Diving - My Continuing Adventures underwater
Training and other club diving
After the excitement and challenges of Scapa Flow, it was back to the relative mundanity of club diving as the autumn months drew in.
I had a couple of non-diving weekends and then was off to Wraysbury to carry out some Ocean Diver training for our first cohort of new divers this autumn.
The first dive was the first Open Water lesson for James and Leanna.
Leanna took quite a long time kitting up, but seemed keen, but when we swam out to a buoy over a platform and started to descend, she gave the OK signal, but didn't follow.
I surfaced and she told me she didn't feel well and she was having trouble breathing, so we swam her back to the shore where Phil, acting as shore cover, took over - She was OK after dekitting, but decided not to try diving again.
The following day she had a bad cold, so the right choice.
James and I returned to the platform and carried out some drills, mask clearing, reg recovery and drysuit inversion and then headed out for a swim around.
His buoyancy was pretty good for a first go in a drysuit and we had a decent dive, passing the VW Camper van and swimming through the corrugated tubes.
A decent dive for a training dive.
For some reason the trainees hadn't completed OS4 and OS5 in the pool, so, after a familiarisation with their drysuits, we went back and carried out OS4 as best we could in Wraysbury.
I elected to swap the rollback entry with a giant stride entry and then we set off looking for the plane, which we eventually found.
Unfortunately, as we did, another group were entering it and dragging silt in and through the plane.
We followed them through, but as the vis was poor, I looped around, hoping it would be better, but it was even worse (to the point of near zero blackness) on this pass, so we swam straight out and in the silt caused by the others found the small boat alongside.
I managed to find our way to the lifeboat in poor vis and, as it was OK there, we did another mask removal and refit there.
We swam on and later found a small boat, where we did the swim with no mask drill, and numerous other sites.
The vis varied between a few metres and nothing and I got a bit lost after seeing the Portakabin.
We swam up and found ourselves in line with the shop entry, but near the far shore, so swam back on the surface.
Overall, though, this was a successful training dive for James and a reasonable second dive for me.
The following day the trainees continued their training with Konrad and Caroline.
After the training dives at Wraysbury, I had a bit of a rest, with other things in life intruding on my diving.
However, I was keen to get a couple of purely recreational dives in in November and Bryn and John were happy to tag along.
The trip coincided with a dramatic drop in the temperature (we had snow on the ground a few days before) and we decided to get to Vobster at 10, in the hope that it may have warmed up a little.
The forecast was for cold temperature and rain, but on the day, while it was very cold (5C being the best we saw) it was a lovely bright day, with blue skies all the time we were there and the water was comfortably warmer than the air temperature.
For the first dive, we jumped in from the school pagoda that we'd taken over and found ourselves directly over the top of the tunnel (I had to resurface and get out when I realised I'd left my AcePro camera on the pagoda and decided I didn't want to risk it having walked by the time we got out!).
We swam down the tunnel and then up the outside of the crushing works, swimming through the concrete tubes and over to the plane, which we swam through.
The vis was pretty good, reaching 8-10M in places.
Video from our first dive at Vobster
After the plane, I decided to drop over the side of the wall by the tubes, intending to head to the helicopter, but on the bottom of the wall, around 24M, we found a speedboat I had never seen before and next to it was the remains of an old looking car or small truck resting on its roof.
Given the number of times I'd dived at Vobster, I was surprised to find two things I'd never seen, so close to the main area.
We swam back up the wall, but we all had a fair amount of air left, so I indicated to John that we'd go to the helicopter.
We dropped down and quickly found it, exploring it for a while, before swimming back up to the tunnel and ascending through it to a safety stop and exiting to our pagoda.
For our second dive, I suggested we do the Wheelhouse and Jacquin II wreck.
We dropped in and crossed the pit and quickly reached the wheelhouse, which we swam around and over. When I got to the top, I looked down to my wrist to check my computer and it wasn't there!
