Monday 16 June 2014

London to Brighton Cycle Ride, June 2014

We set off from the Club Hut at 6.20 am and arrived at Clapham Common in time for a leisurely 8:00 am start to the 2014 British Heart Foundation London to Brighton cycle ride. The team; Paula, Stan (aka Steve), Helen, Ian, Heather and James set off towards Brighton.


There were one or two delays on the way as there were a number of serious accidents involving cyclists which meant that rest of us (there were almost 30,000 on the ride) has to wait while they looked after the casualty in the middle of the roads ahead.


The ride was long (55 miles in total) with a couple of gruelling hills (Turners and Ditchling Beacon) and an equal number of great down hill sections where we could get speeds of up to 40 mph (which can be quite scary). The six of us tried to stay together, for both moral and technical support which was useful when James' back tyre picked up a puncture.


At the top of Ditchling Beacon (the highest part of the ride) we celebrated with an ice cream and then headed down the final hill towards the finish line.

We finally reached the sea front in Brighton at around 6.30 pm. It was a great fun day with some very happy memories. 

A HUGE 'thank you' to Richard and Jen for moral support and bringing a big van to drive us back to Bushey at the end of the tiring day.



Who wants to come next year?

Friday 13 June 2014

Portland Harbour Training Weekend, June 2014

We left on a Friday afternoon at about 8.00 pm and settled in for a long drive down to Portland. The three hour drive meant that we then only got there at 11.00 pm and were just in time for the dive brief for the next day. We were all sharing two caravans in the Caravan Park in Portland.



On Saturday morning, we went down to the Portland Marina where we all got our cylinders filled by Scimitar Diving. When we had all changed, the boat refused to start for ages, and eventually had to be jump-started. The diving group split into two groups on the separate ribs, ICY Diver (thanks to Imperial College Underwater Club) and the Bushey Diver.  We paired up with our buddies and got ready for our first dive, the Countess of Erne. At this point I was very excited but also nervous as this was my first ocean dive. The Countess is an old paddle steamer, used as a coal hulk in many ports. It sank in the Portland harbour on 16 September 1935. The actual dive was quite cold for me because I was in a semi-dry, but still it was an excellent dive. The visibility was pretty good and there was lots of animal wildlife like fish and crabs. On the sides of the ship were also lots of coral and shells. On the surface, the water was quite calm and the sun was beating down on us, drying us out quickly after we surfaced. 

When all the divers returned, we came back to the Marina to get lunch and refill our tanks. Our second dive that day was The Dredger, a vessel used as a sand dredger until it sunk. On the dredger, we saw lots of fish, all of which I don’t know the names for, and a few crabs, the biggest one I saw was probably bigger than a dinner plate, and was put in front of my face to scare the life out of me (thanks Ray). After we came back up from the Dredger, the sea was still quite calm and warm. Getting into the rib was just as elegant as the first time, with a lot of flapping and grunting included. We then returned to the Marina, where we again filled our tanks for a third dive. For the third dive, we dived the Countess of Erne again, going to the deck as a maximum depth (at around 6m). We then went back to the caravans where we ordered Chinese takeout and did the dive de-brief for that day. 



Sunday was our second, and last, day of diving and we woke up early in the day to pack up our clothes and wash the dishes, and in general, clean the caravans. We then rushed to the Marina to get changed as fast as possible. We wanted to fit in two dives before we left. Our first dive on Sunday was the Black Hawk, or rather, it was meant to be the Black Hawk. Unfortunately, the shot had drifted onto a sand bank away from the wreck and only one pair got to see the Black Hawk. Instead the rest of us dived some mud banks which were full of crabs and coral, and even a few fish every now and then. Again, our second (and last) dive of the day was on the wall just outside Portland harbour. Because of the high amounts of silt and chalk washing off of the cliffs, the vis was not very good with less than half a metre of visibility. When we returned from our last dive of the day, we unloaded the ribs and found a hose to wash our kit there. We packed it all onto a trolley and took it to our cars, where we packed our kit into the cars, said our goodbyes to the weather, and headed home. 

It seemed like it was only a few hours ago that I was setting off to Portland, I would be sad to see it go.

by Kye Cunningham