Diving - The adventure continues!
2022 Diving - The Season's end
Swanage Deep diving day
Rather than arranging two full weekends in Swanage, I'd had a shallow 'Season Starter' day in April, the Lifeboat Weekend and then planned a 'Deep Diving' day in September for experience Dive Leaders and above.
I'd never really expected to fill the day with club members and had ended up advertising it on the BSAC South and South-East region Facebook groups, successfully filling all 12 places.
There was some concern about my original plan to do two 40M+ dives, so I'd compromised to a 42M dive on the Aparima and a 30M dive on the Spyros.
As time passed some people dropped out, others took their places and then others dropped out again and it ended up with just 8 people turning up on the day, but all the places had been paid for, so I wasn't footing the bill for no-shows.
We ended up with a mixture of rebreather divers and Open Circuit divers using a high Nitrox mix for accelerated decompression, exactly the kind of divers I'd hoped to attract.
Some of the no-shows (Dawn and Julian amongst them) were concerned about the bad weather forecast, and I'd switched the second dive from the far-flung Spyros to the far closer to Swanage, Kyarra.
However, on arrival at Swanage, the wind was dead still and it had only picked up a slight amount by the time we headed out.
The ride, therefore, was comfortable and relatively quick and we were onsite about an hour later.
Sinbad, our skipper for the day again, was concerned about the location of the shot and I was having flashbacks to the Borgny the previous year, but the first rebreather pairing soon released the 'lemon' to indicate they'd found the wreck and the rest of us swiftly followed each other into the water.
The SS Aparima was owned by a Steamship Company of New Zealand and was built around the end of the 19th century. She was 430ft long and 54ft wide with a height of 40ft, weighing 5,704 tons.
She was torpedoed by UB-40 while sailing from London to Cardiff. At least 56 people died from her passengers and crew and it's remembered as one of the worst losses of New Zealand lives at sea during WW1.
Her bow is 31 metres below the surface, her central section is upright but the forward section is listing at around 45 degrees to starboard.
Sinbad wasn't sure the shot was in, but it was trapped inside a hatch in the lowest part of the wreck (off to the starboard side).
We swam across the scattered wreckage and quickly came to a boiler and other large upstanding wreckage.
We swam across the wreckage, heading what seemed to be astern and I'm fairly sure we saw conrods for the engine amongst some of the upstanding machinery, but it was pretty dark and we could only really see as far as our torches illuminated.
The word that sprang to mind on the wreck was 'monumental' as parts of the wreckage towered over us and in places you could look down 5 or more metres into the wreckage, but limited time at this depth meant exploring too deeply wasn't possible.
Eventually, I spotted what I thought was a prop shaft and we followed it all the way back to a stub, the propellor obviously having been salvaged.
It was a dark dive, but not quite as dark as the video makes it seem
John and I stayed together well and started to ascend after around 25 minute on the wreck, this had resulted in a 15 minute predicted deco time for me, but after switching gasses, John suddenly disappeared (turned out he had been struggling with a part filled DSMB affecting his buoyancy, so he jetisoned it, but lost contact in the process).
I did a 1 minute stop at 9M and 12 minutes at 1M and then surfaced, but there was no sign of John. Fortunately, his 2 DSMBs had been spotted from the boat and he surfaced after a prolonged deco (it turned out he'd not set his computer to account for his 26% Nitrox mix...).
We returned to Swanage where I enjoyed a Cornish pastie for lunch, followed by one of the lovely ice creams from Forte's Ice Cream parlour.
Ropes off for the Kyarra was at 14:40, but by then it was clear that we'd made a good decision not to travel all the way to the Spyros.
It was quite choppy onsite, but once we got in there was zero current throughout the dive.
We headed astern initially, but then turned under the stren and headed up the hull and forward, reaching the visible boiler and seeing a couple of juvenile Conger Eels swimming in the open.
The wreck seemed to me to be more broken up than I recall, but that may partly because the vis was quite good and we could see well down into the wreck in places.
Light and visibilty were far better on the Kyarra, rewarding us with a great second dive for the day
We carried on forward to what seemed to be the bow, meaning we'd covered the whole length of the wreck and then John launched his DSMB and we headed up.
