DIR Diving Blog

A few of us got together to make use of the bank holiday to get a couple of dives in at Portland. The team was Fraser, Clare, DJL and myself.

Bit of an early start for me as I left lots of time assuming bank holiday traffic and of course then found none! This left me plenty of time to get ready and chat to the others as they arrived. Fraser was just back from his work trip to Oz so we nattered about various things and caught up.

First dive of the day was due to be the wreck of the James Fennel. However wind was making that part rather choppy so we elected to do the Grove bay drift. We were planning to dive as a 3 with DJL hanging back and seeing what we were up to. Bit of mis-communication at the start of the dive but a 15m drift shouldn’t be too complicated

We saw quite a bit of life and a lot of crabs. Absolutely massive crab reared up waving it’s claws at Clare and she had to move up out of the way! We also saw a dogfish and quite a few other fish. Skills wise our biggest problem was team position and communication. We were trying line astern but given the natural light it just didn’t work – you couldn’t see the light signals. Realising we kept getting out of sync Fraser re-arranged us into a line abreast and that worked much better. Our ascent was very solid although the mis-communication at the start of the dive led to myself and Fraser timing deco. It was quite cool at near the end watching all 3 of us keeping level at 1m. Overall our dive went well – had a couple of minor issues but it was good that we sorted it underwater. Good sign that we were beginning to work together.

Skipper was Jay on Maverick and as we missed our proper site he got us a discount!

Second dive was the Alex Van Opstal which was a wreck in 30m. We got to the dive site and we were a bit early for slack water. After a bit of circling the skipper decided we needed to tie the shot in. DJL kind of volunteered so we were due to be the first team in. I’d decided to take the AL80 stage for this dive but ended up leaping in with it only nose clipped as I was just balancing the weight of it on the bench when the horn went and we had to leap. Once at the shot we started down at a fair rate. Fraser got the line twisted round his manifold so I paused to free him and we carried on down. I hadn’t switched my light on when we jumped in and Fraser apparently offered at this point but I missed it and kept going. I thought he was re-ordering on the line as I was suppose to be number 1.

As we reached the bottom we found only seabed and no sign of the wreck and a current running. DJL signals direction and sets off in the furrow dragged by the shot. I check Clare and Fraser are behind me and we move off. Finning against the current is hard work and I clip in the bottom stage clip and start going. I keep checking on Clare and Fraser but start to notice they are dropping back. I could see the two torches but they were steadily getting further away. I debated stopping but was worried I’d lose DJL and he’d end up solo. I guess it’s why four man teams don’t really work – it was easier for me just to stick with Dave. I kept pace with him and kept shining my light back in the hope they could see it and catch up.

About 10mins into the dive we reach the wreck, by now I’m feeling a somewhat narced so myself and Dave pause for a min. Vis is a few metres and we can make out the size of it rising off the sea-bed. No sign of Clare or Fraser so we set off round the wreck. Little did we know that out of the 12 divers we’d be the only two who reached the wreck. This later turned into a sore point with Clare – boy did I get abuse for leaving the team and buggering off with Dave. And of course for actually seeing the wreck when she didn’t

We did a tour of a good chunk of the wreck and saw quite a bit of fish life. At 25 mins we started our ascent and did an extremly lengthy ascent. Given the high workload at the start of the dive there was no sense in rushing.

Got the surface and back on the boat for a hot chocolate and a ride back in the sunshine. Weather was excellent all day, maybe a bit too sunny as my face has now turned somewhat red!

Cracking day out. Thanks to Dave and Jay the skippers, Jess the receptionist for refunding the dive where most people just saw the sea-bed, and of course to the team. Only minus is now going to be the continual jokes from Clare that I deserted the team in favour of Dave!

Today with Frogman’s first trip to Vobster and weather was excellent. Thanks are owed to Jason, Rick, Clare and Lanny for a good day out.

Dive 1 included Jason, Rick, Clare and myself. The plan was to tour all the major attractions in Vobster in one dive! Led by Jason (Bardo) he assured us he could get us round the whole set! We set off towards the pump works and followed the pipes down to 25m. We then did a quick tour through the deep plane section. Moving on from there we passed both the boat and the wheel house – Jason took the opportunity to spring an s-drill on me which I was a little startled by. We moved onto the tunnel which about 15m long and part of the old quarry works. We swam through in pairs in side by side formation. About half-way through I took the opportunity while Rick was enjoying a semi-cave dive to pull an OOA on him and chuckled while he flapped a bit (after the dive he called me several rude words for that one ). We moved onto the crushing works, passing through the metalwork a few times, Rick sprung an OOA on me while I was heading into the restriction which I sharpishly responded too. (Bit of a theme of beasting was starting to develop). We carried on past the other plane sections and back to the entrance point. Clare and Jason both bagged off and we did a clean ascent with a deco switch on the way up.

Cracking dive lasting over an hour and we got brilliant vis as we were one of the first groups in.

