Diving - The adventure continues!
Swanage 2024
As a club we used to do a weekend, coinciding with the end of the Lifeboat Week celebrations, at Swanage.
The post COVID boom in UK holidaying, though, made staying there in August increasingly expensive.
I gave up trying to organise a two day trip and, instead organised two one-day trips, removing the need for expensive accommodation and giving a chance for a shallower day for less experienced divers, but taking away some of the fun of a full weekend trip, as we'd experienced in Plymouth.
The early, shallow day had been blown out in April, but the weather was far better in July as we set off, very early, to get a place on the pier.
Good weather greeted us and it only got better
We'd had a couple of late withdrawls, so there were only 6 of us from the club, but the boat was fairly full as we set off for the first dive, the Firth Fisher.
Having last dived this in great vis with just two other divers, this was a little disappointing, although it's intact hull makes it an easy and enjoyable wreck to navigate.
The shot was on the boiler to the stern of the ship, with the intact engine just behind.
We swam forward from there, picking our way amongst the deck equipment, bollards and winches, until we reached the clearly visible bow.
We then turned and headed back, passing the boiler and engine again, until we reached the stern, where we dropped down to the seabed to look up at the line of the intact stern.
At that point we returned up to the deck and I launched my DSMB and we ascended.
Saby was diving on my 15L cylinder full of 29% Nitrox (which I had planned to use), but filling my twins with air meant I only had 23%, so I dived it as air and incurred a lot of deco (10 minutes at 6M!).
With 3 minutes remaining, Saby only had 50 Bar, so I sent him up to the surface and finished my deco before surfacing.
The second dive of the day wasn't until around 4PM, so we'd had a leisurely lunch and an excellent ice cream before kitting up again and heading for the boat.
We quickly reached the Kyarra and, with a permanent shot, only waited a few minutes before dropping in to the midships.
The light and vis were very good and we generally navigated around the wreck, initially heading for the bow, before turning around and heading back through the wreck, taking in a few substantial swim through sections.
Video from the Kyarra dive
We spotted the separated boiler and found a section that Andy, our skipper for the day, called the 'Rack of Ribs' where we found a lot of tiles, bottles and other crockery.
Before that, in a swim through, we found large bales of a material which were still soft to the touch, but far too heavy to move.
I can't recall if we reached the very back of the ship with the steering quadrant, but with 32% nitrox we had a long dive with no deco penalty (I had a minute at 6M for a while, but it had cleared by the time we reached the stop), so we only completed a safety stop, although Saby's inability to stay above 6M with a Suunto meant that took far longer than the usual 3 minutes.
Overall, though, it had been an excellent dive on the Kyarra and I'd seen numerous things I'd never seen, despite diving the wreck numerous times before.
Everyone left Swanage happy, but I'm sure I wasn't alone in feeling very tired at the end of a long day.
Lundy 2024
Every couple of years or so, we go to Lundy.
Our first trip, back in 2018, had been cut short, due to awful weather, but the return in 2022 was very successful,although a couple of crossings were quite choppy.
We all arrived on the Friday with most staying at the North Devon Resort (a former Pontins like place), while I elected to have a weekend under canvas.
I'd driven John down and dropped him at his resort after a horrible 4+ hour drive and then gone to my campsite and set up my tent.
The view from my tent!
Most of us met back in Ilfracombe in the evening for dinner.
Ilfracombe harbour at low tide.
The next morning we regrouped at the harbour for a 10 O'clock ropes off.
The sea crossing was horrible, choppy with lots of roll and took a couple of hours, so we were all glad to arrive in the protection of the island.
Our first dive was a seal dive on the Easterly side of the island, where we'd dived, successfully, with seals on previous visits.
The dive was shallow, but we had plenty of interaction with Seals, although not as many as on my last visit a couple of years ago.
We disturbed this seal...
who swam away initially
A very untroubled seal, relaxes on the bottom
A seal chases Paul's fin
A seal assesses us from the kelp
My buddy, Paul, was a diver who has returned to diving recently and still seems a little uncomfortable with diving.
When seals approached him and opened their mouths, he thought they were going to bite him or his drysuit and quite aggressively pushed them away.
