Diving - The adventure continues!
2023 Diving - Early dives
At our club Christmas get together a few of us discussed the idea of getting down to Vobster in January to benefit from the, potentially, clear visibilty.
After Christmas I put out a note to the club and a surprising number of people said they were interested.
I drove down with new club member, John on a very cold and frosty morning, but as we arrived there was just a gentle steam rising from the water, promising it would be better in than out.
We went into the shop to sign in, just for a few minutes and when we came out, the whole lake was enveloped in fog!
The others arrived, but after about half an hour the fog hadn't cleared, so I checked with the site operators as to whether it was safe to go in in the foggy conditions.
Slightly surprisingly, they had no concerns, so I warned the other members of our group to stay close to the shore side of the lake (everyone planned to, with some keeping to the 12M shelf where the plane lies) and the potentially slippery conditions as well as watching gas consumption in, possibly, very cold water.
Andy joined John and I and we were the first group ready to go.
We dropped in in front of shop.
John struggled to descend, but after a while we reached 6M platform and I managed to empty his BCD of lots of air.
He had no issue descending after that.
We dropped into the pit (unplanned, but not outside anyone's maximum depth limits), and then ascended and headed to the boat, onto the wheelhouse and then down road until we reached the Sea King and swam through and around it.
We then headed up to wall of crushing works.
As we reached the top, it was clear that John was not fully under control, so Andy and I grabbed him and we got him under control again, before he could go far.
After that, we continued on past the Ford Escort and up to the safety stop area, above the tunnel top, where it was clear John was too light to maintain the stop.
We gave him some rocks to increase his weight and Andy held him down (I was little too light too, so had to focus on myself), but the safety stop was completed in full and we exited.
After the dive we got John to increase his weight, he only had 8KGs and explained that he needed to deal with the feeling of floating as soon as possible and not wait until he was starting to ascend out of control.
It was a cold day at Vobster!
For the second dive, we were joined by another club member, Nigel, but dived it as a four.
Again, we entered in front of the shop.
This time, John descended without issue with an extra KG onboard.
We made our way down past the shallow platforms to the APC.
We then moved onto the boat and the wheelhouse and then dropped down to the bottom of the crushing works and made our way up through the tunnel to the 6m top where we completed a safety stop without issue (John's buoyancy was well managed throughout the dive) and then exited.
Two dives were definitely enough that day. Although the water was a relatively comfortable 7-8C, the air temp remained below freezing and the fog lingered all day, only clearing when we got about 5 miles away from Vobster.
A day of challenges, but not one that had really caused any major issues.
A couple of weeks later, Dawn put a note out on the club Whatsapp group that she and Julian were off to Wraysbury and anyone who wanted to could come along.
In the end, only Andy and I took up their offer.
It was an overcast Saturday, but after Vobster's sub-zero air temp, was a relatively mild 10 or 11.
Not unexpectecedly, though, the water was far colder.
For our first dive, Andy and I went looking for the cave complex.
We passed over the pit and then past some of the boats.
Andy spotted a good size Perch, but there were few fish around today, possibly too cold for much activity.
We looped around in generally decent vis (4-5M except where silt stirred up) and found our way back to the pit, where the vis was good, so we dropped into it and recorded 16M at bottom, with very little silt present.
From there, having got to a known 'landmark' we backtracked along the 6/7M line and found the cave complex, swam through this a couple of times and then headed back towards exit point.
After a quick swim through in the bus, we exited where we started, behind the shop.
It had been a nice (42 minute) dive, but the water felt very cold.
We enjoyed one of Wraysbury's excellent bacon sandwiches and a cup of tea and chatted for a while, before setting off for a second dive.
Dawn snapped the rest of us posing for a drysuit catalogue!
This time, the objective was the plane.
We walked in behind the shop and then swam along at c.8M until we found some platforms and a wreck visible to our left, but I could see a Pike off to the right, so we took a look at that first.
Then we passed the cruiser wreck and found the plane shortly after that, swimming through the cabin and then under the floor, presumably the luggage hold.
We swam on and found the lifeboat, which we swam through and then headed onwards, passing the milk float and cement mixer.
We reached the vertical boat (not the dragon one above the lake bed) and then found our way to the exit point behind the shop, just as Julian and Dawn finished their dive too.
Everyone had enjoyed the diving, but most agreed it was cold at 5C, even though the air temperature was mild for February.
It was good to log a couple of February dives, though and I found the dives pleasant enough with no issues, except the cold and a minor leak in the right leg of my suit, that I'd noticed developing in late '22 dives.
We were back again towards the end of March. A couple of Sports Diver trainees were having some lessons, while Andy joined me for a couple of pleasure dives.
For the first dive,we went in behind the shop, swam past bus and then to pit where we tried to reach maximum depth, but I couldn't better 15.9M I'd done before - Andy got 16.2M apparently.
At Andy's suggestion, we headed directly north and into trees fallen into water, looking for fish, but didn't see any.
