Weymouth - 2006
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Our first dive from Top Gun was scheduled for 12:15, we left Staffordshire at 06:30 to ensure getting there in good time (that's 2½ hours later than our normal start time for Stoney!)
M2
Dave and I were diving together on the first one, twin 12's (31%) plus a stage each (40% for me 50% for Dave) would ensure adequate bottom time and deco. Giant stride entry, over to the shotline, signal and descend...
...in my case miss grabbing the shotline by centimetres then fin like mad to try to reach it - I felt like I was in a Hollywood film where the star tries to reach his leading lady and can't reach until the very last second; except in this case I never quite made it. Common sense eventually kicked in, instead of dropping AND trying to gain headway I should inflate my wing and then head to the shotline - except my LP inflator didn't want to play common sense and had decided it was more comfortable between my back and my wing... I can assure you it had been over my shoulder at the start of the dive. At this point my mask began to flood, I looked up to see that Dave was still above me (he was) and then resolved to drop to the bottom and sort myself out there, I was only 15m away at that point anyway, so I turned my torch on to give him a point of reference and concentrated on the basics - breathe and equalise.
I landed on the sub and immediately felt guilty for not bringing my buoyancy under control sooner and potentially killng off some of the life clinging to the hull. I then put some air in my drysuit (the squeeze was becoming quite painful), cleared my mask, found my LP inflator and got myself neutral, just in time to see Dave asking if I was OK, I replied in the affirmative - because by this time I was - and we continued with the dive.
I was feeling a little shaken by my uncontrolled descent and rather than being able to relax and enjoy exploring around the sub found myself concentrating rather more than usual on my buoyancy and completely cocking it up, it didn't help that I was breathing deeper than I normally would either. In the meantime we saw a large conger hiding away in the bow section, much more than that I can't remember. My next problem was locating the shoulder dump for my wing, it had taken to hiding amongst the 3 hoses coming over my right-hand shoulder, a quick signal to Dave resolved that problem but I was getting the feeling that things just weren't going smoothly for me on this dive, the slightest little thing became a problem, I felt like an embarrassment to all of the other divers around me and just hoped that not too many had noticed me farting around like an idiot.
30 minutes later and it was time to start our ascent - I'm pleased to say that this was a completely uneventful 30 minutes and gave me a chance to reflect on what I could have done versus what I should have done versus what I did.
As usual with these trip reports I'll leave it to others to debate whether my actions were right or wrong - I learnt some important lessons and would do things differently next time around... 'nuff said.
Quick tip - tuck your left shoulder LP inflator hose between your drysuit hose and your drysuit.
A note for other twinset users... check that your manifold is open when collecting your cylinders from the gas station! As it was I had more than enough gas for the next dive but had it been a deeper or much longer dive I would have been mightily pissed off.
The Spaniard
Cate was back with us (Dave and I) for this one... a nice relaxing dive at 16m, unfortunately it was pretty poor viz. Lots of large crabs (edible and spider) and a decent sized lobster formed the highlights. We bimbled around for 46 minutes before heading back to the boat - despite careful placement, checking and double checking I still couldn't reach my shoulder dump effectively... why had this never happened before? I still don't know the answer and am now looking for a long term solution for routing it safely and securely - in the meantime I resolved the (minor) problem by using the left kidney dump instead.
Sunday 23/07/06
A change from Top Gun, Goose had a gearbox problem so the boats were all moved around and we were on the original Eclipse - a RHIB with a cabin.
A3
Cate and I dived this sub together, she had a 15 litre (air) and a 3 litre pony (40%), I had my twins (29%) and 10 litre stage (40%). The dive plan used was based around both of us being on air throughout the dive and our computers were set to air accordingly. In reality we were both switching to 40% at our first stop (18m), Cate would share my stage from the 15m stop upwards to ensure she had enough 40% on the ascent. That way if the brown stuff had hit the fast whirly thing and we got separated Cate would always have enough gas to complete her stops safely.
Déjà Vu... Having made my own mistake of not grabbing the shotline prior to beginning my descent on the M2 I was horrified to see Cate do exactly the same thing. I kept hold of the line and followed her down staying about 2m above her all the way - I could see she was finning hard to reach it but could never quite get there, with 13m to go I released the shotline and settled in front of her shortly after she hit the bottom. I could see from her eyes that she wasn't happy so we stayed there for a couple of minutes whilst she got her breathing under control and relaxed. Once we'd exchanged a couple of OKs we found the shotline (not difficult as it was only about 5m away and the viz was pretty good); what we didn't find immediately was the sub but then Phil and Nigel had very kindly laid a line and strobe so we just had to follow that... Thanks guys.
I got the chance to really enjoy this dive, whilst keeping half an eye on Cate - who I could guess felt pretty much the same as I had on the M2. We saw plenty of large crabs (edible and spider again) and another large conger - I didn't know until afterwards but that was the first time Cate had been face to face with one of those particular denizens of the deep.
After 25 minutes bottom time it was time to ascend - 38 minutes later we were back on the boat, deco having gone according to plan.
The Alex
Another change, this time from our itinerary, instead of diving the Binnendijk we moved to the Alex - having never dived either and calculating that I wouldn't be penalised because of my chosen mix (36%) I didn't mind and it seemed neither did anybody else.
Cate, Dave and I dived this together as well - Cate was on her 15 litre (air) whilst Dave and I had twin 12s (36%), 23 minutes into the dive - with no dramas (major or minor!) - and it was time to return to the shotline... somehow I finned straight passed it, turned around again and whilst next to the damn thing still didn't see it! Being conscious of the fact that Cate was diving air and her deco penalties would be building up (we'd planned for 30 minutes bottom time) I reached for my DSMB so that we could ascend on that and then fumbled with the clip (I've practised this skill and used it too many times that it should be an issue) - Cate helped but looked confused as to what I was doing - I was then about to inflate the buoy when I saw the shotline next to us. I asked Dave to clip the reel back on to my cylinder D-ring for me then we began our ascent whilst I received quizzical looks from both.
All in all a very enjoyable weekend - lots of lessons learnt - most things I thought I'd resolved at Stoney but then again there's a big difference between a relatively safe training environment and diving in the big blue (or is that green around the UK?). Some kit re-configuration required on my part and some more skillsets to be practised in different environments.
Thanks to my buddies for watching my back - to Phil and Nigel for reeling off on everybodies behalf on the A3 - Bob for taking the pictures, Dave Applin - for being a decent skipper, having a sense of humour and providing the chicken soup - and the rest of the crowd (you know who you are) for being there to share the experience.