BSAC London No. 1 Branch

THE SEA BLOB

2010-06-08T16:22:00.006+01:00

Well, we have just come back from a very successful trip to West Wales and I thought I would share with you my impressions on the weekend. There were only 6 of us on that trip and it is really a pity as the place around the Skomer island is wonderful. The scenery is as good above as below the water.

So, to be precise there were Jim Moroney, President of London No1; Keith, Chairman; Jim Bruce, DO; Alex Marshall, Training Officer; myself (Alex Soubeyrand), Equipment Officer; –we could not have that trip more official- But thanks god! Kate also came along. Kate is a new member of our branch and was very keen to join us after a diving break from lovely Scotland. It was her first trip with our bunch and she lighted up the weekend (with a yellow dry suit brighter than Alex M.’s.) of what would have otherwise been an old men (sorry lads!) getaway.

Jim Bruce and I shared a car and the trip West on Friday was the usual how-can-it-be-so-bad completely jammed traffic. It took us from Camden Town about 1:30 to reach the motorway. After that the road was alright and we made it to Foxdale campsite at 01:20 AM, or just in time for a duets in snore minor interpreted by Alto Keith and Baritone Jim. At around three o’clock in the morning I got waken up by the unmistakable noise of heavy rain and wind batting against my poor cheap tent and while I wedged myself as deep as possible in my sleeping bag, it reminded me of three years ago when I found myself in exactly the same spot and had to spend the entire weekend in the tent because of bad weather. But thankfully it stopped at 11:00 and after some carbonic Kelly kettle boiled tea we headed towards Saint-Dales. The bay was a bit choppy and we gave up the idea of diving from the boat for the day. Instead we returned to Marlows and continued to Martin’s Heaven for a shore dive. Sunday and Monday’s weather’s was very good and Percy was in water in no time and we swapped woolly hats and coats for caps and sun cream. I will talke about the dives in a minute but for now, I would like to express how pretty is the coast around there and how “zimzounging” on Percy in-between the tiny islands is a real treat. Being a natural reserved we had no problem in spotting seals and puffins, which entertained us plenty between waves.

The scenery underwater was quite similar from dive to dive with rocks and sand bits and the life was also plentiful (Keith actually did had a nightmare one night because of all those big crabs waving at us as we glide from one to an other and not being able to bag any- it is a no take zone you see…): scallops, all sort of crabs, spider crabs so big we could have fed the French for days, sea ursine, octopus the list is endless really. Strangely enough, we did not see that many fish. Now for the big surprise: on the first dive in Martin’s heaven, I noticed something very shiny on an outcrop below. As I got closer I realised it was silver fishing hooks I had spotted and just as I was about to swim away, I saw it: The most tiniest thing ever. I had heard about it and seen a few in books and on line but I never had the chance to see one for real and suddenly there were two right in front of my eyes: Nudibranches! So beautiful, so colorfull (Alex Marshall’s wardrobes seems very pale compare to it) so amazing. And then they were every where. As I said I had never seen one before and on that weekends, well I actually stopped counting after a while. White ones with yellow hair, purple ones, white and orange, blue turquoise, ... It was just fantastic. more pictures to come

Just a few words from our last expedition to Teignmouth.

2010-05-07T09:33:00.007+01:00

Morgan and Hannah, Jim Bruce, Wendy, Richard, Keith and I made it to our lovely cottage on a late cold Friday evening. To our surprise, we found the little sea town very quiet for a bank holyday weekend. Apart from the busy dive centre which is conveniently located just a few yards from the slipways and mooring pontoon, we were the only group of divers to be seen on those three days.

On Monday the most courageous managed to dive three sites: London Bridge, The wreck of the Bretagne and Parson and Clerk. On Tuesday we dived the Watcombes Caves and due to adverse weather, no one really fancied 8miles being tossed around to reach the Lord Stewart; instead we stopped not too far offshore to the dive site of the Galicia. It was a good alternative (for those who had a chance to dive it!) and being 18msw deep, Richard finally managed to tick all the boxes on his training log book. Well done Richard! Finally on the Monday, the two previous diving days in a 9 degrees sea were felt as we decided to dive only once before heading back home. We went back to the wreck of the Bretagne, and it was a very good way to finish the weekend.

To me the big surprise was the caves in Watcombe; I was pretty anxious that we will not find them but good advices from local divers through Yorkshire Divers and we were spot on. The vis. on site was very good between 4 to 6 meters and there was a lot to see. Richard and I were buddy on this one. The first cave we found narrowed too much too quickly and we turned it a few meters in. we then found a very inviting large swim through where we met Jim, Hannah and Morgan who were coming the other way. That was quite funny! Coming out of it and gliding gently North we came across another cavern entrance which turned out to be one huge room. Unfortunately, too soon it was time to retrace our way back and it was with much regret that we surfaced. London Bridge was also a good one and the Bretagne a nice wreck in still a good nick with plenty of life.

We didn’t make it to town at all after diving during this trip. I will blame this on two things: the first one is myself who gave early rope off times which means early wake up times and we were so tired by the end of the evening that most of us were in bed by ten! The second one will be Hannah who cooked delicious food in “Gargantuesque” quantity.

Thank very much for all who braved atrocious traffic condition and made it happen.

Pictures from "Top100britishshoredives"

BECOME CHOCO MAN with BSAC NB 1 in PLYMOUTH

2010-02-25T11:12:00.003Z

Dear BSAC Number One Diving Club members,

First trip of the year is now so close I could almost already hear the bells:
"DING DONG DING DONG it is time to go diving".
if you wish to come with us please contact Chris.

PS if your still debating whereas you want to come or not; have a quick look at last year Easter trip report to Plymouth on this very blog. Let's go diving!

DIVING IN LANZAROTE

2009-11-19T09:40:00.002Z

By Jim Moroney,

Last October I was in Lanzarote for ten days. I spent the first few days in Puerto del Carmen old Town.

Eight dives with Safari Diving based

on a sandy beach, from where all the other operators on the Island come to dive. The beach is sheltered & currents are no problem. It takes a little getting used to, as does the water temp of about 24C, this is the Atlantic after all!

The Dive centre supplies all kit if required, it is owned by an English couple with guides of several nationalities all speak good English.

Most of the dives are out of the small sheltered bay with a sandy bottom. It is more a family beach rather than a long strand type.

As you get out about 25mtrs

the bottom drops away, the local Grouper

pops up & greets you, “just more divers” & goes about his daily business, his name is Felix. All the fish & there are many, are relaxed with the divers, they swim past unimpressed, but not afraid so they can be very close indeed. Striped bream & Green lizard fish are plentiful. Also Sting Rays one about 2m wide, two Angle sharks, Octopus & Trumpet fish there was always something to see.

There are Reefs, overhanging ledges & a swim through arch. All a short swim from the bay. They also have a boat which goes out from the harbour wall just next to the Centre. You kit up & walk around the corner to the boat, booties or flip flops are required as the pavement is tarmac & gets very hot in the heat of the day.

The boat is open, when on board you sit on a bench; the trip to the site can be 5 or 10 mins. It just goes along the coast a short way & drops divers in on some wrecks or near the harbour wall. The Viz was great while I was there.

It does not travel out far from the coast as it gets deep very quickly & beyond hobby diving limits. The staff were attentive & professional with pre dive briefings. They of course do training for both BSAC & PADI..

Check out their web site www.safaridiving.com I have attached some photos you may find interesting. There is at least one weeks diving whatever your diving qualification. They use 5 mm suits & supply 12 or 15l tanks. Nitrox is available but as most dives

Are out from the beach & return the profile is gentle. One of my dives was 62mins to 21mtrs.

The final dive of the trip had a 2 wrecks, Angle shark in the sand & swimming + a ray flying past it was brill.

Would I go back you bet I would.

The Lanzarote used to be regarded as a cheap destination, not so now

thanks to the euro rate, hopefully it will improve.

Isle of Skye

2009-09-28T14:53:00.006+01:00

A few pictures from a very successfull trip all the way up to Skye...

Can you spot a monkey?

Isn 't this a bunch of happy divers or what?

Our President monster hunting...

More Scapa Flow photos....

2009-06-26T21:50:00.002+01:00

A big old jellyfish

Wreck of MFV James Barrie. And a diver with a torch.

2009-06-26T18:51:00.003+01:00

2009-06-21T19:14:00.001+01:00

The bow of the James Barrie.

Scapa Flow Orkney Islands

2009-06-19T15:31:00.006+01:00

We had a fantastic week on-board the Valkyrie and did some excellent diving in the flow. Big sun and blue sky for the first 4 days and then some showers (well yes it is Scotland after all). We met very interesting divers and had a smashing time. Highly recommended.
http://mv-valkyrie.co.uk/

I am not a Scapa virgin any more! Yeeeeeeehaaaaaaaa

Chris and Jim peeping.

Pictures courtesy of David alias Pies

Anglesey Part II

2009-05-29T09:46:00.006+01:00

Trip report by Mary-Ann Craig

Anglesey, not really one of the usual suspects for UK diving, and therefore one that appealed as my very first trip with BSAC.

Weather-wise, it wasn’t a promising start when I joined the six club stalwarts on a chilly, grey and windy campsite on Saturday morning. It got less promising as we realised that we’d missed high water, and the sensible chance to launch the RIB.

The first day’s diving ended up being a re-visit of the Trearddur Bay shore dive that was explored during the first Anglesey trip a couple of weeks ago. Keith managed to lose a fin but still outswim Jim and Alex, Raf discovered the extraordinary buoyant properties of wearing all the clothes you’ve brought for the weekend under a drysuit, and George and Vanya spent some quality time fondling dogfish. Welcome to BSAC and Welsh diving!

Fuelled by an excellent stew made by George, and hungry for a dive that could offer more than 3 metres of ebbing seawater, we revisited the same site for a night dive.

I was pleasantly surprised by the colour and variety of life with blue lobsters, crabs, anemones, flat fish and a big compass jelly fish making appearances; there was even relatively decent visibility (perhaps I’ve done too many training dives in Wraysbury and Stoney Cove??). George didn’t hesitate to correct me on my opinion – apparently it was a sh*t dive, and it was all Keith’s fault!

A cold and noisy night later (the BSAC No1 snoring choir was accompanied by the rhythmic thud of our neighbour’s favourite club anthems), and we were ready for Day Two.

Last-minute planning with a dive guide that unhelpfully promised ‘dangerous currents’ and ‘extremely dangerous currents’ for almost every site meant that we got out to the first boat dive site, the wreck of the Angloman by Skerries lighthouse, 15 minutes too late.

With confusing surface currents, growing swell and ‘very dangerous overfalls’ (that helpful dive guide again…), Keith called off the dive and we trundled round the corner into the Skerries lagoon.

A surfacing diver on a smaller boat gave his summary of his underwater experience as ‘crap’ (obviously he and George attended the same lecture on dive site description). He wasn’t wrong. With poor visibility and nothing to see, it was a quick in-and-out. Above surface the colonies of arctic terns and puffins nesting on the rocks made the boat trip just about worthwhile.

Raf capitalised on his powerboat licence with a rollercoaster ride back to Holyhead harbour, and we regrouped for a second attempt on the Angloman at the afternoon low water slack. This time we got down. At ten metres we were fishing around for our torches. At the bottom of the shot line, 24 metres, it felt like we’d descended into a very black hell, with added silt. Alex and I didn’t find the wreck, but made our way around a course of rocks that loomed from the murk just before we swam into them.

It was the kind of dive that you’re sometimes grateful for – you’d never choose it, but it certainly makes you pay attention to your gear, your buddy and your air! And I came out feeling like I’d got some good experience of poor conditions. And, when the rock faces did loom in front of us they revealed thriving colonies of sponges, crustaceans and numerous jelly fish.

Group consensus meant we didn’t attempt a third dive, on the wreck of the Harold. It was likely that this site would suffer ‘very dangerous and strong currents that are dangerous and strong’ (the guide book) and terrible visibility that we’d experienced at the Angloman. We wrapped up for the day and headed ‘home’ to the tents.

I pretty much doubled my repertoire of knots over an evening curry, although after an hour I think Keith was just saying words and tying things up (a Turk’s Head on a Bight, anyone??).

Day Three and we were back to the south western coast of the island, in search of better vis and some easily accessible sites.

Beautiful sunshine quickly turned to a thick grey sea mist, but we headed out nonetheless to the wreck of the Missouri, in 12 metres. The visibility was good, Jim’s internal metal detector meant that navigating from one part of the wreck to the next was child’s play, and again, the marine life was pretty decent.

The core four, Keith, Jim, George and Vanya stuck around for the Tuesday, but the threat of more unsettled weather threw the chance of diving into question.

I really enjoyed the weekend – thanks for the welcome to the club! I even got to drive the boat, play at rescuing man-overboard buoys, and then real man-overboard jetskiiers! It was a real pleasure to dive with such experienced buddies – I’m hopeful that one day I too will be able to gracefully hover at three metres with an empty tank…

Two things to heed for next time – don’t dive Anglesey on a Spring Tide. And if you do, allow plenty of time to formulate plans A, B, C, and D, and then a contingency plan for when none of those are feasible. And advance knowledge of the slack times and dive times – in such a tidal area dive planning over the cornflakes is never going to work out too well. Otherwise you’ll find yourself on a beach with the RIB on the trailer, watching the sea recede into the distance…

I’m looking forward to the next trip – and a chance to use my new-found boat handling skills and knot-tying. Unless it’s a clove hitch of course, which is actually not a knot at all.

ANGLESEY Part 1

2009-05-05T17:04:00.017+01:00

Trip report by Alex Soubeyrand

Or how BSAC number one jumped in the Irish Sea and re-emerged out of Vivian quarries in Snowdonia!

This first May bank holiday weekend saw a few irreductibles from our beloved London based diving group, fighting incredible road traffic to reach the further point north on Wales territory: Trearddur Bay, Anglesey.

This first invasion of the island is in fact only an avant gout of things to come, as Diving Officer Jim and Chairman Keith have now gathered enough information to launch a total assault from Percy Too; Assault planned during the second May bank holiday weekend.

On a bitter-cold Friday evening we arrived one after another at Tyn Rhos camping site, having cursed the M1 the M6 and the A55 along the way. First on the crime scene was David, followed closely by Andy; Keith and I arrived a few hours later and Jim and Chris finally made it just before midnight. A few minutes of tent-wrestling later and we were all happy to have made it at all before sunrise the following day, and were talking about the weekend to come around a few cans of our favourite brew: Isn’t life wonderful?

The plan for Saturday was for Chris and Jim to reach the dive centre in Holyhead to get some training in twinset diving. The rest of us will spend our time trying to explore the many local shore diving possibilities. Unfortunately that weekend, high tide was a little bit on the early and late sides of the day. Fortunately the weather was very good (well at least on Sat and Sun) and after a lot of kelly-kettle-boiled-tea fuelled brainstorming we were all kitted up for what would be my first shore dive ever. We were to dive the site also known as the Ghost House, named in reference to the grim grey huge Mansion house looking down the beach (aren’t all houses in Wales grim and grey?). It was a nice little dive. Perfect for Andy to try is brand new dry suit and David is brand old one. David is a new addition to our platoon, having served for many years in difficult and technical diving conditions. Maybe most of you will have met him through Chris at one of our club’s social Tuesday evening. As an outsider, he fitted to our small group like a glove, and was admitted as one of us straight away. We did not see much life on that dive and spent it most doing exercises; however, when going through some deco simulation drills, I suddenly noticed dancing right in front of my mask the most fantastic little tiny creature I had yet seen: not bigger than a chestnut, almost invisible and absolutely extraordinary. I have now found out that it was in fact a Ctenophore and watching this tiny creature was a great way to finish the dive.

