Diving - The adventure continues!
2024 Diving
We were supposed to be diving on a hardboat from Swanage on 6th April, but Storm Kathleen blew all the diving out.
However, Phil, Piers, Justyna and I, who had all been booked on the trip, decided to get a couple of dives in at Vobster instead.
For both Piers and Justyna this would be useful, safe environment diving, given their limited experience.
I dived the Justyna and we jumped in near the airplane and then dropped down.
At first the dive went well, she had no issue descending and we swam past some platforms, the small boat and the glider trailer.
Then we swam onto the the NAS Wreck site and then turned to head towards the top of the crushing works.
Justyna had had a few small buoyancy issues before this, but managed to control the ascents, but after a while she started to float up to the surface.
I surfaced and she said she was fine and was happy to continue, but as we tried to descend, she found that her ears wouldn't clear and we surface swam back to exit.
She tried some of the sinus clearing spray, but it failed to clear her ears properly and she didn't do a second dive.
I took in an extra 2KG of weight on this dive, in case Justyna needed it in her new drysuit. She didn't, but it definitely affected my buoyancy and increased my air consumption on this dive.
A short video from the day
As Justyna wasn't able to clear her ears for a second dive, I joined Phil and Piers.
Piers led the dive, heading from the plane (after a bit of a delay for he and Phil descending), where he passed over the crushing works and then descended down its outer wall in search of the helicopter.
He found it and we hovered over it for a while (he only being PADI OW) and then he led us on to the wheelhouse and the Jacquin wreck, where he indicated he was getting low on gas (I thought he said 50Bar, but he exited with that, so I guess he was being pessimistic or I missed a signal).
We ascended up past the platforms and stopped at the 6M one for a safety stop, before swimming over to the area above the tunnel exit and exited there.
He'd done well, but did swim very quickly and seemingly without considering where Phil and I were, so we discussed the importance of being aware of your buddy's whereabouts post dive, but generally it was a good dive.
A week later, I had a couple of bimbles with John at Wraysbury, primarily to try out new-to-us kit.
I had bought a used Buddy Commando BCD with the thought of taking it on overseas trips (as it's much lighter than my Mares BCD) - I also took a set of Conshelf regulators along for that full retro-diving experience. John had a new, thicker undersuit to try out.
We dropped in from the pier in the car park - We both struggled to descend, John going back to the surface for an extra kilo and I put a house-brick (from the lake bed) in my BCD pocket!
We swam out and quickly found a small boat and beyond that could see the London Taxi - Vis was excellent, probably helped by the fact that we were the first 2 people in the water.
We found another boat and the 737 cockpit, which we swam through, and then swam on, finding the lifeboat nearby.
We continued our dive (me with one eye on my air gauge as I only started with 140 Bar), finding the Wreck Graveyard and then the Die Hard Taxi and a new yacht which I'd seen being sunk on my previous visit.
I thought I knew the way back to shore from there, but soon it was clear I was lost and getting low on air, so we surfaced and found ourselves across the lake from the shop and slipway.
We surface swam across the lake and exited there after a 33 minute dive.
For our second dive, we entered behind the shop, but very quickly the vis deteriorated.
I had hoped to swim past the bus to the cave complex, but we came across the vertical boat after a few minutes in the murk, which I wasn't entirely sure where it was.
I turned left and we came to the pit, so we continued along there, finding a boat, but never the cave complex.
After that, we found ourselves in better vis, so I just continued to swim around, hoping to find something I recognised.
We found ourselves back at the Die Hard Taxi and John tried to navigate us back to the shop, but unfortunately went East instead of West and we ended up back against the shore across the lake from the shop.
However, just before we surfaced, we came across 3 huge Carp, the only fish we saw on either dive, so it wasn't a complete disaster.
We decided to surface swim back from there as John was now low on air, after 42 minutes diving, and exited by the pier in the car park, before dekitting and heading home after a couple of decent dives.
My Buddy Commando worked perfectly (I used 8KG, but reckon 7 would be about right for freshwater in a drysuit) as did my Conshelfs on both dives.
Andy wanted an April dive, so we were back at Wraysbury a couple of weeks later.
Neither he nor I were particularly enthusiastic on the day, as it was cold and we'd both dived in Wraysbury a fair bit over the last couple of months, but we arrived when it opened and, after getting an air fill each (Andy had arrived with 5 cylinders, but none had enough air for a dive!), we dropped in for what turned out to be a long, but single, dive.
We dropped in from the pier in the car park and initially the vis looked good, but then we came across a group of divers and the vis behind them was poor, whether due to them or not was impossible to know.
