Diving - The adventure continues!
2023 Diving - Further adventures underwater
We had another charter booked for April, this time out of Brighton to the wreck of the City of Brisbane.
A couple of the divers coming along hadn't had a chance to get in the water with the cancellation of the Swanage charter, so a few of us headed off to Wraysbury Dive Centre on the friday before the Brighton trip.
It was a grey, cold, wet day (until we packed up to leave, when the sun came out!), but the vis was decent (nigh on 10M in places) and we had the lake pretty much to ourselves.
I dived with Nigel, who was to be my buddy at Brighton, on the first dive and we did a 40 minute dive.
Some footage from our first dive at Wraysbury
We passed over the pit, but decided not to descend into it, came across the rarely seen Commer van and numerous sunken boats in the north end of the lake.
At one point we came across a Pike and spent a few moments with it (as you can see in the video), but as on our last visit, there wasn't much fish life to be seen yet, the water will need to warm up a bit more yet.
Nigel decided he was too cold to venture back in for a second dive, so I went in with Tim on this dive, looking for the plane.
It started off well enough, with excellent vis around the platforms after we entered via the pier in the car park, but then it suddenly got cloudy and we became disorientated. Julian and Dawn spent both dives looking for, but failing to find, the plane!
We did find a few wrecks and even came across the diving bell at the end of our dive - I think they must have modified it as I don't recall it being opened up as it is now on the few times I've seen it before.
The diving bell marked the end of our second dive.
I had only 100Bar at the start of the dive, so we ended it after 20 minutes or so, but it hadn't been as good as the first.
At least, though, with a poor weather forecast for the Brighton trip, we'd had a dive and, if that was to happen, Nigel and Tim had had a chance to prove their equipment (Nigel's regulators had been in for servicing, but the servicer had fitted his drysult and BCD inflator hoses on the wrong sides - Better we found that at Wraysbury than just as we went to dive on the boat!).
Sadly, due to the continuing terrible April weather, the trip to Brighton was abandoned.
A few more weeks passed before I was back in the water.
Andy and Ollie had planned a couple of 'deep' dives at Vobster (Ollie working towards his Dive Leader qualification) and I went along as well as, by this point, I hadn't yet dived with my twinset in 2023 and knew I had some dives coming up that would require them.
We set off about 7:15 and arrived at Vobster around 9:15, travelling down together in Ollie's van.
There were a lot of cars in the car park for a midweek day, but it transpired that very few were actually diving.
Using the club membership, we'd been allocated a section of bench to kit up on, right by the water's edge, so we walked in there, by the usual exit slope and then dropped directly into the pit in front of the Jacquin.
Headed past the boat and then dropped down the slope behind the stern of the boat, where we were told there was a line (it turned out to be secured on rocks nearby, not on the stern of the wreck as we understood).
Dropped as deep as we could and found 35M maximum depth. Light and vis were surprisingly good at this depth and we spent a few minutes here, before ascending again and passing through the Jaquin (in my case, others swam past), to the wheelhouse ahead of the bow, where Ollie explored inside and Andy failed to get in through the narrower entrance.
Andy indicated we should go up the tunnel as we passed over the top of it, so I turned and dropped down to the bottom of the crushing works - Vis wasn't so good here and we couldn't see the top of the works clearly.
We swam up the tunnel and then enjoyed the warmer water on the 6M stop, exiting via the steps into the waterside shelter which we had been allocated.
After a 1.5 hour interval, we decided to try another section of the lake, where Andy reckoned we may be able to record a fraction deeper than the 35M we hit on the first dive.
I was skeptical that there was anything deeper, but was happy to be proved wrong.
This time, we jumped in in front of the shop, passing over various levels of platforms and left down to the APC.
From here, we dropped down the slope to the deepest point we could find which again was around the 35M mark.
We swam from here up the slope again and then swam around until we got to ....? I can't remember :D
Again we exited from the steps.
Video from all 3 dives
We decided we had time for a 3rd dive, as long as it was quick and shallow, so we topped up our twinsets and then walked down to the entry point closest to the plane.
At the bottom we found the cockpit section and then swam on, past the glider trailer and a small boat to the NAS 'wreck site' which is setup for divers to practice measuring underwater.
We then swam back through the plane sections spotting an ROV being tested, which we filmed as it monitored us.
From there we swam to the top of the crushing works, dropped down inside it and then turned and came back up the tunnel to complete a 25 minute dive in the shallows at 6M.
It had been an enjoyable day, with Ollie getting two 25M+ dives in and me getting a few dives in my twinset to feel happy with the kit again and that all was working as it should.
Sadly, my Heinrichs Weikamp computer's screen failed totally on the first dive (It had been playing up on the surface, so I'd borrowed Andy's spare computer for that dive and the subsequent and my email to them about a repair had gone unanswered after a couple of days.
With a deep, ADP dive coming up, I decided I needed a new computer, so ordered a Shearwater Perergrine from Mike's Dive Store, hoping it would arrive in time for that dive.
My next dive was on my birthday, when I organised a RHIB trip out to dive the Alex Van Opstal, a Belgian ship that hit a mine laid by a German submarine in the earliest days of WW2 just east of the Shambles Bank on the Dorset coast.
This was a wreck I'd wanted to dive for a long time, so it was great that, for once, the weather and tides meant it was diveable.
Caroline, a relatively new club member, but very experienced Advanced Instructor, joined me as a second cox and the rest of the divers were Andy, Lewis and Ollie.
The forecast was for sunshine, but the whole day was shrouded in low cloud that meant, although you could see a decent distance at water level, you couldn't see the far side of the harbour from Ferrybridge and this continued out to the Alex Van Opstal on the east side of the Shambles bank.
The mark in the GPS was spot on as we passed over the wreck as we approached.
We dropped in a 32M shot and waited for the tide to turn - Another boat was there and asked if they could use our shot. They went in at 12:30 and found the current very strong. Our first 3 (Caroline, Andy and Lewis) went in at 12:50 and it was dead slack (on Neaps).
Alex Van Opstal - See this link
The other boat's divers surfaced and confirmed that the shot was right on the wreck at the bow, which our 3 also confirmed.
However, by the time Ollie and went in, the tide had turned and there was a strong current running again, so slack had barely lasted an hour.
We got to the bottom and found no wreck, but there was a clear groove in the sandy seabed, where the shot had dragged, so we swam into the current for a few minutes to reach the wreck.
We turned left and explored the wreck and while the light was decent, the vis wasn't great, with lots of 'snot' in the water.
Some video from our dive on the Alex Van Opstal
We reached the stern, hiding in the lee side to avoid the worst of the current, but then needed to head for the surface as we started to get low on air after battling the current.
Ollie's reel jammed and he had to release it, so I launched mine instead and we completed a stop for 6 minutes deco (mine was 3, but I waited for Ollie).
I came to the conclusion, that this was probably a really nice wreck, and we will come back (possibly on Springs for a longer slack), but that we had not the best dive possible on it.
The next dive was another one I'd been looking to do for a long time, the Salsette.