We then swang around along the far shore, reaching the 'boat graveyard', again no sign of life, except some Crayfish, but vis was excellent.
Some video from Wraysbury
We carried on, ending up in shallow weeds area to north west of shop, where we finally spotted a good size Pike, which I managed to get a very quick video off.
It was cold, but good vis made it an enjoyable dive.
We finally surfaced about 200M North of shop, so surface swam back to exit behnind shop.
The trainees and instructors were already out and we all had a warm drink and something to eat, while we carried out a surface interval and refilled our cylinders.
After about 90 minutes, Andy and I headed back in for a second dive, intending to keep this fairly short after a long, cold first dive.
We entered from the pier in car park, heading for the airplane.
We found it very quickly and Andy spotted a large Pike hovering below it.
Pike under the airplane
I got a few photos using John Shead's camera, which he'd given me to try out while he completed some Sports Diver drills.
We then headed on past the lifeboat to the boat graveyard - Andy spotted a couple of large Carp (not sure how, they were miles away!) and I managed to get a photo.
We then turned back West, to cross lake, but went a bit North and ended up looping around behind bus, where we spotted loads of things (Plastic Seahorses and a human Torso - dummy luckily!) I'd never seen before.
Andy in the boat graveyard
From there, we swam back and exited via the ramp behind shop, just as Dawn, Julian and John (Saby, the other student who was suppposed to come along, got the date wrong!) returned from their dive.
Over the winter months, Julian and I had spent a fair amount of time replacing the wheel bearings on the boat trailer, after one completely failed as Darren and I were bringing it back at the end of the previous season.
We'd also replaced the brake cables on the trailer and the boat had been sent to Pacer Marines for the engine and gearbox to be serviced, all in it had been an expensive winter for the boat, but Darren towed it back to Ferrybridge the weekend before Easter and a few of us went out for a first dive on Good Friday.
It was a very early start, but that did mean the road was mainly quiet (aside from a tractor beyond Wimborne) for the drive down.
I arrived a few moments after Dawn and Julian and we started to prepare the boat as John, Ollie and Lewis arrived.
It was a calm, cloudless morning as we set off to the Binnendijk wreck on The Shambles.
Almost perfect weather for a dive.
We've dived this a few times before and it's usually a good dive and, aside from a bit of chop on the way out,we were all looking forward to it.
The plan was for Dawn and I and Ollie and Lewis to go in in the first wave and John and Julian to be the second.
We found the wreck easily and shotted it, but with a slightly longer shotline than ideal.
This meant the descent was quite lengthy and as we got deeper it got darker and darker.
When we reached the bottom, the visibility was near zero (0.5M, I'd say) and pitch black.
The shot was on the wreck, but Dawn made it clear she couldn't see anything and was keen to return to the surface.
With a different buddy, or on a different day, I would have made the most of the poor vis, but I wasn't unhappy to return to the surface, it was going to be an unpleasant dive with a huge risk of separation for little reward on a wreck we'd dived a few times before.
Ollie and Lewis came in at the same time as us, but got separated on the descent. Dawn and I saw Ollie (I assumed Lewis was there too, but obviously he wasn't), but they were both back on the surface a few moments after we surfaced.
John and Julian, the second wave, did a drift dive at Balclava Bay, which was better vis wise (c 3M) apparently. At one stage their SMB got stuck around a buoy line, but we freed it off from the boat.
We checked with Dive Beyond to see if they were open for air, but they weren't (seemed odd for a dive centre on the coast NOT to be open at Easter!), so we headed into the Marina, where we moored up and John got an air fill and the rest of us had something to eat.
Our original plan was to go out to White Nothe for a drift, but I suggested vis might be better in the harbour on the Countess or Spaniard, as it was really clear in the Marina.
As we got close, we could see that a dive boat was already on the Countess of Erne, so we headed to the wall where the Cragside lies.
Dawn and I dropped in on a buoy, but it turned out to just be a lobster pot, so I came up again.
We moved a little way along and I descended again and found myself on a wreck, but looking around, Dawn wasn't there, so I surfaced and she said she was having trouble with her ears.
Getting ready to pick up divers.
She said she'd try again and we went down again and found ourselves on the large rocks that make up the sea wall foundations.
Swimming along at c.10M, all we could see was these rocks, so we went a little deeper and found the upright and intact stern of the Cragside.
We swam around that in passable (2-3M) vis and then moved along the stern until we came to the centre of the wreck, which is much more broken up.
Carrying on, we eventually reached the bow and swam around that a few times, before turning around and heading back to the stern.
Some video from the Cragside
On reaching that, Dawn indicated she only had 50Bar, so we surfaced - A fairly decent dive, especially after the terrible morning one.
Ollie and Lewis swam in the wrong direction along the wall, so didn't see the wreck and John and Julian apparently saw some wreckage, but it may have been the Spaniard as they surfaced near another dive boat further along the harbour wall.
Coming back in was very shallow, but the boat was recovered and we adjourned to Billy Winters for a post-dive beer and a successful(ish) first RHIB outing of 2023.