We found a small boat, which is close to the plane, but we couldn't see the plane (although there was a large Carp there) and ended up swimming to the south end of the lake and reaching the corrugated tunnels and the nearby minibus, where we spotted a large Perch.
We swam through the minibus and then meandered around the lake for a while until, in zero vis, we surfaced.
We decided to swim to a nearby buoy, thinking it maybe the plane, but it was actually one of the larger boat wrecks.
Video from the hour long dive
However, once back down we found the vis better and soon found the small boat near the plane again and, this time, we could actually see the plane a little way away.
We swam through and around that for a while, before heading back towards the shore, eventually surfacing slightly north of the pier we entered via.
After a little over an hour, we decided one dive was enough as it was a fairly cold day and we would have needed another fill to do a second dive anyway.
Vis was very varied, over 5M at times, but zero in other places.
Back in the sea!
Our next trip was a couple of shallow dives off of Brighton on Channel Diver.
It was a great day to be out on the sea.
Originally, someone else was running this dive, but their plans changed and I ended up running it, with a number of very new divers.
As I was paired with one of them, I decided not to take my camera and, as it turned out, the vis was terrible due to a strong plankton bloom, so I didn't miss much!
One person decided not to come the day before, so there were 11 of us on the day and the clouds broke to reveal a clear, calm day as we approached Brighton Marina.
Due to the tides, we did a drift dive first, followed by the much scattered wreck of the SS Indiana.
For the first dive, we dropped into the sea near South West Rocks.
The vis wasn't good, but by sticking close to the sea bed in a very gentle current, we were able to spot a fair amount of life, including a couple of good sized Cat sharks, much to the excitement of Owen, my just qualified buddy on his first dive in salt water.
He is only in his teens and still at school, but his buoyancy was good and his eyesight better than mine, so he spotted the Cat sharks after I'd swum over them!
The dive was OK, given the poor vis, and everyone else emerged safely, although one diver, Piers, got separated from two buddies and didn't complete his safety stop, although as we were only in 14M and had dived for around 30 minutes, there wasn't much reason for concern and he was fine.
Steve and Caroline, the husband and wife team who run Channel Diver, provided tea and biscuits and motored on to Worthing, where the Indiana lies.
We did this dive the previous year and, while it's very broken up and flat and in shallow water (today we only got to 8.4M), it had been fairly enjoyable, with life adding to the odd bits of wreckage as things to see.
On this dive, though, we were right in the 'soup' of the plankton bloom, with vis down to a metre or so in places.
Once again, though, Owen did well and this time I spotted the 3 Cat sharks.
We did find some of the wreckage, but it was hard to stay on the wreck and we (and everyone else) failed to find the most notable piece of the wreck, a large winch.
On our safety stop, Owen spotted a tiny jellyfish.
The sun had shone all day and everyone seemed to have had a good day, despite the limited visibility underwater.
Happy divers returning from our day out - L to R, Me, John, Owen, Paul, Tim, Rohit, Andy, Piers, Ria, Ollie and Jack
As I commented to someone, it had been a lovely day to be out on a boat and it was good to get back in the sea.
More diving
For a long time we'd been trying to get my elderly mother moved closer to us and in May it finally happened, but it was a stressful few days and when Andy pinged me a message asking if I fancied a dip in Wraysbury after a few days of packing, moving and unpacking, I jumped at the chance for a break.
Another new club member, Kim, a PADI divemaster, joined us, keen to try out his new equipment (his experience is nearly all in warm water in a shorty wetsuit!).
We entered from the pier in the car park, Andy intending to find the plane.
Vis was reasonably good at first, but we couldn't find the plane.
We generally swam around for about 45 minutes, finding the lifeboat and plenty of other smaller objects, but never the plane.
Vis varied dramatically, between 10M in places and 1M or less in others.
Towards the end of the dive, we saw silt rolling across the weed and assumed there must be at least one large fish in there, but then we spotted a torch and found 2 divers crawling through the weed!
We exited via at the same point as we had entered.
Kim decided after this dive to drop another 2KG for the next one.
The water was quite warm above 7M (I had no gloves on), but it was noticeably colder at that point, although not unbearable.
We saw very little life on this dive, even the crayfish seemed to be in short supply.
For our second dive, we entered behind the shop.
We quickly found the bus and then carried on until we found the large pipe that leads into the 'pit', spotting a large shoal of juvenile Perch just before we got there.
Andy and Kim dropped into the pit, but I stayed at the top, thinking that it would very crowded with 3 of us in there, especially if the vis was very poor.
When they came back up, I dropped to the bottom, but the vis was OK, I could see the pipe all the way to the bottom.
