on Saturdays as she has started work full time.
September 2010Mick has the luxury of a couple of DiveMaster trainees who comes in whenever they have time off including Attila (the Hungarian) who recently finished his EFR and Rescue course and Miranda who appears a couple of days each week to help out and study, plus we are hopeful of one other guy; Belasz (I think that is spelt correctly) who is promising to start his DM training in October. Such a level of help makes yours truly the envy of most other instructors and is just the number of DMs required for the completion of the MI requirements!
We have had some great clients in recently, some doing recreational diving, some doing courses. Recent certifications include Rescue, Enriched Air, Advanced Open Water and a couple of Open Water qualifications
On the recreational front, we have managed to dive Qawra Point a few times as the wind has either been very calm or from the south - this dive is almost impossible with any kind of Northerly wind as getting in and out becomes a nightmare! The dive includes a beautiful cave with a tight swim through, some nice reefs with plenty of fish life and at about 20m a nice little arch appears almost from nowhere.
It is possible to go deeper here (40m+). Mick and Adriana recently did just that, although as you can read, the conditions were somewhat less than perfect.
August 2010Mick has now certified over 100 DSDs and has applied for the Digital Underwater Photography speciality to add to the list. This will go well with the new camera that has been recently purchased; a Canon G11. It is a complicated beast and so some familiarity will be needed before it can be let loose in the underwater world.
We have also had some excellent activities on Malta too, Sharklab continues to grow and thrive, doing excellent research work both above and below the waves and recently a number of Loggerhead Turtles were released back into the sea having spent time in a rehabilitation unit here on the island. Links to Shark Lab and a full report of the turtle release are on the new website.
Recently we have had the great pleasure of seeing a Trigger Fish at Cirkewwa. We are convinced that there are two of them as photos have shown different sizes. Those on this page are of the larger one, christened 'Arnold' by your reporter, a name that seems to have caught on!
We at NDS have played host to some great clients recently. We had a group of SAA divers from the BTB (By The Book) club - there is a link on the links page. They did some great dives with us, including Connors' 100th dive, for which he chose the Carolita. More recently we have hosted a family from the Black Forest in Germany who have been doing some excellent dives on a variety of wrecks on both Malta and Gozo.
In amongst all that we have had numerous Try Dives from the English Language school, several people doing Advanced Open Water and two Spanish Girls who did a couple of Try Dives and had grins so wide afterwards! They had a photo taken by Adrian at Cirkewwa which is on the photo list - it is the one with yours truly and three sharks circling!
October 2010
Mick has the luxury of a couple of DiveMaster trainees who comes in whenever they have time off including Attila (the Hungarian) who recently finished his EFR and Rescue course and Miranda who appears a couple of days each week to help out and study, plus we are hopeful of one other guy; Belasz (I think that is spelt correctly) who is promising to start his DM training in October. Such a level of help makes yours truly the envy of most other instructors and is just the number of DMs required for the completion of the MI requirements!
We have had some great clients in recently, some doing recreational diving, some doing courses. Recent certifications include Rescue, Enriched Air, Advanced Open Water and a couple of Open Water qualifications
On the recreational front, we have managed to dive Qawra Point a few times as the wind has either been very calm or from the south - this dive is almost impossible with any kind of Northerly wind as getting in and out becomes a nightmare! The dive includes a beautiful cave with a tight swim through, some nice reefs with plenty of fish life and at about 20m a nice little arch appears almost from nowhere.
It is possible to go deeper here (40m+). Mick and Adriana recently did just that, although as you can read, the conditions were somewhat less than perfect.
August 2010Mick has now certified over 100 DSDs and has applied for the Digital Underwater Photography speciality to add to the list. This will go well with the new camera that has been recently purchased; a Canon G11. It is a complicated beast and so some familiarity will be needed before it can be let loose in the underwater world.
We have also had some excellent activities on Malta too, Sharklab continues to grow and thrive, doing excellent research work both above and below the waves and recently a number of Loggerhead Turtles were released back into the sea having spent time in a rehabilitation unit here on the island. Links to Shark Lab and a full report of the turtle release are on the new website.
Recently we have had the great pleasure of seeing a Trigger Fish at Cirkewwa. We are convinced that there are two of them as photos have shown different sizes. Those on this page are of the larger one, christened 'Arnold' by your reporter, a name that seems to have caught on!
We at NDS have played host to some great clients recently. We had a group of SAA divers from the BTB (By The Book) club - there is a link on the links page. They did some great dives with us, including Connors' 100th dive, for which he chose the Carolita. More recently we have hosted a family from the Black Forest in Germany who have been doing some excellent dives on a variety of wrecks on both Malta and Gozo.
In amongst all that we have had numerous Try Dives from the English Language school, several people doing Advanced Open Water and two Spanish Girls who did a couple of Try Dives and had grins so wide afterwards! They had a photo taken by Adrian at Cirkewwa which is on the photo list - it is the one with yours truly and three sharks circling!
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Instructing
by Mike Peakman PADI Staff, EFRI, BSAC AI
Diving has long been my passion. I first started in 2001 and did my first Open Water dive in January 2002 in a freezing cold quarry at Dosthill in Tamworth. My last dive (in February 2010) was in the warm Mediterranean on the HMS Maori, it was my 1462nd dive.
Working as a professional racks up the dives but you know what, I am still enjoying it! Okay, there are a few dives that I would have rather not done, 3m underwater with a 'Try Diver' who was only there because her boyfriend had pestered her for days to do it and was not having a nice time.
Balance that up with the hundreds of dives where clients come out of the water with huge grins, smile all day and are genuinely grateful for your efforts and you have the supreme job satisfaction. Couple that with your own personal enjoyment of diving, warm water, sunny days and easy lunches and you can see the attraction I think.
Of course, there are the cylinders to fill, the vans to load and unload, the endless questions about non-diving - what's that building?, why are those police there?, how does the parliamentary system function on Malta?, why should I move my car from where it is parked (because we can't get the vans out, dipstick!). All of these things contribute to the average dive instructors day and we are expected to provide answers to all the questions - I managed the building question, the police question and a polite response to the car moving question, but the Maltese Parliament - do me a favour!
So, what can you expect as a Diving Instructor then? The average day starts somewhere between 8:00am and 8:30am depending on how many clients we have. First job is to get all the gear out ready for the clients to pack. That complete, the next step are the cylinders; two per diver and anything up to 25 divers. Some require 10s, others 12s and some 15s. The cylinders are loaded onto the trucks normally first dive on one side of the truck(s) and second dive on the other to try to avoid confusion at the dive site. We organise the distribution of cylinders for both dives - imagine 20 odd divers trying to do it themselves! It would be chaos - now I know one of those 20 cylinders is a full one, but which one? No thanks, we'll do it!
We normally go out for two dives at the same location. Malta is pretty good in this respect, so, for example, we can go to Zurrieq and do the 'El Faroud' followed by the 'Atlam Helmet' or Cirkewwa and do the 'Rozi' followed by the 'Right Arch', all excellent dives. Lunch is normally at a local cafe and is one to one and a half hours long depending upon the dive that has been done. There are a lot of wrecks sunk purely for diving and a lot of cafes and shops rely on the diving trade to survive. One thing you can say for Malta, it is very diver friendly. Of course, dive 1 is normally the deepest.
The maximum depth of water around Malta is about 35m for such dives as the Um El Faroud, the Rozi, Boltenhagen etc, whereas Comino and Gozo can yield dives up to 60-80m from the shore, but are reef or wall dives. The dive itself can be a guided dive; many clients just want to be shown around and not have to think very much, others are on courses and so will be doing some drills or skills on the dive. For me, this year about 25% of the dives were instructional and 75% guided. Of the courses, the PADI Advanced Open Water course was by far the most popular with Wreck, Multi-Level, Fish ID and Enriched Air being the most popular elective dives (Deep and Navigation are mandatory).
An average return time is somewhere betwen 2:30pm and 3:30pm. We then have to unload all the cylinders and begin the filling process for the next day. The compressor is capable of filling 4/5 cylinders at a time and takes about 15 minutes per set, so it can be a long process if we have a lot of cylinders to fill. In addition to that, we have the Nitrox cylinders to fill which take much longer to fill as we partial pressure fill them which means that we have to add 100% O2 first which must be added very slowly (about 1 bar every 5 seconds) followed by the air top-up and can't be done whilst normally air cylinders are being filled. There are often log books to stamp and sign, sometimes knowledge reviews to read, courses to continue with and vans to clear out which occupies any 'spare' time. At the end of the day we have to take in all the wetsuits and BCDs and hang them up, plus all of the clients kit boxes - it is normally easier and less frustrating to do it ourselves rather than directing clients. You would not believe how hard some people make putting a box on a shelf! Finally, we close up and either go home, or often to the bar two doors away for a relaxing pint or two, swapping stories about clients antics before wending our weary way home for a shower, dinner and bed, ready to face another day in the office. And we do this 6 days a week for about twenty pounds (sterling) a day!
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Malta 2003
The Maldives Clubs 2003 annual trip was to Malta. We decided on Malta after discussing the various alternatives - Scapa Flow (probably raining), Scilly Islands (can't guarantee the weather or diving), Red Sea (the girls would NOT be best pleased if the lads waved goodbye on a live-aboard), or Malta (good weather, good diving, reasonably cheap). So it was that Malta was chosen. I was elected/volunteered to organise it. In actual fact, it was quite easy. Below is a summary of the best dives.
Blue Hole/Azure Window - Gozo.
This is a great dive! There is a bit of a walk from the car park across rocky terrain, but the hole appears soon enough. It gets its name because it is a hole in the ground, surrounded by rock and looking down it is blue! Into the hole and down about 9m brings you under the arch and the open sea. Finning out and left you follow the reef wall, dropping to about 12m where all the life is. 10 or so minutes later the coral cave appears, the bottom of which is about 28m. Into the cave at the far side and torches on you head slowly round.
It is here that the sea horses are most likely to be found - we weren't disappointed! Two yellow ones close to each other - I always thought they were brown. Anyway, much photographing later, we moved on around the cave looking at the multitude of coloured sponges and other growth on the walls. The nearside is somewhat higher than the farside so we exited at about 18m and started back. Getting steadily higher we returned again at about 12m to conserve air. Finally reaching the hole again, we spent a few minutes exploring the cave under the hole which, whilst big, was of little interest and we were soon out, slowly rising via safety stops at 9m, 6m and 3m.
Um El Faroud - Zurreiq.
The Um El Faroud is probably the best shore dive in the Med. Park at the Blue Grotto, kit up, walk down the steep slope and jump in. Surface swim across the inlet to the creek, avoiding the steady stream of boats taking punters to the actual Blue Grotto. then as you round the rocks, drop down and head more or less straight out to sea. You will see the Faroud after about 4 or 5 minutes finning. It is best to stay at about 10m here to conserve air as much as possible. The wreck is easily visible from this depth anyway.
The Rozi - Cirkewwa.
As a shore dive, it is one of those dives where you head down slowly, the anticipation building, and there it is, appearing out of the gloom. I know I enjoyed it and I know it is a good dive, but it is instantly forgettable. That's not to say I wouldn't do it again, and that's not to say it isn't good because it is, but there is something about it - I guess it has nothing that makes it truly stand out like the wheel on the Eagle, or the multi-level of the Faroud.
Santa Maria Caves - Comino.
There are two main reasons for diving the Santa Maria caves, one is the caves themselves which are large and easily accessible and secondly to feed the fish, who are well aware that divers = food and gather round in large numbers when divers enter the water. Another shallowish dive so 60 minutes bottom time is achieveable. The remainder of the area is pleasant, if not spectacular reef diving.
In the event, everything went smoothly and everyone had a good time, with plenty of good diving and socialising being done. There were no complaints and no arguments, so I guess it can be considered a success.
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NDC
The National Dive centre is the only professionally run inland dive location in England and Wales where it is possible to dive to 80m. Having said that, most people go nowhere near that depth! It is, however, nice to do a 35-40m dive and be able to look down into the blackness and wonder what is down there and think maybe one day, or maybe not!
On a sunny Sunday in March, Jason, our illustrious DO, Robin and Ivor travelled down to the NDC for a days diving. Mrs Divalotski came along as DM, still not convinced humans should enter water colder than 26 degrees. The car park area overlooks the water, some distance below. The NDC is unique in that divers and their kit are ferried between car park and waters edge by old army trucks and Land Rovers, so considerably easing the problem of transporting kit.
The first dive was, unfortunately delayed by 30 minutes whilst Robin had to return to the shop to purchase a replacement mask for his, which had managed to break itself between the car and the buddy check. The first dive was planned as a 35m deco dive over the wall and down. We would return to 25m, deploy the DSMBs and ascend with stops at 18m (1 min), 12m (1 min), 6m (2 mins) and 3m (4 mins), giving a total dive time of 35mins.
The second dive was to 25m for 30mins to play in the plastic tunnels. They are, sadly, quite short and in an area of poor visibility, but give the diver the chance to see what tunnels are all about in relative safety. The interest soon fades and we set off for the wall to investigate that area, slowly rising to exit near the pontoon. The final dive of the day was an 18m dive, descending on a small boat, then following the wall along and touring round the shallow end, via a second sunken boat, also quite small, to, once again, exit at the pontoon. Apart from the hailstorm prior to the last dive, the weather was good all day. Mrs D reported feeling a little chilly at times. The boys endured 6 degree water with no complaints.
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NDC
John and Jason went to NDC on Saturday to help as support divers for a team of UK free divers. In May the NDC will be hosting the UK freediving championships and this weekend was one of the monthly training sessions leading upto this. We arrived at NDC early to get a fun dive in before we had to dive as support in the afternoon. After sorting our equipment out we headed down to the water and prepared to get in.
I turned my rebreather on and went to calibrate it but had a cell warning. This means one of the oxygen sensors used wasn't working as well as it might. Anyway I re-calibrated it and everything was fine. When we got down to about 25m I noticed Jason was messing about with his equipment. I asked him in my finest squeeky helium voice what was wrong and he told me to listen to his rebreather. It was making a horrible gurling noise. It turns out that Jason had somehow managed to unscrew one of the inflator buttons on his counterlungs whilst getting ready which had allowed a fair amount of water into his rebreather partially flooding it. I asked him if he wanted to call the dive but he signalled to me that he'd fixed it and all was well so we decided to carry on our descent down to 40m. I stayed very close to Jason as we were swimming along a sheer wall which carried on down to 75m and I was half expeciting him to have more of a problem and disappear into the depths. After another 5m or so Jason decided he still wasn't completely happy with the strange gurgling noises coming from his rebreather so we called the dive. We continued up to about 24m where my first deco stop was to take place and on the way up to the next deep stop at 15m Jason bailed out to his stage bottle of nitrox 50 that he was carrying. The rest of the dive was uneventful and we got out and jason emptied the litre or so of water that had collected in his rebreather.
