Florida Dive Report August 2009

Jessica’s first dive

O.K. so it’s a family holiday to Florida. The Keys to be exact, but this is just an excuse for dad to do some diving in crystal clear water for a change. There is added spice this year though, Jessica is old enough to dive in open water, she’s keen, the pool training is complete, and following some initial set backs such as ear infections and tropical storms, the day is upon us. Saturday 1st August 2009.

We load two boats at Duck Key, the Doggy family and our friends from across the pond. We head out to Coffins Patch Reef, a pretty little dive in no more than 6 metres of Floridian water, with oodles of life and no rust in sight. Usually it’s infested with pleasure boats moored all around, but today, nothing. Just us. Must be something to do with the 4 foot swells and stiff current. “Don’t worry Jessica, when you get under water you wont be aware of the sea state, all will be serene.

“Trust me, I’m your dad” We flop over the side, one man and his daughter, and also my good mate Stan. Virginia born, Florida adopted and dives like a true BSAC Brit. A good bloke to have on an iffy dive (remember the Duane Stan) and no one better to have watching your back, when you take your daughter for her first dive.

Now we are going to call Jessica “Lucky”, she dived for the first time on probably the worst conditions ever encountered on this reef. The swell was matched in strength and intensity by the surge beneath the waves; I’m sure you all know what I mean, half a yard forward, three yards back, all the time being moved left and right and up and down.

 

    

Some of this dive was in water only 3 meters deep over the reef making buoyancy a reel headache in such shallow water. The vis. was rubbish , the water full of sand and particulate, and yet for all that, she loved every minute of it. Remember those first dives, even Stoney was exciting back then, wasn’t it? Despite the poor vis, (still better than the U.K. on a good day) there were all the usual reef critters to be seen and some great corals.

I’m as proud as any dad can be. She did really well, coped with the surge, kept her buoyancy under control, and no moaning. Stan gave her the big thumbs up and he enjoyed the experience as much as I did. Well done Jessica.

And, what of the people left up top. Six miles off shore, the youngsters were all game, Molly and Evie and their friend Wednesday all snorkelled with Wednesday’s dad Travis, despite the conditions. As I broke surface everyone was back on the boat, all were visible and excited having had a great day out.

With one possible exception. Where was Mrs T? as I approached the boat there was the tell tale noise of a landlubber on board. “Euurgh!”  “ Hueeeey”.  “Dad” said Evie, “the fish are eating mum’s sick”. “Pepperoni and mustard – mayo. Sandwiches, anyone?”

I’d like to thank Stan, his wife Brenda and Travis for their hospitality, and for taking us out in their boats, making the day possible.

 

Doggy

Dave Dog

 

 

 

 

 

no comments

Weymouth Dive Report 11/07/09

 

21st Century Fox presents 

It was a scene from a Hollywood Blockbuster, from the days of the Movies. Our hero reached out his hand for his favourite cocktail. “Did you crush the ice Beryl? Just the way I like it” His movements were smooth, as his crimson smoking jacket wafted across the leather Chesterfield Chaise Longue.

landlady He turned to face Beryl, who glided towards him, all shimmering in red silk and black nylons. “Just the way you like it Arthur” said Beryl, in a voice evocative of the German leading ladies of the 30’s.

As his hand moved tantalisingly close to her perfumed painted fingers, a drink within his grasp, he over reached, fell off the sofa and thudded to the floor in a flurry of “Y” fronts and airtex vest. “Bloody hell” he cried.

As the lights clicked on, it was not Beryl’s elegant black sling backs and red toe nail polish wedged between Arthur’s nose and the carpet, but a pair of pink fluffy slippers. He raised one bloodshot eye to see the landlady, arms folded across her blue winceyette nightie.

   

 

“Are you alright love? What happened? Did you lock yourself out of your room. The doors shut by themselves, if you go for a tinkle in the night, you’ve got to remember your key. Happens all the time“. Hauling himself up onto his knees, Arthur blinked he eyes around the bar and breakfast room of the Moline Guest House.

Consciousness and reality came flooding back. “What? Er, ooh. Have you got another key, I seem to have mislaid mine”. “There, there love. Get yourself up off that hard floor, and I’ll go and get it. Time you was in bed. Going diving tomorrow aren’t you?”

Well, not really Hollywood, but Arthur’s night on the couch was probably more exciting than a blown out weekend’s diving in wet and windy Weymouth. Two drifts and another wreck alongside the harbour wall in just 8 metres. Oh well, there’s always the Scillies!