I warned him that that was more likely to result in an aggressive reaction a couple of times, but it was only when I stroked one that he got the message.
A seal playing with Paul
Overall, though, even if quite a short dive, it was an enjoyable one.
To everyone's disappointment, Matt, the skipper, had said that we'd have to do another seal dive due to the tides and presence of snorkelers onboard, but the snorkelers (and my first dive buddy, Paul, elected to visit the island instead of doing a second dive and Matt said he'd see what the current was like on the Robert.
When we got there, there was negligible current, so we quickly kitted up and dropped in. I joined Ria and Saby for this dive.
Ria, who was leading, elected to circle the Robert (which lies on its starboard side) first, which was OK as Saby hadn't seen it before and vis was pretty good for checking out the planks in the hold and machinery on deck.
Saby and Ria pass the Robert's bow.
After that we followed the stern anchor chain to the anchor and then spotted another wreck off to the right.
We explored this, a small paddle steamer, for a short while, before returning to the anchor chain, which we followed back to the Robert and then ascended via the permanent shot line.
Saby on the 'other' wreck
Thankfully the ride back was far calmer than the outward trip and we enjoyed sunshine and views across the Bristol Channel as we returned.
We returned to Ilfracombe in sunshine
That evening we all met up at a pub called the Thatched Inn on the outskirts of town and enjoyed and excellent meal and some good local beers, before going back to our respective accommodation for a much needed night's sleep.
I woke to unexpected drizzle and some wind, which persisted as I packed my tent away.
As my camping stove wasn't working, I drove down to Ilfracombe earlier than I needed to and had a cup of coffee and a small fried breakfast (they called it the Mini Breakfast, but honestly, it was enough for me) at Adele's Cafe near the harbour, although I wondered if that was a bit brave after the previous morning's crossing!
There were, unusually, easterly winds on the Sunday, so the outbound trip was far smoother than it had been on the Saturday, but there was no opportunity to dive with the seals where we had the previous day, so we motored around to the Western side of the island.
On the Western side of Lundy
It took us a while to find any seals (on either side of the island), so finally we dropped in in a small cove, apparently named Jenny's Cove.
I dived with Rohit and John on this dive, as Paul had decided to give up on the second day's diving, saying he wasn't keen on more seal dives followed by a long, solo, drive home after a long day on the boat.
We did see a couple of seals, but unlike those on Saturday, they seemed startled by the sight of divers and retreated as we drew near instead of playing with us.
However, it was a great dive through extensive kelp bed and amongst deep gullies, in quite surgy sea.
John and Rohit navigate the gullies
Eventually one of these gullies led us into the cliffs in to a 'cave' of sorts, although it was open to the surface.
On the way through, a seal popped up from the kelp in front of me and disappeared down the gully, only to return overhead as it, presumably, found the gully dead ended at the 'cave'.
Very different and enjoyable dive.
The final dive was another different dive.
I dived with Ria and Saby again on this dive.
At first we were crossing kelp waving in the surge,
Ria and Saby crossing the kelp
From time to time, we saw seals (quite a few in the end), but as with the morning dive, these seemed startled, but curious about us and kept their distance.
We headed into the coast and once again found ourself in a 'cave' where a seal was trying to find a way out, heading over our heads when he determined it was a dead end.
Ria and Saby in the 'cave'
As I put up the DSMB, a seal approach Saby and Ria, but didn't come right up to them.
When we surfaced, we were a long way, and downstream from the boat, but a RHIB came over and said the skipper couldn't pick us up where we were (I'm not sure why, there was plenty of water under us and we were some distance off the rocks), so we had to make a long, tiring surface swim back to the boat, which consumed quite a lot of our air at the end of the dive.
Another quite enjoyable dive to round out a generally good weekend.
The divers - L to R Paul, me, Izzy, Caroline, Ria, John (kneeling), Rohit, Saby.
Overall, once again, it had been an enjoyable weekend in Lundy.
The Bristol Channel often seems to be rough and the A303 is terrible at the moment, with long 30 and 50MPH limited sections, but once we were in the water, that was soon forgotten.
The drive home was fairly easy, especially once we reached the A303, taking around 3.5 hours, so we got home about 10PM.
Unpacking the car would wait!