I then had one of NDC's finest breakfast baps which consisted of 2x bacon, 2x sausage, 2x blackpudding 2 eggs and some mushrooms. I then felt fat. We attended a briefing on our roles as safety divers which discussed how we were expected to respond to different scenarios and what particular problems the freedivers can experience. Jason was to dive in the first session and i was to dive in the second.
When Jason turned his rebreather on for the second dive he noticed during his prebreathe that it wasn't adding any oxygen to the loop. Turns out he had a flat battery. This was then resolved and he went for a dive. No problems and he got out after about 30mins having dived to 36m. We then swapped and i got in with 3 other divers to help out with the second session. We had about 5 freedivers to support. They were all training in the constant weight discipline which means they wear a weightbelt to compensate for their wetsuits and have to fin down and backup a rope.
The rope was anchored in 75m of water and the bottom safety diver fixed a plastic plate to the line at the divers target depth. The freediver then fins down the line touches the plate and swims back up. Since it's early in the season the divers were practicing at between 20 and 36m. Last summer they were getting to depths of 65m! It was very surreal to be hanging next to a rope at 30m and see someone in just a wetsuit and a pair of massive fins swim very quickly past you. Anyway it was all good fun and hopefully we'll be back there again next month.
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NDC
Ivor and Ivana fancied a dive over the Bank Holiday weekend. Jason D also fancied a dive, so a plan was hatched. We would drive down to the NDC for the day. Ivor and Jason would do a 45m dive with Ivana acting as DO, then all three would do two more dives in the shallower 25m area. Good plan!
As part of his ongoing training, Ivor took an EAN36 stage cylinder in for accelerated decompression - although the dive plan assumed 21%, thereby increasing safety.
The dive went well, dropping to the 45m level quickly, surprising Ivor who has been suffering with ear clearing problems recently. 15 minutes heading out saw the turn and return, rising to 30m for the gas switch. No problems, although Ivor noticed that his dive computer was stretching out the decompression requirements minute by minute, rather than reducing them according to the plan.
What was going on? The plan had been checked and rechecked, but the planned dive time was going to be exceeded by some margin and indeed, the safety margin of 40 minutes was going to be passed - the DM would not be happy!
We had no choice, the computer said 18 minutes at 3m which was not being shortened by Ivors modification to the plan which bought them up to 3m earlier than previously planned - originally they had intended to do 10 minutes at 9m. Nothing else for it, they would have to be late. Arriving at the end of the pontoon with 6 minutes remaining, they could see the DM looking down and even from this depth, the stare was making their blood run cold!
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The Pirates of Penzance (Seagulls)
Penzance is a bloody long way from anywhere, especially Malvern, but over the weekend of 25-27th June, a team from Malvern, a team from Lancaster (fer crissakes!) & a team from London made the trip down. This is their report.
Friday 25th June saw Jason and John set off to Penzance, a long journey including a stop at Dive90 for some new fins. After performing some minor heroics (first aid and finding a dog!) at the scene of high speed, crazy Impreza driver, barrel rolling, car trashing, blood loss causing crash, we continued on our way to the YHA and then onto the pub for a couple of Guinness and a nice meal.
Mike, Monkey & Dave also drove down from Malvern, arriving about 7:30. Luckily for them, there were no crazy drivers or flying dogs, so they arrived calm, but tired after the drive. Blagged their way into the Youth Hostel as Mike & Daves' membership had long since elapsed.
Saturday 26th.
Got up at 6:00, went to the harbour, looked at the sea. 'Don't be silly boys, you 'aint going nowhere'.
Felt sick. Went back to bed! 10:30, went to look at the sea again. Spoke to the skipper, mutual decision not to dive as it was well rough. Went to Land's end (it was misty), then went to St Ives (sun was out, sea flat calm somehow). Had a Cornish pasty and then an ice cream. John was mugged by a seagul for his ice-cream. The result was John ending up with a nice split lip, and a seagull being drop kicked off the promenade wall onto the beach, much to the horror of the assembled OAP's sat on the near by benches. Dave collapsed a lung because he was laughing so much.
Mike, Dunc & Monkey decided to get their dry suits on & do a bit of freediving in the water at St Ives but failed to take account of the air that would be trapped in the suits, resulting in a record depth attained of 4-5m. No threat to Tanya yet then!
We went for a curry and a few beers at night.
Sunday 27th.
Got up at 6:45, weather looking better. went to the harbour, still looking good. Go Go Go. Skipper ran over his own mooring line with the boat, hence 20min delay - boo! We loaded the boat and set sail by 9:15. Sea looked OK. 15 mins later, sea was getting rough, there were a few worried faces, but no chunder action yet. About 9:45. Jason was first to fall foul of the dreaded dive boat induced chunk blowing. Closely followed by John, then Dave, then Duncan, then Chris, then Pat then Mike, Not funny. John, Chris, Jason and Monkey sat out the first dive which was quite good.
The wreck, the Jose de Aranburu was in water with 8m of visibility & many parts of the wreck could be identified. It was at a depth of about 35m, Mike & Dave doing a 35minute deco dive. Dave was on a Helium mix, Mike on air, so the ascent rate & stops was the most conservative of the two. Mikes computer was happy with the Helium mix profile anyway, so on reaching the end of a 7 minute stop at 6m, all was clear.
The sea sickness continued with more multiple chunders. John gave up the will to live and just curled into a ball on the floor of the boat. We moved to the second dive site. More chundering. Only 4 people braved the 2nd dive, Monkey was visited by the chunder demon 1 min into the dive and had to abandon it for the safety of the boat. Mike, being made of sterner stuff waited for Pat & Andy & dived with them to 26m. sadly, the skipper had missed the wreck, but a nice dive on some reef made up for it. So only 3 made the last dive. We headed back to land and kissed the ground. Drove a long way home, arriving back at about 10pm, tired, sore, de-hydrated and beaten. Slept 10hrs solid and woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a car :o
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Plymouth
Two days of hardboat diving in the wreck capital of England. Excellent visibility, lots of fun, with good company. Well, that is how it was sold to me, and that is pretty well how it turned out, or would have done if I hadn't spent the whole of the second day feeling (and being) sick.
Day 1:The Rosehill James Eagan Layne
Both of these dives were reputed to be excellent dives with the Eagan Layne occupying a place in the top 100 British dives. Dave and I dived on 2 x 12l twinsets with everyone else being on either the same, single 15l or in Johns case a rebreather. The Rosehill was pretty bashed up, being comprised mostly of wrecked and twisted metal, but at 30m deep is not to be underestimated as a dive. Clearly this trip was only open to experienced Club Divers and above and this fact caused at least one Maldives Diver to be refused on the trip due to inexperience. The dive itself was excellent, we saw several conger eels hiding amongst the wreckage, and plenty of fish life swimming around. We managed a 41 minute dive going into decompression after 20 minutes at the bottom requiring stops on the ascent. We went for 15m, 12m and 6m as our chosen stops with 3 minutes spent at 6m.
The Eagan Layne was our next stop but with quite a journey ahead of us, we settled down to enjoy the journey, get some food and drink sorted out and generally relax. It was two hours later that we were doing our buddy checks ready to jump in. The shot line on the Eagan Layne takes you to the topmost part of the wreck which is at a mere 7m from the surface. The bottom of the wreck, however, lies in 21m, so again, requires thoughtful planning to ensure a safe dive. It was easy to see why this dive rated in the top 20 dives, it was awesome and many dives would be needed to fully explore the wreck. We had 36 minutes before starting our ascent, with a dive time of 48 minutes, including 5 minutes at 6m and 2 minutes at 3m to ensure we were as off-gassed as possible.
The journey back to shore was quick, made quicker by the smiles and talk of the superb wrecks we had dived that day.
Day 2:The Persier and Fairyland
We decided on the Persier as our first dive of the day. This had been recommended to us as a good dive well within our capabilities. It sits in 30m of water not too far out. The weather and conditions were somewhat worse than yesterday, so the shore soon vanished from view - bad news for those of us who relied on the horizon to avoid sea-sickness. In fact, as the day wore on, we all started to feel a little unwell, and were, therefore, quite pleased to get in and descend to calmer waters. The Persier is well wrecked, but the boilers are in good condition and there are a couple of interesting swim throughs. We saw an enormous Conger eel hidden in the wreckage, but declined to irritate it on the rather sensible grounds that it would probably take offence and eat us whole. Another decompression dive, this time arriving after 25 minutes of diving. where we started our ascent, giving a total dive time of 41 minutes.
Dive two was planned to be a reef drift dive, but when we arrived, everyone felt terrible, I was sick twice and almost aborted the dive, but considered that once I was in, I would feel much better so we went for it with the minimum of buddy checking - no-one dared look down long enough to check anything. The dive itself was excellent and being a drift dive at about 20m required the minimum of effort. There were crabs, dogfish and other reef life to look at. We dreaded getting out as we felt good and knew that once on the boat, the sea-sickness would strike again.
All in all, an excellent two days out, well worthwhile. The visibility was excellent throughout, being in the order of 15m. All dives were good, but the Eagan Layne was the best by some margin, and one I am keen to repeat.
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Plymouth 9th July 2005
The newest 'wreck' in the English Channel is the Scylla. It spent its life as a battleship but was finally decomissoned a year or so ago and purchased for use as a dive site. It is located in Plymouth sound not far from Fort Bovisand, which is where Discovery Divers are based and our guides for the day. The trip was intended to be a short weekend; drive down on Friday night, dive Saturday, then drive back Saturday night, thereby get the diving done and still give time for part of a weekend at home, rather than staying the full weekend and rushing around Sunday night.
The team consisted of Ivor and Ivana, Dave, Tim, Damian and Alan, plus Cheryl and Peakdog as spectators. Friday night, we stayed at Venn Farm campsite at Brixton, that's BRIXTON, not Brixham (Torbay) as one of the team thought! Dinner was at the nearby (5 minutes walk) pub.
Saturday we drove down to Bovisand, a mere three miles away and organised ourselves. The RIB we had for the day had three other divers on board which was cool.
Dive 1 was onto the Scylla in about 22-23m of water. The teams were Ivor and Dave who had a whopping 60 minute dive including Ivor on a 10 minute deco on EAN50, Alan and Damo who did about 35-40 minutes and Ivana and Tim, doing 35 minutes on or around the upper decks.
Ivor and Dave spent a lot of time exploring the lower areas, in and out of as many holds and walkways as possible, including bunk areas, toilet blocks and even the captains bathroom! The Scylla is huge and even with such a long dive time, less than 50% was seen. Some people hate the Scylla, some love it, personally I thoroughly enjoyed the dive and would gladly do it again although better viz would be nice.
From ship to shore was about 20 minutes and we were soon enjoying a nice cup of coffee and bacon sandwich made by the excellent cafe there. The owner, Danny is a really nice guy and I spent some time discussing other dive sites of which there are dozens. Soon enough it was time for the second dive, this time, the Eagan Layne, a wreck I have done once before and thoroughly enjoyed. Again Dave and I had a 60 minute epic, the others being shorter as they were on single 12s and we were on twins + EAN50 / Rebreather for another decompression dive profile.
Dropping on the stern, we headed to the right, mooching around alongside the huge wall of steel that rose above us. Due to poor viz, the limit of what we could see soon disappeared into a haze of green and silt. There are a lot of holds to look in, some containing unidentifiable bits of metal, others containing wheels, others seemed to be empty. There is a lot of life on the wreck and photo opportunities present themselves frequently. As we turned at the end of the wreck we began to steadily rise upwards to 12-15m, the profile on my computer extending further and further out. At about 12m I switched to the deco gas, not that I needed to, but it is beneficial to do so if you can, it is easier on the body. EAN50 can only be used at an absolute maximum of 22m, and at 12m the ppO2 is 1.1 so well inside the recommended maximum of 1.4. We spent a while at this depth, but soon realised that we had lost sight of the wreck 10m or so below us.There was nothing else for it but to put up a DSMB and head in the direction we thought the boat would be. Suddenly we spotted bubbles rising from below. We assumed they would be on the wreck, so followed them whilst slowly ascending ourselves via the safety stops. Eventually we surfaced quite close to the pick-up boat and finned the last few metres to the comfort of the RIB. Of course, we were the last aboard so as soon as our kit was stowed we were off.
Once ashore, the packing away process began and we were soon winging our way home. Two good dives under our belts and quite economically to. It was £4 each for the campsite, £30 for the two dives, a tenner for food and drink Friday night and about £20 each for petrol. A cracking weekend and another tick in the Dive Supervisor box.
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Pilgrimage to Portland: 8th/9th May 2004
At approximately 17:38 on Friday the 7th May St.Andrew (a.k.a. La Monkey) knocked on my door. 'Chocks away', he yelled enthusiastically. Shame he hadn't really grasped the concept that the weekend was likely to be a 'Baptism of Fire and Brimstone', [Gospel according to St.Dave, Chapter 1 Verse 2 of his Lord Almighty's bible, "Ivor Diverlotski"!]..
Then there were three.
The force pulled us towards St.Mike's abode. After we filled our chariot full of the blessed gear we set off for the Infamous 'Jolly Sailor', a well known and loved 5 star hotel situated on the dockside of Portland. Some time passed.
Then there were five.
We found St.John and St.Jason propping up the bar drinking some form of Ale that the landlord had pumped out of the trough earlier on the day.
Huddled in a corner were the followers; 'Hefin the believer', 'Damo the worshiper', 'Jason Cox the helper' and 'Mike the doubter '. After much merriment the crew left their blessings with the great 'Ivor Diverlotski' and then went to bed.
The Baptism of Fire and Brimstone.
It was a wet and windy Saturday morning when the 8 got onboard 'The Protector'. The skipper also named Ivor (his mother was a believer) pointed us towards the wreck St.Dunston. Unfortunately after a mere 10mins in a force 5 the devil struck St.John down! After much throwing up and applauds from the other followers, Ivor pointed the boat towards the Wreck 'Beinjecidsfhgnsuogb'.
The gods were good to us on this fine Sunday morning as the sea was flat and John's bile intact!
Our skipper thought it would be good for us to do a drift dive over a reef. It would have been nice if he'd put us on it! All in all it was a pleasant if not fast dive with a variety of life passing us by. Unfortunately St.Mike & St.Dave lost each other and had to cut the dive short.
In the afternoon we all dived a wreck called 'fighbasfgo' which was well and truly f**ked. The wreck was covered in life and made the weekend worthwhile. Lord Ivor was good to the followers as he blessed many of them with Crabs and Scollops for tea!
After one final shower in our 5 star accommodation 'The Jolly Sailor' the pilgrimage ended and we made our way home.
Thanks to St.John for organising the trip and making us laugh lots!
Second Report by John Parkinson
We went to Portland last weekend. The intention was to dive the St Dunstan on Saturday morning. The weather was bad though (force 6 gusting 7) and Ivor (our excellent skipper) gave us the option of going to the St Dunstan (1.5 hrs away) or staying local. I was full of sea sickness tablets so was conviced I was invincible ;-)
Unfortunately this turned out not to be so and I proceded to spew my guts out all day and thought I was going to die ;-)
Due to the bad conditions we didn't make the St Dunstan and made a retreat for the Benedine (sp?). The current was still running a bit and the shot was quite busy. I was concerning myself with being sick whilst bobbing around on the surface but could see bubbles below me so decide to leave the shot and just make a dash for the bottom at 27m to hopefully meet up with the rest of the team. When I got to the bottom the vis was crap and I couldn't find anyone else (or the wreck) so had a swim around for 10mins.
