Camping & Diving- an excellent few days in Porthkerris Part 1 June 26, 2007
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving , add a comment
Ever since I started diving in 2004 I have been coming to Porthkerris on YD trips. This was my fifth visit and Lisa’s fourth, even the children have been three times.
The weather forecast had not been kind, a week of heavy rain and winds meant that the diving and camping was going to be very difficult if not neigh on impossible. Others of the group of 24 divers that would be coming down for the weekend had been camping for three days already when we arrived on Thursday. They had not yet got a dive in or really dried out from the rain. As the wind pulled at the tent and the rain fell heavily on Thursday lunchtime as Scott and I battled to get the tent up I wasn’t sure that we would be successful. Then one after another three tent poles splintered in the force of the wind. Now I really was doubtful that we could do this. Scott held on to the tent with all the strength that a little seven year old could muster and somehow we managed to get the poles in position and the tent fairly stable. At this point Simon and Gary arrived still dressed in their drysuits having just got back in from their first dive of the week. They helped us move the tent into a more suitable and safer position and we succeeded in securing it down. The weather cleared a little and we finished it off. Meanwhile the two older girls Elizabeth and Emily had been entertaining Heather in the car. They did a good job as it took us over three hours to get the tent in place. This was worse than two years ago when it took 6 of us to get a similar tent up.
Once the tent was up Scott and I changed out of our sopping wet clothes and we headed off to Penzance to pick up Lisa from the train station. She had had to stay at home for an extra few days as she had rehearsals for her play Dancing at Lughnasa in which she is starring this week (25th June) in the Plaza in Romsey. (more…)
A new experience -diving the river Dart June 25, 2007
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving , add a commentBack in Easter, my Dad, brother and brother in law went out on a friend’s yacht for a pootle up and down the river Dart near Brixham. On the way they managed to lose a grappling hook-type device used to hook onto the mooring bouys. Well when I say lose, they knew exactly where it entered the water and so knowing I was a diver, I was asked if I would go down and have a look for it. I did try and explain that after just one cycle of the tides it would probably be buried especially if it is a sandy river bed but never the less I agreed to have a look. Unfortunately it has taken until (more…)
Paranoid on SS El de Bayo April 25, 2007
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving, Wreck Diving , 1 comment so farI am sure that when I booked on to this dive I can’t have looked at the start time. 7am meet for a 7.30am ropes off. Oh well I thought an early start. I had packed the car the night before so when the alarm went off at 4.45am all I had to do was fall out of bed and into my clothes and into the car. I think I was the last to arrive at the marina but still not late to halt a prompt departure on time. Once loaded onto Neptune we were off, due to the low mist reducing surface visibility we decided to aim for just outside the main shipping lanes and chase the vis. The group decision was (more…)
HMT Drumtochety April 25, 2007
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving, Wreck Diving , 1 comment so farYou need to read the post Paranoid on SS El de Bayo before reading this post.
We headed back to Dover Marina for a spot of lunch and a leisurely 4 hour wait for slack. This gave me time to take my sodden undersuit socks to the marina toilet block where there was a tumble dryer, £1 and 40 minutes later my socks were dry. Not trusting my Fourth Element Artics to the tumble dryer I left them out in the sun on the back of the boat to dry and then went for lunch, having failed to top up my tanks from the empty 12L cylinder I brought with me. Next lesson learnt. check all cylinders before I leave home. Thankfully Jay and Aide had a number of 15l with them and I stole a bit from them.
Lunch was very pleasant (more…)
Back in Dover - SS Cuvier March 3, 2007
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving, Wreck Diving , 1 comment so far
The weather so far this year has canned a couple of dives for me, last Saturday while the family were scattered in Scotland and Devon I decided I would take the opportunity and sneek a dive in Brighton, but alas the weather put paid to that. All the opportunities to dive in January as well were canned. So when the metoffice inshore forecast read Force 4/5 up to 6 West becoming Cyclonic Force 8 I wasn’t hopefull. But at 6pm on Thursday the skipper declared the dive was on, the forecasts showed a break in the weather up to about 6pm on Friday and we were going to take it…….. (more…)
Diving in Washington State with Samish Divers. February 2, 2007
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Scuba diving abroad , add a commentThrough the joys of the internet, I have recently been in contact with Samish Divers in Washington State. They contacted me through my blog entries on Scapa Flow and the U90. They are based near Bellingham Washington State on the Northwestern coast of the US bordering Canada. See Multimap.
I had a quick sneek on Google Earth to have a look at the area 
and the first thing that struck me is the number of little islands and bays. Lots of exploration possible.
It seems there is a lot of decent diving up there very similar to the sort of stuff we do here To Quote Kelly from Samish Divers Dive Centre “There is awsome diving around Vancouver island and also closer to my home in the San Juan islands. The area has huge amount of diving opportunities in the San Juan islands as well as numerous excellent shore and wall dives in and around Puget Sound. The area includes some great wreck dives, The Saskatchewan in Naniamo for example, and great Canadian diving.
All cold water diving and really fun. ” (more…)
Dover First Timer -Andaman 54m October 19, 2006
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving, Wreck Diving , 1 comment so farIt’s been a very dry couple of months recently due to moving house and all that entails and then there is the weather! The last couple of weeks have not been good for getting out diving. I was due to break my Dover duck back at the beginning of the month by diving the Genemar, but the weather put paid to that but thankfully Paul Oliver put up another Dover outing this time to do the Andaman.
Diving from Dover has it’s own challenges, by reputation the vis can be challenging and the busy shipping lanes make it very interesting. The upside to Dover is that usually irrespective of the weather there is normally somewhere that can be dived. Because of the shipping lanes the amount of boat traffic means that free ascending on a SMB is not an option, the way back is back to the shot and up to the safety of the moored boat. In bad vis this means reeling off the shot onto the wreck.
Diving- a family activity? We made it so at Porthkerris. September 12, 2006
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving , add a comment
Diving- a family activity? We made it so at Porthkerris.
Diving on the whole it can be argued, is not a very child or family friendly sport. It is not easy to be able to marry the two together. Recently we have seen there are a couple of dive centres abroad that advertise crèche facilities but upon closer inspection we have found that the crèche is only available for a morning or an afternoon or the times don’t tie up with the boat times for day trips. In the UK I have not found anybody yet actively advertising facilities for children whilst parents are diving. This doesn’t however mean that there option isn’t there. (more…)
