Diving - The adventure continues!

Further 2014 diving adventures.

Following my trip to Weymouth to dive the Aeolian Sky, I carried out some traing for Sports Diver trainees at Vobster and then completed the OWIC course at Wrasbury, both in October.

The OWIC, much like the two-day IFC, is a great course for anyone, not just those looking to become instructors. It really focusses your mind on HOW you dive as I know I take for granted a lot of what I do, but rarely analyse what I'm doing and consider if I could be doing it better.

The OWIC highlighted what I could do better and, whilst I'm still not committed to becoming a full instructor any time in the foreseeable future, it'll certainly help when I help to train students.

The next dives I did were around Anacapa, off the California Coast.

I'd booked two days diving with Cal Boats out of Ventura, so, after a work event, I hired a car from LAX and drove up the freeway to Ventura, arriving in time on Friday afternoon to swing by the harbour, find the boat and introduce myself.

Next morning we had an early start and were on our way by 7AM aboard Spectre.

We got breakfast on board and I chatted with the crew and other divers about the diving.

The run out to Anacapa from Ventura is much quicker than that from Long Beach to Catalina, but one arrival, the diving was similar (not unsurprisingly).

The first dive, teamed up with Jerry Henkel, an experienced diver, was on the Pelican Reserve, a spot closed to divers most of season as it's, you might have guessed, a Pelican reserve.

With all the Pelicans away, there are 3 months a year when you can dive here. We dropped in, Jerry (a semi-retired photo-journalist) was keen to try out his newly acquired Nikonos dive camera (a 35mm!) and we found plenty of fish around, including some large Sheepsheads and , a number of Gobies and plenty of the goldfish like Garibaldis. The site was rocky, but pretty flat and only 11m at the deepest, so there was plenty of light to search out the fish.

We moved to a site called "Inside Coral Reef" for our second dive. This was a large rocky outcrop with quite a lot of kelp (although this late in the season, there wasn't that much generally) with a few sandy sections in between. Again we saw plenty of fish, similar to that on the first dive and, at one point, we spotted an adult Sealion swimming some distance above and ahead of us. Jerry's weighting was better this dive, so we had a decent length dive and were both just starting to feel a little chilly by the end of it.

After lunch Jerry decided he didn't fancy getting cold again, so sat out the 3rd dive. I joined a young Divemaster, Brian and his wife, really just tagging along behind them. This dive was at "Underwater Island", a rocky outcrop more or less in the same shape as Anacapa itself.

There was a distinct wall on one side and as we swam along this, we spotted a large shoal of fish suddenly dart as one. Moments later a Sealion appeared, hunting the fish and seemingly oblivious to us. We watched it hunt for a few minutes and then moved on as it swam away.

We were all feeling the cold on this dive and it was with no great regret that we surfaced after about 30 minutes, although it had been another enjoyable dive and the Sea Lion had been the highlight of the day.

Sadly, the second day I had booked was blown out mid way to Anacapa (A rare occurence in California apparently, but all too familiar to me!), so I drove up the coast and spent the day in Santa Barbara instead.

Although I got a refund on my second day's diving, it had been an expensive trip and I'm not sure I'll dive in California again in the foreseeable future, but if you get the chance I'd recommend the experience as it's been enjoyable every time I've been.

I rounded out my UK diving year with a trip back to Chepstow with a few other Aldershot Dolphin members, but we were determined to just 'have a dive', so no training was undertaken and we had a great couple of dives in extremely clear water, which was remarkably still around 12C so far from unpleasant in a dry suit (especially as I'd given my super thick Polar Bear undersuit an outing - It requires an additional 4KG to sink me!).

I was able to recover my wrist compass that I'd lost on the bus on a previous visit and Julian and I enjoyed exploring the Helicopters, planes, military vehicles and the double decker bus on our two dives.

The weather was sunny, the water clear and there weren't many divers (too late, probably, for most trainees in wetsuits), so it was really pleasant diving.

With 4 days holiday left before the end of December, I'd pretty much accepted it'd be spent doing nothing over Christmas when I found a cheap trip to Sharm El Sheikh. I persuaded, without too much trouble, Mandy that we could do with some winter sun and we booked 6 days in early December.

The plan was for her to mostly do day trips while I dived, but attempts to visit Petra and Luxor (and even nearby Mt Sinai) were all stymied and she spent a couple of days snorkelling from the dive boat I used.

I booked 4 days diving with Elite Divers after a bit of research and they picked us up around 8 to take us to Travco harbour where we boarded "Lido", the dive boat we used for most of my diving.

Our first trip was out to Ras Mohammad nature reserve where we dived "Masa Braka" first of all.

There were loads of fish around, although mostly small reef fish. We also spotted 3 Squid swimming 'in formation', very similar to the Cuttlefish Alan and I had seen in Plymouth.

Visibility was excellent and we also spotted a Blue Spotted Ray, some Tuna 'in the blue' and a couple of Morays, including a white Peppered Moray. An enjoyable first dive, but the next was to stand as one of the highlights of the week.

This was a dive on the iconic Shark & Yolanda reefs and we got lucky with the current, so were able to explore both (including the bathroom fittings scattered on Yolanda) extensively in a dive lasting a full hour.

In my logbook I wrote "Amazing variety and number of fish, both on the reef and 'in the blue'". We saw Rockfish, Pufferfish, Clown Fish, numerous types of Wrasse and far more types that I struggle to recall or failed to identify. Even after an hour I really didn't want to stop and would have happily done another hour had I had the air!

We did "Ras Elite" (a route around another reef I now forget that Elite use) as our third dive of the day. It was murkier than the two previous dives, but only relatively and vis was still far better than most dives I'd done in 2014.