After that I gave up and ascended on a dsmb where I started being sick again as soon as I hit the swell at 3m. I called the boat over and returned onto the deck up the lift like something off the exorcist spewing green bile everywhere ;-) That was the end of my diving for the day and I vowed that I was going to sell all my dive kit and never get in the water again ;-)
The rest of the group did a scenic near the breakwater slightly west of the Hood. They said it was a good dive and saw crabs and some big cuttlefish.
Fortunately the following day was much better and I managed not to throw up. We did a drift near Grove Point in the morning and me and our DO Jas' collected a bag of scallops, seeing plenty of wrasse, crabs, tube worms etc.
In the afternoon we did a wreck over near Lulworth and collected another bag of scallops. This was a pretty good dive and we saw some large wrasse, pollack, bib etc.
All in all it was a pretty good weekend.
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portland Report
Friday 7th May.
We all headed to Portland, arrived in time for beer and food. Went to bed at about 11, stayed up till about 2am listening to the pub below our accommodation.
Saturday 8th May.
Woke up at 7:30, tired. Had breakfast, went for the safe option of toast and cereal. Met boat at 10am, set off. Had a rough journey out, felt sick, came within a few mins of some serious chunder action. John had some serious chunder action, proper green projectile exocist style. John didn't dive. First dive was OK, viz was pants, there was a current. Second dive was in a nice sheltered site, viz was OK. Good dive, lots of wildlife including massive spider crabs and the biggest cuttlefish I've seen in my life.
Went to Weymouth for an Indian, slept well despite live band playing until 2am in the pub.
Sunday 9th May.
Woke up at 8:00am, tired. Had breakfast, went for the risky option of a bacon sandwich. Met boat at 10am, set off. Did a nice drift dive not far from the harbour, quite enjoyable, viz OK, quite a few spider crabs, collected some scallops.
Moved to a wreck near Lulworth cove for the second dive. Lots of life, pretty good viz and a fair amount of wreckage.
John and I found a cannon - which is strange given it was a steel wreck?? Got some more scallops. We towed a boat back in that had broken down and saw the local SAR helicopter playing around. Drove home, had dinner, washed my kit, slept like a baby.
All in all a good weekend :o)
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Qawra Point
Qawra Point has two sides to it. On the right is a shallow training area and on the left an excellent deeper area for more experienced divers. This report describes a dive on the left hand side.
We had long wanted to explore the deeper section of the outside of Qawra point as it is known, having dived the area a good few times, but never deeper than the arch at 20m, so a day with no clients seemed an ideal opportunity. Unfortunately it was not the best day to do it!
On arrival at the car park, we looked at the waves crashing onto the rocks with dismay, but decided to carry on, after all, we were an instructor and his DM, not some holiday divers, so could cope with a bit of swell. Adriana had a 15l cylinder and Mick was armed with his twin set and a 50% nitrox sidemount for decompression. We were headed deep!
The plan was to head down to the arch at 20m by the most direct route, then continue past to try and find the caves at 40m. We had heard stories about these caves and in fact, they have claimed lives, but we were prepared with torches, backup torches and a reel for penetration. The plan was for Mick to go into the cave and Adriana to remain out holding the end of the reel to allow for a safe return. Gas calculations had been done and we knew we would only have time for a brief look inside.
Entry was reasonably straightforward and the arch located within a few minutes, although the visibility was somewhat less than perfect. As we continued down the waters cleared and we found ourselves at the 40m level, but no sign of the caves. A quick look around yielded nothing and we noticed that our computers already showed a decompression stop would be required. This had been planned for, but it had been hoped that the cave would have been found before deco was reached. A decision was made to head back up the reef, it was clear that the caves would remain undisturbed today.
Reaching the shallows we made our way along the reef past the shallow cave on the point towards the exit. Deco completed and additional safety stop time done we decided to surface a little way away from the reef as the surge was becoming more obvious and we didn't want to find ourselves crashed against the rocks. It took a few minutes to locate the narrow channel through which the diver is obliged to swim to the relative calm of the exit pool. We found ourselves being drawn towards the rocks by the now ever stronger wave motion. We lost sight of each other for a while as Adriana made her bid for the exit, finally appearing inside the pool looking safe, but shouting that she had lost a fin! At this exact time Mick who was weighed down by the twin 12 litre cylinders and sidemount was hit by a large wave and instinctively putting his feet down for balance, also lost a fin! Disaster!
Getting out through the channel would be impossible with one fin as directional control would be out of the question. Mick decided to remove his fin, steady himself, then wait for the next wave and hope to be pushed into a standing position on the rocks. As luck would have it, the plan was a success, but timing was critical. Mick had to move quickly to get balance before another wave hit which would knock him off balance. Moving forward and rolling, he landed in the pool unharmed.
Adriana made her way to the exit, after donating her one remaining fin to Mick so that he could search for the missing fins. As luck would have it, both were found inside the pool and retrieved. The pair made their way back to the truck where the experience of the dive began to hit home. They had been very lucky to get out as easily as they did and with little real incident, although both agreed it had been a little nerve racking, requiring a coffee and chocolate croissant to calm the nerves!
Qawra Point is a fantastic dive, but really only suitable on a calm day. Today was blowing Force 6 North Westerly, probably the worst possible
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The Red Sea
You have to go to the Red Sea! So I was told by many divers. The water is clear, the fish life is amazing, you'll see Sharks (No), Turtles (No), Manta Rays (No) and hundreds of other fish (Yes). So it was that we flew out to Sharm-El-Sheikh during September for a cheap weeks diving. It is a long flight, about 5 1/2 hours in total, but well worth it. Egypt is hot all day and all night. We arrived quite late but arranged with the tour guide to start diving the next day. The hotel was a 4* Hotel and very nice it was too, its own pool, air conditioning in the lobby and room so it was easy enough to escape the heat.
Monday dawned bright and early and we were met by our dive guide for the week; Mario, or Ahmed or a couple of other names I missed. Anyway, he took us to the dive centre where we sorted ourselves out and organised weights, baskets to keep kit in and the other minor necessities. Soon enough we were off to the port, where we saw the after-effects of the recent bomb - there were police everywhere. Mario apologised but we understood. I'd rather have too many police and be searched than none and risk being blown up. The port hums with activity, cylinders being loaded on boats, food, drink, divers everywhere. Soon enough we were aboard the Lady Emy and off for the first dives of the week. Our first dive was the Temple, a marvellous reef full of life. 40 minutes and 20m later and were smiling! The water is every bit as clear as we had hoped, the life was amazing, fish, coral, wow! After a surface interval we were back in again, this time at Ras-Um-Sid for a similar depth and time as the first, and then later still, a third dive at the Tower. Smiles all round, fantastic diving! The week went pretty much to this plan so I will just describe the notable dives.
Thistlegorm, Max Depth: 29.5m Dive Time: 39 mins + 39 mins. This is THE wreck to do in the Red Sea. The only slight problem is that it is a long way out from Sharm (about 4 hours) but ever the money makers, the Egyptians find a way of charging you for just about everything. Fast boat; that will be extra, through the Ras Mohammed park, that will be extra, lunch, extra, oh yes and diving the wreck, lots extra. It is worth it though, but to hear Mario talk you would think it was the most technical wreck in the world. For some strange reason, we were told to be ready early and I mean early! He had us stood ready to dive over half an hour before we actually got in! I was at the back of the group of eight and he wanted me to put my fins on! No chance mate, I'll do it when I get to the edge. As it is so far out, two dives are done on the wreck, the first does a general tour around then into one of the higher holds. On the way down I noticed the hose on one of the divers wasn't connected to his jacket so went to fix the problem - so much for his buddy check! We managed to lose Mario as we exited the hold, rather than wait for us, he was off. Of course we guessed where he had gone, but got it wrong! After the dive, he really threw his toys out of the pram, telling us we should stay with him, that he can't keep an eye on us all the time, it is too dangerous and if we want to dive again we will do it on our own! Fine by me!
He calmed down and we were soon in again. This time we went in a deeper hold and saw the motorbikes, trucks, guns and other war-related relics that make this dive so spectacular. Once again it was time to leave. I noticed a couple of our team heading for a different shot to the one we came down, and being aware that we were both running short on air, elected to go back to the one we descended on as I knew there was a cylinder at 6m. In the event we didn't need it, but I was constantly checking our air just in case. All was well and we exited with air to spare. It is a long way back but the boredom of sitting on the boat was allieviated by a video that was shot on the wreck featuring all of the divers - nice. I would have purchased a copy but it was about £40 which was a little rich for me. Also we saw some dolphins on the way back which caused a mass exodus from the viewing gallery. I didn't manage to get a photo, they were too far out and too fast - oh well. The sunsets were pretty spectacular too.
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The Red Sea
Dunraven, Max Depth: 27.4m Dive Time: 38 mins. This wreck is the poor relation of the Thistlegorm and best done first otherwise you will be sadly disappointed. It is possible to penetrate but it is nothing more than a swim through that opens up into a hold area, at which point it is necessary to exit and swim round behind the propellor and back up. It is okay, with some life, but far from the best wreck I have ever dived.
Yolanda, Max Depth: 28.8m Dive Time: 48 mins + 41 mins. We managed to do this area twice. It is a part of Shark Reef. The first time we came to it at the end of the reef dive, just in time to be starting the ascent. There is some considerable wreckage, including about a million toilets! After the dive, we requested that we do the Yolanda itself as a dive. We were promised and on the second dive, looked forward to a good mooch around. Sadly our dive guide had other plans and we finally came on the wreck again at the end of the dive, not only that, but after negotiating some serious running currents! Of course we had too little time to explore before heading off up a valley to ascend to the boat.
Night dive, Max Depth: 16.2m Dive Time: 41 mins. I decided before I left the Red Sea I would have to do a night dive, just to see what it was like. I wasn't disappointed! Sharks Bay was the location for the dive and we arrived there just before dark. By the time we had kitted up it was dark enough to need the torches on. I was diving with Colin - a PADI beginner and his guide. We dropped down to about 15m and finned slowly around for 35 to 40 minutes checking out the night life, which was superb. It was quite possible to see without light - just - but so much better - and the viz - superb!
Reef Diving As a result of all of the reefs looking the same, a general description will suffice. The reefs teem with life, there are colourful fish everywhere you look, there is gorgonian coral everywhere - the stuff that looks like fans or lace curtains. The fish are reasonably friendly, it is possible to almost touch them - I suceeded on one occasion - something I have not even come close to in the UK. I didn't see any big creatures, although one of the guys saw a turtle on one of his trips and we heard that another couple saw a turtle the day after we finished!
It was a good trip. The best part, other than the diving was the fact that the boat crew were fantastic all week, always eager to help, always there with drinks or a spare hand to assist with kitting up. The food on the boat was out of this world and the (soft) drinks freely available - in fact we were encouraged to drink to avoid dehydration. The worst bit, other than having to come home was the fact that our guide was an idiot, over sensitive and he ripped us off with an outrageous exchange rate - take some advice, find out the currency that they will charge you in for extra dives and get enough in the UK to cover it, otherwise you will get stung big time. I did complain to the tour operators; AquaTours both in Egypt and in the UK, neither were particularly interested in helping. If I go again I will use a different tour operator and definitely a different Dive School.
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Scilly Islands July 16th-30th 2005
Getting down was slow but easy enough starting off at midnight and arriving at Penzance by about 8. The journey down was delayed from Saturday to Monday due to boat work needing to be done and safety issues needing to be solved. Launching was straight forward but took a while as we had to wait for the tide to cover the slipway. Once in the water we stayed at Penzance a night to sort out some problems we had with the VHF antenna not working and by the time we had launched and I had tinkered with the engine to make sure it was primed properly, bled through and running smoothly. The engine had been set with the slow running screw a bit high which caused the engine to tick over at about 1400 RPM. When you knocked it into gear it clonked loudly and raced forwards at a hasty 8 knots!
Once adjusted we found we could switch from standing to 1 to 2 knots smoothly and had more control than initial trials demonstrated. The initial trial went fine without sinking or crashing and after a night of restless sleep and panic through losing cash cards on the boat in amongst all the junk we set off with all well the next morning. In order to use the radio a piece of wire was rigged up and the antenna checked until it was found to be working for an unknown reason. Our stay tiring and restless showed great need to beat a hasty retreat when Guy decided to flood dining room and living room of the pub below where he stayed using copious quantities of water from the shower in which he bathed which gradually seeped through the floor of the B and B. A non understanding and angry barman greeted the guys to allow minimal conversation before making a sharp exit in due haste.
A quick safety data check with HM coastguard station at Falmouth conveyed the vessel and voyage details with an estimated time of arrival and a check of the weather conditions gave our journey a safe start. With water as far as we could see and a long journey ahead of us we set off the boat rocking gently as we cut through the mirror like sea at a good 12 knots. We headed southwest from Penzance once out of the harbour for 36 miles until we met the warm weather, clear waters and harsh rocks of the eastern Isles to be greeted by several atlantic grey seals sunning themselves on the rocks. The journey had gone as smooth as the water we had crossed and had taken a mere 2 hours running on average at 14 knots but occasionally running up to 22.5 knots for short periods.
A vivid day unfolded around us revealing a sky as blue as the fairytale backdrop and not even one wispy cotton wool cloud floating in the sky. A searing heat greeted us with beads of perspiration forming on our faces after seconds in the sun. Guy now brown as fried chicken drumsticks and sunglasses taken from a movie set had sat all the way sunning himself on the engine box and would not have seemed out of place in a Baywatch remake. Once clear of the Hats Ledges we motored over to Town bay where we anchored and set about arranging mooring with the harbourmaster and carrying our large cumbersome rucksacks up the long and windy road to the beautiful Garrison Campsite situated in the grounds of star castle and the Garrison ramparts, a historic fort surrounding the hill of Hugh town St Marys.
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Scilly Islands July 16th-30th 2005
Once unpacked, cooled down, our tents pitched and thirsts quenched with the cool and slow lubrication of a can of chilled John Smiths smoothflow we made our way down to the town to feed on large plates of traditional fish chips and peas in the Scillonian Club, a local working mans/womans club/pub which provided subsidised drink for the rest of our trip and also offered a great source of entertainment for everyone involved including shelter from the wind and rain a necessary requirement for the third week.
A single and largely poignant source of amusement was the extraordinary tent which Guy pulled like a rabbit from a hat out of the tiny thong like bag it came in. Allan and Guy christened the beast the Pimp tent after an hour of browsing instructions and parts which ought to have come with their own interpreter. Coming with one large porch, a large fully furnished main bedroom, en suite of course and in similar style to the tardis we were sure sported more entertainment space on the inside than out.
