Mark’s Diving Journal

City of Ghent - Porthkerris Part 2 June 28, 2007

The BBQ on Friday night was excellent, part of the overall vibe of these trips is our customary BBQ.  Whilst we had good weather we took advantage of it and decided to have on the Friday night as well.  The scallops were delicious, meticously prepared and cooked by Joe, they went down extremely well. 

We awoke Saturday morning to clear skies and very little wind again.  On excellent neap tides this was going to be a good day.  The early birds went out on the first run of dives, whilst the afternoon group kicked back and enjoyed the morning.  Lisa and I were going to go diving together on this one as my parents were going to join us this morning to look after the kids back on the shore. 

At 1pm we headed out, Celtic cat was loaded up and off we went, the scheduled dive site being the City of Ghent.  (more…)

Paranoid on SS El de Bayo April 25, 2007

I 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

You 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

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…)

Dover First Timer -Andaman 54m October 19, 2006

It’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.

(more…)

Scapa Trip Report - Final Instalment - Koenig, F2 & Barge & the Night out! September 1, 2006

Our final day of diving, it had been an eventful week.  For our final days diving we were going to attempt the namesake of the Konig Class battleships and finish our diving exhausting our gas supplies on the F2 & barge as we did last year. 

Ian was not feeling up to this one, still suffering a bit with a dicky stomach. So again it was Steve and I for this one.  The shot was supposed to be resting on the upturned hull with begins at about 18m.  It wasn’t, at 38m I was a bit suspicious, turns out that the shot was right inside one of the blast holes from the salvage or possibly alongside on the holes that rips along the hull to the seabed.  Steve swam off slightly from the shot and ended up swimming right inside, (more…)

Scapa Flow Trip Report Part 4 - Dresden - Coln September 1, 2006

After the previous day we decided to give the battleships a rest and go back to the cruisers, so today Thursday was the Dresden and the Coln.  (more…)

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