Easter Weekend Swanage Trip - 7th April

It's Easter weekend and we're not diving!  What is going on?

That was the thought that ran through my head when i finally worked out Easter was coming up!  Unfortunately by that time most people already had plans which meant that it was probably going to be me, myself and I and threesomes can be problematic!

However, to the rescue came Clive and Steve who were equally up for a dive over the weekend sometime.

We decided on Swanage as, despite its distance, its fairly easy to do as you ring up, book a space and then turn up.  The weather looked like it could be ok so it was all systems go.

Steve collected me at 3:40 and then we tore off to Clive's to find him loading up the car ready to go, although without any bacon butties.

Clive, can we get it in the car?

As expected the roads where fairly quiet and we got down to Swanage and ended up 5th or 6th in the queue.  We were then treated to 2 car loads of muppets who decided to join the queue in reverse and when the gats opened they actually reversed all the way down the pier...right up to the point where the banksman stopped them for us to do a three-point-turn and reverse into a tidy little space by the shop.  the expressions on their faces was priceless.

The Railway Children

We had a fair bit of time before the dive so we went up the road for a wander and were inexorably drawn to the railway station where we paused for some quiet reflection and pictures of the steam crane.  Then it was back to the Seagull cafe for a coffee and finally a bacon buttie.

Around 9:00 we started kitting up and were at the end of the pier ready to load onto the Skua at about 9:15 (yes a little bit early) for our 10:00 trip.  We loaded the boat and it ended up with 12 of us, 2 rebreathers and the rest on singles.

Steve and Clive waving at the camera!

It was a short trip out to the Kyarra and then we were in!  I can only say at this point that I'm glad that Steve and Clive had yellow and orange suits on respectively.  Otherwise we'd all have been diving solo. we got to the wreck together only because we went down the same shot but at the bottom the viz was about a metre although it was a very short, dirty metre.  We had a good bimble around but it seemed that even the fish weren't up for it as there was very little life free swimming, it was all sheltering under the plates and wreckage, nearly ever piece of plate we looked under had something hiding under it.

We held out for 30 odd minutes and then decided it really wasn't going to improve so headed up.  Once on the boat, freezing cold (wind had picked up) and contemplating a drift in similar viz we decided not to do the second dive and just get some lunch.

All told the day was a good laugh and as we all know a day with a dive is better than one without!