An unproven fact was the point that all members involved with putting her up was sure that Guy had furnished the inside with thick red shag carpet, a leopard skin duvet cover and twin heart shaped pillows in ruby red satin silk. His attraction to young French students may well have been stronger than Geoff Capes but his ability to attract them was as good as a chocolate fireguard and proved entertaining on many occasions.
The second week saw Jason, John, Mike, Peakdog and the infamous G@y Dave arrive via ferry on the white and sometimes brown and seaweady shores of Scilly for adventures of the wet and eating kind in sun sea and rain.
The first week saw us dive the Crim a site some six to seven miles West of Scilly in trecherous waters sporting tides from three directions and so exposed to the wind our power boat would have taken up a sailing position in the round Island sailing race. Fortunately for us the day was as calm as a childs bedroom after the struggle to sleep has given up its fight and with glass like seas and searing sun Guy took the first dive with Todd to the 35 to 45m site littered with cannon and anchors from an unknown wooden wreck unaccessible at the best of times. After Carmen took a swim from the Lucy B a local boat supporting our jaunt took off to dive a Firebrand another old wooden wreck salvaged heavily since the 1970/80ss when found by a local diver and used for monetary gain or research. Nothing remains but skeletons of her former past, include cannons stretching up to 8ft long litter the seabed encrusted by concretion and fin like growths caused by the electrolytic reaction of nature and iron attracting growths of fins and rusticles in weird and wonderful shapes. Small lumps of wood can still be seen and her cargo still seen in places trapped in the concretion of sediment compressed by tonnes of water over years of her dormant sleep on the sea bed. Dives on the Douro a cargo ship wrecked also off the western rocks with cargo of pottery, beads, and manilas, tokens of exchange to purchase slaves from abroad.
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Scilly Islands July 16th-30th 2005
The container hired to transport the precious cargo of rebreathers and dive kit a humourous sign of their arrival labelled the booked container in the name of Partyass. Several dives on the Cita a 100m long cargo ship sunk in 1997 showed the short timescale in which the large steel seagoing vessel had broken up and lain victim to kelp, bolders, sand, tides and provided accommodation for local wildlife to go about their daily duties.
Dives on the Plympton and Hathor large cargo ships sunk in the early nineteen hundreds on the same rocks also provided beautiful scenic dives showing propeller shafts covered with plumose anemonies, snake lock anemonies and fan corrals in a multitude of colours. The propeller shaft a particular site of beauty showed great numbers of these organisms now at home in the somewhat flat remains of the vessels now shadows of their former selves. Dives also in local bays and on the Lady Charlotte tried to satisfy Mike in his quest for a wet week but could not have matched the reply he got when in the second week on quay as the girls arrived the heavens opened up in tones of grey black and blue and thundered torrential rains for exactly one week or in laymans terms the exact period of occupancy for which the girls were booked into the accommodation.
The first port of call was the sports shop into which four weary, wet and bedraggled divers piled into the entrance to purchase golfing umbrellas in a desperate plea to keep visiting loved ones dry and happy and prevent the inevitable removal of parts of the anatomy one would rather not lose! Little did we know this would last for the next week and prove the use of the public house a most necessary convenience to keep dry watered and fed. Luckily the sun did manage to poke its head out of the cloud filled sky for one day giving time for the girls to don beachwear and sit in the warm rays for a few hours at least and even gave chance for Mike, Adriana, Jo and Dave to venture where no mainlander has dared to go before and freeze extremities normally snug in clothing through the shortlived swim into the clear but freezing seas which felt more like the graveyard in which icebergs would have sank the titanic.
Among the pub quizs and walks, pints and lack of driving, we entertained ourselves with a new found hobby for most of big game fishing while waiting for divers to return to the surface. Of the many fish caught all but one were Pollack to which I can claim the largest catch of the week sporting a large for us but small in reality Pollack of about 2 foot long and a mackerel of about a foot long. This is of course unless you count johns monster fish which just happened to get away. ;-)
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Selsey Bill
We decided on a second dive after the SETT experience, and had previously sussed out that Selsey Bill would provide just such a dive, but was time limited by tides. Sadly we would not be able to get there in time for the afternoon dive, so had to go for the evening dive. The dive can only (sensibly) be done at ebb slack, today being at 8:46pm. We drove over and found our way to Ocean View Dive shop (which has no such view!) and queued our cylinders for fills. Some considerable time later they were ready - clearly no rush here.
As it was only about 5:30pm, it made sense to drive over to the Lifeboat Station - our chosen dive location to check it out and decide on a plan. It is possible to park quite close to the beach, so transporting gear is not a major issue. The dive plan was to enter the water at the pier, follow the struts until we were under the Lifeboat House, then take an Easterly bearing to a turn at about 20 minutes. Happy with the plan, we retired for an early dinner and chat.
Soon enough we were returning to the lifeboat station and managed to park even closer, so the short walk was even shorter. As we were fussing over equipment, the crew of the lifeboat were returning from their mission. The skipper stopped for a chat and we tried to extract some local knowledge from him which resulted in a slight change of plan. We would now try and locate the Old Station - long since collapsed, which was North-East of the current station between two marker buoys. He also recommended that we leave our cars on the main road since if there was a call-out, we would be trapped until they returned - we took his advice and moved the cars, not wanting to wait all night to go home!
The dive itself was good, but the visibility was poor and we needed our torches on simply to ensure we didn't get separated. The dive went to plan, but sadly we ran out of time before we located the old station. There were plenty of crabs and lobster to irritate, Rich even tried to pick one up - but wished he hadn't as the lobster turned on him and started a fight. Rich squirmed and twisted, before the lobster was knocked off and retreated. Dudley and I watched with great interest and amusement. The limited light was fading yet further on the return and we eventually surfaced about 15m from the shore in 3m depth. We could have gone closer, but we could feel the swell and wanted to be able to see where we were - so that we could avoid hitting the pier struts.
The dive time was 35 minutes with a maximum depth of 5.5m with a visibility of 2-3metres. It always seems harder walking out than walking in and this was no exception. We made our way back to the changing area and de-kitted in the gloom and drizzle that had been threatening all evening.
On our way back, we discussed the dive, but more importantly beer and food. We formulated a plan that would allow us to get a kebab, scoff it, and then get back to the camp-site for a last beer or two.
Sadly, we failed miserably. The kebab shop was located without drama, the kebabs scoffed, although Rich and Dudley could only manage a small, whilst Mike went for a large to show the youngsters how it was done. A drunken young girl provided some entertainment, fighting off the advances of a would-be boyfriend, whilst trying to chat to us. She was fascinated by the fact that we came from Worcestershire, but had no more idea where it was than she knew the no-stop dive time to 30m on 30% Nitrox. We decided that she would have to live with her ignorance as beers were calling. Disaster! On arrival at the camp-site the bar was closed and there was nothing for it but to hit the sack. Nature had not yet finished with us. During the night, we saw and heard the most amazing storm, loud enough to drown out Rich's snoring and the activities of the young couple in the next tent! Next morning, we discovered that Duds tent leaked - in fact it leaked all over my dry-suit which I had bought in to dry off a little!
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SETT
Ever keen to explore new and exciting dive locations, Maldives organised a trip to the Submarine Escape Training Tower at Gosport. The tower is owned, maintained and run by the Royal Navy, but they allow the likes of you and me to use it at weekends whilst the Navy boys have a weekend off. On arrival, we were met with the sight of a huge tower reaching up some 10 storeys to the top. We unloaded our gear and moved in. Before we were allowed to go up, we had to have a brief from 'Spike' on what to do in case of fire - jump in the water I would have thought, but no, make for the exits it seems.
After the brief briefing, we all started to move our gear up to the tenth floor, which was made considerably easier by the lift! I cannot imagine how long it would have taken using the stairs. At the top, we had a second briefing by Mark, the Horsea Island representative and the DM for the morning. The SETT is a 30m deep, 5m wide cylinder filled with body temperature chlorinated water. Visibility is, of course, 30m right to the bottom. Mark tried to point out the various features located in each of the corners of the circular tank - maybe he has done too much diving? The dive plan was to dive in pairs with each pair having 15 minutes bottom time and an unlimited return time (air permitting). As each pair started their ascent, so the next pair would begin descending, overlapping somewhere between 25m and 15m.
When our turn came around, John, who was already narked, decided to jump in and proceeded to cause a wave that soaked most of the surrounding area - he was gently reminded that jumping in was not a good idea! So we set off for the bottom, watching the 5m markers go by - this was an ideal opportunity to check the accuracy of the computers. Mine was pretty close, which I found out later meant that it was fresh-water calibrated as opposed to sea-water.
Once at the bottom, we played with our toy-torpedo that Pat had kindly loaned us - luckily, because there is nothing else to do down there! Now I know how goldfish must feel, swimming round in circles. One slight source of entertainment is that you can look through a porthole and into the offices on the ground level - wow! Soon enough it was time to ascend, which, of course, must be done at the appropriate rate. On the way up, we were able to take a look at the blisters, which are standing areas for the instructors to use.
They are pumped with fresh air (though not today) so that they can enter, take a breath of air, then return to the tank to continue supervising the trainees, rather than having to return to the surface, or use compressed air, which would time-limit them too much. Eventually we reached the surface and exited. As I packed my gear away, I wondered if I would do it again, and concluded that, whilst it had been fun, it is probably one of those things that you do just once for the experience.
Before we all left, we had the opportunity of watching the SETT video, which gives a taste of the real purpose of the tank and the somewhat dangerous life of a sub-mariner. No thanks, I'll stick to the desk-job.
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Stoney Cove
Stoney Cove is near Stoney Stanton in Leicestershire. The best way to get there is to get onto the M69 via the M6, then take Junction 1. Turn right along the A5, then left at the bottom of the first big hill. Follow this road through the village and out the other side. Stoney Stanton is signposted on the left. The expert area is about 35m deep. The intermediate 20 - 24m and the beginners area is 10m.
For the final time before Malta, Ivor and Peakwoman went to Stoney Cove for a days diving. The first dive was down to 30m with the intention of returning via the shot line. We decided on a mid-water descent for a change and arrived at ground level at 21m. Once we had located ourselves, we headed down the road to the 30m point. The visibility was awful so, rather than try to find the shot line mid water - we hadn't planned to go to 35m and we only had one pony cylinder between us, so would have contravened Maldives rules anyway - we decided on a change of plan and returned up the road. All went well and we were just a few minutes over our planned time but had plenty of air in reserve, surfacing after 29 minutes of diving.
For our second dive we decided to do the Cessna, partly because Peakwoman hadn't done it but mostly because the viz everywhere else was so bad. Due to the extended surface swim not many go there anyway. To find the plane go out past the 35m buoy, following the wall. Eventually you will see two yew trees growing out of the cliff face near the water line. Drop down here to about 15m where you will hit (or rather not hit) the slope. With the wall behind you, turn right and follow the line of the wall. Within a few minutes you will see the plane on the right. It is at about 20m so there is plenty of bottom time to be had. We noticed that someone had questioned Daves sexuality on the plane, but we cannot comment on the author! We also had a major booty find! Just under one of the wings, the eagle-eyed Ivor spotted what looked like a watch. It turned out to be a 200m Apexs dive watch! It must have been there for sometime as we had seen no other teams out there all day. Our return was along the wall steadily rising upwards to conserve as much air as possible. We made it back as far as the bus stop, doing our 3m stop on the shelf beneath before removing our fins and walking up the steps to exit. Our total dive time was 33 minutes. Due to the awful vis on the 6m shelf we decided not to bother with a third dive, electing to take a shower and go for burger and chips instead.
Peakwoman has far more sense than to dive in December, it is cold! Never mind, Jason Cox wanted to go in preparation for the Red Sea in January. Where else but Stoney Cove, where indeed? So, armed with diving gear and a high-altitude RAB jacket, we set off for the day, with Peakwoman along as DM. Dive 1 saw us heading to the Cessna at 21m. The viz was superb! We could clearly make out the plane from 8m down.
After a tour we set off back, staying at 21m until we reached the ledge and drop down to the 35m area, then began our steady ascent. We passed the hydrobox on the road, at which point we had reached 100 bar in our cylinders. This was the point we had planned to rise to 10m so began our ascent. Levelling out we met up with the road again and followed it to the cockpit and our first safety stop at 6m. That done we headed over to the bus stop shelf to do our 3minute/3m stop. Finally exiting at the agreed point after 32 minutes - our plan was 35 minutes, so the DM was happy!
Dive 2 was to the Stanegarth and Wessex. We dropped down to reasonable visibility and after a tour, entered the hold. A good look round and out via the steps at the far end which is a squeeze, but presents no real problems. After this, it was over the edge and off to the Wessex, which was reached in a couple of minutes. We were 18 minutes into our dive, and knowing we had 23 minutes bottom time on our plan, decided to take in the van as well as we just had time. 21 minutes into the dive and we began our ascent of the wall. Onto the 6m shelf we spent a few minutes finning over to the sub and pub, then out through the window and up to 3m. Requiring 3 minutes at this depth, we slowly finned towards the exit point - the steps at the mid-point. We surfaced at 31 minutes, again well within our 35 minute schedule. Two dives was enough. I was warm enough, but Jason was a bit chilly and the DM decided to call the dives in favour of burger and chips - no arguments from the divers, so that is exactly what we did.
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Swanage May Bank Holiday
Saturday we drove to Swanage to dive the Pier and Old Pier. Jason Cox, who was only down for the day, joined Ivor and Ivana, Pat and Paula, Damian and Alan, with Cheryl along for the DM work and PeakDog along for the bubble watching. The first dive went well, most teams managing 4m or so with a 40-50 minute dive time. There were plenty of crabs to annoy, a good few fish and some interesting wreckage to poke around in.
After a considerable Surface Interval which seemed to consist of everyone consuming large quantities of food and drink, we kitted up ready for the second dive, this time the Old Pier. Jason and Damian went in first, followed by Ivor, Ivana and Alan, and then by Pat and Paula, who sadly had to abort as a result of some buoyancy issues. The rest of the day was spent eating and drinking both in Swanage and at the camp site where the BBQ was lit, the wine opened and the kebabs prepared.
Sunday saw a fine day and the team headed for Kimmeridge, having been told that this was a good dive site. On arrival, we wandered around checking it out, before heading for the Marine Centre for some good local knowledge. The Centre has some excellent wardens, all of whom are extremely well informed and we soon ascertained that it was possible to dive straight out into the bay, although we were warned that it would be quite a swim to deep water and the viz may not be too good. Undeterred, we kitted up and headed out. The girls of course, were not so foolish and all three offered to DM! Ivor and Alan took a direct route out and100m out to sea were still walking!