I had about 10 minutes deco (I forget exactly now), but waited for John to complete his 15 minute stop at 6m.
The wind had got up, but we boarded the boat without any drama and headed back to Swanage, happy with two great dives.
Traffic was surprisingly heavy heading back to Poole, but after that relatively free and I was home just after darkness fell, having had one of my most enjoyable (and deepest ever) day's diving of 2022.
The next dive was a couple of weeks later, accompanying Ria on a couple of dives at a very murky, and busy, Wraysbury, while her husband Rohit joined Ollie and Lewis on a Dive Rescue Scenarios course being run by fellow club member Chris (assisted by Julian and Dawn as we'd doubled the number of students!).
The first dive was OK, with reasonable visibility away from the edge closest to the car park
We entered via the car park slip and swam across the lake, passing the London taxi and then finding various wrecks.
We swam around fairly randomly, finally find the plane cockpit and then heading back to the same exit pier.
After talking to the others, we decided not to enter behind the shop for the second dive, once again going in from the slip in the car park.
Vis was clearly worse on entry, so we headed east, aiming to find the corrugated tubes on the south end of the lake.
We quickly passed the plane again and then continued east.
When the lake bed started to rise, we turned south and headed along, the vis improving significantly in places, but being very poor in others.
We spotted some really large Perch at times as well as some juvenile ones.
Eventually we found the tubes, swimming through them (down) and then turned west before our air started to get low and we surfaced a short swim from the entry slipway.
It was nice to be in the water and we found some tolerable vis, but the lake was heaving with people, large groups training with dive schools and clubs and pairings out for a dive.
The loss of NDAC has been sorely felt this year.
AP2 at Brighton - City of Waterford
A good few weeks passed until I dived again, but this was an important few dives.
I'd been slowly (sometimes glacially so) working towards BSAC Advanced Diver since 2014, when I qualified as a Dive Leader.
Part of the problem is that there's no tangible benefit to being an Advanced Diver (you can't dive anywhere differently or dive any deeper), so it had not been a priority for me, once the initial in water drills and theory lectures were out of the way.
Earlier in the year, I'd finally got around to resitting the Advanced Diver Theory Exam, having just failed it in 2014!
This time I got through and after that, all that was left to complete to become an Advanced Diver was to plan and execute a two day trip to site unknown to me.
The site Dawn and I chose was Brighton, diving from Channel Diver.
We did a lot of planning, liaising with the skipper, Steve, Glenn at Newhaven Scuba to arrange air fills at the end of the first day and then the weather looked awful for the two days in October we had booked.
Loading Channel Diver
Having already had an abortive attempt to complete this at Milford Haven earlier in the year, it looked like we'd have to wait again.
Luckily, the weather improved, at least for the first day, and we decided to go and hope that both days would be possible.
I chose to dive on the best know wreck off Brighton, the City of Waterford.
The City of Waterford wreck
With a ropes off of 12:30, we all had a leisurely drive down, but I was there by about 10:00, so quiet were the roads on a Friday morning.
Julian and Dawn were already there and Ollie arrived shortly after me, having stopped for a second breakfast at McDonalds!
The weather was still and calm and we met the skipper and his wife, Caroline, along with a couple of other divers who were coming out on the boat with us.
The journey out from Brighton Marina takes about 45 minutes and it was an easy journey with no chop. Dawn was very happy about that!
I dived with Dawn on this dive, Julian and Ollie pairing up.
We dropped down the line and found ourselves alongside the bow.
Deck fittings on the bow
We swam around the bow and up onto the deck and then swam along that.
Dawn explores the City of Waterford
The bow stands almost complete to around 7M off the seabed, a little while back the centre of the wreck is collapsed, but there is lot of machinery and there were dozens of congers and large crabs to be found.
There were also huge numbers of fish, mostly Bib (reminded me of the Baygitano), around the wreck, at times we were swimming through large shoals of them.
Fish galore - Seen through the wheelhouse porthole
Near the stern I spotted a John Dory amongst the Bib, but it swam off faster than I could follow, so I wasn't able to get a photo - I think this is probably only the second one I've seen.