We carried on from there, heading past the Reliant Scimitar and eventually found the cave complex, which we swam through for a little while, before Andy headed off and we followed him, but we soon found ourselves back at the caves and started heading back.
The vis around the bus was clearer on our return and we spotted more small Perch around the confined area and two larger ones nearby.
We exited via the slip behind the shop again.
The following week, Andy and I travelled down to Vobster again, as Konrad (another member) and his son were doing a few days diving there.
We didn't dive with them, but chatted between dives.
Although there were a few dive centres and clubs there, it was quiet in the water.
We decided to do a deep dive first and then go looking for a site we hadn't visited before on the second.
As I jumped in I felt water enter my suit down my left leg and knew immediately that my drysuit zip wasn't fully closed. Unlike the time it happened at Stoney Cove, there was no nearby ladder to get out of the water, so I got quite wet before swimming to a nearby wooden exit ramp and fully closing the zip.
It wasn't too bad, though, so we continued the dive.
We descended and found ourselves heading down to the Caravan, which we found was now completely collapsed.
From there we turned left and swam along the bottom at around 24M until we reached a cliff edge and dropped down it to 34M, finding the small boat lying there where we engraved ADSAC into the muck on the bow for all to see.
Andy videoed me marking the boat with our club initials
We then ascended back up, passed around and through the Jacquin II wreck for a little while, passed the wheelhouse and then ascended the slope back up the usual safety stop point for 3 minutes, Andy had a couple of minutes deco as well.
After a suitable break, we jumped in from a small platform at the end of kitting up platform, then descended and followed heading East, passing 2nd wheelhouse and jesters.
We reached the far wall of the lake and then ascended to a ledge around 9M.
We followed this along, looking for the upturned truck at the very end of the lake.
Our trip to the upturned truck at Vobster
Vis was poor with lots of weed and sediment here, despite few divers going this way.
Eventually, we started finding some large rocks and then spotted a car seat.
Just ahead of this was the upturned truck.
We swam through, under and around it for a bit and then headed back along the ledge for a while, before heading back across the lake at around 13-15M.
I was beginning to doubt our direction when I spotted the rock ledge on the nearside of the lake.
We had returned atop the crushing works and headed from there up to the usual spot for a safety stop, where we saw a number of Perch and then exited via the rocky ramp here.
It was worth a trip to see, but I won't make it a regular trip.
RHIB diving again
I finally got out on our club RHIB in early June. The weather had been poor and the boat had only been out once before that.
We decided to dive the Binnendijk, a popular wreck for us, as it's easy to reach.
There was only 5 of us on the boat, I dived with John, our club chairman and fellow members Tim and Caroline were diving, while Caroline's husband offered to cox for us.
As it turned out we had to dive in two waves as Tim had left his fins at home and to get him in the water, he borrowed John's.
It was a little choppy heading out to the Binnendijk, but we found and shotted it easily and quickly and then had quite a long wait until slack.
Once we were happy we had reached it, John and I descended to the wreck and found OK, if not brilliant vis.
There was a lot of plankton in the water, but nothing like as bad as Brighton had been a few weeks earlier.
We navigated around, finding a large boiler and then two others (I wondered how I missed the second first time, assuming we were back at the same one!)
The Binnendijk
We spotted a Lobster and a couple of Congers, plus lots of crabs, both Spider and Edible.
Overall, it was a pleasant dive on the wreck, if not the best ever.
I had a 1 minute deco stop to do, John a little more (although he didn't seem that sure of his new computer's readings).
We motored, in heavier weather, back to Portland Marina where we topped up our cylinders while eating our lunch.
Originally we planned to dive the Countess of Erne, but Skindeep was on it as we headed there, so I directed John, the cox, over to the Cragside and we put the shot in there.
John Shead and I dived this after Caroline and Tim.
We followed the shot down and find it stuck fast in some very clay-like silt in the rocks of the harbour wall. I worried that the others had moved the shot somehow, but after lifting the shot out and putting it on a sandy seabed, I realised we were right next to to the bow of the Cragside.
I ventured inside and then John and I swam around it a bit, before heading towards the stern.
We took in lots of other wreckage, but the midships is pretty broken up.
The Cragside
Eventually we reached the largely intact and quite impressive stern section.
Here I spotted some fish with bright orange bodies and black heads, which I'd never seen before and were Black Headed Blennies - Really bright, like tropical fish!
We swam under, up and around the stern and then headed back to bow, before swimming away from the wreck and wall to try and make it easier for John to pick us up.
Overall a decent couple of dives on a pleasant Sunday in the sunshine topped off with a quick beer before heading home.