200m out were floating, but only just! Bored with this, they decided to descend and continue underwater. This they did for their planned 25 minutes before turning to return, finally achieving a record 5.1m depth! Ivor was starting to feel a little unwell due to the swell, but managed to avoid any chunder action. On their return, the swell was causing them to move at separate rates and it wasn't long before they inevitably lost contact. Ivor was particularly annoyed by this because he knew just how far out they were. Sure enough, after a one minute search, gave up and exited to be met by Alan. They looked towards the shore, the girls looked very small, it was going to be a long surface swim! 17 minutes later, they emerged! Damian and Pat took a different route and were so shallow that, when they decided to launch their DSMB, Pat simply held it above his head!
That, they decided, would do for the day, even Ivor wasnt interested in a second dive! A picnic was called for, followed by some rest and a stroll before returning to the camp site to get changed for an evening in the pub.
Monday, we packed up, some headed straight off home, others planned a little site seeing. The Peaks went climbing to Dancing Ledge for the day and had a interesting time persuading the PeakDog down the cliff, eventually resorting to a sling harness to lower him down he was not happy! All in all, a good weekends diving, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, well, apart from Paula of course. I am sure if you ask, she will let you know all the things that were wrong ;-)
Oh yes, Woodyhyde camp site is rubbish!
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August 2005 Bank Holiday
Driving south on a Bank Holiday weekend is not a good idea unless you are happy to see the world crawl past at 10mph. So it was that we drove down to Swanage. It took somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5 hours to get there. The campsite seemed quite efficient but is was heaving with people. Ivor and Ivana were the first to arrive and managed to find a suitable space that would take the four tents that were expected. Pat and Paula arrived next, Paula getting an early whinge in about the cost of the campsite. Dave and Jo followed soon afterwards. We elected to head into town as Alan and Cheryl had neither arrived nor seemed contactable.
Swanage town was heaving! For all we knew, Dorset was probably heaving too! Fish 'n' chips sat outside was followed by a few beers in the nearest pub until finally the Tudges arrived to join us for a final beer. Some reported a good nights sleep, others a bad night. Ear plugs are definitely the way ahead!
We were away by 8:30am and after being stopped by the police doing a check for a pervert headed into Swanage and the pier. Soon enough we located the boat and the extra diver who would be joining us for the day. Sidewinder was a decent size and gave us plenty of kitting up room. Sadly Paula didn't join us as her arm and ankle were playing up. The pairs then were Ivor and Dave, Pat, Alan and David (the 'new boy'). The Kyarra is less than 20 minutes steam from the pier and we were soon in and on the way down.
>h2Whilst picking up other divers, Ivors stomach finally decided that it had had enough of its contents and promptly evicted them into the sea. Feeling as rough as a badgers boot, Ivor cannot vouch for the return trip, suffice to say, the pier could not come too soon. The surface interval was taken at the pier cafe where a diet coke and pastie soon sorted Ivors dodgy belly. Soon enough we were back to the Mary Jo for the second dive of the day, this time onto the Fleur, which is just a few minutes out in the harbour. This time Dave and Alan dived together so that Alan could do his mid-water ascent. Ivor went with David. Pat and Paula again sat out the dive. David and Ivor managed two laps of the Fleur before becoming bored and heading off for the drift dive. Drifting is fun, but on this occasion, there was little of great interest, so we just floated along enjoying the lack of finning effort required. Dave and Alan elected to stay around the wreck, poking in every orifice possible until it was their time to surface where Alan made a flawless mid-water ascent and so gaining his Club Diver award.
Saturday night was BBQ night at the campsite where lots of food and drink were consumed along with sing-songs and poor joke telling. A fine night had by all.
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Swanage May Bank Holiday - Sunday
Today was pier diving day. Alan, Dave and Ivor doing the new pier and Pat and Paula doing the old pier. Both teams reported excellent dives. The traditional trip to the cafe for drink and food was followed by a swap over. The second dive saw Pat and Paula do the new pier whilst Alan and Ivor went for the old pier. Dave had decided to sit out the dive. Alan and Ivor headed out, keeping an eye on the struts that marked the route of the pier until they disappeared. The continued until their planned 25 minutes had elapsed, amusing themselves by trying to dig holes for greater depth, 4.4m was the best they could manage.
On the return leg, something must have gone awry because they found themselves heading to deeper water (5.2m). Ivor concluded that they were not heading back towards the shore but in fact, heading away so decided to call the dive. The air supplies of both divers was reaching the lower limit anyway. On surfacing, they were somewhat surprised to find themselves out beyond the new pier! How embarrassing! They decided to fin to the pier and climb out using the steps and it was a foolish looking pair that walked the length of the pier to be met by a somewhat irate DM who admonished them for getting lost, being late and coming out with less than 50bar - but, we planned it, honest! Well, apart from the getting lost bit anyway.
Sunday night we decided on a Chinese take-away which would have been the ideal end to a good days diving except for the fact that Dave and Jo's car broke down on the way into Swanage and Dave had to run back to tell us - Mobilise the troops! Ivor and Ivana went to get the food whilst Alan went to tow the car back to the car park. We'll sort it out in the morning we decided, and tucked into the Chinese and beers.
Early Monday morning the AA were summoned who pronounced that the starter motor was knackered - a conclusion that Dave had reached the previous night. To cut a long story short, the car had to be low-loaded back to Malvern. Dave and Jo, thereby saving petrol money and not having to drive - how cool was that? The rest made their way steadily home. Alan chuffed to bits with his Club Diver award and Ivor over the moon with his Dive Supervisor award.
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Swanage May Bank Holiday
Ivor and Ivana took advantage of the offer of places on 'Sidewinder' for a days diving from Swanage Pier. The pair drove down on Friday night, checked into their hotel - yes, it was to be a posh weekend - extracted a bottle of wine from the suitcase and relaxed with a pre-dinner drink. Some (short) time later, the pair emerged to go in search of food and found a nice looking pub/restaurant less than five minutes away - ideal! Whilst waiting for dinner, the pair had yet more pre-dinner drinks, during which Ivana confessed to feeling a little tipsy, then went on to explain that, due to the current diet, had not eaten all day! The deterioration was impressive, Ivana moved from lucid and coherent to 'very merry' faster than even Ivor had managed at Rhiw Felen last New Year. Oh Dear! At one point Ivana decided she needed the loo and disappeared. Within seconds she was back, reporting that, whilst she had managed to negotiate the stairs, walking across the bar was not going to happen without incident so had decided to wait.
Saturday morning the pair drove the very short distance to the pier, unloaded and whilst Ivor took the car back to the (free) car park (Dave take note!), Ivana went off to collect a trolley. 9:45am we set sail for the 'Betsy-Anna', arrived about 45 minutes later. There were two other teams on board, both groups of three, so there was plenty of room for stowing kit and gearing up for the dive. Ivor and Ivana were second team in the water and were soon at the wreck. Despite being slack water, there was still a bit of a current running, so the pair elected to dive into the current initially. The wreck is pretty broken up, but there are still recognisable sections including the boilers, what looked like some kind of winch, some very thick chains and quite a few holes to poke around in, although the skipper had warned us of large conger on the wreck, this last activity was done with care; sadly no conger to be seen. The wreck is in 25m of water which gave the pair 31 minutes of bottom time, just into decompression before the ascent via 12m, 9m and 6m stops before emerging. An incident occurred whilst the pair were ascending; Ivor had navigated back to a permanently attached shot line and planned to use that to ascend since the current was running stronger now, but at 6m, it went quite slack, causing the pair to drop a metre or two before they realised what had happened. Time to get the DSMB out!
Once on the boat, we began the return journey as we were the last team out, and overheard a conversation which clearly indicated that one of the teams had missed all of their safety stops and were told by the skipper to monitor themselves and each other for any DCI symptoms - their day was over!
Refreshments and relaxation were to be found on the pier between dives which were taken full advantage of. Dive 2 was onto the Fleur, a small fishing boat about 10 minutes from the pier, followed by a drift dive, which would be Ivana's first proper drift dive.
This time, there were just two teams on the boat. The Fleur was interesting, but had a very strong current running on it, and given that it is a wooden vessel, had many sharp nails protruding, the pair soon set off on the drift to prevent any close contact between nail and dry suit, with Ivana taking DSMB duties. Sadly, the sea-bed in this area was not terribly exciting in the direction of current flow, so after 40 minutes or so, the pair decided to call it a day and began the ascent. Again, they were last on board, this time, another incident had occurred, one of the divers with the other team had run out of air! Ho Hum!
Once back on land, the gear was re-stowed in the car and the pair went off to the nearest pub for a celebratory pint (or two). Sunday was a rest day, chilling out with the newspapers and a stroll around the headland, before starting the long journey home.
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Thurlestone
We had to leave from the Youth Hostel we stayed in last night (see the Torbay Report) fairly quickly in order to refill the cylinders at Venture Sports who opened specially for us - nice guy, good fast service too and well stocked shop. Our destination today was Thurlestone, where we had been told there was a wreck, the Louis Sheid, within reach of the shore - this was one not to be missed. The village took about 45 minutes to reach. There is a car park adjacent to the golf course which seems to be used by divers so we parked there. The beach itself is about two minutes walk; so once again, we loaded the trolley and set off. Once on the beach, we started to kit up and get ready. This time, Gary, James and I dived with John. Jason took Lorraine, Damian and Jason Cox, whilst Dave had Adriana and Tim (who had driven down this morning for the day).
We set off in our own time, with me leading, Gary and James together and John bringing up the rear. The plan was to surface swim to the end of the visible rocks, drop down to about 2-3m then swim out across the rocks in a Southerly direction to come onto the wreck. This we did and I was suitably pleased that we came straight to it after about 7-8 minutes finning. The wreck was awesome. Considering the shallow depth (6.5m), it is remarkably intact with various wheels, braces and funnels to see. The visibility was probably in excess of 8metres, so we could see the funnel, the engines at the rear and the general shape. We headed off on a tour, peering into nooks and crannies, before making our way to the rear where we came upon the engine area. More fun poking around then we were off towards the centre again. All too soon we had to start back to shore, but with the rocks covering the sea bed, there was loads to see and the journey back was very relaxing. Eventually we decided to surface as we were in about 2 metres of water and surface swim the remaining 100 metres or so to conserve our air for the second dive. When everyone was out we chatted about the wreck and it turned out that we were the only ones to have found it. I could not resist a spot of jibing about the DLs ability to navigate.
We decided a second dive was called for, so after a suitable Surface Interval returned to the water. This time, we would all surface swim to the wreck, drop down and have the full dive time on the wreck, then surface swim back. Good plan and it worked. I took everyone out to the vicinity of the wreck, but John was the first to spot it, actually standing on the funnel to prove it!
Again it was a superb dive. I just love swimming round these things, it gives me such a buzz. The wreck is in about 6metres of water, so the dive time even on a half cylinder, was in the order of 30 minutes or so. The only painful part was the swim back which seemed to take forever. Further tours and poking around yielded small compartments that would have been fun to try squeezing into - but a little dangerous!
This time, everyone saw the wreck and a most enjoyable time was had by all, but with so many divers, the sand soon started to get kicked up and the visibility suffered somewhat.
Back on dry land, the process of ferrying kit back off the beach began. We decided to dump it all at the small road above the beach and fetch the cars round. Whilst we were doing this, a drama unfolded. It seemed that a team of divers were 25 minutes over-due on their dive plan. One of their team notified the Coast Guard. Shortly after this, they appeared and were suitably chastised by their DM after asking why the Coast Guard was called out. 'Because you are 25 f'ing minutes late, that's why'. The Coast Guard were called again to tell them to stand down - too late, they arrived about a minute later. The DM had to explain what had happened. We couldn't hear the conversation but I am sure they were cool about it - better to be called out to find everyone safe than to look for divers.
We loaded the gear into the car and set off for home, stopping briefly for the loo. The journey home was pretty good, only taking 2 ½ hours. The best route seemed to be to pick up the A38 as early as possible which runs straight onto the M5, rather than heading North for Totnes.
All there is left to do now is wash the kit, but that will have to wait until tomorrow; tonight we are far too tired.
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Torbay
Due to a prior commitment to see Tom in a school music production, we were unable to join the Maldives Diving team on Friday, but left home at 7:15am Saturday morning for the 2 ½ hour drive to Paignton in Devon to RV at Venture Sports where everyone was getting air fills and purchasing that last minute essential diving item.
Once assembled, we drove to the first dive site of the day at Meadfoot Beach. Having located a convenient parking area near to the slipway, we began the process of moving equipment from the car to the waters edge. My new trolley was the envy of the club, loading it and ambling across the road and down the slipway, everything was moved with the minimum of fuss and effort.
We were here for Adriana to get her required five sea dives towards her Club Diver, and for me to just dive for fun, experience and to complete my 10 dives for my CMAS 2* award.
Dave had arranged for Adriana and me to dive with Jason Cox and Jason Duignan as Dive Leader. The other teams were Lorraine and Damian with John Parkinson, and Gary and James Walker with himself.
The entry to the water was somewhat fraught as the slipway was just that - slippy, also we had to cross a rocky area to get to water deep enough to float and get fins on.
Before we could make the dive, we had a slight technical hitch. Adriana was not weighted heavily enough, so I donated my extra weights (4lbs). This still failed to do the trick, so Jason returned to the shore for our remaining spare weight. This just about did the trick, but come descent time, I had some trouble getting down, so went in search of rocks to use as emergency weight. I also added some more to Adriana, which bought her total to about ½ ton!
The dive itself was pretty good, the usual sea life was in abundance, hermit crabs, small and not so small crabs, plant life, and even a dogfish which Jason bought out of the water for all to see, thinking it dead - it turned out to be alive when it was returned to the water. Our dive was an out and back dive, lasting 24 minutes with a maximum depth of 5.5 metres. As always with sea diving, there is something to look at all the time, and surfacing always comes too soon. The tide was on its way out so we had even further to walk, slip and slide out. Dave was cussed several times by Adriana who wasn't enjoying this part of the dive, but once back on dry land, she calmed somewhat.
By now, the sun had appeared and it was far too hot to sit around in dry suits, so everyone except John and Jason de-kitted for some sunshine. I decided I would have a play on the wall which was ideally suited for a bit of low level traversing, made as it was, from boulders. I amused myself for an hour or so, by which time the call was made to start thinking about the second dive. We had spotted a sandy beach further up the coast which we concluded was the site we were supposed to be at as it had a much easier entry point, but lethargy ruled and we decided to stay put, making a mental note to remember for next time.
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Torbay
By now, the tide was almost at its' lowest, so we had an even more troublesome entry - being further and slippier. This time, we headed South (left), but saw very little except the usual crabs and a couple of small fish as there were no rocks and a sandy sea-bed. Again though, the dive was over too soon and we were returning. At these kinds of depths (4 metres) and angles, a safety stop is not necessary as you spent several minutes at 2-3 metres anyway before surfacing.
Becoming universally unpopular, we decided to quit this site and go to Brixham Harbour for our final dive of the day. This, we were promised, would be a much easier site to dive.
We packed up and set off, or would have if Lorraine's car had started. Many theories abounded about the reason - from 'well, it's a Renault, what do you expect', to 'there is no water in the radiator'. We tried putting water in and magically it started. Hey, we fixed it! We were off.
