DIR Diving Blog

Just back from an excellent weekends diving at Stoney Cove. Through Yorkshire Divers a number of the UK DIR crowd had got together and arranged to go diving. There was a mixture of workshops and people just dropping in for a dive.

I met loads of people at the start of saturday and put a lot of faces to names. It was really good to meet Howard and Mark Chase. Howard’s cry of glee when he saw my yellow backup lights was very funny! It really was what YD is all about – people getting together, having fun and going diving.

So diving wise on the saturday I started off going in for a dive with Jonathan, Neil and Little Pete for a skills dive. I haven’t gone in with a group of fundies people since I did Fundies myself so it was a little different to be leading the dive! We dropped in and moved along the 6m shelf until we were next to the APC. Once there we hovered in place and started the basic 5 drill. We moved onto some s-drills – which all went well, followed by a valve drill. It was Little Pete’s first dive in twins so he watched me run through the valve drill first before he had a go. All went ok and he managed the full drill albeit one of his 1st stages needed to be re-tightened as it freeflowed when he turned back on. We then spent some time on the kicks before heading back to the entrance point and bagging off for the ascent. Being a little mean I got Jonathan to send up his own bag then took it off him and got him to send up mine. Funny moment on the ascent was when I actually reeled his bag down. I was busy concentrating on the group and was keeping the SMB taught, however Jonathan had only put a quick squirt in at 6m so it had very little buoyancy! Couldn’t really palm that one off either as all three of them noticed the SMB had re-descended . It was great fun diving with three people I’ve never dived with before and I was stunned at how easily Little Pete took to Twinset diving!

Second dive and myself, Clare and Andy B went for a scooter dive. Still struggled with the scooter a bit, wore out my hand and generally found it quite tricky but there were moments were it was getting there. I must admit I felt we were missing something!

Third dive and a whole crowd of us dropped in. I led out with Little Pete, Alun, Clare and Howard. We set off to the 20m section and toured the Stangarth. Nice swim through it and we then moved onto the bus followed by a slow ascent up the road. Thorughly enjoyable dive. Highlight had to be Little Pete’s borrowed Salvo not working – because he didn’t plug the battery in!

Saturday night was the presentations. Andy Carroll gave a presentation about some of the dives he’s done recently with DIR-UK and showed us some excellent video footage. Rich Walker then did a session on gear and talked through some of the recent modifications to the DIR system. The system actually continues to evolves so there are the odd few little changes such as how you route the light cord. Andy Kerslake then gave a talk about the history of DIR and how he, Graeme and Sue were involved with JJ before the term DIR every existed.

Sunday and I started the day with myself and Clare having a chat with Andy about scooters. We spent about 30 minutes at the surface in front of the scooter. We talked about dealing with run-a-ways, pinning the trigger, fettling the prop and use of tow cords. Unfortunately once in Clare’s scooter was buggered (technical term) so she got back out to fix it. Myself and AK went for a quick scooter and I really noticed the difference. With the tow cord adjusted I was finding it much easier. I concentrated on keeping my light signal in the right place and we bombed up and down most of the 6m shelf and buzzed Andy Carroll’s DSMB class. We surfaced after a bit to see if Clare was up and running. Unfortunately her scooter was still broken so Andy hopped out and started to help. I pinned And’s scooter, clipped on AK’s and started trying to scooter while towing a second one (just stuck my face in the water)!

Fairly swiftly we were then all in the water with three working scooters. At this point I got the hang of it and it became much easier. Suddenly my hand grip was loose and the scooter just moved. Thoroughly enjoyed this and had an absolute blast. Hat’s of to Andy Kerslake for devoting most of his morning to us.

In the afternoon I went for a dive with Jonathan, Neil, Di, Marianne and Rick. Di, Marriane and Neil were all trying a twinset out so we planned to keep it easy for everyone. Enjoyable pootle and I got some snaps underwater which should turn up shortly.

Overall an excellent weekend. Thanks to Andy Carroll, Clare, Andy Kerslake, Rich Walker and of course Bob Cooper who all helped with workshops, kit fettling and repairs, scooter maintenance and just making it all happen. I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did.

Read this article today and thought it was very good. I’ve tried to explain the see-saw principle to people in the past so I really liked the diagrams used.

Fifth-D Trim and Weighting

Started my TDI Normoxic trimix course with Frank Bruce of E-Aquanauts today. We had been booked for a 45m dive down in Plymouth but given a forecast of 5-7 with potential to hit 8-9 the boat got cancelled

We ended up going to the NDAC instead and had a good day all the same. The first part of the day was taken up with forms and dive planning. I was truly stunned at the amount of effort required for dive planning. Following the TDI route took us 40 minutes to come up with all the CNS, OTU, gas usage, deco plan etc. Just to compare we followed the GUE calcs and had the plan done in about 1 minute. No wonder people buy VR3’s! Without battlefield calculations and ratio deco it’s all a pain in the arse!