The second dive that day saw Andy and I again teamed up with Keith as a support cover. We drove just 2 minutes from the camp site and kit up along the little beach just opposite Diving Services. The idea was to dive along some rock formation that sheltered the beach. This dive was actually very good with a lot to see: crabs, lobsters, prawns, pipe fish, dog fish etc. Unfortunately on this occasion the surges were too much for us once we passed the sheltered part and we had to turn the dive. However we returned the day after with Jim and Chris with a vengeance and were luckier with the weather. We managed to complete the circuit and had a cracking dive just before supper.

By that time I had started to really enjoy the idea of short diving: just ride along the coast line, find a nice spot or beach, stop, kit up and dive. Simple! Isn’t life wonderful!

Monday, the last day, never came. It was obvious that two sunny days in a row was too much for Britannia and a rubbish one had to follow. So we packed up our tent and stuff and left. The weather was so miserable that David was very tempted not to bother with is old leaky tent at all but to leave it there as it was on the camp site. The idea was received with great enthusiasm especially from Chris who suggested running over it with a car first… And so Chris, Jim, Keith and I said goodbye to David (Andy having left the day before not willing to spend one more night in his under suit –sorry Andy ;-)-).

This is when Chris suggested spending some time at the Gwledig Padarn Parc (Padarn Country Park) in the village of Llanberis on our way back towards the civilisation, where:”… we could certainly get some breakfast and maybe also get some training done at the Vivian Diving Centre and quarries...”. I was not too thrilled about that one as I was still drenched from the earlier tent removal business, still cold from a freezing night in an inadequate sleeping bag and we still had at least 6 hours driving ahead. Oh yes, and the rain was still falling pretty heavy. I believe Jim was thinking exactly the same way and Keith was adamant he would not get any wetter today. However, once at the site some of Chris’s craziness must have washed off and stained on Jim and I as we decided finally to give it a go. It has to be say that the place is stunning: access is through a little arch where the small quarries is locked and surrender by high dark slate cliffs which suck the already poor daylight and transform it unto some sort of unreal atmosphere. “Being a slate quarry means clean, clear water with very little sediment.” says the web site and also kept repeating the friendly chap at the dive centre. Well we were in for a chock, as exceptionally clear the water is indeed. Everything was still and quiet. It was like to be at a secret ceremony:”… and so after a few minutes of self-underwater-harm the Golden Yoyo is at unanimity given to… –drums- …Chris and Alex! And the Silver one goes to… -again drums-Jim!...” Jim's acceptance speech went something like that:”… apart from poor techniques I like to thanks the exceptional visibility which makes neutral buoyancy impossible and also inadequate weighting adjustment from sea to fresh water, also...” Too soon it was time for me to wave good bye to the pair of them as I was then low on air.

It was again a very enjoyable weekend spent with London Number One and I had a wicked time!

Thank you Keith for organising the trip, it was well worth it!

My first time as the Dive Marshal

2009-05-01T10:11:00.007+01:00

Trip report by Alex Soubeyrand

This Easter Diving Holidays was my first time in the driving seat of one of our club trips. Not any trip I might add, but our traditional Plymouth Easter bank holidays diving trip. A BSAC London No.1 tradition which can be traced back to the origin of the club itself when, according to Keith, the said club had so many numbers (400!) and boats that they had to run 6 to 12 waves a day, with 2 to 3 dive Marshals and many more Assistants. There were air divers, oxygen divers, snorkelers and even hard hat divers! Well, we certainly didn't become the Number One diving club out of nothing...

I had already been on the trip two years running and had a good idea of what to expect. No matter how well you have prepared and planned your trip, it will, in the end come down to the weather (which is true for most trips). Two years ago the weather was good, last year it was horrible.

For the past two weeks prior to the trip, I started to surf the Met Office's website like a maniac. D-Day minus one and the forecast was awful, I was so disappointed. Prediction for the weekend was strong South/South West wind. You can't get any worse. Well, after all, the weather was in fact... fantastic! I mean really really good. Sunshine, flat sea and everything, almost no wind... perfect!

So we managed to dive most of the sites I had planned to dive except for Hands Deep (sorry George). For those who have yet to organise a trip, and yes we know who you are! Here is my recipe:

1. Good weather (pretty obvious)

2. Good Assistant to the DM: I have to admit that I had a smashing assistant who really put all her heart and both feet in it and helped a lot. Thank you Wendy, the weekend went through like a charm.

3. Finally, I had a good bunch of happy divers, ready to help and to wake up every day with a smile, at dawn.

In the end we did seven waves plus in-between short sorties to the Breakwater for training purposes; not bad. OK, a little bit weaker than the 3 to 4 dives a day plus night hard boat diving initially planned but...

I wish to welcome Andy, who for his first trip with the club proved himself a real Loup de Mer with an impressive 30 minutes dive in very cold water wearing a wet suit (plus a pair of shorts!) so thin that even Chris and Keith looked incredulous. I suspect this was only a stratagem to get a warm double cuddle from Wendy and Megan.

I also wish to welcome James who also showed what he was made of, by being on most waves, diving or not.

Thank you all for coming along.
Al.

PS: recipe for a good trip continued:

4. Always a good idea to have someone as knowledgeable as Keith to proofread any decisions...

Wapping Police Station Visit

2009-03-28T12:00:00.002Z

Saturday saw several members of London Branch, past and present, enjoying a visit (planned!) to Wapping Police Station (the home of the Met's Marine Policing Unit).

Although it's been through several name changes, it's been around for over 200 years, which pre-dates the Bow Street runners. Hearing of the disasters on the river and murder most foul on the streets of East London was not a usual Saturday afternoon, but the museum with its relics of times past and the stories connected to them recounted by the knowledgeable curator, Bob, made it a day to remember.

A curry in Brick Lane rounded off a very pleasant day. Many thanks to Jim Moroney for organising this.

Last minute trip to Wraysbury

2008-12-07T11:59:00.005Z

Photos by Joe Hesketh

A few photos from Wraysbury last Sunday where seven of London Branch stood around in the cold and then went for lunch. Two even got in the water!

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Cave Diving In Cozumel

2008-09-11T12:59:00.023+01:00

Trip report by Alex Soubeyrand

Cozumel—the island of swallows in Mexico—is world famous for being the favourite diving spot to a late red-hat-wearing French scuba diver. It has it all: beautiful reefs, high speed drifts and big colourful exotic fish.

It is less known as a place for cave diving, however this tiny and friendly island makes for a nice alternative to the Yucatan mainland. It has about 18 known caves and many more are waiting to be discovered. Unfortunately most of those caves are difficult to access and sherpas as well as path-cutting through the jungle are a necessity. Fortunately a few are easily accessible and like most of the cenotes in the Yucatan, they have no current and are pretty shallow all the way through.

One man who knows the island and its cave systems inside out is German Yanez Mendoza. German was my instructor in overhead diving and he became a very good friend. He has been an active explorer and cave discoverer for many years both on the island and on the mainland. Apart from spending most of his time underwater teaching cave and technical diving, he also teaches Ecology at the University of Cozumel and participates in many scientific researches. I hadn't seen him for a year when he picked me up from my hotel a few weeks ago and I was really happy to shake his hand.

Systema de Paraiso (aka Cenote Aerolito)
Cenote Aerolito is such a wicked cave! It is just off the main road, and a few miles south from St. Miguel. The cave is about 17 km long with a max depth of 25 metres and has been intensively explored. If you are allowed to breathe more than 1/6 of a set of doubles, you will have a great time diving the many, many circuits and jumps of this ever changing system. For instance, the one which leads to the Sulphur River: at the 5th double arrows following the main line there is a short jump to the right. A few frog kicks later and the cave is transformed—at the halocline level the walls are strikingly marked as if painted in white. All the water in contact with this white layer is in permanent state of ebullition and bubbles up. It is absolutely fantastic to witness! At other parts the Halocline stays so thin that the sensation you get swimming from one layer to the other is mesmerising! Beware of the temperature drop though!

As the cave is connected to the sea, there is a slight tide in the cave. At times it is even possible to use it and drift slowly back to the entrance. Or, you could also choose to swim gently along the permanent guide line until you hit the Botanic Pit. Here the cave drops down 10 metres vertically to the next level with a very dramatic effect. The walls change in colours and aspect and the floor looks like it is made from wood shavings.

Another remarkable feature of the cave is its unique fauna: there are massive white caterpillar-like worms crawling on the rocky floor, many star fish and also scallop look-alikes with long thick eyelashes which react to artificial light by jumping around like clockwork jaws. There is so much to see in this cave…

Cenote KM1
The entrance to this cenote is reached after a five minute hike from the main road along a pig trail through the tropical forest. It is imperative to have an early start in order to not fry alive in your dry suit. The visibility in this cave I was told is not so good. To give you an idea, imagine your best UK dive, multiplied the viz quality by 10 and you are still far from it… This cave is part of the Quebrada System. There is a fair bit of navigation to it (Ts, jumps and gaps), however it stays shallow all the way. I recorded a max depth of 9 metres. It is a bit like diving the Swanage Pier, but in a cave system. You can enjoy it for hours…

Cenote Xkan-Ha
If you leave Cozumel's one and only main road at Rancho Buena Vista crossroad and know where you are going, you might notice another smaller path on the left. If you decide to engage on this bumpy track and drive north 5 to 10 minutes, you will then reach a sort of clearing in the middle of nowhere. This clearing is in fact a spiritual place used for Mayan ceremonies. There is a basic block with a series of hammocks, a big hole in the ground to heat volcanic stones and a fantastic ancient Mayan sauna known as a Temascal. The sauna is a small round structure, with low ceiling and a hole in the floor right in the middle to receive the burning hot stones. Once it is ready, participants get in, relax and clean their body and soul. After the ceremony, they can then regain strength by cooling down in the cenote. A few metres away from the Temascal, a wooden path leads to the sinkhole. This place is sensational and I really got spirited away by its atmosphere.

The cenote is not open to divers, however on this occasion we were allowed to dive in as we were to help a group of students from Cozumel University. German would collect water samples and I was given the task to monitor the temperature at different depths.

Because this cenote is deeper than most caves in the area, we quickly accumulated decompression. I spent most of it reflecting about the dive. I have always had difficulties in understanding how a vertical hole could be classified as a cave. To me it seemed to be just another open water site—maybe restricted but open. I could not figure it out. While off-gassing, it was evident that I was wrong: the hole is shaped like a funnel, with its small end at the pool and its wider one at the bottom. So a direct ascent to the surface is not always possible. There is a thick layer of tannic acid at the surface that prevents any daylight to penetrate beneath it. Even at 3 metres below the surface, I could hardly see the outside light. It is a cave environment only with no cavern area. My torch was unable to pick up any walls around me, I realised how disturbing it would be to get lost here. As a safe guard there are two lines set at different depths. Each goes around the circumference and joins the main line.

Unfortunately, all too soon it was time to leave this wonderland and its hidden treasures. I would like to thanks German for the opportunities and the great fun.

Freediving in the SETT

2008-05-18T14:50:00.010+01:00

Video by Joe Hesketh

As those of you on the London Branch mailing list probably remember, a few of us recently went to Gosport to the Submarine Escape Training Tower (SETT) to do a weekend’s introduction to freediving course run by deeperblue. From London Branch were Morgan, Hannah, Tobias and myself. For the rest of you, here’s what you missed…

The whole freediving experience was amazingly peaceful and relaxing and I hope I’ve managed to capture some of that in the following short video.

For those who can't view Vimeo, a lower quality version is available here.

Christmas Dive 2007

2008-04-01T17:01:00.003+01:00

Photos by Joe Hesketh

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

James Eagan Layne Video

2008-03-31T12:21:00.003+01:00

Video by Joe Hesketh

I finally managed to edit something together from the Plymouth trip and, as promised, put it up on the Web. I don’t think Howard Hall need be worried just yet, but hope everyone enjoys the results.

A lower quality version is also available on YouTube.

Southern Africa Holiday Highlights

2008-01-08T11:43:00.000Z

Trip report by Jim Bruce

I'm uneasy about the practice of attracting sharks to divers by feeding them. The main argument against this is that it changes the sharks feeding habits but the process is also very undignified. However I signed up for the shark dive anyway, persuaded by the promise that there was no direct feeding, only 'chumming' (putting blood and oil in the water, not big chewy bits).

Upon arrival at the dive site, 50 km south of Durban, the crew started the chumming process. The smell of the concoction used is unlikely to ever be bottled for use as an air freshener and this, combined with the huge three metre swell, created perfect sea-sickness conditions. Those of us who were unaffected jumped in 30 minutes later and found both dusky and blacktip sharks in abundance. These were fast and agile beasts up to about 1.5 metres. However it was tiger sharks that we hoped to see, and patience was required. After an hour at six metres the number of divers started to diminish and after 90 minutes there were four of us left. A female tiger then made her entrance. At 2 or 2.5 metre long she was mightily impressive, with unmistakable vertical stripes on her flanks. There was no question who was the boss and the other sharks showed due deference. She cruised effortlessly back and forth in the chum trail for 10 minutes before concluding that there was no free lunch and disappearing. After 111 minutes my bottle was dry anyway and I returned to the RIB.

A tiger shark and I

Mozambique is becoming a playground for the South Africans. More accurately, for the white Afrikaners, many of whom are based in Johannesburg area. I was in Inhambane which is actually about 1,000 km west of Johannesburg but that doesn't stop the South Africans driving all the way there (or flying their own planes there, in the case of two different blokes I dived with).

The attraction of Mozambique for me was to try and see manta rays and whale sharks. The mantas are fairly common and are in permanent residence, while the whale sharks turn up in the summer to hoover up the plankton.

After a couple of reasonable dives on the house reef we went out to Manta Reef the next day. The South African style of diving is as a large group with everyone on the RIB staying together and led by a divemaster (who has an SMB). This is very restrictive to the free-roaming British diver, especially as every other diver encountered only had PADI OW or AOW. The advantage is that staying together does reduce the risk of divers surfacing away from the boat cover.

Surprisingly our shoal of divers didn't seem to bother the mantas, as one turned up five minutes after we got wet. It looked more like it was flying than swimming, with its huge wings flapping slowly and effortlessly. This propulsion was very effective though, as it moved quickly and with amazing grace. It made several runs, back and forth across the same cleaning station, although for my money it was having dinner, not a wash and scrub up. After awhile it moved to the edges of our visibility and we averted our attention back to the reef. As soon as we did this it was back again, apparently liking the attention.

We managed a second dive on Manta Reef two days later. This time it was even better with two of them gliding together. They were also much bigger—the largest was 5 m. Despite the size they were as graceful as the smaller one and flew together in synchronisation.

Between these amazing dives we stayed on the house reef. This reef had lots to look at but paled in comparison to watching mantas. It rapidly became frustrating that the dive centre was unwilling to go out to the "far reefs", despite being only 20 minutes away on the RIB. A concerted effort by me did see one further success, when they acrimoniously agreed to take me out to Pandane Reef.

Pandane Reef usually has strong currents present and post-dive we guessed the tide was running at 3 knots. I have only done a handful of drift dives before and none of them had a current as strong as this. If the manta dives were like a Sunday afternoon drive in the country, this was like Friday night street racing. We ducked in and out of the current, mostly along the base of a wall. Shoals and individual pelagic 'game' fish (trevally, barracuda, jacks) were whizzing about all over the place. It was alive and you knew bigger true game fish such as marlin and wahoo lived there and couldn't have been far away. A shoal of two dozen devil rays also passed overhead, silhouetted against the surface light.