Brixham Harbour was as good as promised. The car park is almost on the beach, but cost a whopping £2.80 for 4 hours parking. The walk in is a nice shingle beach with a low swell tide, so finning up was equally easy. At this particular site, there is a by-law insisting that SMBs are used, so I prepared ours for use. I hadn't had cause to use one since Anglesey last year, but they are simple enough, so was unconcerned. We had another out and back dive, reaching 7.8 metres, our deepest dive of the day, but due to the extended Surface Intervals, everyone was back on an 'O' anyway so it didn't matter. Our team had to complete our dive early as Adriana was choffing air at an alarming rate and we elected for a mid-water ascent with safety stop. I came up with Ad to ensure she was okay and to show her the ascent warnings (or lack of) on the dive timer. All was well and we were soon on the surface. At this point she had a mild panic for some reason we never established, so we spent a few minutes calming down. On the way back, she was too exhausted to get out, so I did a bit of towing. Sadly we were over 200m from the beach so this took some time.
A quick tour of the harbour and we were off to the Youth Hostel. We had bought camping gear, but decided to join the others as erecting a tent was not too popular.
The evening was spent quickly sorting kit, getting changed and off to the pub for a superb dinner.
We, as a club, had a dormitory to ourselves, so the evening ended with the usual round of toilet humour, several unnamed members making odd noises during the night! In the morning, the room was somewhat odorous to say the least - the windows could not be opened fast enough!
Tomorrow we head for Thurlestone Bay
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Torbay
Friday
We arrived at the Hostel at about 7:30. By 7:35, Ivor and Monkey had decided to go for a night dive to Brixham. Mrs D came along to do DM duties and keep an eye on us! On the way into the water, Monkey managed to break his fin strap, so we had to effect quick repairs by borrowing a strap from another fin. The dive itself was excellent, lasting 30 minutes out and back along the breakwater with a maximum depth of about 6.5m. As usual with these things, they take longer than expected, and we got to the pub about 10pm just in time for final food orders and a quick drink before setting off for the Youth Hostel.
SaturdayThe team went to Babbacombe via a scenic route so that everyone could see the delights of the Torbay area! Finally arriving at the car park at about 9:30, there were plenty of spaces, but sadly, the shop selling air was closed! A brief panic seemed over when the owner arrived, but the panic started again when the owner declined to sell air on the grounds that his system was out of test. Luckily, Divers Down is close by - but not walkable, so those requiring air (Ivor and Monkey - because they had used theirs Friday night) went off in search and soon returned. Take Note: By 10:30am, the car park was full up!
Of the dives done, those to the right of the jetty were deemed the best. Ivor and Mrs D being the first to try it, reporting great success, having seen dozens of crabs, a couple of dogfish and other sea-bound delights. Other teams headed centre and left, reporting varying degrees of visibility and sea life. For the second dives, each chose a different location.
Two dives seemed enough for this location and we all packed our kit and headed off, via Divers Down for refills, into Torquay for food, drink and entertainment. Several had planned a night dive, but as time marched onwards and the weather deteriorated, the numbers dwindled until just three remained - Ivor, Monkey and Dave. Hefin made a late decision to join the party so we were four. Damian declined with possibly the best excuse of 2004 (so far) for not diving - see the updated list for the full excuse.
Meadfoot beach was the planned destination, but on arrival, it proved impossible due to the South Easterly that was blowing. Rather than admit defeat, Ivor and Dave consulted the map and concluded that Brixham may save the day, being protected by Berry Head, so the team headed off to discover flat calm water in Brixham bay. Sadly for all concerned, the rain was now coming down in considerably large buckets, so the sanctuary of a tunnel was sought in order to change in the dry. The dive was good, but not as good as Friday. This time Hefin and Ivor dived together, with Monkey and Dave pairing. 30 minute dives with about 7m depth was the best achieved. It was a very damp and soggy team that joined the remainder in the pub, who had clearly enjoyed beer and steak.
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Torbay
Sunday
Sunday saw the team back at Meadfoot in the glorious sunshine, a very different scenario from yesterday evening. Ivor and Dave elected to go for Shag Rock, some 400-500m offshore, which required a long surface swim against the tide. About 15 minutes later they arrived and began their dive around the rock, which gave depths of between 6m and 10m (low tide). The effort was rewarded with huge starfish, sponges and soft coral, with a few crabs and dogfish for good measure.
After a few aborted attempts to locate the return route due to dead ends, they finally located it and headed back. The route back was fraught, the visibility poor (1m at best), and the route blocked by kelp and rocks, requiring a zig-zag pattern. At one point they encountered Monkey and Hefin on their return, but pressed on.
After 43 minutes of the planned 45 minutes, they managed to part company in the sandstorm that was blowing up underwater, but not ones to panic, performed the one minute search, then surfaced just 2 metres apart! It was a short surface swim back and exit.
Other teams had gone for the central beach area which had proved consistently bad for all parties and a poor dive reported. Ivor and Dave smugly reported a superb dive with excellent visibility and plenty of life.
A second dive was suggested, but only taken up by Ivor, Monkey and Damian, who did 25 minutes out and back in very poor visibility. This final dive being nothing more than a way of racking up another dive and taking a few photos.
One of the excellent 'facilities' at Meadfoot is a fresh-water shower - it is, in fact, the overflow for the drinking water tap, but doubles excellently as a way of washing salty kit. Sadly, the toilet facilities are somewhat more basic and require the sport of rock-climbing!
By 3pm the fun was over and by 3:30pm everyone was on their way home, satisfied with a good weekend by the coast and plenty of dives to add to their ever increasing log.
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Treaddur Bay
Having been told by our illustrious chairman that Adriana and I could go to Stoney Cove on Thursday, I was pleasantly surprised to be told that we were both on the trip to Anglesey for the weekend after. I was soon planning how many dives I could cram into four days - best case 12, worst case, none and probably somewhere in between.
Friday 26th July
So it was that we drove up to Anglesey on Friday afternoon in the new Scuba mobile, complete with a boot full of camping, (wet) diving and personal kit. Maria, my 16 year old and her friend Jessica came along too in the hope of finding some nice Welsh boys to play with. Dud the Stud was ready, willing, able, but about 10 years too old!
When we arrived at the camp-site, Steve, Dudley and John were already there, along with some of Steve's mates from the SUDS club (Salford University Drinking Society). Big Andy, Big Dunc, Big Mel, Big Shirley and Little Mitch were all there. Big Mac couldn't make it unfortunately. Introductions over, we set up camp quickly and started the first BBQ of the weekend. Adriana was elected 'Mom' for the trip, which involved keeping order amongst the rabble and acting as top Dive Marshall for most of the dives.
I had been promised a night dive with Steve (who would be my buddy for the whole weekend) on the Friday, so wished the time away until about 10:00pm when we started to kit up on a dimly lit beach. I had never done a night dive and never been in the sea, so was looking forward to both. I thought I might find it a bit spooky, but night diving is awesome. Everywhere you look, there is something going on. Lobsters, crabs, Bio-luminescent creatures, they were all there in force and the sea-bed was incredible. Diving in Stoney or Dosthill is good, but there you lurch from one sunken vehicle to the next, here there is life everywhere. At one point we came into a clearing and I was quite surprised by the sudden lack of life, but then spotted a flat-fish doing an impressive impersonation of sand, a quick prod and it was off to hide elsewhere, miffed that I had seen through its disguise. As with all dives, it was over too soon and we were surfacing. As we had only dived to about 10m and the majority was done at 3-5 metres, there was no need for a safety stop, especially as we simply stood up at the end, then walked out!
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Saturday 27th July
Saturday I was keen to get diving, but the plan (if there was one!) was to dive in the afternoon, followed by another night dive. The morning was spent relaxing and enjoying the (lack of) sun, whilst the hardier folk went off to Tescos for breakfast. Eventually, the call was given and we organised ourselves to go down to the beach to get 'fills' and bag a spot on the beach. Diving here is very popular with at least another 20 divers in addition to us milling around the water. Shirley told us the best dive was out through a channel and round Ravens Point. Most elected to do that, including Steve and I. Steve suggested that I take an SMB with me, as it is required for my Club Diver qualification, so I agreed, but came to regret it later
I had been sent a Wing with a view to purchase, and was keen to try it out. Steve had said that I shouldn't wear it on the night dive as there was too much new stuff, but agreed I could try it out today. The first part of the dive went well as we headed out along the channel, SMB floating along above me. As we exited the channel, I became aware of a tugging on the SMB. I looked up, but saw nothing untoward. I thought maybe it had got caught, but it was floating freely. I realised quickly that the problem was that the sea moves and the tugging was the SMB moving with the flow of water, sometimes with me, but mostly against. It was quite tiring to pull the marker, and handicaps the diver as one hand is always holding the reel. As we moved out into open water, the conditions deteriorated and we found ourselves being buffeted about. As we were only a few metres down, we surfaced to ascertain our location and became embroiled in a battle with the tide, which had set its heart on bashing us onto the rocks. The only course of action open to us was to descend and retrace our steps (fins) in an effort to get back into calmer waters. Steve was concerned that I might be having problems, continually checking me, but I was fine - maybe I didn't realise the danger, but I was really enjoying the experience, and at no time felt out of control. I guess I always knew that Steve would be there if I had a drama. The SMB was obviously in league with the sea and was doing its best to impede progress too. I later learned that several other teams had abandoned their SMBs to Neptune in order to get back themselves, so as the least experienced diver on the trip I felt suitably pleased with myself. Besides, the SMB belonged to Big Andy and I was more scared of him than I was of the sea!
We eventually got out and as I was walking back across the beach, remarked that diving is sometimes quite hard work. We discovered that every team had turned back because of the conditions, so felt pretty good about our decision. We de-kitted and settled down for some serious relaxing for the afternoon. Later on, Steve asked me if I would like to dive again - stupid question really. The answer was, of course, .....okay, if I must! We sorted out a plan, which involved more Club Diver training, this time a 250m surface swim with snorkel on a compass bearing to a reef to start the dive! That done, we dropped down and made our way slowly back, looking at all the life on the bottom. The tide had been going out for some time and we found ourselves almost floating at the surface at one point, which made for some fun buoyancy problems. It was still fun though and I saw my first jelly fish. It was about the size of a tennis ball, merrily swimming along. Actually, I'm not sure jelly-fish swim, but they don't fly, they definitely don't walk, maybe they blob along. We finally emerged about 7:00pm, in plenty of time to allow the RG to return to an 'A' or less for the night dive.
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Night Dive
Some elected to stay on the beach to wait for the BBQ and others were dispatched back to the camp-site to collect food and burners. I walked back (10 mins) and on arrival was greeted with some resistance to returning with food and drink by the girls. I agreed that moving Peakman Towers and enough food, drink and cooking kit for us all was too much effort, so we relaxed at the camp site for an hour or so. About 9:30pm, I walked back down to the beach where everyone was gathering for the forthcoming dive. By 10:00pm we were kitting up again, ready to dive. Shirley had bought some light sticks, so we all fitted them to our cylinders and started to make our way in, with Steve and I leading the charge. The plan was to dive as soon as possible, make our way over to the reef, poke around, then swim back. We got there without problems, seeing a few fish and lobsters on the way over, but then I started to have buoyancy problems and found myself floating upwards from about 6-7m. With great effort I managed to get back down, trying desperately to dump air without success. Finally by doing a somersault I managed to get enough air out to stay down. During this time, my torch failed, so we had no alternative but to sack the dive and surface. I couldn't work out what had gone wrong, normally my buoyancy is good. It turned out on later inspection that the straps holding the wing had come undone, inverting the wing, so the air was not dumping from the inflater. This was a lesson to learn - always check all of your kit before a dive, including those little straps that are normally left unattended. We had a long surface swim back to shore and were quite tired when we emerged. The other teams soon came out and we were packing up to leave shortly after that.
Sunday 28th JulySunday saw the decision to break camp, head to Tescos for breakfast/lunch, then drive to Vivian Quarry at Llanberis for an afternoon dive to wash the kit off - very important if you have been in the sea and is normally done in the garden with a hose pipe.
Steve reckons that to be fair to the others, I can't dive again until September 2005. I reckon he will be walking very strangely with a cylinder stuck up his a%$e.
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Marine Adventure Park
I had long wanted to dive this park, which in fact are the Tuna nets that are scattered around this part of the island and house the tuna catch. They are in there for two reasons, firstly to grow larger and therefore be more valuable and secondly to wait for the value of tuna to increase, again making them more valuable to the owners.
Getting out to them is a twenty minute boat ride aboard a Luzzu. On arrival, the boat is tethered to the nets and then the fun begins. Getting inside the nets involves jumping into the water from the boat, making your way to the edge of the nets then, with assistance scrambling over the top, making an ungainly flop into the water.
Looking down, you are immediately struck by two things; firstly how big tuna are and secondly just how many there are. We had been told there were 3,000, well, there were a lot but more likely 300. Either way, there were loads of them swimming effortlessly in circles around the net, which itself is some 40m or so across.
We had been told that, on descent the tuna will swim round you so there is nothing to worry about in that respect, but as a result of the whirlpool that is created, you should be careful with your buoyancy. Erm, excuse me I am an instructor, my buoyancy is fine thank you very much. You can imagine my surprise when I found myself drifitng down and quickly discovered I was at almost 30m! I decided to swim into the middle of the circulating fish to get some photos looking up. It was really hard work and I kept finding myself going up or down. The swirling fish and lack of tangible reference points makes it difficult to establish depth and control buoyancy.
Tuna fish are big! Some of the smaller ones are about a metre and a half long, but the bigger ones were in excess of two metres and must have weighed several hundred kilogrammes and boy could they move! With a flick of their tails they would swim around you and be gone before you could click the camera shutter.
I decided to move up and check on my clients. In this environment, guiding is not really feasible, it is more a case of being a safety diver. I had told them 45 minutes or when they had had enough. As I moved outwards and upwards I felt the effects of the whirlpool and felt myself rising, checking my depth gauge I was at 10m - oops! Locating the clients I followed them around as they took their last few photos and headed for the surface. Locating the boat is a case of ascending to the surface then looking. The nets are circular with no distinguishing features so it is pot luck whether you are close to the boat or not. As it happened we were reasonably close.
Exiting is the reverse of entry, flopping out of the nets into clear water and returning to the boat. Everyone enjoyed the dive but consensus has it that it is a one-off. For me, I may be back, depends on the clients!
Footnote: (My personal view)
After watching a film called 'End of the Line' about over-fishing, I am now no longer prepared to guide clients to the Tuna Farms as Malta is guilty of killing more than four times their quota of Blue Fin Tuna (over 60,000 tonnes per year). The Blue Fin are an endangered species and the occupants of these farms - something I wasn't previously aware of. I would urge anyone thinking of diving the nets to think again.
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Turtle Release
Friday 21st May 2010
A number of Loggerhead Turtles were released from the rehabilitation centre where they have been cared for recently. Turtles arrive there for lots of reasons; sometimes they are accidentally caught in fishermans nets, sometimes they are injured as a result of predators, sometimes they are washed ashore and cannot get back into the water. The centre, which is related to Nature Trust (Malta) cares for these creatures, then returns them to the wild where hopefully they will thrive.