 

Doggy

 

Dave Dog

no comments

Eastbourne Dive Report 14/06/09

 

Doggy’s day at Eastbourne  

Diver over the Side Compare it to our last outing to Eastbourne, prop snagged in the lock at Sovereign harbour, anyone called Dave into dry suits at 0600, over the side, knife in hand; “divers save the day.” An argument between the crew, stowaways and I’m sure there was a slack on that day, just wasn’t when we went diving.

It would be quicker to mention the people who weren’t seasick rather than those that were, even D.O’s. succumbed on this outing. Very humbling. Not H.S.D’s. finest hour.

Fast forward to 14th June 2009. A new boat, a new crew (that didn’t argue), almost flat calm and more sunshine than you would find on a Red Sea Liveaboard. Yes, Dave & Sylv of “Our W” broke the ice nicely with our group of hard to please divers. “It’s your day. What do you want to do?” If you want to dive a second wreck on a later slack, we’ll stay out all day if necessary”

I was beginning to think I was dreaming, did the skipper just say, what I think he just said? Just when I didn’t think it could get any better; “Anyone want a cup of tea? Just while you make your minds up” What ever happened to “Put your kit there and don’t bother me again until payment time” I was being given too many options, it was making me dizzy, a feeling made all the worse as I spun around and realised there was more deck space on this boat than your average Cunard Liner. Pinch me someone.

 

 

Dicky’s day at Eastbourne

Picture a near-perfect diving day. A flat sea and blue sky, hot and sunny with only a few clouds; A nice big Offshore 125 (Our W) with so much deck space that most dive boats could be parked on the back of it, though getting a boat up on the diver lift would be more of a challenge; It also has a compressor on board for topping up between dives. Suffice to say it was a particularly good day as we managed two wreck dives today rather than one wreck and the obligatory south coast drift over some non descript barren wasteland ‘reef’ (you can tell I’m not a newbie).

How often do you get to do two wreck dives in good viz this side of the Isle of Wight. Endless tea, coffee and soup during a 4 hour sunbathing surface interval with a bit of mackerel fishing. And nice to see no love lost between diver skippers and yachties in the lock at the end of the trip coming back to Eastbourne’s Sovereign Harbour.

We dived the wreck of the Ashford, a British steamer of 1,211 tons which collided with the German barque , Pirat of Hamburg on the 25th June 1906. The Ashford was en route from Seaham to St Nazaire with a cargo of coal. After the collision she was taken in tow by the tug Dominion but sank shortly afterwards. Today the remains of the Ashford, contrary to other dive reports, is upright and intact.

She stands some 8 metres high from the sea bed (42 metres) with her decks at around 34 metres. Her super structure has collapsed down and her decking rotted away exposing her holds and cargo below. This makes for an excellent dive, giving good access areas to penetrate and explore. We had really good viz, a nice ship shape wreck, and easy to spot bits of boat.

 

 

Dave & Sylvia gave us a great day out. A fact that didn’t alter as we relocated to below the boat. We dived The Ashford, and I was even able to see it this time, in fact 8 metres, and nice and clear at that. No clangers dropped as far as I was aware, just a good dive for all, with plenty of life, and slack, and a new champion Crab catcher in the club. Step up Paul Allsop, you are the man!

Plenty of room to stretch out and sleep between dives and a second wreck, as promised. Diver Dicky; “That’s the best second dive I’ve ever had in the Channel” Praise indeed.

Prizes will go to the silly hat brigade. Mark Smoothy was rather fetching whilst diving in his medieval apocothary’s bonnet and Pete’s appearance becomes particularly sinister in a Tolkien-esk fashion, when his ears plop out the side of his gimp mask. We really do need a new photographer.

The only other prize of the day goes to Selena for most toilet blockages on the voyage. Pheew! Pass the air freshener someone.

What a day.

Doggy

  Dave Dog

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also dived the wreck of the FD Lambert a 2195 ton steamship collier torpedoed on 13 February 1917, another casualty of World War One. At an average depth of 25m there’s plenty of time to get round most of the wreck and pick out the interesting features, from an unusual design of anchor at the bow to the spare propeller at the back of the remains of the aft hold. There is a scrap of netting that in low viz could deter from exploring further but it is a small tangle, and easily avoided.

If you look up the FD Lambert in the Shipwreck Index, it is listed as having a triple-expansion engine and one boiler. I agree about the engine (you can tell this a mile off the way the rods, pistons, valve, seals and con roddy things are stuck together) but this wreck had two boilers side by side. So is it really the FD Lambert? Perhaps if anyone dives it with a tape measure, they can measure this wreck and see how close it comes to the Lambert ‘s specified length and beam of 85.55m by 11.58m. Plenty of life on this wreck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

no comments

Eastbourne Dive News

After waiting for what seemed like a lifetime for our next dive to come around it finally arrived. Eastbourne on Sunday 31st May, the weather looks good all week and with the wind coming from the north, although a bit chilly, the forthcoming dive on the South coast should be no problem.

