August Bank Holiday in Plymouth

TODAY MINUS ONE

Most of us set of to the long drive to Plymouth on the Friday before the diving. Almost all of us chose the A303 route.

For me, after Anna arrived at 10am, a slight deviation of the southern section of the M25 takes me into Dorking for an air fill. However, they chose that day to close the shop for the morning, so Plan B was quickly hatched to get an air fill in Plymouth.

The M25 was up to its old tricks and decided to present an hour traffic jam to get from Leatherhead to the M3 exit, so a detour via the A3 and over the “hogs back” to pick up the connecting dual carriageway via Farnborough saw me back on track.

Then we got to Stonehenge! All stop again! After getting underway again, a pit stop at a Little Chef was required (Note to self! Avoid little Chef in the future!!).

Eventually we arrived in Plymouth at 4pm, which seems to be the arrival time of most of us. A recce took us of to Queen Anne’s Battery for an air fill and to check out the car park for the next mornings boat loading exercises.

The evening saw everybody doing their own thing for food, so for me there was only one place to go! Cap’n Jaspers where a Jasperizer filled an empty hole in my tummy! (Jasperizer – a quarter pounder cheeseburger, AND a quarter pounder bacon burger in one big bap!)

The evening finished with a session in the Dolphin pub.

TODAY

Everyone turned up at the QAB for 8.45am for those that hired bottles to collect, plus all the kit to be loaded on the boat. The boat was right at the end of the pontoon, so was a fair old trek.


Once loaded, we were away by 10am, first to dive the "Scylla", with the "James Egan Layne" in the afternoon.

The sun was out, and the sea was reasonably calm, but the viz was shite. You could never make out much definition or appreciate these wrecks when you really couldn’t see much further than the end of your arm.

However, these represented the first real challenge to Anna, who was rather anxious at the beginning of the day.

To get in the water, it was a backward roll of the gunnels, and to return a side mounted lift allowed a rightways side step onto the boat over the gunnel. Sounds awkward, but actually worked very well!

With the low viz, not much could be seen of the "Scylla", although we did enter the wreck by visiting the bridge through a hole in the roof.

The "James Egan Layne" was also a pretty low viz affair, but visibly more interesting with a sense that the wreck was being penetrated (without any of the risks). A very good wreck for a novice!

The end of the day saw us meet for a meal at the The Glassblowing House. A real find!. The good was mostly seafood, and was extraordinarily good! Surprisingly also very well priced. 10 people = £225 for a variety of 1, 2 or 3 courses.

THE DAY AFTER YESTERDAY

Sunday wasn't kind with the weather. It was not un-diveable, but with a rather strong wind at 20 knots, it was lumpier that the Saturday.

Today however saw us off to dive the "Persier", a wreck in 20something metres. We declined to let Anna know how deep, but with better viz, her conclusion was "this is the best dive so far!" Introduced Anna to the game of squeeze the sea cucumber!

The second dive of the day saw us in the deep gullies of "Hilsea Point". Again the viz was better than the day before, but the current still managed to wash about a bit. Still lots of cuckoo wrasse, urchins, sea cucumber and starfish!

The evening saw us all at the "Himalayan" for a ruby murray! It seemed however a party of 10 caused their food ordering/delivering to table procedures all went to pot!! While the curry was great, it came out only £15 cheaper than the meal the night before!!

THE LAST DAY

The weather was hot! The wind speed was 3 knots, so the sea was flat calm!! By consensus we agreed to do the "Persier" again. The weather was fab, although the viz wasn't quite as good as the day before. I took my camera this time also.

The second dive of the day was an un-named 50ft fishing trawler (complete with toilet! Although the enclosing cabin was no more!!) on a rocky reef. This provided a few more photo opportunities!


Back ashore, it was the de-mob moment to get the kit off the boat and pack the cars. Lars and Mariette set off back to London, as did Ken. Anne caught the train home with her dive kit in my car.

A Hoilday in Cornwall

This just a bit of light hearted musings about my holiday in Cornwall with my daughter.

Friday 6th Aug - Set off at 5.am. Stopped for brekkie at about 7.30, and then again at 8.45 just before Exeter for a half hour powernap! Arrived in Penzance at 11.30. Wandered around Penzance for a hour or so, then off to Marazion so Rachel could wade her feet in the sea. Off to Tesco's for supplies, then at 3.30pm checked in to the apartment. Crashed out.

Saturday 7th Aug - Off to Porthcurno, and wandered around the Telegraph Museum for a few hours in the wartime underground bunker. Then down to Portcurno beach, where Rachel changed into her wetsuit for a few hours splashing about.

Sunday 8th Aug - Off to Prussia Cove, one of the top 10 snorkelling locations in the UK. Needless to say, I'm quickly in the water, while Rachel explores all the rookpools.

Monday 9th Aug - The weather has turned as it is raining, so we are off to Paradise Park (an aviary for exotic birds), where we watch a falconry show that include an Eagle Owl, and a Bald Eagle.

Tuesday 10th - MY BIRTHDAY, but still pissing down with rain. We visit St Just to wander the various art galleries,then off to the Lizard Peninsular, then Coverack, then St Keverne. Off to Roskilly Farm to have a steak BBQ dinner.

