Diving - The adventure continues!

2014 diving adventures.

It's not the end of 2014 yet, but I've had a busy year diving, which surprised me.

After a couple of expensive summer holidays in recent years, we opted to spend a week in Guernsey (and very nice it was too), but I didn't expect to do much diving there.

Dives after returning from Catalina were initially inland dives at Wraysbury, Vobster and a first visit for me to Stoney Cove, but good to keep the experience fresh and to get some 'experience' dives logged for my BSAC Dive Leader qualification.

We'd done the lectures over the winter and, after a day training Ocean Diver trainees at Andark, we visited NDAC in Chepstow for a weekend to get as many Open Water lessons completed as possible.

It might sound a bit dull doing short training dives in an old quarry, but over the weekend we each completed 4 in water lessons as well as a number of Rescue training elements of the course and actually we all really enjoyed the weekend.

By late June, all my dives had been in inland sites, so it was refreshing to get out to sea. Our first dives were from Portland Marina on "Dive Time".

The weater was good both days and with a number of newly qualified Ocean Divers with us, the diving unchallenging.

We dived the Gertrude wreck first, covering most of it in a 30 minute dive. The vis wasn't spectactular, but it was 3-5m, enough to find your way around.

We did a nearby reef later, with little current, so more of a 'hang dive' than a 'drift dive', but there were a fair number of fish and crabs around.

After a lovely barbecue on Chesil Beach with a spectacular summer solstice sunset we were up early the next day for a dive on the "James Fennel" wreck.

This was probably the best dive, dropping onto the boiler and then exploring the wreck fairly extensively over 40 minutes or so. There were plenty of fish and crabs in evidence, including one huge crab, which resisted our attempts to tempt him out.

The final dive was a drift, in decent current along the Jurassic Coast. We really got the sensation of flying, but the flow took us deeper and deeper and there wasn't a huge amount to see, so we surfaced after 30 minutes with over 20 metres beneath us.

We'd enjoyed the weekend, as much for being out on a boat in good weather as anything else.

Next up was our holiday in Guernsey and I took the advantage of being a BSAC member to contact the local club in St Peter Port. Packing my gear in the car (but not my tanks), I met up with the club on our first night there and arranged to do a dive on Saturday on Platte Boue.

This turned out to be a 30+M pinnacle off of Herm and was a very enjoyable dive off of the club RHIB with plenty of fish and kelp and even some blue jellyfish! My buddy was a Septegenarium Italian who arrived quayside on a scooter with his dive gear on the back!

A second dive was arranged for one evening in the week on the nearby Fermain reef and this too turned out to be 30+M and full of fish, including a large shoal of small silver fish that we hung amongst for a few minutes.

Thanks to the Blue Dolphins BSAC club and Dive Guernsey for providing tanks at a very reasonable cost.

As soon as I was back from Guernsey, I was off to Dartmouth for another weekend diving.

As part of the Dive Leader training, I planned and organised the weekend, so there was plenty to do.

We rented a couple of roomy caravans for the 6 of us which was a short drive from the harbour and had a pub with cheap, decent food within walking distance.

Sadly, although the boat and skipper were great and the sites offered the promise of some memorable diving, this weekend featured some dreadful viz.

Our first dive, on the Bretagne, saw us diving in almost complete darkness, broken only by our torches. We all agreed it looked a great wreck, but we only saw about 12 inches of it at a time!

The second dive, on Eastern Blackstone, was less dark, but pretty turgid as we carefully navigated the wall. Again, probably great in good vis, but spoilt.

After a trip over to Dartmouth and beyond to get all the tanks filled, we adjourned to the pub and then finally to bed.

On the Sunday, we left our stuff in the caravans and drove back to the boat.

Again, we had a potentially great wreck, the Newholm, to dive, but again it was pitch black and we could see next to nothing. Sad, as the wreck is reknowned for the white sands it sits on and which , in good conditions, reflects the light! This was a borderline scary dive, to be honest, and we all stuck close to our buddies throughout.

The final dive was a drift on a reef alive with Crabs of all sizes, but most notably BIG! Being shallow the vis was reasonable and we quite enjoyed the dive.

Those of us who went all agreed we'd been unlucky and both the boat and the sites were well worth revisiting, hopefully in better vis!

A fellow member, Julian, and I, piggy backed onto a day from Poole with Woking's BSAC club, but again the diving was hampered by dreadful vis. Our main dive, on the Betsy Anna, was like those in Dartmouth, as dark as a night dive and more a test of your competence and discipline at staying in a pair than a real pleasure. A shallow drift later was rather dull, but at least we could see there was little to see!

Keen to get some deep dives into my log, a few of us visited Vobster on August Bank Holiday monday. It was raining and Vobster was very quiet, which made the diving quite pleasant, with good vis even around the often silt-disturbed shallower 'attractions' like the plane and the cabin cruiser. We had 3 dives, with a shallow bimble around the training platforms after lunch, enjoying the warm water and the large number of fish.

