Chepstow trip report (Saturday 9th August 2014)

The day started at a very early 5am but the sun was out and the sky was clear and the anticipation of a good days 

diving soon made me forgot it was 5 amin the morning.

The plan for the day was straightforward: i) to fnish off my sports diver qualification and, ii) to have a great days diving.

On arrival to Chepstow we meet up with Paula, Steve, Andrew and Dalma and discussed the plan for the day, Steve very kindly offered to take Russell and I in to finish off our last lesson which was SO1 Diver rescue skills, We knew this was going to be a long lesson with lots of ups and downs so we took our time kitting up and getting down to the waters edge, the plan was to find a 10m platform and do some CBL to 6 m and if Steve was happy then we would do a CBL to the surface and carry on with rescue breaths and tow to the shore.  

The lesson went really well, Steve put us through our paces with a good tow to the shore.  Once the exercise was over, I went to put my mask back on to finish the dive and found that i failed to keep a good hold on it and I must have dropped it during the rescue, so Steve always the organised one pulled out a spare mask seemingly out of thin air and the rest of the dive was now a search and rescue mission as we "never leave a mask behind". We retraced our path during the rescue and just when my air was getting low I spotted it, sitting on top of the platform.  After some underwater high fives we returned to the surface and practiced un-kitting an unconscious causality at the shore.

Before the lesson started I was nervous that i would forget some of the steps, but although the lesson was tough I found that all the practice with CBL and rescue skill in the pool helped me to go into auto pilot and I remembered all the steps without thinking about it. It just proved to me that the more practice the better even if it is in the pool at 2 m.

After the dive we sat down with Steve and he confirmed he was happy with how the dive went and once he had spoken to Paula he was happy to sign us off. 

Yipee!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

We had a very long surface interval as we had a lot of ups and downs on our first dive. So Russell decided to do the Zip wire with his son David who had joined us for the day and i was told it was great fun although not as fast as they would have like, this was mainly due to the wind on the day.

The plan for the second dive was to do our depth progression to 25 m. We decided to dive the plane which is at 25 m so we did a long surface swim over to the marker for the plane and descended into the depths, 5 m extra on paper didn't seem a lot but in really I found a lot of differences, the pressure seems different and the loss of colour was much more apparent at 25 m than I have noticed before. I also notice the difference in my air consumption I think this was partly down to the depth difference but also my excitement didn't help, we started to make our ascent, Steve had a new SMB reel he wanted to try so he sent up his DSMB and we did our 3 minutes safety stop.  With about 1 meter to go I look over at Russell to find his hood had filled with air and made his head appear 5 times bigger. He has now put a small hole in the top to let any excess air out the top of his hood to stop this happening again, another learning experience noted.

The whole day was a great success and brought together a lot of hard work and training.  It is a testament to the club and all the instructors for all the hard work to get people like me to be a qualified sports diver and to always feel safe and secure when diving with club.

A big thank to all for all your hard work and time.

Spencer

Plymouth - August 2014

Last week a group of us went down to Plymouth, the plan being to dive the off shore reefs from Falcon of Dartmouth, a boat and skipper that a few of you know. As luck would have it Ben's leave from the navy coincided with the trip so he was able to meet us in Plymouth and join the trip. 

The first evening we met up with ex DO and long time member  Dr Lee Johnstone and his wife for a very enjoyable evening in the Fox Hound. After a long spell of great weather we woke up on the first days diving to heavy rain and strong winds. To be fair to Tony and Lol they gave it a go and we poked our nose's out past the break water but although the weather had improved the swell was just too much to get out to the Eddystone. Unlike a lot of skippers out there, Tony refused to put us in just anywhere for the sake of a dive and canned the day at great expense to himself. "Well try again tomorrow" Sitting in the pub (funnily enough) that evening we get a text saying that" the wind has swung round and should flatten the swell enough to get off shore" ,so next morning in bright sunshine we head out to hands deep. 

In keeping with the vis all along the south coast this year I wouldn't describe the vis as great but at about six to seven meters it was a very good dive. Lots of jewel anemone's of differing colours covering the cliff face, small lobsters and other crustaceans, couple of small congers and lot of Pollock. I'm sure I even heard Craig comment on the actual dive and marine life as well as his equipment and deco ect. The second dive was on the Eagan Layne. A couple of locals on the boat had told us that the winter storms had taken their toll on the wreck and we found that a lot of it had collapsed and quite  a bit previously hidden have been exposed, still a great dive with vis of about 6 mts, lots of life. 

Despite the disappointment of losing a days diving it was a very enjoyable trip.

Gary