Wednesday 11th Aug - The sun has got his hat on again!! Off to a beach in Porthgwarra. Very small and we followed a pantechnicon down this tiny lane to get to it. More snorkelling.

Thursday 12th Aug - The last day. Off to visit Botallack Mine near St Just. A National trust owned area of former tin mining with some spectacular North Cornwall coast line. Then off to Cape Cornwall, where we spend time in the Coast Watch lookout, complete with radar and the biggest binoculars I've ever seen, that could see the Scilly Isles! Lastly we wandered around Mousehole (home of Stargazey Pie! Christmas Eve in Mousehole is a place to and time to visit!!!)

Friday 13th Aug - Set of at 8.30am to head home.

Try Dive 2010 - with Bermondsey BSAC

The annual BSAC Try Dive event kicks off in September and we're aiming to make it the best one ever for the club.  With that in mind if there's anyone you know of who would like to have a go then get them to register here.  Once they have registered then all they need to do is turn up and have a go.

There is more information on our website.

As a way of involving the whole family we're also offering anyone who wants to do it a Try Snorkel so we can get everyone involved.

If nothing else it should be a lot of fun for everyone who comes along and hopefully some people will decide that we're the club to help them join in the sport.

We have a few poster and promotional leaflets available so if you know of anywhere they could go just let someone on the commitee know and we'll get some for you.

To dive or not to dive, that is the question...

It seems it's time for the annual debate on where we should be diving. I was flicking through some old minutes from AGMs and commitee meeting's and this seems to be a regular thing. Quite funny really as the comments are almost identical.


Overall I think we've had a good spread of dives and the issue seems to be more along the lines of members not coming but then part of that problem is that with a smaller membership and less active divers its a bit difficult to please enough people in every dive to fill a boat.
 
I completely understand some members prefering certain types of dives but over previous years when plenty of different dives have been available they weren't filled and this just ended up costing the club money which kind of defeats the object.
 
I think the one thing which could make a big difference to both the diving situation and the club as a whole would be to increasee the membership which is what our plan is for the next couple of months and as always any and all suggestions will be gratefully received.
 
At the end of the day this is suppoesed to be a fun club but currently it seems to be an awful lot of work for very little reward.
 
Ok, going to do some work now.
 

My musing on a few of my dives!

I've been trawling through my old red dive logbooks

My 20th dive on the 4th August 1988 was to 35m on the Eddystone Lighthouse. My bottom time was 11 minutes. Add to that a 3 min stop (simulated) at 10m and a 5 min stop (again simulated) at 5m, my comment in my logbook was "DECOMPRESSION IS BORING".

My 22nd dive was the "James Egan Layne". Top dive back then!! The 23rd dive was "Le Poulmic", another good wreck. I also did a compass bearing exercise.

My 34th dive was Hilsea Point, which to date is one of my most memorable dives! Gin clear water, and a fabulous site of deep gullies.

My 50th and 51st dives over the Spring Bank Holiday in 1990, were under Brighton pier with a very good looking Mandy Caitlin (she was husband hunting!!!)

July of 1990, saw my first trip to Scapa Flow, and my first dry suit dive! Dived the Koln without a weight belt (my logbook just says "buoyancy problems")- another diver in our group ended up in the Aberdeen pot!!

May 91, saw my first visit to the Far Mulberry, on an inflateable launched from the beach at Bognor. This is where i saw my first (and so far only) Sea Mouse. If you think i'm pulling your chain, just google it!

May 91 also saw my first visit to Pembrokeshire and Skomer Island

July 91 saw my 2nd trip to Scapa Flow, diving with my girlfriend at the time. My first dive on the block ship "Inverlayne", where the whole dive is inside the wreck.

93 saw a trip over to Normandy where we got raided by French Customs at about 2am in the morning!

93 also saw some fabulous diving to the Manacles off Cornwall's Lizard Point culminating in dive 152. My last until 2004!!

When drown doesn't look like drowning...

Dave sent out this great link to Mario Vittone's webpage with this article on what the actual signs of drowning are. http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/ - have a look and you'll see that it's not quite the Baywatch episode you might have thought....okay I know you don't watch Baywatch but you get the idea.

This is something anyone who goes to the sea (all of us I hope) should at least read and understand.

Cheers Dave

Sunny Day in Selsey

Great little dive on Saturday off Selsey Bill on the old Mulberry Harbour.

First time any of us had been on the boat and it was a pretty good one, plenty of room although as it was scheduled for another 2 I'm not sure where they would have sat.

Weather was excellent and on arriving and hitting the water in true Bermondsey style we all did our own thing.  There was a bit of confusion about who was were but in the end we all had a nice little dive, didn't lose and kit and Kim and I managed to get to the landing craft about 200m to the north.  We did manage to upset a couple of photographers though who were on the same line to the craft but found some small creature on the way and while they were photographing we torpedoed past.

Trip back to shore was fast and furious and the tab back to shore from the RHIB was interesting but all in all a good dive.

The only thing I would say about it though was that it was a long way to go for just one dive but it was a very nice day.