To finish the dive off we dropped down through a vertical entrance to a large cavern. Inside all was still and a large green turtle was having a kip. By then our no-stop time was almost done but as I tried to leave the cavern a sudden powerful inflow of water not only stopped me in my tracks but forced me down onto the bottom. After a mild panic attack the current fortunately ended as abruptly as it had started and I whizzed out and started the ascent to the RIB.

This was the last dive of 2007 and also the best one of the year. Some more drift dives are now in order I think… Portland Bill on a spring tide anyone?

My Life As a Dog

2007-11-29T12:13:00.002Z

Trip Report by Alex Soubeyrand

Ivan Petrovch Pavlov was a Russian scientist who brought the world the science of conditioned reflexes. He experimented with dogs, studying the relationship between salivation and digestion. By applying stimuli to the animals using a bell, he was able to make the animals salivate whether they were in the presence of food or not.

From Wikipedia: "The phrase "Pavlov's dog" is often used to describe someone who merely
reacts to a situation rather than use critical thinking."

The trip to the Red Sea was fantastic: good diving, excellent weather, excellent food, good atmosphere… as far as I am concerned, it was a success.

The introduction above about the Russian scientist comes from the common practice by live aboard guides and crew to signal their customers that it is time to dive or time to eat. They do so by ringing a bell. The same kind as last order bells used in pubs. I can tell you that Pavlov was right, as after only a couple of days the bell absolutely took over my behaviour and dictated my life. For the rest of the trip it was either time for diving or time for eating.

On Monday 29 at 06:22 it was time for diving and the dive was taking place on the Rosalie Moeller. The Rosalie Moeller lays upright at a maximum depth of 53 metres where she reaches the sea bed, with her upper deck at a depth of 35 metres.

I was to buddy with Jim on this dive and it would also be the first time we have dived together since I joined the club. We dropped down the shot line and after five minutes, we were hovering on the upper deck. The visibility was alright, like on a good British dive and after exchanging OK signals, Jim signalled towards the stern. We followed on the port side, swam pass some kind of cabins and dropped down one level through a large opening to an agreed maximum depth of 38 metres.

We continued our dive with a short swim through and regained the upper deck a few yard from the stern. Before turning back towards the shot line Jim started to wrestle with an abandoned line. We swam back on the starboard side, passed the shot line, swam some more toward the bow and then agreed that time was up. And so up we went on the shot line decompressing for some time before it started to rain divers.

This was a short, no fuss dive, and still, it remains one of my favourite. I am not exactly sure why. Maybe it is because it was so early in the morning and we were the only group of divers on the wreck. It seemed that Jim and I were the only divers on the stern side. All was silent and still, but for thousands of resident glass fish.

I must also mention a few words about our last night at Sharm El Sheikh. We were dumped in a not very nice all-inclusive resort specialised in holidays for Italians and Russians. As non all-inclusive, non Russian and non Italian, we were kind of outcasts to the staff and had to fight our way for just about everything: food, taxis, rooms, drinkable water… It was a cold shower after six relaxing days.

Maybe I am exaggerating a bit and the situation was not that bad. I believe I was to some extent affected by the "The Beach Syndrome". Let me explain: at one point in the film The Beach, the hero, after having spent time cut from the world on a paradisiacal island, gets back to touristy mainland Thailand. He observes with terror how awful life in society seems: loud music, strong flashing lights, horrendous traffic, noisy-shouty-drunk young adults and pollution. Add to this cheesy buildings and this is actually a good description of Sharm town.

To cut a long story short, after dinner we wanted to get to the Camel Bar in downtown Sharm. As you would expect, we had to bargain for a cab with the guys at the reception. Thanks to an inflexible George, the price dropped from 180 Egyptian pounds to 50. This is a very important detail: for the way back to the hotel, we found someone that asked straight away for 50. We should have known better but we just agreed: I quote George: "You know what my friend? I will give you 50!" and we got into an old blue Peugeot.

The engine was turned off and after two minutes of waiting that turned into five minutes which then turned into ten we understood that our young driver was actually waiting for one of his mate to bring "benzene" (petrol) to the car as the tank was empty. Why we didn't at that point jump out of the car, I am not quite sure—maybe the few shots at the end of a beer-drinking session helped. When the mate appeared with a five litre container of the precious liquid but no funnel and the two of them improvised with a rolled up magazine our impatience turned into laughter. We also started to notice other things about that car: the seat belts clips were bolted on the side windows? The rear mirror was hanging like a swing in a park! And it was starting to smell so bad of petrol inside that even George abstained of smoking.

After a few attempts to pump the petrol to the engine, the car finally started up and off we went. We were heading in the wrong direction though, so when we mentioned it to the driver he answered in broken English a response that we did not get at first. What we understood straight away though, is that, the same way we are advised to in English buses, it is not recommended to speak to the driver. Ahmed—our driver—would speak back to you and he kept on talking without looking where he was going, at full speed. Keith, who was sitting in the front seat, kept on saying, "Don't ask him any questions!".

To say that we were scared would be lying (once again, the few shots at the end of a beer drinking session helped) but certainly there was some anxiety within our nervous laughs. We got home eventually saint et sauf after a few more stops at local petrol stations.

Thanks to Richard and Morgan for having organised the trip.

Photos from Plymouth—Easter 2007

2007-04-09T14:28:00.001+01:00

Photos by Joe Hesketh

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Plymouth Easter trip – final details

2007-04-03T11:35:00.002+01:00

Announcement from Morgan Peat

Here are some details about the upcoming Plymouth trip. Hopefully you will find everything you need to know right here; if not please let me know. To those of you who have been to Plymouth many times before I apologise for my verbosity.

People going and accommodation

21 people have their name down for the trip. Most people are staying in the Mountbatten Centre with others arranging their own accommodation.

Borringdon Arms: Morgan & Hannah. Unfortunately I couldn't get enough rooms in the Mountbatten centre so we had to move elsewhere. We will be about 10 minutes walk from everyone else.

Mountbatten Centre: We have two triple rooms and four twin rooms booked. It would be sensible for the three women (Nikki, Nadia and Megan) to share a triple room. Please leave one double room for the two driving the Land Rover (Jim Moroney and Alex Marshall). Otherwise sort your own rooms out.

Trainee weekend in Portland, 24–25 March 2007

2007-04-02T11:55:00.002+01:00

Trip report by Joe Hesketh

The weekend of 24–25 March saw three of our new trainees experience diving in the sea for the first time on an early season training trip to Portland. Despite some issues with the weather, cold water temperatures, lack of viz and lack of marine life, a good time was had by all ;). Trust me guys, it’s all good from here…

Here are a few photos taken from Chesil Cove.

21 April 2007 – Marine Medic Course

2007-03-30T11:07:00.004+01:00

Announcement from Morgan Peat

Hannah and I are attending a "Marine Mammal Medic" course run by British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) on Saturday 21st April. It is a one-day course run in Bewl Water, Kent.

Marine Mammal Medics are used by the BDMLR to help rescue stranded and injured marine life. You will have seen them in action with the "Thames Whale" and they are currently helping to rescue oiled birds from the beached container ship MV Napoli.

Details of the BDMLR and the course are at their website.

The first part of the course comprises lectures about dolphin-spotting and the various first-aid techniques used to help marine mammals. The second part is made up of practical sessions practising rescues of seals, dolphins and whales using life-sized water-filled balloons.

If you are interested in doing the course please contact the BDMLR directly. I'm sure the course will be very entertaining and it would be good to have a few more friends along. Don't be put off by the fact that nearly every high-profile rescue involving the BDMLR has resulted in the casualty's death. This course is geared towards practising first aid and rescue, not euthanasia. I doubt water-filled models would respond too well to clubbing.

Plymouth – Easter 2007

2007-03-30T11:00:00.003+01:00

Annoucement from Morgan Peat

What do you have planned for the Easter break? Scuba diving, of course!

Everyone who has been around London No 1 for more than a year knows that Easter means Plymouth, and this year is no different. Divers will be struggling to remember which way on their BC goes, realising that their cylinders are out of test, prodding sleepy Dogfish and giving a sharp intake of breath as they take their first dip in UK waters since last summer.

I have 12 places booked in Plymouth Mountbatten from Thursday night (5th April) to Sunday night. With the help of a little Global Warming (keep using those aerosols) we will be diving Friday through Monday inclusive. Come and experience the delights of a "Platters" fish supper, the rustic interior of the Dolphin Public House, and sample the delicious Ling (sorry, Pollock) at the New Inn.

There will already have been three day's diving before the Plymouth trip this year: a one-day inland quarry trip and a weekend in Portland. This should mean that we will have no 'virgin' divers this year – everyone should have had at least a few dives in open water. Therefore we ought to be able to get some good diving in.

There is a sign-up sheet in the club room. Several places have already gone so if you want to come, get in touch as soon as you can!

Sea Survival Course

2007-03-30T10:00:00.003+01:00

Annoucement from Megan Peat

Is anyone interested in joining me to do a Sea Survival course on Saturday 3 March? It's an RYA course, but the points covered are pretty transferable to sailing—capsizing, floating around in life rafts, etc. and some theory stuff too. Details are all on the their webpage; near Limehouse basin, costs £85.

If anyone fancies it, call Charlie at Firstclass directly to book and let me know!

Pot dive

2007-03-30T09:45:00.001+01:00

Annoucement from Jim Moroney

Hi All

Just to confirm this Saturday 31st March at 09:30 for a 10:00 start. Whipps Cross Hospital Decompression chamber for a dry dive.

Whipps Cross hospital is Whipps Cross Rd, E11. the nearest underground station is Leytonstone on the Central Line. There will be a charge of £40 each. This covers the use of the chamber and a small donation to the friends of the Hospital. It will take about 2 hours.

This will include a dry dive (it is quite big so there should be plenty of space). Also a presentation by the staff (an ex London Branch member) on the subject of decompression illness.

There are still a few spaces so if you are free & wish to go please email me.

For some newer members who perhaps did not know about this, it's an oportunity to visit a working chamber.

While it's best not to need one at all. In the event a visit is required in your diving career it may reduce the stress.

There is no minimum qualification required so please feel free to come along. There is a very large Pub near by that the medical staff use. Just need to have numbers for bums on seats. So far I have Chris H, George V, Joe H, Alex M and Keith G.

Training Update

2007-03-30T09:30:00.000+01:00

From Morgan Peat

Here is a quick update on the diver training that we are doing at the moment.

Ocean Diver
The latest batch of Ocean Divers have all but finished their pool and theory training. Nadia has two lessons left; the rest will be taking their first Open Water dives in Portland this weekend.

Sports Diver
I'm hoping to concentrate over the next few weeks on people who are halfway through Sports Diver. Anyone who wants to finish off their SD qualification please let myself or Matthew Gentile know what lessons you have done and what you have left so we can organise the correct lessons for you. Once the current batch of Sports Divers have finished their training we can start a new Sports Diver course for our newly-qualified Ocean Divers. I hope to start this shortly after Easter.

Information Sheet for Qualified Divers

2006-01-31T19:18:00.000Z

Information Sheet for Beginners

2006-01-31T19:08:00.001Z

Portland 2005

2005-10-09T14:32:00.002+01:00

Trip report by Joe Hesketh
First published in London Diver, May 2006

When Claire took over in the editorial hot-seat she had a few questions about how the magazine worked. Mostly mundane stuff about printing and distribution, etc., but in answering those questions I also passed on some of the wisdom that was handed down to me when I picked up the reigns three years before that. Foremost amongst these pearls was the need to badger and hassle people to write things like trip reports as, without editorial intervention, these rarely happen by themselves. So it was with a mixture of satisfaction that she had grasped the concept so quickly and dismay at my having been duped that I found myself unable to refuse the "suggestion" (made on her part whilst my sage words of advice still rang in the air) that I write up the then fairly recent Portland trip for a later issue. Grrrrr, and I thought I was smarter than to fall for that. Anyway, here it is, though a little later than planned (see what happens when nobody chases you for it…). [I am obviously just too nice… Ed]

In October 2004, a few hopeful souls from London Branch congregated in Weymouth on what turned out to be an extremely windy weekend. Following no diving on the Saturday, we had a slap-up meal that evening and indulged in one or two shandies, pretty confident that the word from the skipper the next morning would be as it was the day before. It was, so we packed up and went home and that was that. The skipper, Paul Pike who ran Dive Time, offered Mel an alternative weekend as it was he who had made the cancellation, though the first one he could offer was a year down the line. She took it, and a few of us made vague promises to come back again next year thinking we would most likely get blown out again.

Well, the year passed and when October finally came, the weather actually wasn't all that bad. It looked like we might even get to dive. There was of course the slight problem of the boat, Dive Time, which Paul had in fact sold in the intervening period. He had found us another skipper though who could honour the booking and we found ourselves with Ivor Janson on his boat, Protector.

Protector is a RIB, though aside from the sponson it doesn't have much in common with even a large RIB such as Percy II. This one is 11 m long, has a fair sized wheelhouse with a kettle, heads, a diver lift, kit benches, oh and 430 HP of inboard diesel on the back. Not bad for a dinghy! Whilst there was a fair amount of room on deck, the benches only had room for six sets of double tanks, and whilst it helped that four people had singles rigs and could kit up on the floor, we still had to do a bit of shuffling round to get everyone in and out of the water. However, it really wasn't that bad, and Ivor's affable manner, knowledge, skills and his simple but ample lunches made us all soon forget about any issues over space.

The line-up for the trip had, I am told, gone through various changes during the year. With some spare places remaining right up until the last minute, these were finally filled, giving us a full complement of twelve divers. The line up was Mel, Jamie, Dave, Angie (a friend of Dave's and whose trips some of us had been on that year), me (Joe), Kevin (a mate of mine), Tobias, Angus Saunders (an ex-member of London Branch), James Astrop, Morgan, plus Beavis and Butthead (sorry, I mean Richard and Matthew…).

With a range of different kit and experience on board, Mel had decided to restrict the diving to wrecks in the 30–35 m range. First up for Saturday morning was the St Dunstan, a bucket dredger and a victim of WWI which I'd dived at the start of the previous season with Jamie. Lying in 28 m of water in Lyme Bay, I'd forgotten just how far away this wreck is, with Portland Bill only just visible on the horizon by the time you reach it. Andy Lawrence, who skippers Goose, once described it as "not so much a trip, more of a voyage" when one of my buddies suggested it to him as an alternative dive. On Autumn Dream the previous year, as I recall, we'd all managed to keep ourselves entertained on the way out there with a copy of The Guardian and a lively discussion on the key differences between "dogging" and "cottaging" (I seem to remember Morgan knowing the most about the subject, though I'm sure that's just because he's so clever…). Nothing quite so bawdy this year, well not until the Sunday at least.

Anyway, with a bit more time to poke around this year, we had a pleasant dive ambling round what's left of the wreck. There was an amazing amount of fish life sharing our dive too, large shoals of bib and pollock and even a lone bass (we think, though it didn't hang around for too long). Unfortunately, not everyone got to enjoy the wreck. The long journey, whilst not overly rough, still took its toll on both Dave and Angie who succumbed to seasickness and wisely chose to sit out the dive. Angus too had to miss out on the St Dunstan due to a technical problem with his rebreather which only became apparent in the water (he had brought with him a large tool box though, and managed to get it fixed before the second dive).

