DIR Diving Blog

A few of us got together to get a couple of dives in at Portland. The team was Fraser, Clare and myself.

Dive one was on the Aeolian Sky pictured above before she sank. Massive wreck and we were lucky enough to get 10-15m vis which was absolutely stunning. As we descended the shot the wreck loomed into view and I could clearly see it extending out in all directions. It’s lying on it’s side and we headed down to the seabed at 29m to look at the deck and the cargo which had spilled out. We travelled along towards the stern noting the funnel and came round the accomodation block. We tied into the wreck and started inside with Fraser laying line and leading the way. We reached a stairwell and decided not to navigate down it mainly because Fraser saw an enormous conger eel guarding it! We turned and exited the wreck. We then moved along the wreck at a shallower depth back towards the bow. With such stunning vis it was easy to make out huge sections of the wreck and on a 10,000 ton wreck that really does add to the sense of scale. We could also see other people diving on the wreck almost like diving abroad. Total bottom time was 40 minutes and we deco switched at 21m on our ascent. We ignored the 50% in our deco schedule and got out after an hour. This instantly became my best UK dive to date and I’d thoroughly recommend it! For more info check out Divernet’s wreck tour.

Dive two was the Bombardon unit inside the harbour. Vis was rubbish compared to the last dive at only 2-3m! However it was good enough to finish off our remaining gas.

Today was an opportunity for the team to get together and get some practise for our upcoming tech 1 class.

Dive 1 and we decended down towards the tunnel in single file. Clare found this slightly off putting as she couldn’t see our light signals and she actually thumbed the dive at 5m. We ascended slowly and had a quick chat on the surface and discussed the problem. We decided that if anyone is uncomfortable then they should take action and re-order the team. Moving from rec diving to tec diving the idea that you must be more decisive is becoming clear. We re-descended and Fraser noticed that Clare’s argon reg was bubbling – he attempted to fix it but couldn’t. Given the slow rate of bubbles we decided to carry on anyone. We headed down towards the crushng works and toured round the top of it, I did a flow check and found someone had shut off my isolator! We stopped and did some s-drills and then moved onto valve drills. When Clare did her valve drill she pulled an OOA after shutting down the right post and trying to breathe from the left. It turned out that Clare had tried to inflate her drysuit on descent and when she couldn’t she turned her left post on (or so she thought). She then remembered she had a new argon bottle and turned that on but didn’t then go back to the left post. Bit of a nasty surprise but I’ve managed it when distracted and shut all my valves off. We carried on to the fence on route to the wheelhouse but decided to ascend. I bagged off and we began our ascent with Fraser timing the stops. We were a minute late to the 6m stop so overall really good practise.

Dive 2 and we started with a descent into some blue water. At 6m we stopped to do some no reference drills. We successfully managed s-drills and valve drills without changing depth more than 1m shallower or 0.5m deeper. Not a bad effort still needs work but we have 6 weeks before our course so we’ve time to practise some more. We decended down to the base of the quarry and set off in search of the plane. We swam through the midsection of the plane and moved on towards the boat. Fraser bagged off and we began our ascent with me timing. We were two minutes slow to 6m so again a reasonable ascent but we need to make sure we are on time. Once at the surface I clipped the spool and SMB to my chest d-ring and began to restow the stage reg. Unfortunately I dislodged the spool and leaving the bolt snap fixed to my d-ring it sank Fraser marked the spot and acted as an anchor while I swam back and hauled it up.

Dive 3 was just myself and Clare as Fraser was suffering with his hayfever. We descended to 6m and had another go at the 6m no reference drills. It was definitely harder as a two rather than a three. We then descended and set off for the boat. Once we found the boat I set off around the hull. I led and Clare followed and I could see the spot of her light keeping up with me. Suddenly she starts signalling rapidly and I swim in and donate my primary. Turned out Clare was stationary and wanted to keep me on my toes! We carried on passed the wheelhouse and moved on to the other sections of the plane. We moved onto the platform and dettached the stages and put them on the platform. We then picked up each others stages and moved off again. As we headed back towards the exit we traded the stages mid water which went ok. Clare bagged off and I then deco switched and we did a nice slow ascent.

All in all an excellent day out. I got three hour long dives done and we were guranteed to clock up the time in the water. A few people look down on quarry dives but when you are training it’s more guranteed dive time than ocean diving.