My first thought was that I'd left it on the surface and would depend on the others' computers as we weren't going very deep, but then I remembered I'd put it in the pocket of my drysuit during the lunch break and worried it may have been expelled when we dropped in.
Luckily, it was still there, so I tried to put it back on, but in my dry gloves I couldn't manage, but John spotted I was having trouble and came to my rescue.
With the computer back on, we swam to the Jacquin, which we could see from the wheelhouse. We swam around it and went through the interior before we headed across the flat area to its rear and went to the APC.
Video from our second dive at Vobster
Bryn is in the army and had spent a fair amount of time in FV432s, so was keen to take a look.
I was pleased to find I could still wriggle through the hole in the front plate, something I did a few times in my early visits to Vobster.
We had plenty of air still, so returned to the wheelhouse and dropped down to the remains of the caravan.
Vis here was worse than shallower, but I found the line to the small yacht and from there found the second wheelhouse and the jesters.
I couldn't find the line to the helicopter that I'd found on my last visit, but I managed to navigate to the wall and came up alongside the crushing works, passing the Ford Escort and then completing our safety stop at the usual 6M stop near the shop.
Two quite enjoyable dives, interspersed by chilly dekitting and some fairly comfortable sunshine while we off-gassed.
We all felt we'd had a good couple of dives, both exceeding 40 minutes.
My 2025 diving ended with a couple of recreational dives in Wraysbury, my local site, the week before Christmas.
It has a, not undeserved, reputation for having poor vis, but in the winter months, especially mid-week, the vis can be stellar.
Six of us went on a Friday, but weren't too hopeful of the vis, as it had heavily rained for a few days before.
My first dive was a bimble with Andy to round out the diving year.
We went in behind the shop and tried to follow a bearing of 100 degrees with a view to reaching the wreck site.
On the way we spotted two very large Perch resting on the bottom, Andy got some video of one (the other swam away before he was ready with his camera), but I hadn't bothered with my camera.
We found a small boat and an inflatable nearby, but obviously just missed the main part.
We swam on and found the plane, which we swam through.
From there we swam on, finding the camper van and the corrugated tubes and the van near that, which I swam through.
We turned back, passing various things, including the diving bell, which I went inside (it's been cut away to make this possible).
From there we continued along in the shallows until we reached the exit behind the shop again and got out.
The water temperature was 8C, but we both agreed it seemed colder and we both found it difficult to dekit with cold hands (I'd taken my dry gloves, but forgotten my woolen gloves to wear under them!)
Vis was generally good, albeit a bit silty here and there, and the sun shone down on us in many places, making it a pleasant, if nippy, dive.
Andy had only had a few hours sleep so left after one dive, so I took Phil and Leon, a newly qualified father and so pair of ODs, in to show them some sights as their first dive (diving as an unaccompanied pair for the first time, although they'd done 6 dives in Wraysbury before, so I felt were able to dive together and they seemed happy) had found nothing.
We jumped off the pier behind the shop, although it was very slippery. Leon managed to kick one of his fins over the side, so I dived down and recovered it, but once in the water we set off past the confined area and found the bus in excellent vis.
We swam around it and then, checking they were happy, we swam through it as well.
We then headed along the edge of the slope, with the aim of reaching the 'cave complex', but after seeing (but not entering) the Pit, I got disoriented in silty vis and ended back at it!
I then headed off again, along what I thought was the edge, but it obviously wasn't as we started finding other things, including some boats, a container and the portakabin.
By that point, though, we'd been in about 20 minutes, so I started heading back, but again got a bit disoriented and as Leon had indicated he had 70 bar and I was getting cold again we surfaced after about 30 minutes, finding ourselves mid-lake across from the shop slipway, so we surface swam back to there to exit.
So, another successful and enjoyable year of diving.
I'd got back to Scapa Flow and done the kind of diving I wanted to do there after my first visit, seen a Wolf Fish in St Abbs and had had a few other enjoyable dives throughout the year.
For 2026, I already had some exciting diving planned.