As the weather closed in and the stomachs of yet more of our number began to violently disagree with the lack of a stable horizon, enthusiasm for a second dive wasn't exactly running high. Options were limited and the final choice of the Dredger in Balaclava Bay further cut down the number diving to just four. My buddy Kevin welched on me, as did Mel on hers, so Jamie and I mooched around the scant wreckage together (two small lumps of metal, the larger of which the other pair missed) and then moved off to practice some S-drills and valve drills.

On the Saturday evening, we'd made a group booking at an all-you-can-eat buffet style restaurant. Several people had been there before, including myself, and were aware of the dilemma awaiting. The buffet serves Indian style starters and mains, plus Chinese style starters and mains, and that's before you get to the soups and salads. The problem was that, even ignoring it being a buffet, the quality is uniformly excellent and the only sure fire way to avoid the problem of choosing which to have, was just to have all of it. Five platefuls seemed to be the minimum the indecisive diner could hope to get away with (if one includes a course of crispy duck, which being "free" we all slightly overdid…). Various methods were employed, from stuffing everything down quickly in the hope that your stomach wouldn't notice what was happening, through to a methodical pacing of dishes over the course of the evening. None of these worked particularly well and so, bloated, we staggered the short distance back to the B&B (the excellent Aztec House, now a regular favourite) and an early night, all slightly concerned about the 6:00 am breakfast (not so much that we'd have to get up early but that we'd have to force down yet more food).

Sunday started with some unpromising weather with a light drizzle to top things off. Matthew had made the journey down from Cardiff that morning and (despite the 7:30 am ropes-off time) seemed to be raring to go. Angie didn't feel up to diving much that day so chose to drive home and make the most of the rest of the day. As Dave was sharing a lift, that left ten of us zooming off at full speed to try and make slack on the Elena R, a Greek steamship mined in November 1939 en route to Antwerp. Again in just shy of 30 m of water, it's now pretty broken up after being salvaged but makes a pleasant dive, and Kevin and I managed to find a neat little swim-through to keep us entertained.

The weather really seemed to pick up during the morning, and by the time we had all surfaced from our dive, it was to glorious sunshine and fairly calm seas. Following a relaxing lunch on deck whilst moored up in Lulworth Cove, we tried to decide on a site for the afternoon dive. The bow of the Black Hawk was put forward, although Ivor mentioned that, given our preference for a short-ish surface interval, the tide might still be running a bit too much there. Instead he suggested another shallow wreck, which wasn't often dived. He said he wasn't exactly sure of its identity but he'd always known it by this name. The name—which I'll get to in a minute—begins with "P" and rhymes with 'tennis'. "OK, sounds good", we said. After a while talking about this, it dawned on someone to ask, "er, how do you spell that?". "Ah, yes…" Ivor chuckled, "I think it is spelt how you think it might be…". Naturally, being the responsible and mature divers we are, the conversation that followed wasn't at all puerile and we obviously steered well clear of asking Mel (unluckily for her the only female still on board) such questions as whether she fancied "going down on the Penis" and whether she'd prefer to "do the Penis whilst it was still in full flow or wait until it went slack". No siree, we didn't stoop to that level at all…

After all that, we went to look at, and actually ended up diving, the Black Hawk bow anyway. A cargo vessel, the Black Hawk was one of the 2,751 so-called Liberty Ships all built to the same design as part of an emergency ship construction program in the US at the end of WWII, with the express purpose of carrying much needed supplies for the war effort across the Atlantic. The SS Black Hawk was hit by a torpedo from the U-772 on 29 December 1944, the explosion from which blew the stern section clean off. That part sank further offshore in about 48 m of water and makes a great dive, being fairly well preserved and still an impressive size (when afloat these ships used to displace 7,000 tons). As an aside, the sub which sank the ship, was itself sunk nearby the very next day, most likely by a Wellington bomber. Listed as the U-772, there are some doubts as to its identity and I have been helping with a project diving on this wreck to try and uncover clues as to which U-boat it might actually be.

Anyway, our site for today was the bow section of the Black Hawk, which following the hit was towed inshore and now rests in Worbarrow Bay in a much more manageable 17 m or so. It's a great little rummage dive, though not nearly as well preserved as the other half due to the shallow water and the fact it was salvaged and then blown up again! The current was still fairly strong, but you could easily pull yourself around and find shelter from the worst of it. The time I dived it before this I saw a dead conger out in the open and draped over a beam. Quite an eerie sight as we tentatively studied it up close, still with half a thought that it might suddenly rear up and surprise us. The conger corpse had gone (nothing goes to waste in the sea), though we did see one of his chums in the boiler, hiding but still very much alive.

All in all, a great weekend. As it turned out, this was my last sea dive in 2005 and a great way to round off the season. Thanks to Mel for organising.

10 Things I Learnt In The Farne Islands

2005-09-18T17:34:00.003+01:00

Trip report by Hannah Bleakley
First published in London Diver, November 2005

As a relatively new member of the club I found that the trip to the Farnes was the perfect place to learn about the club and diving, as well as somewhere to do some fantastic diving, so instead of the usual trip reports I decided to pass on my new found knowledge.

1. SMBs
You can never have enough practise with an SMB. Possibly one of the first things I learnt (having found out what one was in Plymouth) as, after a dive to settle into the conditions (and the cold), I was handed an SMB and reel to look after. I also learnt that there is no way to get out of this duty until you are diving with a less experienced diver and can ask the famous question "Have you ever used an SMB before?".

There is no answer you can give to this to avoid being the SMB bearer. Not even snapping a supposedly indestructible reel will get you out of this duty, as I found, I was just handed a new reel a the beginning of the next dive.

2. Food
One of the most important land based activities is eating. It ranged from the daily all day breakfast, the perfect way to warm up between dives, to the fantastic lobster feast prepared by Nigel and Dave (with all their helpers) one night. It was the biggest and oldest lobster I have ever seen (apparently about 50 years old) and had to be de-clawed before cooking in a bucket. That was probably the first time I have seen my dinner merrily boiling away in a bucket. Staying in the same house as Keith I also learnt how to get all the meat out of a crab, as every day there would be more crabs he had caught or acquired from fishermen to be cooked in a variety of pans, the baking tray being the most imaginative and interesting as the crab kept trying to escape along the work surface!

3. Drink
The other important land based activity and a pleasant way to the pass the evening was sampling the local tipple (Farne Islands Bitter) in the best pubs Seahouses and Beadnell had to offer. Special mention has to be given to Paul at this point who looked after the kitty all week and made sure that our glasses were always full so thank you from everyone for this service!

4. There is no dignity in diving
As we all have to find out at some point, whether it is being bent over so someone can put your weight belt on because you have forgotten to, diving in your waterproof having forgotten to take it off before kitting up, trying to haul yourself into the RIB, spitting into your mask, trying to get in and out of a wet wetsuit in a car park or going out in the boat for the ride wearing possibly the least effective lifejacket in the world.

5. Seals
The main reason for diving in the Farnes is surely to "play" with the seals. We were luck enough to have them on at least three dives where they did everything from just swimming past and showing off their underwater skills to nibbling and playing with our fins and SMBs. It made those dives just magical, although they didn't like being looked at for some reason so you had to watch what was happening to your buddy. The juveniles were particularly playful, a big fan of fin eating and showing off their acrobatics.

It is only seeing them so close you realise what skilful and fast swimmers they are, as well as realising how big they actually are, slightly scary when they get territorial and have a quick bite of your arm or leg. Luckily, they are scared of one thing, torchlight, as Joe demonstrated with the light sabre on his dives (mind you most things were scared of that).

6. Other sealife
There is lots more to the Farnes than seals as we saw on some of the other dives when we were not quite so distracted. We saw lots of crabs, some of which were edible ones and so went straight into the goodie bags along with a few lobsters. Richard and Nigel even managed to catch a flatfish in Richard's BC pocket! We didn't catch all of the sealife though, and left plenty of sea urchins, starfish, sprats, wrasse and even a few octopi for everyone else to look at.

7. Weather
All diving is dictated by the weather as we all know and apparently the likelihood of being blown out in the Farnes was very high. We were very lucky to get in five good days of diving before the inevitable happened on Friday and the wind changed to blow onshore. We dived in the rain, sun and wind and even saw a sunrise one morning thanks to Morgan's dive planning. Luckily, the dive was excellent and justified the early start, although it did meant that the breakfast/lunch venue had to be changed as we were too early for our regular haunt!

8. Getting to know people
There is no better way to get to know the people in the club than to go on a trip, and if that is a week long trip, so much the better. Of course some people you will get to know better than others, and I now feel like I know Claire very well having shared a bed with her for a week and given and received a fair amount of cuddles in the middle of the night (sorry Claire!).

9. UK diving
This trip was only the second time I have dived in the UK, having learnt in a nice tropical place and I was very surprised by how good UK diving is. There is so much to see, not just the seaweed and occasional fish through the murk I had envisioned. The only thing I still have to get used to is the cold. The North Sea in September did not seem very attractive and I was ridiculed at work for even contemplating it but it was slightly warmer than I expected. Now I just have to get used to having a dive dictated by whether you are shivering yet rather than how much air you have left.

After that (and having to struggle in to a very wet and cold wetsuit most mornings) the drysuit has quickly made the top of my "kit to buy" list.

10. Communication
This is vital whether you are trying to signal something to your buddy underwater or deciding whether the early morning dive will take place. However, all communication can very quickly fail. The mobile phone signal is Seahouses is pretty much non-existent so at least one person had to leave their bed to find out whether the morning dive was actually taking place and then tell everyone else what the plan was. Also buddy signals tend to fall apart underwater if you are not careful, it is no good getting excited over something and trying to show them if your buddy has no idea what you mean (as we all found at some point).

We did learn some new signals on the surface, but knowing all the signals for different types of sharks was not that useful in the Farne Islands. Seal was usually just signalled by wide eyes and excited pointing, unless it was a baby seal in which case a mime of clubbing a baby seal was used by some people (no names mentioned!).

The Farnes was definitely a memorable trip for me and I am just sorry that the season is over so soon, but at least it ended on a high with lots of brilliant diving and on land experiences to rival those in the sea. Hopefully some of my new found knowledge will be put into use soon…

August Bank Holiday In Plymouth

2005-08-29T17:41:00.002+01:00

Trip report by Tristan Hassan
First published in London Diver, November 2005

Morgan, Tobias, Keith, Richard, Mathew, Hannah and I met up on a beautiful and sunny Saturday morning last August bank holiday, after a good night’s sleep at the Mountbatten Centre. After a hearty full English breakfast (including a cherry tomato) we headed down to met the skipper from Deep Blue Diving. Due to past events including a certain Land Rover we would be using Deep Blue Diving’s RIB and after a quick-debrief we were flying across the water to our first dive for the day. The first dive was very special, especially for Hannah and me, as it was our first ever in English waters (I hadn’t ever dipped my toe in the English Channel let alone dive in it!).

Apart from being my first ever UK dive it was also my first time dive off a rib, and before I knew it we were gently sinking into the deep abyss. When we finally got to the bottom I was amazed at how clear the visibility was, a lot better than I ever expected, but more importantly how much life there was. I think a lot of this praise has to be given to my dive buddy Keith who looked under every rock and crevasse to find more and more interesting things to see including my first ever Cuttlefish.

When the dive had finished and we were all safely back on the boat I found out (to Keith’s amusement) that the big junk of debris on the bottom was in fact the Glen Strath Allen and apart from being my first rib and UK dive was also my first ever wreck dive too!

After lunch, I was eager to get back out there and before I know it, we were again skimming across the water to Hilsea Point.

If I thought the first dive was good then this was 10 times better, a lot of this praise has to go to the skipper from Deep Blue diving who dropped us right on the point. Again, I was teamed up with Keith and had an enjoyable dive swimming in and out of the gullies.

That evening we ventured across to Plymouth Old Town and headed to the infamous Platters. After enjoying the biggest portion of fish and chips EVER while trying not to stare too long at the guy in the doggy wig, it was time to head back for a last minute beverage before getting a good night sleep for tomorrows dives.

If there was some confusion over the Glen Strath Allen being classed as a wreck dive then the same could not be said for the James Eagan Lane, know as being the most dived wreck in the UK. Now this is what I call a wreck! Budding up with Tobias we delved in and out and even saw my first John Dowry. What a fantastic dive!

After lunch, and with everyone back on the rib about to head off for the second dive of the day Tobias’s dry suit zip broke and unfortunately he was unable to dive. This bit of bad luck was unfortunately going to continue, while I was diving I appeared to have a leak from my first stage, much to Matthew’s distress. This meant that the dive was made a lot shorter than my poor dive buddy Keith and I wanted.

Back on dry land the leaked didn’t appear as severe as it must of looked underwater and just involved tightening up my hose pipes so luckily (unlike Tobias) I was able to dive tomorrow.

That evening we again ventured to Plymouth Old Town and after negotiating our way through the hordes enjoying the sunny evening weather found ourselves a place to eat.

The next morning was very different and unlike before where we had had bright sunny weather we instead woke to very thick looking fog. I guess I can’t complain too much as the weather and conditions had been perfect up until now, still this wasn’t going to put us off as everyone (especially me) was excited as we were going to dive the Scylla today!

Now my knowledge of UK diving is pretty poor at the best of times, but even I had heard of the Syclla, which was sunk about three years ago to become a natural reef. Having heard many stories about this dive, one being how popular it is with divers / boats everywhere, it was to everyone’s joy we turned out to be one of the few boats there. Budding up with Morgan we stayed mainly around the first and second floor decks swimming in and out of the cabins, and holes that had been cut specially for divers.

I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy the dive as much as the James Eagan Lane which apart from being a much older ship had more aquatic life on and around it. Still the Scylla had only been sunk recently and in places was already looking to provide its objective of becoming a natural reef. Upon surfacing it became apparent, to the delight of the skipper, eagle eyed Keith made the first ever sighting of a conger eel to make its residence on the Scylla!

The last dive of a very successful trip was back to Hilsea Point. Budding up with Morgan again we had a nice dive in and around the gullies, but it appeared to be Richard and Matthew that had the final find of the trip by stumbling onto a small cave, again much to the joy of our skipper who had been looking for this cave for ages!!

On reflection, I can’t thank Tobias, Keith, Morgan, Matthew, Tom, Hannah and Deep Blue Diving enough for making my first ever UK dive trip a most enjoyable and unforgettable one. I honestly had no idea that there was so much life, colour (and debris) right on my door step and honestly saw more interesting and wonderful things on those 3 days than I ever did in six months diving in Turkey! I’m afraid that I’ve got the diving bug now and can’t wait for my next trip with BSAC No.1.

My (Almost) First Dive

2005-05-02T17:48:00.001+01:00

Trip report by Tom Butler
First published in London Diver, August 2005

Finally, the day had arrived. My first real dive in the ocean. Ian picked me up at my flat early Saturday morning for the drive to Pembroke. Bank Holiday weekend, but the traffic was light, the sky clear and the sun bright. The omens were good.

Driving through Wales, I reflected on my odyssey from desk-bound banker to club member and soon-to-be "scuba diver". Residing near the Seymour Centre, I joined the facility to socialise and to minimise the caloric consequences of too many business lunches and dinners. I spotted the BSAC ad in the glass display case at Seymour [instantly becoming quite possibly the first person ever to do so… Ed] and memories of the 1950s American TV hit, Sea Hunt came back. Lloyd Bridges, the star, somehow surviving adventures from "attacking killer whales" to unexpected bouts of "narcosis of the deep" had mesmerised me then and I still imagined myself in his shoes (or rather wetsuit). After a couple of wrong turns into the "sun parlour" and the squash court, I finally found the clubroom. Jim offered a trial dive and I was hooked. Weightlessly swimming in the pool, I had become Mr. Sea Hunt. I signed up immediately and paid my dues. Now almost a year later I was on my way to the real thing.