We swam over the engine and then reached the stern, which was partly collapsed, but still quite intact and Dawn and I swam over the back and down the seabed to see if the prop and/or rudder were in place, but both were missing, presumably salvaged at some time.
A bathroom, with sinks (at least) still intact.
We then swam back up onto the deck and along, with the aim of reaching the shot again, but being on air, we had quite significant deco already and popped the DSMB when I had about 10 minutes and then ascended to 6m where we completed our stop.
Engine of the City of Waterford
I used a lot of air on this dive though, I'm not really sure why. Luckily, I'd bought a spare cylinder, so was able to top up my twinset for the second dive.
Other than that, it was a highly enjoyable dive on a good wreck, well worth the visit and, of course, another Unknown Site ticked off my Advanced Diver qualifying dives.
On the way back to Brighton we stopped to do a drift on the King's West Ledges.
It was a fairly gentle and typical drift dive, with a mix of rocks and sand.
One thing that surprised us all were the number of Congers we saw hiding in the rocks, we're used to them on wrecks, but rarely see them elsewhere.
Lots of smaller Congers in rocks scattered around the seabed.
Conger and a Blennie of some sort.
Olly took the DSMB and led, ticking of a Dive Leading dive for his Dive Leader training.
Olly takes the lead on the drift dive.
We also spotted a Cuttlefish, but before I could get a photograph it vanished in a cloud of sand!
Pleasant, if fairly ordinary drift, but decent vis and a fair amount of life to see.
Sadly, the second day of our planned trip was blown out with stormy conditions, so we didn't get to do those dives, but the first day, on the City of Waterford was always going to be the better as we had to restrict ourselves to 20M the second day due to another club booking it for Ocean Divers before us.
Even I had to concede it was too rough to dive on Saturday
The AP2, though, was signed off and both Dawn and I qualified as BSAC Advanced Divers as a result - At last!
UK Inland Diving
I didn't dive for a few weeks after Brighton, but by early November I was keen to get back in the water.
This took the rather tame form of a couple of dives in Vobster on the 13th.
Andy, a fellow Advanced Diver, and I were keen to get a couple of dives done, he because he was working on his buoyancy with his new drysuit and recently acquired regulators and I decided to try out my dive lights that I'd acquired, but never used before.
He'd driven me to Portland for a RHIB dive early in the season, so it was my turn to return the favour and I picked him up around 6:15AM (still in the dark) to aim to be at Vobster for the 8AM opening.
We made good time and were there just ahead of Julian and Dawn (who we'd passed on the way down), while new club members John and Konrad were already on site.
Andy and I consider our route
The two new members were going to complete some drills to get them from PADI AOW up to the level of rescue skills that BSAC Ocean Divers should possess with the two instructors, while Andy and I would take a couple of dives to allow Andy to perfect his trim and buoyancy in the new equipment.
Andy adjusts his buoyancy
He and I were amongst the first divers in the water at 9AM and quickly descended past the 6M platforms and into the 25M pit, before ascending the wall and making our way over to the wheel house and cabin cruiser at around 15M.
Bow of the Jacquin II Wreck
From there we followed the line down to the ever collapsing caravan and then tried to find the small yacht, second wheelhouse and jesters.
The vis was, while not awful, limited and we never saw the yacht, but the second wheelhouse appeared from the gloom and we saw one jester from there as we headed to the slope that lead back up to the bottom of the crushing works.
I tried out my dive lights on this dive - A Perch
From there, we ascended through the tunnel and completed a safety stop before exiting after around 33 minutes.
The others appeared a little while later and we all chatted over warm drinks during a surface interval.
The temperature was tolerable even at 25M, but you definitely detect an increase in warmth around 10M, while the vis was good in places at around 5-7M.
For our second dive, we decided to drop down to the APC at 25M, before passing the boat and wheelhouse and making our way to the Sea King helicopter and then ascending through the Crushing Works, passing through the 3 sections of the plane and then returning to the top of the tunnel for our safety stop.
The descent went well, but I couldn't see the APC after the 20M platform and as we headed along we soon reached a drop off descending into darkness.
I knew there was nothing down there except a few more metres (and a few degrees less temperature, perhaps), so I swang around and there was the APC!
