Diving - The adventure continues!
BBQ and a night dive at Selsey
Andy had been saying we should all come down to Selsey for a BBQ and a night dive and finally around 20 of us arrived.
We had a lovely BBQ on the beach, but despite reports of good vis by people on the earlier slack, when we went in it was near zero.
The Barbecue was an undoubted sucess - The dive, wasn't!
Tom and I immediately got separated in a couple of metres water and resurfaced, switched on our torches to aid location and tried again.
Even with torches on we got separated a couple more times, turned completely around once and finally ended up swimming into one of the breakwaters.
Divers enter the water for the earlier slack, but the vis was terrible, under 1M, for ours!
I thought I saw the eye of a Conger looking at me momentarily here, but I could well be wrong.
Generally, a terrible dive (compounded by wearing a shorty wetsuit as I was assured the water was warm - It wasn't that warm!) after a nice afternoon and evening.
At least I got a decent pint of Guiness in the local pub afterwards and John kindly drove me there and back.
Shallow dives
After the horrible experience of Selsey (I'm coming to the conclusion that UK shore dives are just not for me - I can't think of a good one!), I went to Wraysbury with Justyna, who qualified earlier in the year, but had had repeated issues with her ears back then.
She had done a couple of good dives with Andy down at Selsey (see, it is just me!) and was keen to get in the water and start to get a bit more depth.
We had planned to go on Saturday, but the weather was terrible, so we went the following day and were rewarded with a lovely calm, sunny day.
We both had limited gas for the first dive, so we entered from the pier in the car park and headed out looking for the plane.
Initially, the vis was excellent, but as we moved away from the edge of the lake, it soon became very silty, with very limited (sub 1M) visibility in places.
Remarkably, we found the plane and had a quick swim through it.
We also found the lifeboat and some other boats and spotted a large Carp at one point.
The weather was good and the water warm, but the vis was disappointing.
Despite that, Justyna was keen to do another dive, so I refilled my cylinder and we headed in behind the shop and swam to the bus, which we circled.
At the back, I was considering a swim through of the bus when I spotted a huge Pike hanging just inside the rear of the bus! I decided not to go through the bus and, as swam around the edge of it, the Pike swiveled to keep an eye on where we went!
From there we headed, in poor vis again, along the edge of the lake, passing over the hose to the pit, and reached the 'cave complex', where we found excellent vis and swam around that for a while.
Often, the very flat, but barren, lake bed off to the right of the caves has good vis, but once again, it was pretty silty everywhere.
At one point, near the end of the dive, the conditions got darker and siltier, as if we were swimming into a hole - On reflection, I suspect we were passing over the pit at this point.
We did spot a few more sights around the lake and ended up carrying out our safety stop on the Reliant Scimitar before swimming back to the slipway behind the shop.
The vis wasn't great, but Justyna enjoyed her first two proper dives in Wraysbury and did well for her very limited diving experience and it was a pleasant mornng to be out diving.
Deep on the SS Everleigh
The following Wednesday I went to the other extreme, heading down to Swanage to dive the SS Everleigh, which is on the seabed at 42M.
Due to the depth, this was to be an ADP dive with Martin and Alistair, who I found through the BSAC SE Region FB group.
We dived on the SS Everleigh out of Swanage, with Bryan from Swanage Boat Charters.
The trip out took about 45 minutes and then we briefly waited while Bryan shotted it and a pair, one with rebreather, checked the shot was well located and released a marker to confirm it.
The 3 of us went in last and found ourselves right on the boilers at the high point of the wreck at 34M.
The two boilers were huge, but most of the rest of the wreck, that we saw at least, was broken and flattened, but the wreck is very large and we spotted many crabs and congers as we explored.
Vis wasn't excellent, but the light was OK and I didn't wear a hood and didn't feel cold at depth.
Some video from the dive on the Everleigh
We came across a huge anchor chain, but I don't think we located the anchor (I thought at one point I did see it, but I'm doubtful it was now).
Nearby were a number of cogs, which I suspect were part of the anchor's capstan.
After 28 minutes, Martin put up his DSMB and we started our ascent - I had stops at 12, 9 and 6M (the first two just a minute, the latter for 15 minutes) all using 50% deco stage gas as were the others.
We surfaced just short of an hour to a lovely flat sea and enjoyed the calm, sunny run back into Swanage.
After that dive, I headed home, but the traffic was heavy, especially from Swanage to Wimborne, and it took me 2.5 hours.