Ian and I arrived at the slip around 11:30 am and started scanning the horizon for sight of the RIB returning from the morning run. What a beautiful sight as it came into view and tied up. We helped unload the kit and I felt like a long time member already. A light lunch and we prepared for the afternoon expedition. Jonathan was not due until later in the day and Keith was in charge until then. He decided the afternoon dive would be a shore entry at St Brides Bay. As I heard this I felt some relief, thinking it would be a leisurely walk across the pebbled sand and a smooth transition into the water. Keith must have taken pity on this novice and figured it would be safer and easier for me. Of course, what I didn't realise was that beaches in the UK don't look like beaches on Long Island!

Ian managed to drive the car past the parking lot and half way to the "beach" where we unloaded the gear and I kitted up as he returned the car to the parking lot. By the time everyone else had arrived and kitted up, I was just figuring out how to snake my left arm through the dry suit sleeve, which somehow had disappeared. Finally, I got everything on and found I felt more like a beached whale than Lloyd Bridges. Making my first ocean dive in my spanking new DUI drysuit, I wanted to make sure I wasn't too light… 15 kg on the belt, 2 kg around the ankles and a few more kilos in the BCD pockets. I was determined to get under. What I hadn't anticipated was the sheer exhaustion brought on by kitting up, traversing down the slope across slippery rocks, and then balancing and putting on my fins. I felt like I had just run a marathon, trying to catch my breath with my heart rate accelerating off the EKG chart. Too late to turn back…

After everyone else had gone in, Keith took me under his wing and explained clearly, "… just turn around and back in until we're ready.". I pulled down my mask, put the regulator in my mouth and suddenly felt as if I was in a tunnel unable to catch my breath. My expensive mask immediately fogged over and I was on the verge of sucking the bottle dry before we had even started. Keith's words floated over, "just lie back and try to relax.". OK, I'll give it a try. All that damn weight… My mask was half in and half out of the water. Panic takes over. Despite the fact that I'm breathing, I feel like I'm drowning. I can't find the inflate valve on my BCD to try to put more air into it, as I keep grabbing my pressure gauge instead. Can't be me, must be the stupid Cressi design. Keith still very patiently asking, "Do you want to try to go under?". That was the problem, I felt like I was going under! Calming down a bit, I signalled Keith, "Not today, let's go back.". Ever patient, he instructed, "Just stay on your back and fin toward shore.". Still gasping for breath and my heart pounding, I realise I can fin and get back ashore… just need to calm down… and gradually I did, a bit. Keith gave me a hand, practicing his towing technique. Then, I was on my own to fin. The shore was only about 30m away, why was it taking so long. My legs were getting tired. Finally, Keith's voice again, "You're going around in circles.". Now, I remembered… look over your shoulder from time to time (practical lesson for me!). Looking over my shoulder, I spied stern-eyed Joe up on the rocks looking down. Of course, this being BSAC No.1, we had to have a safety observer [that's right Tom, my altruism in volunteering for shore cover had nothing whatsoever to do with my reasoning, "a shore dive, on sand, with no viz, balls to that idea…" - Ed]. Somehow, I thought my display of skill might go unnoticed, as if it had never really happened. Of course, as I finally did make it to shore I realised that all the other divers had already returned and were pretending not to take notice of me. Kind folks.

What went through my mind as I unkitted. First, I'm too old for this sport; and why didn't I just PADI it! In fact, I might have just quit then if everyone hadn't been so supportive. "Don't worry about it… those things happen… it'll be easier rolling off the RIB… not so unusual on the first dive…". By dinner that night we could even laugh about it as we planned for tomorrow's try at a first dive. The experience did give me some lessons. First, listen to your body; if it's telling you to wait and catch your breath or even skip a dive, don't be hard of hearing. Second, it takes a lot of dive experience to get comfortable in the water. Third, try a little less weight next time; and finally, BSAC No.1 is a great bunch of people. In terms of expedition history, though, I really don't think we should characterise my effort as an aborted dive. I never got under the water; let's just refer to it as an aborted swim.

Postscript
I did manage to make two dives the next day, first down the anchor line in 8m of water in an adjacent bay to the previous day's fiasco; and more memorably 16m off Skomer Island, both dives under Keith's guidance. Both dives also offered the benefit of search experience for Keith and then Joe and Morgan as my weight belt mysteriously dropped from my fingers both dives while boarding the RIB. Thanks to everyone who made Pembroke memorable for the right reasons.

Hard Hat Diving Oop North

2005-02-22T15:09:00.002Z

Trip report by Jamie Obern
First published in London Diver, April 2005

There is something about UK divers that makes the ultra-stylish Italians cringe. Maybe it is all the garishly coloured fleece and GORE-TEX® we insist on wrapping ourselves in. Maybe it is our insistence on functionality over elegance. Perhaps it is because the average BSAC male diver is a pasty white colour, of stocky build and has more hair on his bottom than his head (no guessing why I haven't described the average BSAC female—besides you are all gorgeous...). But if divers are on average a little odd then it is the nautical archaeologists who are helping to pull the average towards the weirder end of the scale.

For those of you that don't know, a few of us have been creeping off to do NAS courses since last year. We've been measuring boats and fixing lines, learning about protected wreck status and dendrochronology and trying not to laugh at some of the other students' dress sense. Just like the BSAC run courses, some of the NAS courses are more interesting than others—but when we first heard about the technical diving weekend we were unanimous in thinking that this would be one of the most interesting. It was a weekend playing with all the commercial diving equipment—hard hats and under water comms, surface supplied air and helmet mounted video cameras so that the dive supervisor can see whatever you see. As soon as the annual course dates were released Ricky, Mel, Dave "the Skid" and myself booked in.

It was based at TWI in Middlesborough, a purpose built commercial diver training and exam facility, complete with a 6 m deep tank containing an underwater structure resembling part of an oil rig. The facilities were excellent and if it wasn't so far away I'm sure that southern UK divers would be regularly trying to arrange weekend courses there. However, for those of you that don't like to venture much past the Watford Gap I am convinced that Middlesborough is the reason for the phrase "It's grim up north". It's not the people, well, it's not just the people, it is the landscape—a modern day equivalent of Dickens' Coketown. So to avoid the grimness of the city we were staying about 10 minutes drive away in the "sleepy and picturesque market town" of Guisborough.

As you might expect, nautical archaeologists are not well known for being party animals so when we arrived at our NAS recommended B&B, the Three Fiddles Public House, we were somewhat confused. It was heaving. Taxis bringing in the locals for their Friday night out on the town were arriving every 10 minutes, such was its popularity. The temperature may have been below zero, but the locals seemed immune. The 'blokes' were all in short sleeved shirts, un-tucked and with the top three buttons undone of course. The women all seemed to be in a competition to parade as much flesh as possible. And they weren't just skinny young things either—Hattie Jacques would have fitted in perfectly. I would have said that their mothers would not have approved—but I reckon the mothers were also in the competition. By stripping down to just jeans and a T-shirt I almost fitted in—but then Mel gave the game away with her big baggy jumper and complete lack of exposed flesh. We left to get some dinner as quickly as possible—our blatant open mouthed and amazed gaping was not going down well.

Just before we left we quickly scanned the pub for any other members of the NAS contingent. They were not hard to spot—oddly coloured fleece covered islands in a sea of lipstick, hair gel and cleavage. Now that we were in tune with the local tribal dress it was a relief that Dave and Ricky had not laughed louder on entering the pub. The sandal wearing, toe-ringed man by the door turned out to be their NAS room mate.

The actual diving was very interesting. After a very brief overview of the kit we were pretty much left to get on with it and learn as we went along. All of us got to dive twice in the full kit, plus the chance to dress the divers, act as tender, as comms supervisor and do a pot dive. Having the four of us in the same team was very reassuring, especially when the first diver of the other team was seen to be making frantic jelly-fish impressions immediately on having been clamped into her helmet. No one had turned on her air, or showed her where the bail out supply was located. Upon querying how this could happen, the answer was simple—well, she hadn't asked for her air to be turned on. Obviously an optional extra, then. Even by the last dive on the Sunday the same team still hadn't quite got it together—sending in their last diver without the bail out gas supply turned on.

Ear clearing turned out to be more complicated than expected. Encased in a 10 kg helmet with integrated comms and air supply meant that a simple nose pinch was impossible. The solution was a 'V' shaped neoprene covered prong which could be moved in and out or rotated through 360 degrees by the diver. With no clear explanation of how to use this devise everyone seemed to come up with different ways of wedging it against (or even up) their nose so that they could clear. Cleaning the helmets after each dive became very important.

We worked with one diver per team diving at a time. The plan was to spend some time getting used to the kit (no fins to aid movement and a natural tendency to topple over due to the weight of the helmet) and the rest of the time practicing survey work on two blue plastic boats that we purposely weighted down and tied to the bottom of the tank—it was an archaeology course after all. Some of us spent more time than others pretending to be spacemen, trying to do somersaults and generally giggling, shrieking, shouting and creating havoc (no difficulty guessing who...). Roger, a university lecturer and the most popular member of our team, was the opposite extreme. He only wanted to do the survey work and whilst the rest of us measured to an accuracy of 1–2 cm he insisted on measuring to the nearest millimetre. Not very successful when certain other members of our team were spending time deliberately hijacking the survey exercise by loosening the boats so that they were able to move about by about 20–30 cm. With the computer modelling afterwards proving difficult (unsurprisingly) Roger was spotted in the corridor re-measuring the boats that we had now recovered from the tank.

The other amusing game was to torment Dave "the Skid" whilst he was diving. Having settled him at the bottom of the tank with my reassuring tones coming through the comms system, he was less than amused to hear Mel's cackling and realised that 'the mad woman' now had control of his air supply. But it could have been worse – I had to deal with Roger as my comms supervisor.

Finally for those of you wondering why I keep referring to our current club president as Dave "the Skid" I will explain. It had nothing to do with the snow and ice that greeted us on the Sunday morning. On the Friday night, their toe-ring wearing room mate had gone to bed early and Dave and Ricky, being considerate chaps, decided not to switch the lights on and just got ready for bed nice and quietly. Unfortunately, an earlier occupant of the room had not been so considerate. Having had a nasty bowel accident, he had avoided the inevitable embarrassment by switching beds and making it look like the original bed was unused—hence the chamber maid had not changed the sheets. Dave woke to discover that he had spent the night lying in a rather large and ominous looking brown stain. Whilst he has our sincere sympathy for the mental trauma he must now suffer, we still struggled not to laugh—probably much like you will struggle not to laugh the next time you see Dave "the Skid" Marks.

More Boat Handling

2005-02-06T17:58:00.001Z

Trip report by Morgan Peat
First published in London Diver, April 2005

February is generally a bit too cold and murky for a proper diving weekend, so a handful of London No 1-ers ventured off early this year on the next best thing: a boat handling course.

Megan, Alex, Jonny Wilmot (a.k.a. "Sicknote") and Jon Chapper (as an 'observer') signed up for the RYA Level II course, which covers boat handling up to a level equivalent to the BSAC boat-handling certificate. Joe, Tobias and I had already completed this course. We instead opted for the RYA Intermediate course combined with a BSAC Diver Coxswain assessment.

The weekend kicked off (as always) in the pub. Failing to find anywhere decent near our B&B in Selsey, we chose the nearest pub that had passable real ale. Unable to talk much over the pumping music we indulged in a pool competition, several pints, and a curry. Saturday morning took us to Wittering Divers, our base for the weekend. Taking a course run in a diving shop is definitely not to be recommended. Although the standard of tuition is high, the staff are all friendly and the tea and coffee flow like water, it is nigh-on impossible to walk past rows of shiny new dive kit several times a day without feeling at least tempted. I don't think anyone got away without buying something, and Sicknote walked out with several hundred pounds worth of new drysuit!

Our course kicked off with a few hours of theory. Since we had all completed our Day Skipper theory course (or were in the process of doing it) this was fairly straightforward. We went over our knowledge of collision regulations, lights, sounds, buoy shapes, etc. We did quite a bit of chartwork, calculating set and drift of tide, and depth of water.

The last task before lunch was to form a passage plan between two points in 'unfamiliar waters'. We were each given a start and end point on the chart. The job was to determine a route between the two, calculating tides, depths, etc. We had to write ourselves notes adequate to navigate the passage without resorting back to the chart. This was done by noting compass bearings, items of interest that we would see (slipways, buildings, etc), and the buoys and markers we would pass.

After lunch we went onto the water for an afternoon of practical skills. This started with a quick 'play' to get used to the boat, learning how she handled. We then completed the Level II assessment course (coming alongside, reversing, picking up buoys) to prove that we were competent enough for the rest of the weekend.

After that we took it in turns to follow our passage plans, one person behind the controls while someone else gave directions. I am pleased to report that we all successfully reached our destinations and all navigation (even mine!) was spot-on. The only slight incident was a minor argument with a sandbank, where our instructor's final directions, "You're getting too close. Turn to port. Turn to port. TURN TO PORT!!!!!!!!" were misconstrued as a turn to starboard. We got off the sandbank OK though thanks to a nifty bit of boat handling by the instructor, and the whole incident was watched with wry amusement by the twenty-or-so people racing dinghies nearby.

Saturday evening was a fairly muted affair. Everyone was so shattered from their day afloat that we were all in bed shortly after dinner.

Sunday took us straight back out onto the water to complete our BSAC Diver Coxswain assessment. This consisted of various tasks culminating in locating and shotting a dive site, putting divers into the water, then retrieving them. Joe went first, using transits to find a small WWII vessel just off the South coast. The transits were fairly dodgy to say the least. One was to line up a withy [local word for a wooden stake in the water, Ed] with a water tower, a task not helped when the withy is about two inches wide and half a mile away through haze. The second transit involved lining up a yellow buoy with a block of flats, only the buoy looked black on a grey sea, and was only visible every third or fourth wave.

Still, he found the wreck easily (as verified by sonar), threw in the shot and sent Tobias and I after it. That was probably not the best dive I have ever done. At two metres (never mind the bottom at 10m) visibility was down to zero. We could only communicate through touch. Luckily the only requirement for Diver Coxswain is that divers do actually submerge: no particular dive time is required. So we effectively 'bounced' off the bottom and back to the surface, thus ending Joe's exercise.

My dive site was somewhat easier, being a small drop-off in a channel near Itchenor. To find it was simply a matter of motoring out from the shore (after finding the correct point using the chart) and watching until the depth on the sonar dramatically increased.

One shot placement, however, had to be seen to be believed. Dropping a shot is quite a tricky task for the boat handler, really. You have to drive in on one transit while keeping your eyes on one or two others, watch the sonar and control the boat. It shouldn't be a surprise if at least one job gets forgotten about, so forgetting to slow the boat down and put the gears into neutral is entirely forgivable. Mind you, I wasn't the one who had to toss a large shot weight overboard while under way at 10 knots. I just wish I'd had a camera handy to capture the look on our instructor's face.

Once we had finished that exercise, had lunch, and the shotee's nerves had calmed down, we navigated some more complex passage plans. These required much more careful preparation since we journeyed up tributaries that dried out, and we were bang on low water. All went smoothly again, besides one minor surprise. The boat handling mantra of "always keep a good look-out" was forgotten by all (including the instructor). It does rather shock you when you turn around to see a vessel five times your size right behind you!