On Saturday the weather was great and had warmed quite a bit. It was therefore assumed that the dive the next day was on. So it was just a formality for Dave to call the skipper on Saturday evening for him to confirm that the dive is on. Alas, a call to the skipper on Saturday evening was bad news.  He informed Dave that as Saturday had progressed the wind swung round to the east and had gathered enough strength to make diving less than comfortable and that he was calling the dive off!

Lets hope we have better luck in a couple of weeks when we are booked to dive Eastbourne again.

no comments

Southsea Dive Report – August 2005

Four of us ventured down south to dive off the coast of the Isle of Wight, Once we had recovered a lost diver (he had no road name for his sat nav), we loaded the boat Buccaneer and chugged off towards Sandown Bay. Plenty of room as only 6 divers on board.

First dive was the Wreck of the Camswan  a fairly large upright wreck, 4m in places, quite a good dive with reasonable viz.  There was plenty of life with the usual south coast stuff (pollock, bib, small crabs, blennies, gobies).  Apparently there are congers on this wreck but didn’t see any. Managed to find the boilers (big round circular thing with grids of holes) and what could have been the front or back of the wreck (sorry aft/stern).

Second dive was on the er ledges er didn’t actually find a ledge so swam around in ½ m viz at 8m for 40 mins probably going rounds in circles. Not much life about, a few small fish and small crabs, some kelp and weed and some mooring lines – although it might have been the same one.  Not a great second dive, well it was actually quite boring, both me & Mark F both said afterwards how on earth do you make this dive interesting for novice divers.  However it was still a good day out (of the office) as it was sunny and warm.

More lessons to be learned from the days diving:

  • Try to remember to untie your cylinder from the rack before diving especially after you have told everyone else to remember this.
  • Navigation – if the skipper says head South East this means for all of the dive not just part of it North West is nowhere near South East on the compass

Other news – Litter picking at the Havering show on the bank holiday weekend – great fun – no really!
Paintball  -  No details but I understand it was a case of shoot the crap out of the Treasurer and he hurt his back …aaaarrrrrr.

o o  o

o   o  o

o   o  o

><{{{{º>   o o

><{{{{º>  o

><{{{{º>

no comments

Dover Dive Report – August 2005

After last year’s ‘black out’ I wasn’t really expecting a lot but my faith in Dover diving has been restored.  It turned out to be a really good day’s diving and we finally got to use the clubs unofficial dream machine to get there (nice one Craigy).

As many people know the dive boat is not the best looking dive boat in the world but it is fairly fast and there is tons of room on deck as long as the weather is ok, which it was.  The sea was fairly flat but this didn’t stop a number of the supposedly hardy divers ‘chumming‘ for sharks. Apparently a dodgy bacon sandwich was to blame.

First dive was the Wreck of the Castor, a fairly large upright wreck a reasonable dive with good viz, but as with much of Dover’s diving you are limited to going out one way reeling off and back the same way so you don’t get to explore as much. There was a bit of a current on the wreck but there was plenty of life with the usual south coast stuff (pollock, bib, crabs, lobsters, the odd cod, blennies, gobies and some white flowery things – anemones).

One good thing about Dover is you can come back to land for the surface interval for cups of tea and a picnic (nicely prepared by Alan).  And on this particular weekend there was an open day on the front with all sorts going on including – a flotilla (convoy to me and you) of boats, firemen for the ladies.

Second dive was the Wreck of the Pomerania, (not to be confused with the Pomeranian which is off Dorset).  This turned out to be a late afternoon dive. Last year I saw a bit of metal, one fish and someone’s torchlight in what felt like a night dive during the day!  What a difference, this time there was some really good viz and it was a really good dive (again reeling out and back to the shot line), plenty of wreck and sea life (mainly the same as above).