Early September saw us off to Plymouth, which promised the Scylla, Glen Strathallen and James Eagan Lane.

I was especially keen to dive the latter as I'd heard it was good and had never been on it before. I also vowed that if Plymouth's vis was like Dartmouth and Poole's that I wasn't going back in the UK sea this year.

Fortunately, it turned out to be a great weekend. Julian found us the Moorings Guesthouse which was lovely and a short stroll in later summer sunshine from the Barbican where we celebrated Trevor's birthday was a great curry in the Himalya Spice.

We dived HMS Scylla first and, although buddied with an Ocean Diver, we had a great dive, with decent vis and even my first spot of a Cuttlefish! We toured the outside of the whole ship and got a quick visit to the wheelhouse in, before ascending the shotline.

After lunch we dived the Glen Strathallen. I'd dived this before and all you could see was the boiler, but the skipper told us the storms of last winter had cleared a lot of sand off the wreck and, sure enough, there was much more to see. The fish seemed to like it too, as there were loads to see, including two Cuttlefish swimming in 'formation' like a couple of fighter planes.

We'd agreed that my buddy would put up his DSMB at the end of the dive, but it jammed as he launched it and, as soon as I got mine out I could see the line was tangled. He was getting a bit low on air, but I had plenty so I gave him my Octopus and cleared my line. Sadly, as I launched my DSMB, the reel slipped from my grasp! We shrugged and completed a text book Alternate Ascent (well, we struggled a little on the safety stop, if I'm honest, but we managed) and my DSMB was a couple of fin strokes away, so calm was the sea. His was soon recovered by the boat too, so no harm no foul and our training had worked well (although it wasn't the best pair of DSMB deployments of all time!).

Again we had a great evening in Plymouth and an excellent night's sleep (and hearty breakfast) at the Moorings before returning to the harbour and setting off to the James Eagan Lane.

Someone said the JEL is the most dived wreck in the UK and that's quite possibly true. It's fairly shallow, so accessible to all level of divers, but it's immense and full of interest, both man made and natural.

Within moments I'd spotted my first John Dory and in our 52 minute dive we spotted all sorts of other fish.

We managed to cover the full length of the wreck and back, with a quick turn around the bow, before making our way up the shotline with deco, but I could happily have spent another 52 minutes there if only I'd had the air!

Hopefully we'll dive it again as it was excellent.

The final dive was always going to have a lot to live up to and it turned out to be a bit disappointing, just diving the crevasses of the Penlee Ridges. We did spot a fair amount of life, including sand eel shoals and a fair number of Blennies, but after the JEL, it felt a little like going through the motions. The vis was the worst we had all weekend too, which didn't help, although it was far better than most UK sea dives I'd done.

I still needed a 25M+ dive to get my Dive Leader qualification, so I tagged along with my fellow DL trainees, still with open water lessons to complete, to NDAC and got a couple of great pleasure dives, both beyond 25M done in excellent vis, taking in the more remote of the Wessex helicopters and the double decker bus.

That done, my DL qualification was done and, suddenly, I was qualified to take trainees into Open Water (with onsite supervision), which came in handy as the next day I was doing exactly that at Wraysbury!

I quite like Wraysbury, but the bottom is very silty and with lots of trainees there, the vis was, frankly awful except in odd spots (including around the bus, which is very shallow and frequently visited) where it was almost crystal clear... very odd, so my trainee, Aimee, did very well to maintain her calm and complete all her alloted exercises. She's already a very competent diver.

We spotted a huge Carp at the end of our first dive which was the first time I'd seen that there and on our second I encountered a Crayfish that was feisty enough to come out its hole, pincers raised, ready for a scrap!

For a few years now I've wanted to dive the Aeolian Sky wreck. It's a large cargo ship which was very new when she sank in the late 70s.

I've had 2 or 3 attempts blown out and my latest threatened to go the same way, but luckily the weather was kinder than forecast and I finally got to dive it in early October.

I've heard reports of stellar vis on this wreck, but it wasn't to be for me. At least it was good enough to explore the wreck at 3 or so metres and it was great to finally get on the wreck and experience the sheer scale of her. I'l definitely go back.

We also did a (very silty) dive on the Countess of Erne in Portland Harbour, which looked an interesting dive, but it was hard to tell in that much silt and we soon gave up and cut the dive fairly short after finding the vis not much better on the nearby wall.

So, that's where we are as I write this. I have the BSAC Open Water Instructor Course at Wraysbury to look forward to next and then I'm going back to California for work and will do a couple of days on the Northern Channel Islands for a change, diving out of Ventura on the recommendation of a friend.

Finally, I've booked 6 days in Sharm El Sheikh in early December, which I'm really looking forward to as I've not been back there since I learnt to dive and I hope to dive the iconic SS Thistlegorm amongst other sites.

There are still a few adventures to come before we say goodbye to 2014!

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