For the dive we planned a 51m dive on 21/35 in twin 12’s with a stage of 50% (11L in my case 7L for Clare) as deco gas. Our plan was for a 65min runtime. We entered the water and started our descent. Around 20m it got very silty so we moved into touch contact with the line. It cleared up as we hit 30m odd and we carried on down. Once at the bottom, I marked time, gas pressure and flow checked. I signalled direction and set off. The walls of the quarry are fairly sloped here so there wasn’t a bottom as such. The vis was quite good easily 10-15m so we could admire the underwater cliff face. Frank started signalling and indicated his depth/dive timer was broken. I showed him mine and he then ended up keeping station slightly above us. We found the gnome garden and shortly afterwards changed direction. While on the way back Frank thumbed the dive so we clipped off the lights and started our ascent. We hit the 10m/min up to the first deep stop at 36m and then stayed on schedule. I ran the deco and Clare bagged off after the 21m gas switch. Comedy moments on the ascent had to be when I suggested Frank was too far away and when we moved closer he essentially legged it! Second one was when we came across a deco bar at 6m – we actually swam off laughing. We’ve been taught to ascend with no visual reference – SMB’s are allowed but for the length of deco’s we do you don’t need a bar to rest on.

Got to the surface exactly on schedule. Good dive thoroughly enjoyed it and really enjoyed chatting to Frank. Looking forward to the next dive in the course.

For the second time a number of people from the Yorkshire Divers internet forum are organising a DIR gig at Stoney Cove on the 29th and 30th of October.

This is a genuine open invite to all and gives everyone the opportunity to get to know a little more about DIR.

Workshops – Held during both days

EKPP Presentation and dinner – guest speaker Michael Waldbrenner

As is the case with all YD gigs this is open to all who are interested.

Mayan Blue 14Mb
And deploying SMB (show off)

Hmm – just had my LDS on the phone (Dive 90 in Cheltenham) I dropped my suit in for testing as I’ve been getting a little damp when going diving of late and figured it was worth getting it checked out.

Holes were found:
Right cuff
Neck seal
Chest
Right shoulder
Left boot

So it’s no wonder a little water has been making it’s way in. Being a cracking LDS they’ve promised to turn it round before my next dive, although that amount of repairs is going to cost me.

I guess this is poetic justice for me laughing at the hole in Fraser’s boot a few days ago!!!

I’m selling some dive gear I no longer use as I have too much of it. Check out for more details.

I’d arranged a day off work today to go for some dives at Stoney Cove. For the first dive we were diving with Jan an instructor from Wittering Divers. The dive was to be Clare’s guided dive for her divemaster course. Vis was fantastic 10m odd and there was no silt kicked up anywhere.

We set off for a tour of the features, cockpit, bus, stangarth, blockhouse etc. With such stunning vis it really was good fun. The HID lights cut through the gloom easily and I had a thoroughly good dive. Dived 29/23 bit of a weird mix but it was I had after a top off at my LDS.

With that dive done Adam turned up to deliver Clare’s new toy – a gavin scooter! Adam gave us both a rundown of how the scooter worked, what components did what, how to use trim weights and how to change a relay. He also talked us through some inwater skills and made some suggestions about tow cord length etc.

We took in the Gavin and I took a bottom stage of 32%. We stuck to the 6m ledge and I found the Gavin quite tricky to get to grips with. I guess I’m more aware of team position and light signals now. Trying to keep near the person without the scooter meant a lot of turning! We also tried towing a diver and also swimming with the scooter. Quite a few things to learn on the dive but it was a good start.

Third dive of the day and I was back onto back gas and left the stage in the car. I found the scooter much easier to manage on this dive and had a few moments where I really did start to get the hang of it. We also managed to fit in a valve drill and a comparison of backup lights. Clare has photon torpedo’s whereas I have Peli-lites. Inside the blockhouse they were pretty much identical which was good news.

Overall a good day out – thoroughly enjoyed it.

Clare had organised a trip on Wey Cheiftan this weekend but unfortunately due to the weather being rubbish on Saturday this ended up being cancelled. On the off chance the three of us booked onto a dive on the Salsette using Breakwater dive center.

The Salsette was 5842-ton P&O express mail liner sunk by torpedo in 1917. She was described as “one of the most beautiful straight-stemmed steamers ever built”.

Got up at the B&B this morning and the weather was good enough, forecast according to Breakwater was 4-6. First minor drama of the day was Clare was missing her stage bottle. One quick hire from Underwater Explorers and we were all sorted. Nothing like being able to hire a properly rigged stage

We were on Goose with Andy skippering us and he kindly helped us load all the gear on board. Only 5 divers on the boat in total. We chatted to the two other guys and found out they were YD readers now and again. We set out and once past the Bill the weather was quite lumpy. I ended up having to hang onto my twinset as everytime the boat slammed down it got bounced around. Waves broke over the boat and I was very glad to be wearing my drysuit.

Got to the site and we kitted up and dropped in. We paused at 6m to do a bubble check and mod-s and then carried on down the shot. I was in position 1, Fraser 2 and Clare 3. I reached the bottom of the shot, flow checked, marked time and checked gas pressure. We set off towards the bow. Vis was about 3-5m so we got some idea of the scale, but given the size of the wreck it was a bit tricky. We went into one of the open holds and given the vis had to carefully make our way out. We kept going and reached the bow. Once there we avoided some line and made a U-turn. I passed a chunk of wreckage on the sea bed and then out of the gloom the massive bow of the wreck appeared. I had at least 5m vis and could easily make out the size of the structure. We carried on back the way we came and after spotting some enormous dinner plate sized crabs one of us hit minimum gas so we started the ascent.

Deco went to plan and we finished the dive at 70 minutes. Thoroughly enjoyed the dive, given the size of the wreck I reckon you’d need a couple of dives to see all of it. Definitely one to dive again.

The ride back was interesting with lots of white wave tops which wasn’t much fun, but worth it for the dive. This was my first mix dive after completing Tech-1 so it was nice to put it into practise.