Malta suffers from a lack of these creatures and some say this is one of the main reasons we get so many jelly fish - jelly fish are a favourite of the turtles who do not suffer from the stings inflicted. The other reason we have so many jelly fish is that the Maltese have not figured out a way to cook and eat them yet!
Eleven turtles were released back to the sea this morning after having been rehabilitated from injuries they suffered when they were caught by fishermen.
Injured turtles are rehabilitated in a facility at San Lucjan Tower in Marsaxlokk operated by the Resources Ministry. The facility was recently augmented with an X-Ray machine donated by the Health Department.
Among the turtles released back into the sea was one that had been taken to San Lucjan when still young and in poor condition, having been injured by a harpoon. It could not swim or even eat on its own, but it has since recovered and grown to over 50 kilos.
The turtles were released at Golden Bay in the presence of pupils from eco-skola and Resources Minister George Pullicino. Some of the children carried placards urging people not to dump plastic bags in the sea - the turtles swallow them and suffocate after mistaking them for jellyfish.
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Vivian Quarry
The quarry is in Llanberis. The road to the quarry is opposite the Snowdon Railway station. Cars can be temporarily parked fairly close to the quarry itself for unloading, but kit must be deposited and cars parked in the main car park. It is a 2-3 minute walk along a flat path from the dive site entry to the water. There are toilets and a changing room in the car park and a cafe in the museum, which is free to enter. On a clear day, the views are spectacular, so Surface Intervals can be enjoyed in a very special way. Entry fee and other information can be found on their website. The quarry is 18 metres deep, but physically about half the size of Dosthill. Being a old slate mine, the visibility is excellent with almost no silt. There are two houses, one of which is not recommended to enter.
Once located at the entry area, we kitted up and went in. Steve suggested I take a delayed SMB for more training - here we go again I thought! Once in, we descended to a platform at about 6m and did an 'out-of-air' drill. Curiously I felt quite apprehensive about it, and found myself breathing hard at the end. For a few minutes after, I was scolding myself for worrying, but then realised that the water was considerably colder than the sea and the reason for my apprehension was probably more to do with that than anything else, so got on with enjoying the dive.
As with all quarries, there are man-made things to see. In this case, there are two houses, a boat and a couple of exercise bikes, which we tried! It is possible to swim right inside the houses, but we were recommended against it as they are crumbling somewhat, so we carefully peered inside one and swam though a safe archway of the other, but ventured no further. All too soon, it was time to surface, at which point I deployed the SMB in the appropriate manner and watched it shoot to the surface. As we surfaced, I reeled in the line and was surprised just how much effort it was to get up and was quite exhausted at the surface. Steve pointed out that I had used 50 bar of air (600 litres) in less than 5 minutes surfacing! I exited with just 50 bar remaining. Worth remembering if you are taking a delayed SMB on a dive.
Adriana was due to dive next with Steve, so I packed my gear and disappeared off to the loo. On my return, I was asked whether I would like a second dive. Oh go on then, if I must! I quickly took the cylinder for a fill, changed and got ready to dive, this time, with Big Dunc. Our plan would be to follow Steve and Adriana who were going in so that Adriana could do her deep dive for the Open Water qualification. Once again, the dive went without problems and we saw the houses and boat, but all too soon we were surfacing again. On the way up, we had our safety stop. Big Dunc started to make strange hand movements to me, which I couldn't understand. Firstly, he clenched his fist and shook it, then opened it flat and finally put two open fingers towards me. What on earth did that mean? Was this some strange message that only BSAC divers understand? No, he wanted a game of Rock-paper-scissors, so we whiled the minutes away playing that!
Second Trip - The North Wales weather is unpredictable at best. We had planned a weekend away for a bit of R 'n' R Peakman style - i.e. full of activity! To be sure of not being disappointed, we took climbing gear, walking gear and diving gear. Our diving day was to be spent at Vivian Quarry. It transpired that, being a Friday, it was quiet, in fact, we were the only divers that day! Superb, we had the place to ourselves. Being 19m at its deepest - and that is in a hole and just 16-17m for the majority, it is quite easy to see everything in a single dive - the quarry is not that big. Major attractions, other than the spectacular location are the two houses and the gnome garden. In addition, there are a couple of small boats, some very old cars, loads of old quarry gear and the promise of eels and large fish, including goldfish, although, having said that, we failed to see any life on either of our two dives, the first being 35 minutes and the second being slightly longer at 39 minutes. The water temperature was a chilly 6 degrees at the bottom. Safety stops were particularly cool! Overall, a good site and well worth diving if you are in the area. We were told us that a lot of divers use it to clean kit off after a trip to the coast - in fact, we replied, that was how we came to visit the first time - on the way home from Anglesey - but that is another story .
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Weymouth
Weymouth Harbour, or more properly, Portland Harbour, is littered with shipwrecks. Apparently, whichever direction you go, eventually you will go over a wreck. So, the good points are that there are plenty to choose from, the other good point is that being a harbour, it is relatively sheltered from the ravages of the main sea. We had arranged to dive on 'The Hood' in the morning and 'The Spaniard' in the afternoon. The Hood is unusual in that it is at the bottom deliberately, rather than being there because it stopped floating one day. It was sunk in order to block the entrance to the harbour during World War 1 to keep German U-boats from entering and causing trouble.
Being somewhat of a nuisance when it comes to diving, I had been pestering Dave to take me diving to the sea for ages, and he finally relented a few weeks ago and booked for us to dive in Portland Harbour. It was the final dives that I needed to complete my Club Diver experience, and by a coincidence, Tim Crook was in the same position, so was invited along too. To make up the numbers, Ian McDean came down as well. He should be well known to club members for giving the DIR (Doing It Right) lecture early on in our training. It seemed that Dave would dive with Tim and I would dive with Ian. I had been warned by Dave that Ian would almost certainly have something to say about my kit set-up, but that it would be positive criticism, rather than negative - I am always happy to benefit from others experience, so looked forward to getting some good tips and advice.
We decided to travel down on the Thursday night, camp in Portland, then drive to the port in the morning - good plan. Malvern to Weymouth/Portland takes about 3 ½ hours in total. We took the M5 to Bridgewater, then cross-country to Yeovil, head towards Dorchester, then pick up the Weymouth road. Our destination was the Haven holiday camp on the coast. On arrival, we pitched our tents, then went in search of food. Haven has the equivalent of McDonalds, but we weren't allowed in by the cranially challenged security staff until we had checked in, which involved walking back to the camp-site to pay the somewhat extortionate fee of £3 each! Dave was disappointed because he had managed to avoid paying last time. He was doubly disappointed when we elected to go to a pub rather than for a McHaven burger, which prompted the payment in the first place! There is an excellent pub called the Marquis of Granby out the gates, up to the traffic lights, turn left and walk to the top of the hill.
The night was not without its drama. Haven had thoughtfully located the camping area on the top of the hill, overlooking the bay, so Mr Windy had a good run up across the channel from France before hitting us full on. To say it was a bad nights sleep is something of an understatement, none of us slept much at all, and at one point the tent pegs gave up and our tent all but lifted off. Haven had also thoughtfully located the camping area on the hardest ground so that we would not make too many deep holes with our pegs.
Seven am in the morning, the alarms went off, by ten past we were packed, by twenty past we were away, vowing never to return. So it was that three exhausted divers arrived at Portland Harbour and made their way into the cafe for breakfast. Ian arrived shortly afterwards, complaining of an early start - we came very close to giving him a good slap!
Our boat, 'Top Gun' was due to leave at 9:00am, so we kitted up at the car and walked onto the boat. Another good point - you can park within 3 metres of the boats! We were away. Andy, our skipper took us out to the harbour entrance, a trip of less than 10 minutes. He gave us a brief on what to expect, how to signal him and the exit and entry procedure - we did a stride entry, and were lifted out on a special lift attached to the rear of the boat - luxury. Since the dive is tidal, the optimum dive time at this time of year is 9:30am, so, on the dot, we were starting our dive.
Once in the water, we descended as quickly as possible to avoid being swept around by the tides. Below the level of the Hood (about 5 metres) the waters calmed and we could enjoy the swim. The maximum depth we achieved on this dive was 18m, which was pretty well as deep as you could go on this boat.
The dive itself took us along the outside edge of the boat, peering into port-holes and trying to make sense of the large holes that appeared along the way. As it was my first wreck dive and the visibility was West-Waleian, we didn't venture more than a half-body length inside. Towards the end of the boat, we began to feel the tidal effects, so turned around and made our way back to the starting point again. Eventually it was time to surface. Ian deployed his DSMB and we began the slow rise to the surface. We had planned to do a 3-minute safety stop at 6metres to avoid the worst of the tide. This turned out to be a very good idea as once we reached 4-5 metres, the tide created havoc, Ian disappeared in a cloud of bubbles and I struggled to maintain balance, finding it exciting rather than scary. Eventually, we broke the surface and 'Top Gun' was with us in less than a minute. The lift worked well and we were soon on our way back to shore for a well-earned cuppa.
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Weymouth
A tour of the local diving shops convinced me that dive gear is excessively expensive and I refused on principle to buy anything.
The second dive was booked for 1:00pm. Our tables showed that the Re-Entry RG would be an 'O'. I remembered the exam question and realised that there is a practical use for calculations that give dive times, rather than SI times. We were three minutes after the 'O' time SI!
The intention was to dive 'The Spaniard', but as Andy rightly pointed out, the weather had turned worse, so that was sacked in favour of a dive on the harbour wall. As we arrived, the heavens opened and we decided it would be dryer in the water than out, so in we went and, as before, descended as fast as we could. So it was that I found myself 13 metres down in murk. It took me a moment to compose myself - I hate to be rushed, preferring to take it steady for a few minutes to acclimatise to the surroundings. But, here we were, visibility was no better than a couple of metres and several times, I almost lost Ian in the gloom, but managed to spot either his yellow fins, or his torch - which is probably the brightest I have ever seen, mine paled in comparison. The dive was good from an experience point of view, but, other than grey/green rocks, there was very little to see. Having said that, it was my longest dive to date, being 52 minutes in duration. I surfaced with just over 50 bar (honest!), averaging 17 litres/minute.
We got back to shore as quickly as we had got out and we were soon changed and having a drink in the cafe. Eventually it was time to go and we headed for home, feeling pleased with ourselves for stealing, what is probably the last opportunity of a sea dive this year - but who knows!
Earlier, I indicated that Ian might have a word or two on my kit - well, he did, so Sunday morning saw me wandering around the house in dry suit, jacket, cylinder and regulator trying out various combinations. Look forward to a more streamlined Peakman - his ideas worked - in the bedroom at least! The dives cost £14 each on the boat, plus £2.70 per air fill. It is about 320-mile round trip. In the finish, we spent about £55 each for the day all in. Some spent more on extra kit, but I have been sworn to secrecy in case his girlfriend finds out - so, Dave, no one need know that you spent another £20 on gear! Tim and I have now done all our Club Diver qualifying dives, and subject to a successful Rescue Drill, should be Club Divers by the end of November, then look out underwaterworld, here we come.
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Nitrox Calculations
Most people these days just reach for one of the many Nitrox calculators or wall charts available to work out the mixture of gases to make up a Nitrox mix but supposing you don't have access to either - how can you do it?
It is pretty straightforward really and just requires some maths which boils down to a very simple formula.
For any given bar pressure; 'P' there is an amount of the gas 'X' which is the pure Oxygen and another amount 'Y' which is the amount of air to top up with.
The relationship between these is: Y = P - X. The only value we know is 'P' so we can't solve the equation just yet, we need something more.
We also know that if we multiply the pressure 'P' by the fractional Oxygen value that will give us the bar pressure of the Oxygen which is useful. For example, lets say we want a 32% mix in a 220 bar cylinder, then 220 x 0.32 = 70.4 bar (lets call it 'Z'). This is the total bar pressure of the oxygen in the mix
Now Z is made up of some amount of pure Oxygen and some amount of Oxygen from the air so; Z = (X x 02) + Y x (0.21 x O2).
Z x O2 = X x (1 x O2) + Y x (0.21 x O2) where the '1' is the partial pressure of 1 bar of pure Oxygen i.e. 1 and 0.21 is the partial pressure of Oxygen in Air.
We can discard the 'O2' in the equation as it appears in every term:
Z = X + (Y x 0.21) but we already know that Y = 220 - X
Rearranging and substituting:
70.4 = X + (220 - X) x 0.21
70.4 = X + 46.2 - 0.21 x X
70.4 - 46.2 = X x (1 - 0.21)
So (70.4 - 46.2) / (1 - 0.21) = X
In this case, X = 30.6 bar which is the amount of Oxygen to add to a cylinder before topping up with air to 220 bar to get a 32% mix.
And even more simply:
(Final Cylinder Pressure x Difference in O2 percentage)/0.79 = Oxygen bar pressure to add.
So for a 230 bar cylinder with 36%:
(230 x 0.15)/0.79 = 43.7 bar Oxygen.
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Trimix Calculations
Have you ever wondered how to work out how much of each gas to pour into a cylinder to make up a Trimix mix?
Well, if you have then this brief article will hopefully explain how to go about it, or at least how it is done.
If you find yourself in a group of Trimix divers, you may hear them talking about 18/50, 10/70 mixes and wonder what they are burbling about.
Well, it is quite simple really. In our diving world, the air we breathe is made up of Oxygen and Nitrogen and we ignore anything else (for the purposes of calculations anyway). Oxygen occupies 21% and Nitrogen 79% of the total. If you have reached the dizzy heights of being a Nitrox diver you might have used 32%/68% or 36%/64% and so on. You might have also orderd a '32 mix' by which you mean you want 32% Oxygen in the gas mix.
Trimix is just one step on from this where some of the Nitrogen and some of the Oxygen are poured out and replaced by Helium. The reason for this is quite simple. The Oxygen is removed to prevent Oxygen Toxicity at depth and the Nitrogen to avoid excessive narcosis at depth. Both of course have to be replaced by something - enter Helium stage left. Helium is pretty inert which means it spends its life doing as little as possible - think 'History of Art Undergraduates' - and causes neither Toxicity or Narcosis so is an ideal replacement but beware, there are other problems which are outside the scope of this article.
Also outside the scope of this article is how to choose the right mix for the job - that is something you need to learn formally on a Trimix course, I am simply going to give you the tools to sound clever at parties
So, what does it all mean? Well, if you remember the phrase 'Oh No' it will help to remember what the numbers mean; the first number is the Oxygen percentage, the second is the Helium and what remains from 100 is the Nitrogen. So, an 18/50 would be 18% Oxygen, 50% Helium and (100 - 18 - 50 = ) 32% Nitrogen.
Okay, so that is all very well, but you can't just pour out some Oxygen and some Nitrogen and put in Helium, so how does it work and how do we know how much of each gas to add?