Despite our few minor mishaps, we all passed both our RYA Intermediate Powerboat certificate, and the BSAC Diver Coxswain award. Those on the Level II course all passed too. I have been assured there were no mistakes or mishaps on the other course – either they are all naturally gifted boat handlers or they have made a vow of silence to each other. I'm sure we will find out one day. You will also note that I have chosen not to name the high-speed shotters or boat grounders, in order to protect those who can't answer back for the next three months…

It was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend, for us at least – I'm not sure about our instructors. It was also very educational, and taught us a lot both about practical boat handling and general seamanship. I do however now realise why the club is not keen on us using Percy Too for boat handling courses!

Cornwall – Carn Base

2004-07-31T18:07:00.000+01:00

Carn Base, at last, 2004
…or how Conger Dick was nicknamed.

Trip report by Nigel Summersby
First published in London Diver, September 2004

I've dived in Cornwall nearly every year with the club since 1987 when I joined, we've had some great weeks diving, and some rough weeks camping! With Cornwall it's usually one extreme or the other.

We have attempted to dive Carn Base several times but, due to the difficulty in finding 'the spot' and the difficult weather and tides, have not had any success. We once found the site but had misjudged the tide. We dropped the shot and I think I could have water-skied in the current! Fortunately, we now have a chartplotting GPS on the boat which makes locating the site much easier, (just ask Jeff where the Bucks are…), and now there is also a bloody great buoy on the seaward side.

Anyway, this year we thought we'd have a bash again. The weather was superb, the sea was calm and we had an idea of when slack should be. We set off from Lamorna, taking extra vigilance around the newly discovered Outer Buck, and set a course in the direction of Carn Base (head for the Longships and turn left a bit). The new chartplotter guided us directly to 'the Base' and after scouring the general area for a bit we located a promising looking drop off and prepared the shot line. At the spot the shot was dropped and we circled it to establish the strength of the current, disappointingly it was too strong but we knew we were early so things should improve. Our attention was attracted to the buoy in the distance, and were surprised how far it was away, and it's size when we got there. With time to kill we made the most of some photo opportunities whilst waiting for the current to slacken.

I was to dive with Richard, whose diving was coming together quite well as the week progressed. We returned to our shotline to check the current and things were now looking promising, kitted up and after the usual checks we dropped in and made straight for the buoy, a swift exchange of OK's and we started our descent into the 16 metres below.

The bottom came into view as I descended first and then I caught sight of a large free-swimming conger eel. I dropped to the bottom and pointed at the eel for Richard. I could see he had seen it as he was watching it with interest, getting closer and closer as he descended. I thought, how brave, getting so close to a large eel on your initial dives. He kept getting closer and was now putting his hands out as if to grab the eel. I thought whoa! that's not what your supposed to do. At the last moment he had second thoughts and decided not to touch it, with a lot of back paddling with his hands he just crashed straight into the bottom with his knees akimbo with this magnificent conger escaping from between. Strangely, since this incident his buoyancy control has quickly improved. Oh how we laughed!

The rest of the dive was impressive to say the least. Ten metre gullies with bright white sand at the bottom, loads of life and jewel anemones everywhere. All too quickly, and after all the excitement, Richard, sorry Conger, was getting low on air so it was time to surface.

At the BBQ that evening the story was re-told and Marian came up with a nickname to be proud of… Conger Dick.

Weymouth Rescue Scenarios Weekend

2004-06-06T18:16:00.000+01:00

Trip report by Megan Peat
First published in London Diver, September 2004

In early June, a group of us made our way down to Portland, following the bouncing acid head directions from our hotel's website (to quote Joe, "it's the coolest damn map I have EVER seen (and I'm not easily impressed...)"), for the rescue scenarios weekend. Arriving at 9:30 pm, we managed to interrupt a mammoth session in the hotel bar by Tobias and Alex and gave Alex an excuse to wimp out – the only time I've ever seen him leave a pint unfinished!

The following morning, buddy pairs sorted, we headed out to the breakwater for what seemed to be a normal dive. One by one, we were called up to see Dave and Mel in the bow for our secret briefings, while Morgan 'volunteered' to be the first boat handler/response co-ordinator.

Ten minutes later, Tobias surfaced, having managed to loose his novice, Jamie, who happily carried on having an enjoyable dive on his own. Morgan ably managed to locate all his remaining divers, had some fun driving the rib at top speed [followed by a slap on the wrists as divers were still in the water at the time… Ed] and the 'novice' was recovered with no harm done.

I managed to be incredibly unsympathetic to my two divers suffering from a bad air fill and then proceeded to leave Joe floating face down on the surface for, I am assured, 4 minutes and 36 seconds. That'll be a hint to get some kit in a colour other than black, then! [Never! - Ed]

Morgan demonstrated that the hours spent in front of his bathroom mirror planning the acceptance speech will not have been spent in vain, with an Oscar-winning performance of a diver with a missing finger. Unfortunately, he not only left behind part of the finger, but also failed to bring up the lobster that removed it, meaning that we had to head into Weymouth for the evening meal.

This took a while to be served, leaving time for several rounds of drinks and much hilarity over Alex's confusion between hamsters and guinea pigs (think Richard Gere—allegedly—and you'll be in the right ball park). Following the meal we ordered the dessert to share, with 9 spoons, which came in a three gallon bucket and was demolished by the group in 10 seconds, despite Gillian Brown showing unexpected territorial possessiveness, not to mention amazing tug-of-war skills.

Gillian and I were sharing a room and she managed to alarm me by stating that she never sleeps past 6:00 am and likes to be up and out soon after for her open air tai chi. Needless to say, the stress of all the accidents managed to take the edge off Gillian's plans and I actually had to wake her up in time for breakfast—I'm sure that it had nothing to do with the bitter in the bar the night before!

Tobias, waiting for the signal to surface, gave a fantastic performance of a diver turning purple with the need to pee, and missed out on his Oscar only because there was no acting involved! Still, he now has a pee zip fitted, so we'll not have to witness the speed disrobing onboard the boat again!

Dave exhibited the patience of a saint teaching me how to reverse the trailer onto the jetty. [an amusing concept if you know Castletown beach—I assume you meant to say slipway?! - Ed] My thanks to him and also to the owner of the camper van parked directly opposite for unselfishly providing me with an obstacle course to test my to-an-inch manoeuvring. Having managed to get the trailer down to the water edge, Joe drove the boat on, managing to mangle a prop on the sea bed in the process, although apparently the engine dropped down of its own accord. Many of those viewing obviously thought this looked like fun and were later tempted to try damaging props or jockey wheels of their own. There will be some intense competition for the rubber prop award this year…

Overall a really enjoyable and well organised weekend, helped by the good weather. We all made some mistakes, had a few laughs and learnt a hell of a lot.

Pembrokeshire

2004-05-31T18:22:00.000+01:00

Trip Report by Joe Hesketh
First published in London Diver, September 2004

This year's Pembroke trip got off to an inauspicious start with nearly nowhere to stay. The regular campsite, Foxdales (rubbish toilets, great breakfast bar…), had suddenly decided this year that it didn't like divers, or at any rate was of the opinion that they didn't mix with families. Those keen on maintaining a rufty-tufty image would no doubt derive some satisfaction from this expulsion (a certain Groucho Marx quote springs to mind). However, despite the charm offensive mounted on 'Mrs Foxdales' by tough city lawyer (and assistant marshal on the trip) Jon Chapper (I believe the argument ran along the lines of, "…no, but we're really very nice, honestly…") local obstinacy won out and we were forced to go elsewhere.

An alternative campsite was found closer to Martin's Haven. One of only a few groups on the site, its unpopularity was not hard to fathom as you trekked a quarter-mile across knee high grass to a shower block even more condemned than the one down the road.

Only five of us were around on the first day's diving, though conditions being pretty marginal we restricted our diving to sites around the Haven (just out from Dale Harbour). After some judicious guesswork (abandoning the GPS marks which seemed accurate enough only to place you in the correct hemisphere, we followed some ill-remembered details about a couple of southerly cardinals) we 'located' the wreck of the Dakotian. At around half the stated depth and somewhat less impressive a vessel than the description Jon had read from the book, my dive (with Tobias and Gillian B) was pleasant but a little disappointing. Uncorroborated by Jon and Keith who followed us in only to spend half an hour on a featureless bottom, it wasn't until later that evening when Jon checked his guides that we worked out that we'd located and dived a different wreck (that of the Behar) completely by chance.

Much later that evening (thanks to some apparently awful traffic), everyone else arrived. Morgan, sensing it was getting late and that he was leaving civilisation behind him had sensibly stopped off to buy some sustenance at the last petrol station before Marloes. So what do you buy when you are tired and hungry after a seven hour drive—a 12 pack of beer obviously! Equally prepared was Tatiana who, on arriving at 1:00 am, then stood in the driving rain reading the assembly instructions to her tent. The girl guides clearly never made it as far as France…!

Not a bad trip all round, and despite some Olympian faffing (even by London Branch standards) on a few days we even made it into the water before noon… Some other highlights:

Gillian B wading back out to the boat with her drysuit zip undone. Those of us who'd spotted this from the beach might well have been able to shout out a little sooner/louder, but where's the fun in that…?

Megan, who after three or four unsuccessful attempts at climbing into the boat whilst it was held in the bay, finally managed to clamber in, receiving tumultuous applause from the assembled crowd of bird watchers waiting to catch the Skomer ferry.

Jon playing underwater swapshop, managing to lose two knives and one glove but find a UK400.

Alex, who after many months free of gastric calamity at sea, finally succumbed to old habits and was left helpless as his lunch did an encore in the waters of South West Wales. Those who might for whatever reason like to keep track of such things will be pleased to know he has since completed the tri-nations by polluting Scottish and English seas as well.

Tobias, who most embarrassingly got lost on the drive home. After phoning me to chart my progress and receiving the response, "I'm on the road to Fishguard" then proceeded to drive all the way to Fishguard himself, miles out of his way and in completely the wrong direction. He has since been forced to spend hundreds of pounds on an 'Anti-Fishguard Device' (a GPS unit for his Palm Pilot) in order to maintain enough navigational dignity to be able to continue to bait Morgan for his now legendary directional dysfunction. He'll no doubt try to tell you that I got lost too, though this is, of course, complete rubbish! Ha ha, to (mis)quote Mel Brooks, sometimes it's good to be the editor…!

Plymouth 2004

2004-04-12T19:04:00.001+01:00

Trip report by Morgan Peat
First published in London Diver, May/June 2004

My first diving trip of the year was, as is traditional, an Easter Weekend in Plymouth. We had the benefit of both Friday and Monday off work to make a long weekend and get some good diving in, prior to the season 'proper'.

This kicked off in style on Friday morning with a trip to HMS Scylla, a new 'artificial reef' sunk in Whitsand Bay. You will probably have heard of her, as her scuttling was televised two weeks previously on BBC News. She lies within spitting distance of the James Eagan Layne in about 20 metres, with a slight starboard tilt. Huge holes have been cut all down her sides to allow the slightly more foolhardy to neb around inside.

We were joined at the Scylla on Friday by about two-thirds of South-East England's diving community. TJ helpfully suggested giving a unique signal to the boat upon surfacing, so that we would not mistakenly pick up other divers. Unfortunately, several other boats had the same idea, and the same signal. If we had a little less selectivity in our pickups I'm sure that, after picking up our twentieth pair of divers, we would have noticed something odd.

Saturday morning brought a repeat trip to Scylla, so there must have been something interesting there. There were less divers (we could see them all on the Eagan Layne), but still not much aquatic life. I think we can all now claim to have 'done' the Scylla, as no one seemed particularly keen to dive there again the next day.

Sunday saw us speeding out to the Eddystone Lighthouse. We had a beautiful, still, clear day with sea like a millpond. The outward journey was somewhat better than the dive, however, with the sort of temperature and viz that you would expect swimming in chocolate milkshake. A few of us left the RIB to visit the Eddystone itself and clamber about the rock. This was interesting for a few minutes, and I'm glad that those in the RIB decided to pick us up… Eventually.

Other diving during the weekend included such Bovi standards as Hillsea Point, the Mewstone and the Breakwater (both inside and out). The Mountbatten Centre once again served as our base, providing welcome refreshment from its first-floor bar.

Our evening entertainment only involved one trip across to Plymouth Old Town. For anyone interested, I can confirm that the proprietor of Platters has not significantly increased in size, and that his syrup still (just about) fits. Our pre-Platters drink was rather odd, as a local TV presenter (quite famous in 'those parts', apparently) walked into the pub, complete with full complement of camera and soundmen, producers and assistants. Tobias and Alex may have had their fifteen minutes of fame, being filmed having their girths measured to see who is the largest. Alex made friends by asking, "Is he local? He looks like it", to an extremely local-looking regular.
After such a large meal of fish n' chips, a few of us decided to take a stroll around the marina to wear off dinner. This proved slightly longer than expected, and made us miss the ferry; but provided an interesting look into other parts of Plymouth. Highly recommended. [unlike relying on the boy Peat for navigation, which is most definitely NOT to be recommended… Ed]

All in all, a very good trip; the short break seemed much longer than it was. We were very lucky with the weather, although the water was slightly cold. We even saw a (kind of) celebrity: Louise Trewhatshername (from DIVER magazine) was based out of Mountbatten too.

Reflections on a Red Sea Adventure

2004-03-28T18:44:00.002+01:00

Trip report by Bob Rodgers, photos by Joe Hesketh
First published in London Diver, May/June 2004

It was an October evening at the Percy when we gathered to celebrate the BSAC's 50th Anniversary. A lot of the "old" crowd were there including me, who likes to stay in touch with the Branch and what a great atmosphere—just like the old days. Little did I know that before the evening was out I would be committed to a unique experience with TJ's Magical Mystery Tours Inc. and half way to parting with the best value for £450 I have seen in years.

A bit of background. Another October evening in 1973 I was walking past the pool from my office, which was in Baker Street, when I espied a Mk10 Jaguar with the boot lid open. Inside was a very interesting sight—diving cylinders… I paused, having lived on a diet of Lloyd Bridges and Sea Wolf from an early age and anything vaguely "diving" was of great interest to me.

Those days diving as a sport was barely known about apart from the select "few" who did dive but little was known in the public domain—so a boot full of diving cylinders was a great curiosity. Within moments I was approached by an energetic, smiling individual . "Are you a diver mister?" he said with an infectious smile (yes you know who this was). "Well, err, I was just looking, err sorry", I replied". "Well do you want to be a diver?". "Well, err, yes", I replied. I had taken an immediate liking to this man.

He gave me two cylinders to carry (aha that was the reason) and told me to follow him to the "equipment room". Twenty minutes later I was in the pool doing an "A" test. This individual was—in case you hadn't guessed—our very own TJ and we have been friends ever since.

By the way an "A" test then was 200m free style + 100m backstroke (all without a stop) + 50m with 5 kg weight belt on—phew—tread water with hands above head for 1 minute—flipping hell—and collecting six objects from the bottom of the deep end (big pool)—gasp/splutter.

I had joined the famous London No.1 Branch and my life was literally transformed as the underwater world unfolded, new friends were made and new skills acquired.

Reel forward to October 2003—having a beer and laughing over those old times and I was just in the middle of, "do you remember that underwater explosives course when Keith G nearly dropped the....", when TJ nabbed me, plied me with beer and persuaded me to get my name down for something called Sharm el-Sheikh which seemed like a good idea after a few beers. Not so in the cold light of day but TJ was determined, "You have put your name down on this ere paper and that's it, no backing out now". So I was committed.

My first port of call was the shed - my faithful dry suit of many dives "Fred" was in a sorry state. After much rummaging I unearthed the rest of my kit and presented myself to the equipment room with my valve. Keith diplomatically suggested that my "pool" valve go in the junk bin and my treasured US Diver valve rig be downgraded to "pool use only". However, my jet fins still worked so I was on my way.