We spotted a Crocodile Fish,a couple of Wrasse, one a large Napoleon Wrasse (or so I thought!) and another a smaller Unicorn Wrasse with the long 'horn', but whilst it was an enjoyable dive by most standards, it feel a bit of an anti-climan after the previous two.

The next day we went off to the Straights of Tiram and dived Jackson, Woodhouse and Gordon reefs. I'd heard great reports of these from Martin Stegall (an Aldershot Dolphins member very keen on marine life) and they didn't disappoint.

We started on Jackson, exploring the lovely coral garden, before heading over to the wall as the current picked up and marvelled at the abundant life in the crevasses. My log says "Top Notch Dive!" which after the previous day was praise!

Next we did Woodhouse Reef, which was a drift along a wall all the way. We spotted Morays and 3 Unicorn Wrasse amongst the abundant smaller fish, but weren't as lucky as one small group under instruction who spotted a Thresher Shark! Again, it was a hugely enjoyable dive, even so.

The dive on Gordon Reef was a bit of a challenge as the current was very strong. It was difficult to get to the mooring line on the front of Lido and down to the seabed and, with a slighlty low fill (about 180 bar) I only had 160 bar left when we started the dive!

Most of the dive involved us swimming quite hard across the current and along with some others I was getting low on air by the time we found the spot sheltered from the current that we'd been making for. We did spot a large Stonefish, though, so not a total loss.

Part of my communication with Elite before arriving had been around my desire to dive the SS Thistlegorm and, on the Monday, 3 of us and Alec, our guide, set out on "Sky K" with a mixture of other divers to dive it.

It's quite a run out from Sharm, being around the headland at Ras Mohammad and then some way up into the Gulf of Suez and it took a couple of hours at least.

Having heard horror stories of 10 or 20 dive boats on the wreck at a time, it was quite a pleasure to see only 2 liveabords there when we arrived.

Alec explained that the first dive would be around the exterior of the wreck with a second dive through the interior.

This is, apparently, common practice for newcomers to the wreck and worked well as an introdution.

The current was almost non-existent for our first dive as we descended the shotline to the rear of hold 3.

We swam over to the port side and then along, over the wreckage of hold 4, past the Bren Carriers, to the guns on the rear deck and then down to the propellor and rudder.

We then continued along the starboard side, past the holds, into the bridge and then through the bow interior with the galley and mess hall, exiting a hatch in the bow deck just ahead of the anchor winches.

On the way we passed the Locomotive blown off of the starboard side and the water tenders for both locomotives (there's one further out on the port side too, but the vis wasn't quite good enough to make that one out).

We finished the dive hovering over the open holds until we got low on air and then ascended the line, with little current running still.

After an hour or so, we were back in the water for our second dive.

By now the current was getting up, so we quickly descended and assembled on a ledge on the port-side of hold 3.

We entered here and descended to the lower deck passing through holds 1 and 2, past the lorries packed with motorcyles and rifles everything the Thistlegorm is famous for.

We ascended to the upper deck and repeated the loop, finally exiting through the kitchen and canteen above it and the visited the Captain's quarters (checking out his toilet!).

At this point, 40+ minutes later, we ascended the shotline in a roaring current that saw us strung out like flags.

A couple of great dives, though, and a really great experience to dive the Thistlegorm and see what all the fuss is about. I certainly feel it deserves the interest.

None of our group felt like doing the 3rd dive (not least because it was back at Yolanda reef, where we expected to dive the next day), but some Polish divers who did reported seeing 3 sharks!

My last day started with my least enjoyable dive of the trip. It was at a site called Jackfish Alley, back in Ras Mohammad and was a reef, but not an especially attractive or interesting one. I was struggling too, with a slightly leaking reg and lopsided weight belt, so I used more air than usual, but wasn't too upset to finish the dive about 5 minutes before most of the others. I actually saw the best fish of the dive on my safety stop!

The second dive of the day was back in the Gulf of Suez, the wreck of the Dunraven. Very different to the Thistlegorm, this was though another great dive.

We dropped in near the reef the Dunraven hit and then descended to the wreck, which goes down as deep as 30M, sloping down the reef.

We swam along the outside of the upturned hull until we reached the stern and the propellor and rudder, which some swam between as some blades are missing from the propellor. Then we ducked in through a hole in the hull and swam back up through the wreck.

There's nearly nothing to see inside, but it's full of fish and the structure of the hull is visible.

Back at the bow, we exited and swam over to the reef, which was an excellent dive in its own right, very colourful and alive with fish. This was another of those "I don't want it to end" dives!

I finished my 4 days where I started back on Shark and Yolanda reefs and it was possibly even better second time as I had time to take in some details (the remains of the car on the Yolanda debris site, for example) that I'd missed on day 1.

The vis wasn't quite so good and there was more current, but it wasn't raging, so it was more of a drift dive than the first visit and definitely ranked amongst the best of the week.

It was hard to pick an absolute favourite and it was great to 'do' the Thistlegorm, but I suspect the very first dive or maybe the Dunraven would get the nod if I were pressed.

It was great to go back to the Red Sea and dive some of the sites I'd heard about on my first visit when I learnt to dive. I was a little worried I may be disappointed and my memory was too 'rose-tinted', but I had 11 enjoyable dives, 7 or 8 of which I'd call excellent, and I think that's pretty good for 4 days!

So, that's it for 2014, 66 dives, qualification as a Dive Leader and dives in the Pacific and Red Sea as well as finally getting to dive the James Eagan Lane and Aeolian Sky in the UK, not a bad year.

Now to start planning for 2015!

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