Dive 2 and same team again for just under an hour. Clare had now switched to using her recently aquired twin 12’s. This time the plan was a quick pass of the boat and onto the quarry walls where we’d tour round back to the start. I took a camera on this dive and took some pictures as we passed the boat which was now obscured by silt. We carried onto the quarry wall at 20m and the temperature was down to 6 degrees. We did a nice tour round admiring the rock face and the petrified trees. We reached the entry point and spent a little time hovering a 3m getting some pics. Clare may post some up here shortly.

Clare at this point took off as her family had all turned up to watch her get ready for the last dive. The best comment from one of the kids was “you look like an astronaut!” Lanny turned up at about this time and would join us for dive 3. He’d got a lot of new gear to test although unfortunately the X-scooter was not able to make an appearance

Dive 3 consisted of a quick pass through the tunnel for Rick to start with. After the earlier dive where the air share had distracted him he wanted to enjoy it this time.. Unfortunately the vis had by now been totally demolished and was down to 1m at best in that area. Lanny was lacking a backup light so I stuck close to him and we made positive contact with the line throughout. We carried onto the crushing works and then moved along next to one of the platforms. Once there we did a couple of drills. Jason asked me to do a valve drill and I had to restow my stage reg and switch back to the twins. At this point I made a daft mistake and forgot to turn off the stage bottle. I figured I was only on back gas for the duration of the valve drill so I didn’t need to. Anyway valve drill went fine and when done Jason offered me a go on his apollo scooter. I have to say I was very impressed. It carted me around at a cracking rate, I did a couple of laps of the boys and noticed they seemed to be watching me quite intently. I came to a halt and realised my stage reg had gone into freeflow – no doubt from the prop wash. Apparently my scootering had been like a red arrows display with bubbles trailing out behind me like a smoke trail bit of pricey way to drain a tank but hey I gave the guys a good laugh and learnt why you must ALWAYS turn off a stage. I wish they’d got a photo though!

Anyway we then got a message from Rick on the wet notes explaining he really needed the loo. Class response from Jason who led us to the aircraft and pointed out the loo on the plane We then began to swim off. I stuck with Rick while Jason and Lanny went the other way. While we were swimming back they then overtook me on the scooter with Lanny getting a tow. Quite impressive speed for two twinsetted divers with 3 stage bottles between them.

Days inland are quite handy for many reasons. When you’re diving with people you’ve not dived with before, for trying new kit or simply because you want to get some time logged and know it won’t get blown out. I had fun and got home to the missus in time for dinner so cracking day out.

Having got a provisional last October when I sat the course I’ve gone away and practised. I have done 70 odd dives since then virtually all with other DIR divers which has helped no end. That really was essential as it means you get the feedback you need. DJL also re-introduced the video camera on a few dives so I’ve seen footage of what I looked like as well. I also did my Advanced Nitrox cert with Mark Powell of Dive Tech.

I should add at this point that I’m interested in doing Tech1 so the level of skill I was aiming for was a solid pass.

For the dive itself there was myself, Clare and Andy C with Andy K in close proximity. Andy C was just along for the ride. We dropped down to 6m ledge at Stoney and did S-drills and I did a valve-drill. My light decided this was the dive to fail to work and went out. I got Clare to check it and re-fire – it came on briefly before going off again. I figured I’d keep it in hand as I didn’t want to clip it off and get told I’d made it too easy for myself (probably overly harsh – I don’t think Andy K was after that). I then did mask clear followed by mask removal and replacement. Next skill was ascent drill – 6, 3, 1 and then back down again. Had a bit of an issue on the descent when 5 divers swam under us and the old bubble effect pushed us upwards. Once back down I began deploying the SMB. Half way through sorting that out Clare went OOA. I deployed the long hose and switched to my backup. I let go of the SMB and Clare grabbed it while I sorted light cord routing and deployed the full length. I then took the SMB back and finished deploying it. We then did a 3min ascent, which was a bit scrappy. I slowed at the 3m mark to make sure we weren’t rushing and we then sped through the final 2m.

Needless to say I’m chuffed I passed – certainly the hardest scuba cert I’ve ever done but definitely the best one.

With an upcoming assessment by a GUE instructor I was making sure I spent the time in the water getting myself happy all was working correctly. Just myself and Clare met at Vobster for some practise. In total we managed to get 4 dives done and got a few photo’s as well.

Dive 1 was a skills dive. We dropped in and swam round to the 6m platform. Clare had left the battery for her primary light at home so I couldn’t rely on light signals. She was also using a rented drysuit so we decided to take it fairly easy. Once at the platform we did some s-drills, a valve drill and as basic 5. Had a minor issue with the mask off drill as I drifted up a metre or so after that we swam back towards the entry, bagged off and ascended.

Dive 2 was more of a scenic dive. We made our way to the wheelhouse and then set off aiming to find the ship. We ended up touring part of the quarry at 24m. Temperature dropped down to 6 degrees and my HID light was really handy as the ambient light dropped. After a bit of a tour we began our ascent and bagged off. Once at the surface we had a bit of a chat and as we were at the far side of the quarry we decided to swim back underwater next to the quarry wall.

Dive 3 was a long swim next to the walls of the quarry. We didn’t drop deeper than 6m and the vis was stunning. Water was a blue colour rather than green and the scenery was quite striking. We swam through a petrified forest which looked amazing and we also grabbed a couple of photo’s.