Eventually the 21st of March arrived and we gathered at Gatwick for our epic voyage of discovery at the crack of dawn. The ace "Team" comprised Gina & Bob, Keith, Joe, James, Alex, Tobias, Pete Morris and our irrepressible leader TJ.

The flight was surprisingly civilised for a "cheapo" and the arrival at Sharm went smoothly, the hotel a very pleasant surprise being clean, comfortable, freshwater swimming pool six strides from the sliding bedroom door and only a short walk from the boat jetty—how far does £450 stretch. We quickly got settled in with a cold beer in our hands and registered with the Camel Dive Centre which is part of the Camel Hotel.

The next day we were introduced to our guide Charlotte, dive boat and crew and off for a gentle warm up dive to check gear, buoyancy (and for those of us a bit out of practice, generally get back up to speed). This dive, though the easiest, was an incredibly pretty reef called Ras Katy managing a 35 minute dive with a max depth of 21 m.

We all got along fine apart from my stab which was sneakily self inflating and caused me a bit of head scratching (where is my ABLJ) and Charlotte quickly got the measure of this London Branch Crew. I found the water much colder than it looked and I quickly scrounged a hood to go with the natty (or is that tatty) wetsuit I had hired.

The dive boat was spacious, with a good open dive platform. We had unlimited water, tea, coffee and the crew experienced and helpful. Charlotte our guide who has been with Camel for three years really knew her stuff and the good sites. Her dad was DO of Hastings BSAC so she has quite a diving pedigree and I think we were very lucky to have her to run our trip.

The next dive was at the rum sounding Ras Umm Sid (Sids Head?) where we clocked up another 35 minutes of mind-boggling scenery, marine growth and exotic fish life - but no sign of Sid himself.

Notwithstanding that most of my diving experience has been in Britain, I have dived a few other places including the Med, Florida and more recently the Caribbean, I have never seen such prolific fish life. The whole peninsular of Sharm is now a protected national Park with ALL fishing banned. Clearly recognition that divers bring more revenue than a few fishing boats and the whole economic structure of the area dependant on tourism driven by diving at its focal point was realised some time ago. The legacy for us today is that the reefs are literally teeming with life of all types and sizes despite a lot of divers.

That evening we all had big smiles from ear to ear and fell into bed exhausted. Even Keith's melodious snoring could not interrupt my well earned sleep in Room 109.

Day 2 dawned with a 06:00 hrs kick off with a more adventurous trip in the direction of the Gulf of Aqaba to Tiran, to dive sites including Jackson Reef (with 800 m drop off walls), Woodhouse Reef and the exotic sounding Ras Nasrani with interesting above water views of shallow reefs and stranded rusting shipwrecks as well as the below surface exotica.

As the week progressed we dived walls, reef platforms, drifts and wrecks, all providing breathtaking scenery and a heady mix of adventure and anticipation.

We had two wrecks in our itinerary. The SS Dunraven is a spectacular and classic wreck dive. A steel hulled steam assisted sailing ship built in 1873, 85 m in length and displacing 1,800 tons, she is upside down in 30 m. It is about 2 hours cruise from Sharm.

En-route to India in April 1876 she struck the southern end of the fringing reef Sha'ab Mahmud. She was fatally holed in the bow section but sat on the reef for nearly a week before bad weather led to the break-up of the bows and the ship slipped slowly down the reef to her present position. We can assume that thankfully there was no loss of life on this occasion.

We dropped on the bow swam the length of the ship, round the rudder then inside through a convenient hole to explore the full internal length including the two boilers, exiting through the torn open bow section. The deepest part is around 30 m with the reef stretching up at a gentle gradient to about 5 m which gave us a gentle decompression profile with an overall dive time of around 40–50 minutes.

You can see some stunning photos, especially of the rudder and prop, taken by the team on the website. [er, well you might do eventually… Ed]

The second wreck demanded a 04:00 hrs start (yes 4 AM) and we saw dawn break over the desert as we steamed in a Westerly direction breakfasting on coffee and omelettes made by the crew. We were heading for the famous Thislegorm sunk by a German aircraft in 1940. The bomb ignited munitions in Hold No. 5 which almost blew the stern off. She lies in 30 m and is a spectacular dive. The windy conditions and heavy swell made entry and exit a bit of a challenge, but it was certainly worth the early start. Despite being a heavily dived wreck it was an experience not to be missed.

We dropped on the stern and swam over a massive wreckage field including vehicles and boxes of shells, then along the main deck where there are railway carriages strapped, marvelling at the completeness the size and the marine life. There was a moment when a school of fish zoomed past in a big hurry, attracting our attention (Alex and I). Sure enough a whopping tuna appeared in hot pursuit. Alex went for the camera but it was over in a flash—literally—but an exciting moment.

Dive 2 was spent dropping through the open hatches with penetration into the wreck examining jeeps, trucks, rows of motorcycles, and racks of rifles, exploring the full length of the vessel inside and at different levels. After what seemed a very short time, our planned bottom time was up and we made our way back to the shot line for a couple of minutes of chilly decompression stops.

This is probably the biggest complete wreck I have been on, and certainly "in", a bit like the James Egan Layne before it started to collapse on itself only much better viz, with door-to-door service and hot coffee at the end. I seem to remember we only ever "did" the Egan Layne in the depths of English winter, freezing cold, battering along in an old Zodiac inflatable with a miserly 40 bhp Mercury in full kit Force 4–5 gusting 6 (no RIBs then). It took over an hour to get there with a blasting Sou' westerly and about an hour to get back in the heavy sea. I seem to remember we didn't thaw out until about 10 pm after a few (few) pints of fine ale and a rousing chorus of Dina Dina in the Casement Bar at Fort Bovisand.

After lunch—again by the crew who worked wonders in the odious little galley—we snoozed and read our way back towards home base finishing off with a dive in a place called Jackfish Alley. I am convinced Charlotte had us dropped on the "reserved" part of the reef because she knew we would respect the coral and keep our fins to ourselves. Other boats were diving this area but much further along. This proved to be the best "shallow" dive of the week logging some 50–60 minutes in a max of 15 meters (most at 3-5 m) in a virtual fish tank with a huge range of colour, species and size of fish, caves, fissures and spectacular corals. This was the last dive of the trip and a fantastic way to finish.

But it wasn't over yet. Our leader had arranged yet another "treat", quad biking in the desert (at reduced price). We are all duly instructed in the quad bike operation and the discipline expected of us. "You will travel in a line and no acrobatics please", said the bike man. We of course were only following orders from one leader—TJ who looked like a cross between Rommel and an Arab terrorist—who had already instructed us into what to do. Off we went into a blizzard of sand and anarchy as the bike wheels spun and TJ was off, closely followed by a maniac who I think was James (couldn't really see for the dust cloud) all being chased by the bike man who kept waving his hands in despair.

The all up cost of £450 which included everything except lunch, dinner and beer was truly unbelievable. Lunch on the boat was excellent at EGP5 (about 50p), dinner out was typically about EGP 100 (about £9). Keith discovered a falafel shop, the equivalent of an Egyptian "greasy spoon" full of local building workers, and managed a full three course meal including fresh orange juice for about 75p—excellent. I got hooked on the hotel curry bar (Kashirmir) and I reckon this was some of the best curry to be had anywhere (appetite enhanced by some serious diving and a couple of beers = paradise) with the full monty for about £10.

Memorable moments…? Well err…

Charlotte's face when she met us all for the first time and saw Alex's "popeye" hat, James' jungle shirt and Peter's tee-shirt/shorts ensemble.

The king-sized napoleon fish which swam into the middle of our group and eyeballed everyone in turn before swimming off into the "Big Blue".

Tobias chucking everyone in the pool.

Alex's face when a huge Spanish dancer sailed by the shot line and his camera was switched off [though as anyone forced to watch it over and over will attest, he did manage some video footage of it – Ed]

Gina & Bob surfacing with more air than they went in with (OK well almost).

All in all, we had some memorable dives, an interesting environment, the hotel and organisation excellent, and Allan justly carrying the sobriquet of TJ "Top Johnny" for organising it all. This has to be a regular London Branch fixture, always providing you can get TJ's Mystery Tours to do it again—and maybe a few of the "old timers" out of diving retirement.

My thanks to London Branch and the 2004 Red Sea Team for making it such a pleasure for me and a special thanks to TJ.

Happy Diving

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Dollar Deal on Darwinian Diving

2003-12-01T11:59:00.002Z

Trip report by Megan Peat
First published in London Diver, March 2004

Any interest in going scuba diving in the Galapagos later this year?" Well, I wasn't exactly going to say no…

Complicated by the fact that the friend I was going with lives in Boston, we decided to book everything over the internet rather than pay extra for the services of a travel agent that only one of us would be able to utilise. Extensive research took place – consisting of accosting people at the Perseverance and typing in "diving + Galapagos" into Google.

The Lammer Law seemed to be the boat of choice, but was booked up, so we ended up going with Peter Hughes, who run the Dancer fleet of liveaboard boats. Our boat was the Sky Dancer, newly refitted and very luxurious – a daily delivery of early morning coffee to the cabin; endless supplies of towels; hot drinks and fresh food after every dive.

Arrival in the islands was awesome–after completing the airport formalities, we boarded a minibus for the five minute drive to the port, where everyone rushed to the shore to gaze at the sea lions, pelicans and blue water.

The first dive was a checkout dive, to iron out problems. I took in my camera case, minus the camera (top tip, thanks Alex), crystal clear water at 22°C, angelfish and sea lions—all a bit of a change from Scapa Flow!

That afternoon we went on a land visit, where I realised that all the stories I'd heard about the Galapagos were true. It took our party of fourteen about ten minutes to disembark from the RIB, as there was a family of sea lions, with feeding pups, basking on the pier and we were all too scared/amazed/busy taking photos to pass! The islands themselves were nothing to write home about, rather lunar and barren, but the birds and animals were in no way scared of humans, giving the rather bizarre impression that you are walking around unnoticed in the middle of a David Attenborough wildlife programme.

The diving in the southern islands was lovely, water temperature ranging from a low of 19°C to a high of 23°C and an average viz of 20 m+. Dive sites ranged from wall dives with rare black coral (which is, confusingly, green) to scenic coves. On the whole, the underwater topography was not what I'd expected – bare rocks and sand rather than coral, but for someone who's done the vast majority of their diving in the UK ("what did you see?", "a grey fish…") the sheer variety of underwater life was amazing. Triggerfish, puffer fish, a stonefish, hundreds of morays, lobsters; one of my favourites was the aptly named chocolate chip starfish, which resembles a cookie with chocolate chips embedded in a star pattern. The sea lions were friendly, nibbling fins and peering though air bubbles, and for once I was the old hand, having dived with the seals in the Farnes.

On the second dive of the trip, I saw my first seahorse, which was a beautiful red and surprisingly big (they are supposed to be the largest type) and also my first marine turtle. The turtles, like the land mammals, weren't scared of humans and seemed to take great pleasure in playing chicken—swimming in a statesman like fashion straight at you until you were forced to duck. The snorkelling was also amazing, seeing penguins and marine iguanas in the water and for once, I didn't feel like it was a poor substitute for a dive.

After a couple of days in the southern islands, with two to three dives a day, a land visit and a snorkel we began the twelve hour journey up to Wolf and Darwin Islands, where the hammerheads hang out and no-one, other than divers, visits as no land visits are allowed.

Waking up in the morning, I went on deck and immediately saw a pod of dolphins playing in the wake–they followed us until we dropped anchor, when they got bored and went off, but I counted 100+ and that was only on one side of the boat.

After breakfast, the first dive in the northern islands. I've done drift dives, I thought I'd dived in currents before. Not like this I hadn't. You basically rolled out of the RIB and dropped as quickly as you could to the bottom, where you grabbed hold of a rock and tried to find your buddies. Down there it was like some bizarre children's game, hiding behind a boulder and occasionally, gripping your reg. between your teeth and holding on to your mask, sticking your head up to play peek-a-boo with a hammerhead. After thirty minutes or so of this, the guide would bang on his tank and we'd all let go and get dragged by the current into 'the blue'.

In the dive briefing, this sounded like the boring bit, drifting along in the current and carrying out any necessary safety stops. In reality, it was possibly the best part of the dive, with schools of hammerheads passing below us and dolphins flashing by in a blur.

We'd been warned that we had very little chance of seeing a whale shark as, in early December, we were in the wrong season. That didn't stop the jokes—as we were diving in two groups of seven, each would claim to have made a sighting to the disbelief of the other. One amazing dive, however, we were coming to the end of our time in the blue when I heard someone shouting through their reg and looked down to see a huge white-spotted back passing majestically just below me. Dive plans be damned—I immediately started finning down to try and catch him up, along with everyone else, needless to say. However, the shark's stately progress belied the actual speed of movement and one by one we gave up trying to keep up and returned to do our deco stops, cheering and whooping at each other through our regs and dancing bizarre jigs. Unfortunately, no amount of wishing, hoping and peering off into the distance earned us another visit, but I think the memory will stick for a few years to come.

The water temperature here was a balmy 26°C but felt colder than in the south as you spent so little time finning. We'd do four to five dives, averaging an hour each and towards the end of the day I was starting to clock up deco time, despite the fact that we'd rarely go deeper than 25m. Most of the rest of the group were diving on nitrox and I'd recommend that anyone who goes get certified first.

Geographically, we were 50% US and 50% European, with most of the others having done several exotic liveaboard holidays before. I met one of the few people of whose lives I can genuinely say I am jealous—the North American Rolex scholar—who gets to spend a year (and a bursary) diving. The bad news being that the age limit for application is 25!

The boat was very comfortable, the food good, plentiful and fresh and the crew friendly. The drinks free flowing, although no one took full advantage of the alcohol. The accommodation was pleasant, we had the cheaper cabins, but the above deck ones were more spacious and airy (but not worth an extra $200 pp). I became blasé about so many things that before the trip had seemed so exciting, seahorses, turtles, hammerheads, sea lions, reef sharks, Galapagos sharks, white-tips…

The diving was world-class and so were the land trips, if it's not heresy to say so. I could almost wish we'd had a more even split between the two or, even better, would recommend spending more than a week there. I won't pretend it's a cheap holiday—the boat, with all diving and food included, cost $2,150, flights to Ecuador £540 and from Ecuador to the islands $390, but with the current dollar–pound exchange rate, now is a good time to go and I can truly recommend it as the experience of a lifetime.

Port-Cros National Park

2003-09-15T12:20:00.000+01:00

Trip report by Jennifer Soffe
First published in London Diver, October 2003

France was very lovely, and for those of you who couldn’t make it this time around, you missed an extremely good trip. Good diving, incident-free, and some lively boat rides.

For me, it was interesting to go in September as my three previous trips to Port-Cros had been in June, when conditions and marine life were slightly different. So, what was particularly good about it?

Highlight 1: Warm water—23 degrees, so even I made an appearance in a wetsuit and was rarely cold, and that beautiful deep blue colour that makes you want to swim out into the open water and pretend to fly, well it does me anyway.

Highlight 2: Shoaling barracudas, which were a fantastic sight and something I hadn’t seen on previous occasions. They were close in to the walls we were diving on, and circling around in vast numbers—sizeable beasties too, some of them must have been 80+ cm long. I have read subsequently that they’ve been known to bite people, especially when shoaling, so I might not have been quite so enthusiastic about swimming at them had I known that. Also (top piece of barracuda trivia coming up...), apparently they’re attracted to yellow things, so choose your diving companions with care.