Let's start with a bit of the basics. If you are mixing Nitrox, then you will probably start with an empty cylinder, add some Oxygen, then top it up with Air. This is known as Partial Pressure filling, a bit like mixing a JD and Coke - you add the neat JD, then dilute it with coke to taste. Nitrox is the same, except the 'coke' also contains JD! i.e. the Air also contains Oxygen so the initial 100% Oxygen is less than the percentage would indicate.
It would, of course, be way simpler if we had pure Oxygen and pure Nitrogen; a 32% Nitrox mix would just use 32% Oxygen and 68% Nitrogen, but we don't because that would be far too expensive and is not necessary. So, for a 220 bar 32% Nitrox mix we add about 31 bar of pure Oxygen and top it with air which contains 21% Oxygen and also contributes to the overall strength of the Nitrox mix.
Okay, all very interesting, but how do we do Trimix? Again, let's assume we are starting with an empty cylinder and let's assume we want an 18/50 mix to 200 bar to keep the maths as simple as we can. Right, so we know 50% or 100 bar is going to be Helium so lets add that first - nice and slowly of course; 1 bar every five seconds or so. In practise it doesn't really matter whether you add the Oxygen or the Helium first and people have different opinions on it.
That was the easy bit, now we need to know how much Oxygen to add. Well, we have 100 bar remaining and what we actually need to do is to establish what fraction of Nitrogen needs to be in the final mix so we can work out how much Oxygen we need. Still with it?
Good, so remember we are working on an 18/50 mix which means 32% is Nitrogen and 32% of 200 (bar) is 64 bar, but also remember that Nitrogen make up 79% of air, so we need to work out the fraction of Nitrogen in the air that we will add: 64 / 0.79 = 81.01. This will be made up from the air, so the bit that remains, i.e. 100 - 81.01 = 18.99 will be pure Oxygen. I would say 18.99 is pretty much impossible to achieve so go for 19 bar, it will be fine.
So now we have our Helium and our Oxygen, so just top up to 200 bar with normal air and Robert is your Mothers Brother as they say. Simple or what!
To summarise: For any given mixture, add the percentage Helium first which will be known from the mix request. Work out the bar pressure of the Nitrogen by multiplying the final pressure by the fractional percentage of Nitrogen (e.g. 200 x 0.32 in our case). Divide this by 0.79 giving the amount of air to add and what remains is the Oxygen.
Another example for clarity:
Let's say the customer wants a 10/70 mix to 200 bar which is 10% Oxygen, 70% Helium and 20% Nitrogen.
Firstly add 140 bar of Helium (70% of 200).
Work out the Nitrogen requirement (20% of 200); 200 x 0.20 = 40 bar. 40 / 0.79 = 50.6 bar.
Now subtract that from the pressure remaining: 60 - 50.6 = 9.4 bar - this is the amount of Oxygen to add.
The pressure should now be 140 + 9.4 = 149.4 bar. Finally top up the overall mix with air to 200 bar.
Trimix 10/70 to 200 bar = 140 bar Helium, 9.4 bar Oxygen and 50.6 bar Air.
Don't forget to do this slowly and allow for cooling effects i.e. when the gas cools the pressure will drop so don't rush it and allow plenty of cooling time.
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Down Mixing
So, there you are about to walk out with the exact Nitrox mix that the customer has ordered for his dive and you decide to just do a quick check to make sure it is correct - disaster - it is too high!
Don't panic, help is at hand with this easy to remember down-mixing guide.
So, lets say the client has ordered a 220 bar 32% mix and you have created a 34% mix. You could possibly try and talk him into accepting the mix which he may do if he is not that critical on depth. On the other hand, he may well turn it down on the grounds that it will stop him from reaching his target depth and you are left feeling silly for even asking.
On the other hand, you could dump some of the mix, top it back up with air and away you go with no-one any the wiser about your mistake. How does it work I hear you say!
Right, so in the example above we have a 220 bar cylinder with 34% when we want a 220 bar cylinder with 32%. What we need to do is to work out how much we need to dump to lose that pesky 2% but we need to bear in mind that every bar we top back up again adds 0.21% Oxygen which is a bit annoying.
This is what we do: For every bar we dump, we lose 0.34 bar Oxygen and every bar back in again we gain 0.21 so there is a net loss of 0.13 bar Oxygen for every bar of Nitrox drained and refilled.
Looking at our tables or the calculations we learned on the Nitrox Calculations page, we can see that we put in 36 bar of Oxygen and we should have put in 30.6 bar, an easy enough mistake if you are eyeing up the DSD girls trying on their wetsuits at the time. We need to lose 5.4 bar of Oxygen from the mix and we need to keep our eyes on the job in hand! To do this, we need to dump (5.4 / 0.13) = 41.5 bar of the gas and top it back up with normal air.
So, connect up your cylinder to the whip, turn on the pressure gauge and open the cylinder valve and the panel dump valve until the reading drops to (220 - 41.5) = 178.5. Close everything off and refill to 220 bar. Take out your analyser, connect it up, measure the percentage and walk out to the customer to present him with his 32% mix 'as ordered sir'.
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Buoyancy Calculations
In my many years as a PADI Instructor Staffing on IDCs, one of the biggest problem areas in the theory was on the subject of buoyancy calculations.
The question said something like; There is a 70kg engine on the sea bed with a 10litre displacement, how much air would you need to add to a lift bag to bring it to the surface?
This article attempts to explain how the calculation can be performed and how similar questions can be answered.
The first thing to do is to work out what makes the object want to go down (its mass) and what makes it want to float (its displacement). In the case of something that has sunk that difference is negative and in the case of something that floats, it is postive.
Don't forget of course the importance of knowing whether the object is in sea water or fresh water affects the answer - sea water makes things more bouyant as it has more of an upward push due to being denser.
Remember, sometimes the answer cannot be determined. For instance, what would happen to an object that floats in sea water if it were placed in fresh water? Well, you can't say for sure because it may either float or sink depending on the relative mass and displacement. You would hope ship designers have thought that one through before they bring their ship from the sea into fresh water!
By the way, if it floats in fresh water, it will definitely float in sea water due to the increase in sea water density so if you find yourself on a ship in a river heading out to sea, don't panic about the ship sinking as soon as the water gets a bit salty!
So here is a real question: An object weighs 100kgs and displaces 100 litres of water. Disregarding the minimal displacement of the lead, how much lead weight do you need to make it 20kg negatively buoyant in sea water?
The downward force is 100kgs (the weight). Given that we know it is in sea water then we must make allowances for that. Fresh water weighs one kg for every litre, sea water weighs 1.03 kg for every litre, so our upward force is 100 (the displacement) x 1.03 = 103kg.
This means that we have a net upward force of 3kgs, so how much lead do we need to make it 20kg negative - easy; (20 + 3) = 23kg.
To answer the question about the engine: The downward force is 70kg, the upward force is (10 x 1.03) = 10.3kg so we have a net downward force of (70 - 10.3) = 59.7kg. Remembering that each litre of sea water weighs 1.03 kg, we need to displace (59.7 / 1.03) litres = 57.96 litres. Call it 58 litres and the engine will slowly start to rise which is presumably the intention.
Another example:
An object weighs 237kg and displaces 123 litres of water. How much additional sea water do you need to displace to give the object 40kg of positive buoyancy?
Downward force = 237kg. Upward force = (123 x 1.03) = 126.69kg
This gives a net downward force of (237 - 126.69) = 110.31kg
We want 40kg positive which means we need to add (110.31 + 40) = 150.31 kg positive buoyancy.
Given that it is in sea water, (150.31 / 1.03) = 145.9 litres of sea water need to be displaced to give the object 40kg positive buoyancy.
In fresh water simply replace the 1.03 with 1.0, everything else remains the same.
In summary, work out the down force and the up force, subtract the down from the up and see what is left. If it is negative it sinks, if it is positive it floats. If you want to make a floaty thing sink, add lead, if you want to make a sinky thing float, add air! If it is in sea water, don't forget to take account of the different density so multiply by 1.03 to work out the objects displacement and divide by 1.03 to work out the air to add to a lift bag.
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Tenerife
Day 1 of diving with Atlantic Divers. The school was a hive of activity so after saying 'hi' to Dan set about sorting gear. That done, all there was to do was to wait for the off. It seemed we were doing a shore dive about 40 minutes drive from the school. Dan's driving has not improved so it was a slightly shaken team disembarking at the destination!
Donning my wetsuit I discovered that the arse was pretty ragged and almost transparent which meant that the water would flush through quicker than it should which, as any schoolboy diver will tell you meant I would be cold!
As I climbed down the steps to get in I discovered exactly that - my ass was cold and so were certain other regions! Not impressed!
The dive was a short swim out following an old sewage pipe (better than it sounds) which had lots of life, especially nudibranch and arrow crabs. The first dive was on the wreck rather than inside which was good. Maximum depth of 33m seemed less but the general visibility and colour was grey and about 15m.
Returning up the slope gave us loads of time to explore finding octopus, lots of vivid blue damsel fish and even some pipe fish. 53 minutes and 33m. Overall I had not been too cold but during the last 10 minutes or so of hanging around for deco and safety I shivered a little.
The surface interval was in the nearby cafe where we were entertained by some pigeons attacking an adjacent table for the dish of nuts. The young girl had a real panic, spilling most of her drink trying to scare them away, but they were made of tougher stuff and it took the owner with a fishing net to do the trick. One of our team also got landed on, maybe the pigeon thought his hair was food - I had no such trouble!
Lunch over our second dive saw us return to the wreck, this time penetrating the interior which, whilst tight in places was easily accessible. Soon enough we were on our way back up - I had accumulated 7 minutes of decompression so thought that would do for the second dive in six months. The time was spent exploring the shallows of the reef before exiting with a total dive time of 50 minutes and maximum depth of 28m.
The drive back was equally terrifying but without incident and after kit washing left for the apartment.
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Tenerife
Today would be the day I clocked up dive number 2,500! Dan had promised me a 50m dive so I worked out in my head whether or not I could make a 50 minute dive which would have a nice ring to it; 50m for 50 minutes = 2500! I reckoned I could.
Locating my kit from the previous day was easy but I elected to grab a different wetsuit and found a nice cosy 5mm scuba pro that would do the trick - a front loader too so easy on but not so easy off.
We were not in too much of a hurry as we were not due to meet the other diving crew until 10am. It seemed that another dive school were hitching a ride. it was a long wait at the jetty with the others finally arrived at 11am! After loading we set off for the dive site which according to Dan was about 5minutes out but turned out to be more like 20 minutes- you gotta love him!
Anchored up we let the others get in first but not before watching one of their number break a fin strap and a second fail to locate his mask! Ah the joys of clients. I just sat and watched while the instructors searched for replacements.
Eventually it was our turn and in we went, dropping down to about 10 metres or so, then swimming out watching the bottom slowly drop. My ears took some time to clear and I did wonder if I might have a problem with them but all was okay. Dan signalled to drop and we quickly descended to about 35metres then more slowly down, eventually levelling out just below 50 metres. One tick in the box! We didn't stay long as I had already clocked up 7 minutes of deco time but wound our way slowly back to about 25 metres, catching sight of the other crew 5 or 6 metres above us. The visibility wasn't great and the life somewhat limited but there was enough to maintain interest. Slowly we made our way up to about 10 metres where I knew the deco would start, albeit slowly - each deco minute takes almost 2 minutes at 10metres which was fine as we both had plenty of air and plenty of time. Slowly swimming around we saw pipe fish, dark bream, rainbow wrasse and even a large octopus who we played with for a while until he got bored and left.
Starting to get cold I looked at my computer and was happy to see that I was approaching 50 minutes with more than 60 bar remaining so I waited out the final few minutes then allowed myself to slowly float to the surface.
Most of the other divers were already aboard so as soon as the final diver arrived ( who had been looking for the missing mask without success - it turned out to be in his clients BCD pocket - ah clients!) we set off back for the shore. Unfortunately the wind and therefore the ocean was in our faces for the entire trip back - one guy who had been sitting on the bow in his dry T shirt was soaked and all of us shivering a bit in the cold - wetsuits are great underwater but terrible on the boat into a wind. We were pleased to enter the harbour so we could start to warm up a bit.
The lunch stop was an hour or so we went to the local cafe for lunch. I had banana and strawberries, Dan tucked into a full English which made me comment that I could never do that between dives - turned out neither could he as will become apparent shortly.
The second dive was billed as the Sting Ray dive which I was looking forward to as the previous year it had been awesome. As we approached the drop site I did wonder what transits Dan used to locate the anchor point and asked him. As he told me I couldn't help thinking that we weren't where we should have been but didn't say anything as I had not taken notice the last time. We dropped in first this time and headed down. Either there was a lot more weed and undergrowth on the rocks or we were somewhere else because it definitely wasn't the same place! Dan led me off and I presumed he was taking me to the feed area but then we turned around and headed back again; strange? Then suddenly a couple of smallish Common Rays appeared - game on! That seemed to be that until after a few minutes one of the other crew spotted a large Atlantic Ray - here we go! Sensing we had nothing to offer by way of food the Rays drifted off and we were left with nothing.
It was then that Dan indicated that he was not feeling too well...surprise surprise. He motioned that I join the other crew and that he was going up. No problem I thought. I swam around with them for a while then decided to go off and explore on my own. I managed to find some large schools of fish and some hidey holes for pipe fish so had fun photographing them . Eventually I figured I had better find my way back and see if I could locate the anchor at least as I had not paid much attention when Dan led me down. Recalling it was at about 10 metres I moved up to about 15 metres and headed in the general direction. Soon enough I came across it so happy with that I spent the next 15 minutes or so trying to get some good shots of the bream who seemed to have attached themselves to me. Finally after just over an hour made my way to the surface. I had been first in and was last out!
Back at the dive school it was celebratory beers, log book writing and then the bill to pay. Farewells and promises to be back next year for more the diving was over for another year.
Malta
Professional Instructors Diary Instructor expectations A Dive off Qawra Point Releasing turtles into the wild Maldives first trip to Malta Diving with the Tuna Malta Trip 2010
UK Sea
Diving off the South West South Coasts most popular location Dorsets finest diving destination Two weeks on the famous Scilly Islands Under the lifeboat station Easy diving with easy access A easy wreck dive from the shore Lots of easy access diving Angelseys best diving Good wreck diving
UK Quarry
The lake districts best quarry diving A good training ground Dark, dim and dismal! Near Portsmouth, has some fine diving Probably the largest commercial quarry in the UK Think UK Quarries, think Stoney An excellent little quarry in North Wales
UK Others
A fun dry dive in the chamber A 30m freshwater tower
Overseas
Warm water, colourful fish, great diving Some huge Rays, plenty of fish and great diving
Technical Stuff
How to calculate Oxygen and Air mixes mathematically How to calculate the amount of Helium, Oxygen and Air required for a Trimix gas mix What to do if the gas mixture is too rich in the Nitrox cylinder How to calculate air required in a lift bag or extra lead to balance an object in water