Andy posed for a photo and then we worked our way back past the wreck and the wheelhouse and then continued along the road.
Andy plays soldiers at 25M!
The vis was worse here, but I suddenly thought we'd come far enough for the helicopter, so got out my torch and, sure enough, there it was!
We swam through and around it and then ascended up a line that led us to the bottom of the Crushing Works, towering over us.
We swam through the hole in the bottom of the wall, and then out of the chute, heading from there to the plane, where we found some less experienced divers seemingly doing some lining out through part of it.
To avoid them, we swam to the cockpit and then through each section, by which time the other divers were moving off.
Cockpit section
From there we headed past the Ford Escort up the road to the 6M area just above the tunnel's top opening and completed a safety stop there.
There was a group of floundering divers here. OK, everyone is new to something, but we struggled to identify an instructor amongst them.
One diver, was lying on the ground, transfixed by his computer it seemed and not reacting to his fellow divers.
In the end, a couple of them lifted him up to the surface, but they had gone by the time we completed our safety stop, so I assume he'd just become fixated on his computer rather than having any major issue.
More Perch around the 6M platform
Julian and Dawn's group had had a problem on their second dive, but they all elected to do a third, but Andy and were happy enough with two 30+ minute dives and elected to head home after an enjoyable morning's diving.
I made a couple more trips to Wraysbury before the end of November.
On the first, Andy and I spent an hour bimbbling around the lake with only a couple of other people there one midweek day.
After such a long, but an enjoyable, dive, we elected not to do another that day.
A couple of weeks later, with an upcoming trip planned, I'd made some changes to the configuration of my regulators and wanted to try them out in water before setting off.
Andy joined me again (ahead of a club organised Buoyancy and Trim workshop) and Geoff came along too.
It was a Saturday, so we were pleasantly surprised to find the lake wasn't too busy. There were a couple of dive schools there during our visit, but nothing like some of the weekend days we'd been to a couple of months earlier.
For the first dive, we set off from the pier in the car park, with the intention of finding the plane and then just ambling around after that.
We followed the bearing from the map onsite and, despite the others telling me I was way off, we went straight to the plane in quite poor vis.
Andy went through a section under the cabin floor and just as I was about to look to see if he was stuck, he reappeared down the side of the plane - Not sure I could have got him out, if he had been stuck!
From there we headed off, finding quite a few of the wrecked boats and other 'attractions'.
Probably the highlight of the dive was good sized Pike at around 5m, which we came across fairly late in the 45 minute dive.
Just as I was starting to wonder where we were, we came across the Die Hard taxi, which is quite a long way from the shop, heading to the 'top' of the lake, so we turned back and headed in the direction of the shore and shop, but the vis suddenly became very bad and I indicated we should surface now, rather than wait for the likely seperation to occur.
We enjoyed tea and bacon sandwiches and then Andy and I went back in, Geoff not having an in-test cylinder to get refilled and, I suspect, being happy enough with the one dive.
He did stay and act as shore cover as we entered behind the shop and set off with the intention of visiting the cave complex.
Before we went in Andy had suggested we should go in the pit if we came across it, but I reckoned the vis would be terrible and said I wouldn't bother.
We never found the caves, but did come across a huge Pike sitting in a cabin cruiser wreck. As I tried to get Andy's attention a massive Carp appeared as well, which he saw just as he headed back to me.
The Pike hovered imperiously inside the boat until we swam off, needless to say, today was a day I hadn't bothered to bring a camera!
As we headed back towards our entry point (we'd agreed a 30 minute dive with Geoff), we got separted in a cloud of silt. I found myself at the top of the pit as I came out of it and found the vis fairly good and a hose descending into the pit.
Expecting Andy to appear any moment I dropped down the hose and then back up, recording 15.4M. When I came out, I waited a few moments, before realising Andy wasn't coming and surfaced, finding him just a few metres away!
We dropped back down, but couldn't relocate the pit, so headed onwards, surfacing just beyond the slipway behind the shop.
It had been a reasonably good day weather wise and the vis, while not stellar, was certainly not terrible, especially away from the main entry points.
It had been an enjoyable morning's diving and my reconfigured regs were working perfectly.