Highlight 3: Walls covered in life—lots of anemones and, as you got down to around 25 m, gorgonia too.

Highlight 4: Dinky little purple nudibranchs, otherwise known as flabellina affinis, which hold a particular appeal for me in my role as Nudibranch Queen… these are covered in delicate spines tipped with mauve, although I failed to spot any of my previous faves, the brown-and-white spotted flat variety. I’ve seen a lot of those on other trips, so I don’t know whether their absence was a seasonal thing, or whether there’s been some change in the marine ecology which has caused their demise.

Plus, this was the first year I’d managed to see anything of the surrounding area—one day was blown out due to strong winds—and Favière is at the end of a particularly attractive stretch of the Côte d’Azur, so driving along the corniche is a Very Fine Thing.

So, a great week, thanks in particular to Nigel and Gillian who organised it and everyone who towed the boats down and ensured they performed perfectly in some quite difficult seas. If you get the chance to go diving down there at some point in the future, it’s highly recommended—staying at home looking at seaslugforum.net just isn’t the same.

Scapa Flow

2003-08-24T12:26:00.003+01:00

Trip report by Morgan Peat
First published in London Diver, October 2003

Towards the back end of August, ten members of London Branch left town for the lure of Northern Scottish diving. All our gear was tossed into the back of a rented minibus and the three drivers (Alex, Tobias's friend Iain and I) took it in turns to drive through the night. Our journey was rather eventful; indeed we were lucky to make Stromness at all.

The first incident occurred in Leeds at about 11 pm. While performing a three-point turn, the minibus stalled blowing the main engine fuse. Nothing worked - engine, hazard warning lights and headlights were all kaput. Fortunately, the nose of the minibus was pointing into the drive of someone with a movement-activated security light. While we waited for the RAC to arrive, our caffeine-fuelled fidgeting kept the light constantly lit and the poor residents, whose drive we were standing on, peering through the curtains.

Now about three hours behind schedule, we zipped through Northern England and Scotland, pausing for only a few minutes to stock up on fuel, food, duvets, school jumpers and birthday cards (I kid you not). Most people slept soundly through the night, only waking up when we passed speed cameras: "Gatsco" being spoken in dulcet tones from Jeff's GPS, sharp braking followed by heavy acceleration.

On arrival at Scrabster, we had a few minutes spare to visit John O'Groats and have our pictures taken before heading for the ferry. It was a pretty surreal experience: it turned out that Cameron from Big Brother (remember him? nor me) was returning home for the first time since winning the show. The party for him on the ferry was huge (as huge as a party in the Orkneys can get), with dancing, singing and free champagne! When the ferry arrived at Stromness, a thousands-strong welcome party was there to greet us. Well, not us exactly, but we pretended they were.

Diving started with a vengeance the next day. That consisted of a morning dive to a fairly deep wreck lying on its port side, broken away midships. Lunch was taken on the island of Hoy with a trip around the war museum. The afternoon dive was a little bit shallower to a wreck lying on its port side, broken away midships. This was repeated for six days. The dives got progressively deeper, the ships got progressively larger, the holes amidships got progressively wider.

The war museum was interesting for the first few days, after which we started to find alternative lunchtime entertainment. We went to see a military graveyard one day; slept through (sorry, watched) a film about The Orkneys another day; listened to Jeff moaning about walking long distances (1 mile); I got told off for climbing 80-year-old gun emplacements and Tobias filmed cow porn.

Unfortunately for us, a couple of things conspired to make the diving not as great as it could have been. Most trips to The Flow tend to dive a deep battleship or cruiser in the morning followed by a blockship in the afternoon. The blockships are relatively shallow boats sunk to block the entrance to Scapa Flow, intended to stop enemy U-Boats entering. Slack tide is relatively short so that while you go down on slack, you surface in a 5 knot tide. Skippers only let you dive in these currents when you will drift back into the flow—the week we were there we would have been pulled into the Atlantic, with obvious risks. Our only opportunity to dive one of these ships was in the morning, which meant no second dive (skipper's rules: second dive MUST be shallower than the first). We did this once and it was (in my opinion) one of the best dives of the week.

Tides are something I would never have thought could be a problem in Scapa Flow, but having been caught out once I will certainly check next time.

While we managed to work around tidal limitations, we could not avoid the plankton bloom. The unusually hot weather we have had this year caused the plankton to arrive earlier than usual, and we managed to catch it full-on. The expected 20 metre visibility ended up being somewhat less.

Despite all my doom-and-gloom reporting, the diving was superb. For those of us who were relatively inexperienced, the diving was both interesting and challenging. Some of the ships were so large you thought you had hit the ocean floor and it was narcosis making you see rivets holding the ocean bed together. The swim-throughs were interesting and the massive guns were fascinating as they appeared out of the murk.

After our morning's dive on the blockships, we had an afternoon off. Jeff and Chris decided to spend it in the pub, while the rest of us took a short stroll along the coast to visit Scarra Bray, a prehistoric settlement. I was leading the way, and whilst my navigation was spot-on (keep the coast on the left), my estimation of distance left a little bit to be desired. We all worked up an appetite for dinner, but I don't think Tobias has forgiven me yet…

On our final day, the diving was almost called off. The seas were so rough that Iain spent most of the trip leaning over the rail, not helped by Jeff's descriptions of his greasy fried breakfast. We managed to find a fairly sheltered cove for a scenic dive made all the more entertaining by trying to climb back up the heaving ladder afterwards.

Our last evening in Stromness coincided happily with the 10th anniversary of the Orkney beer festival. As the ferry was departing after midday the next day, we all made the most of it.

On the last day we had a morning to work off our hangovers. Some went cycling, some went on a visit to Kirkwall (and its distillery). The ferry crossing and journey back were much quieter than those out, and we again travelled through the night back to London.

On the whole, the trip was great fun. Everyone had a great time and a lot of diving experience was gained. Despite the less-than-perfect conditions, the diving was sufficiently challenging and interesting to keep us going all week. Chris and Damien (who ran the boat) were great (thanks guys), and made sure that we did the best possible dives we could. Thanks to Tobias for organising everything, too.

Cornwall

2003-07-27T12:37:00.003+01:00

The Goldsithney Karst Rain Project
a.k.a. DIW (Doing It Wet)

Trip report by Joe Hesketh
First published in London Diver, October 2003

July 19th 2003, and a crack team from London Branch embark on an exploration push deep into the Treveneague Sump (known locally as the soggy end of Phil's campsite). To reach our objective of breaking the record for saturation-camping, we would have to have the weather on our side and keep all diving activity down to a bare minimum.

Preparation had begun early, with the support crew of Bernie and Keith having arrived the previous day to deliver vital supplies (kettle/gas stove) and position the safety boat, a large RIB to be used as a bail-out craft in case of severe flooding. One by one, the team arrived and laid out their Hogarthian tent systems, ranging from Jon W's streamlined bungee-less single dome to Bernie's friend Mike whose closed-circuit marquee sported an isolation zip between the twin sleeping areas, fold out table, back-up chairs and integral 18W HID lighting.

The mood was anxious by nightfall and we just hadn't seen anywhere near enough rain to make our project a success. But by sunrise, our fears were allayed as the team awoke to the first of many dismally wet mornings, and by lunchtime, after a tough swim-through on the traverse to the bakery in Marazion, we sat clutching our soggy pasties thinking to ourselves how lucky we were to have planned the expedition during the wettest Cornish week that summer.

As a relative newcomer to DIW (though countless washed-out holidays as a child to Filey and Bridlington have undoubtedly accelerated my education), it was an honour to spend time with some of DIW's grandees, from whom I learned a great deal. "The first rule of DIW", explained Keith, "is never camp with strokes". A stroke is someone who has no regard for dampness while camping, and who, despite maybe knowing of ways to avoid staying dry and comfortable, nevertheless chooses not to. If you camp with strokes, you are risking your own wetness. What may start out a simple exercise in going to borrow some milk from their caravan can easily escalate into having a chat whilst in this dangerous waterless environment, or even watching some TV, and by that stage, it's too late. Even short to medium term exposures at such elevated dryness levels can have irreversible effects on overall wetness.

Unfortunately, several of London Branch who were also in Cornwall that week fall into that category. Perhaps the worst offenders were Jeff and Tobias, and I cite them as examples for you all to learn from. Despite staying on the same campsite, they chose to spend the whole week under a hard roof, with electricity, onsite toilet and kitchen facilities. Unfortunately, such ideas are now being actively pushed by the outdoors industry and are gaining favour amongst the less experienced no thanks to a lowering of standards amongst the recreational camping agencies. However, an equipment configuration such as this will do nothing to keep you wet. For instance, even if you switch from your primary WC to the outdoor facility, due to the up-field positioning of your caravan, there will simply be too small a moisture gradient between clothing and skin for the short dash to the lavs to result in accelerated drenching. A mistake that could easily be avoided by staging your quarters (a simple sheet of nylon) at the opposite side of the site, thus maximising the precipitation window.

However, in spite of such ignorance, the project was a resounding success. We were only unlucky with the weather once or twice and due to clear skies had to resort to jumping in the sea to get wet. But other than that, I'm pleased to be able to report that conditions in these wonderful Cornish fields were consistently abysmal and this period of commitment and sacrifice ultimately led to a redefinition of technical camping and extreme tea making.

This was all made possible through the dedicated surface and knee-deep-in-water support teamwork required to stage such an expedition under very difficult conditions. My thanks go to all involved.

Skiving from work to go diving? Never!

2003-06-11T12:51:00.001+01:00

Trip report by James Astrop
First published in London Diver, July 2003

James Astrop proves that life beneath the waves in Brighton is just as varied as that above them as he reports on the first of this year's skive dives…

What were you doing on Wednesday 11th June? Did you struggle to work on an over hot tube train, spend the day looking out of the office window, wishing you were somewhere else? Did your van get stuck in traffic on the way to the job and you spent your day inside some ducting cursing the heat and the fact the delivery parts had not turned up. Well just to make you jealous four of us went diving.

Okay, so to get on the wreck for slack we had to leave London at quarter to six, but that was the day's only hardship. Nell, Jane, Tobias and I arrived, bright eyed and bushy tailed, well okay then half asleep and in need of coffee, on the harbour in Brighton at 7.30 am to join the hard boat Nauticat for a days diving.

Steve Johnson, the skipper, got us away as soon as our kit was on board and steamed at full speed to the wreck site and hit slack perfectly. The wreck was that of the Fortuna, a 1,200 ton Dutch steamer that was sunk after striking a mine in 1916, lying at 50 41 38N; 00 02 16W, that's about five miles due south of Newhaven. Only one of us was sea sick on that leg of the journey and I'm not telling who.

The pairs were Jane and I then Tobias and Nell. As non of us had done any diving this year we kept to a fairly conservative profile, planning not to go below 30 m and not to rack up any deco. The wreck lies upright at 35 m with the deck rails at about 30 m; Steve got the shot line almost on the prow so our dive was restricted to the fore sections on the boat. Jane and arrived on the wreck to be greeted with about 3 m viz and a mass of tompot blenny. Tompots just have this "what are you looking at" face and it was like walking into a pub where only locals ever go, I'm sure I heard one say "stick to the path lads, don't go on t' moor".

We worked our way sternward keeping to a depth of about 30 m but this was fine as the Fortuna is relatively intact and is awash with wild life. We saw all of the normal wreck species, bib, poor cod, balleen wrasse, goldskinny wrasse, edible crab etc. We also saw some more unusual gubbins such as leopard spot goby and a flat fish, unusual on a wreck. I think it was a top knot though Jane thought it was a lemon sole as we cannot agree on which side it eyes were.

One of the holds had a cargo of bags of cement, which have hardened into rounded square rock like structures. The view reminded me of Fingles Cave or the Giant's Causeway in that they looked natural but also man made and repetitive.

As we were readying ourselves to return up the shot, I tried to waft some detritus from my arm and it started to walk sideways. It was a decorator crab, a gubbins which is about 5 cm across and rather spider like in appearance. The decorator crab is so called because it disguises it self by sticking bits of algae about its body and hence looking like flotsam or jetsam in the water.

Before the second dive another of our group succumbed to mal de mer: it takes a day to get your sea legs. The second was a drift dive about a mile off Brighton beach. It was fun but unremarkable. The viz was only about 3 m and it was running at about 1.5 knots, so one did have the occasional surprise. Jane and I did the biggest conga in Christendom, it was about five feet long and ten inches wide near its pectoral fins; honest it was a sea monster.

The next skive dive is on Friday 29th August, see advert on the following page, so book early to avoid disappointment.

Plymouth – The Truth…

2003-04-21T12:57:00.001+01:00

Trip report by Megan Peat
First published in London Diver, May 2003

Easter weekend saw some twenty-odd of us, plus Percy, Percy Too and the majority of the populace of greater London heading down the A303 to Plymouth where, back in the dark ages, TJ had taken the far-sighted precaution of booking accommodation at the Mount Batten water sports centre.

Contrary to the rest of the UK, we had good weather and reasonably calm seas, although some may argue the (pitch and) toss over the latter—special thanks go to Chris Cole for running through the list of the greasiest foods he could think of on the way back from Darren's first open water dive (aka OW fish feeding).

Dives were made on the Mew Stone, Hillsea Point, the Mew Stone, the breakwater, the Mew Stone and then, for a change, the Mew Stone. That said, we saw lots of starfish, kelp, anemones, crabs, wrasse, cuttlefish and even a thorny-backed ray (or maybe not!).

The viz was good, the water wasn't too cold, the accommodation was clean, with plentiful hot water and friendly staff, the beer was plentiful and the Easter eggs most welcome (thanks Sarah, Gillian and Nicky!). Many thanks to the marshals for managing to see that everyone got the option of two dives a day and, as ever, the instructors were ready, willing and able to ensure that buddies were available for the less experienced. Some quick turnarounds were made and there were some interesting techniques adopted for pulling the trolley from the pontoon back to the centre—suffice it to say that I wouldn't want to be in the car with certain people if that's an example of their driving technique! [guess who had to share with one of the culprits…only kidding Alex - Ed]

Richard and Morgan formed a team to strike terror into all sea life—amazing how the enthusiasm grows with the prospect of hands-on marine biology and a demonstration of 'dogfish darts'. Percy, in best Plymouth tradition, broke down at sea with remarkably similar problems to last time and limped back to shore to be tenderly looked after by Nigel and TJ—we appreciate it, guys! Alex tried to imitate the Michelin man on the surface when his drysuit dump valve reversed and filled the suit with a mixture of air and water. Morals: don't let Richard drive the boat (when it breaks down twice when you're driving it begins to look too suspicious to be an accident…) and don't let Tobias fix your dump valve!

Having kindly volunteered to tie my reel to my SMB, Bernie then undertook to demonstrate how to tie a bowline—rabbits, holes, trees, etc.—a knot which he proudly claimed, "could hold the Queen Mary". Much amusement then when I took the SMB out to find that the knot had come undone!

After the stories from prior years, a visit to the fish and chip shop on the Barbican had to be made to check out the waistline and toupee of the proprietor—one had obviously grown and one was just obvious. Valiant efforts were made to eat things seen on the dives, although top marks have to go to anyone who consumed the hideous 'Nepalese cocktail' we were given at the Indian… great idea to pour it into the flower vase, Alex, shame someone else had thought of it first!

The Plymouth scene lived up to reputation (think Goth come Rocky Horror) although the drag queens didn't seem to pose a deterrent to returning into town after the girl with the pierced belly-button, improbable clothes and open-toed sandals ("Sandals…? I hadn't made it past the midriff!") got off the ferry as we were getting on to return back to base…