As a now regular feature there were some lessons to be learned from the days diving:

  • Try to remember to take your weight belt
  • Try to keep your torches (and all your other equipment attached to your bcd), although on a positive note Smoothy and Windy Walker have both passed their Search and Recovery Speciality.
  • Try to keep your kit as streamline as possible and eliminate dangly bits.  Crab hooks have a tendency to snag on things and whilst you put a lot of finning action in – you never get any where! (Maybe the club should run a speciality course in kit streamlining as this could gain an extra 20 seconds of bottom time – but hey you never know what you might need down there).

no comments

Selsey Dive Report – July 2006

Camberwell & The Mixen Hole

What a really good day’s diving although to start with my dive marshalling skills were brought into question before we even got there. Lesson 1 – ensure you have the right set of instructions before the sat nav is programmed.  When we were 11 miles from Littlehampton our expected journey time to Selsey was 15 minutes ah……..- good job we had Sat Nav 2 although the tone of voice was a bit aggressive at times. (Could have been worse though could have ended up in Southampton!).  If you don’t have a road name for sat nav for the dive destination try Beach Road – it would have worked on this occasion.  Having overcome this slight hitch the glamorous assistant dive marshal asked for the dive slates er ah now where are they? Oops!.

The diving was really good, we had a long blast out in the rib about 30 mins to the I.O.W. Dived the Wreck of the Camberwell.  Lies in 30m although part of it is at 21 so plenty of broken scattered wreckage and a haven for crabs and lobsters.   Is there a BSAC course in the art of catching lobsters coz they seem a bit quick?

We had some good visibility and around 20 mins on the bottom. Loads of the usual UK fish on the wreck – take your pick of gobies, blennies, bib, pollack.

On the way back to the beach for the surface interval (to fill tanks and visit the bakers) we did have a brief sighting of a dolphin just a few meters from the boat – it seems there are resident dolphins in the area as witnessed by the two Marks earlier in the year.

The Mixen Hole is a strange place – different currents going on but once over the 5/7m ledge you can sky dive to the bottom at 22-26m. There’s a claying thing going on which for some reason is no good when trying to cling onto a ‘rock’ with a crab hook – funny that!

There are loads of ledges and rocks with crustaceans (small edible crabs, velvet swimming crabs and also lobbys). It was like spider crab city on the first part of the dive.   Almost had a lobster on the dive but it got away (AGAIN!).

There were a few large fish (if in doubt call them wrasse for the log book), blennies and gobies, not much else.  Weird dive in a way as we had the current over the interesting bit and slack over the bland bit. A nice long 40 min dive though.

The only downside to Selsey is the climb up the shingle beach with kit at the end of the dive – smokers & pie eaters beware!

Diving is an ongoing learning experience and the lessons to be learned this time are (no names):

  • Don’t try diving without your mask again
  • Don’t forget your hood
  • Remember to put a weight belt on
  • Ankle weights are a great idea for keeping you horizontal in the water

It seems that one of our more ‘senior’ divers has taken up extreme diving. The Mixen Hole in places was a bit bland towards the end so ‘he’ decided on a spot of inverted diving.  Not a lot wrong with that except that you need to be aware that when signalling it is time to surface – you know which way is up!

Other news

School Try Dive: Some local school kids around 40 in all have done a try dive over 2 Sundays and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  Julie has already thanked everyone but this is again reciprocated – it is appreciated that members gave their time in preparing the kit, taking the kids in and putting the kit back.  The treasurer was also extremely pleased with the numbers in the pool for a change.

no comments

Weymouth Dive Report – July 2005

St Dunstan, Portland Rocks, Binnendyk and Lulworth Banks

Everything made for a great dive weekend.  The B&B was in a very good position – right on beach with a nice sea view.  A bit of a walk to the boat but you can’t have everything.

The dive boat was awesome  a brand new catamaran with so much space, a great sun deck, tons of kitting up area, dvd, computer, divers lift – PERFECT. The weather was great probably one of the best weekends of the year, the sea was flat calm.  And the diving was fab as well (probably one of my best weekend’s diving… If Carlsberg did diving weekends……..) the viz was very good, sea life pretty good. Even the air fills were very generous with 230-250 bar the norm.

The first dive was on the Wreck of the St Dunstan – this is a fairly easy wreck to navigate round as it’s mainly in tact albeit twisted on its’ side but it looks like a wreck rather than a pile of metal.  I’ve dived it 3 times now, every dive has been different and even I can find my way around it.  Tons of life on it – usual UK stuff – bib pollack, crabs etc.

fish 3097AA clipartOn the second dive (Portland Rocks) the crab hunters (Richard & Mark F) brought up biggest crab I’ve ever seen after a very long struggle.  It was spotted walking about in the open probably thinking I’m big, I’m hard nothing is gonna get me, ah! except for divers! And I also found out that size does matter especially if your goody bag is too small for a monster crab!

On another personal note also caught sight of my first cuttlefish on a UK dive, we almost landed on them as well as a blond? ray (don’t know if it was a ‘natural’ or not). Also saw a large skate (another first) and whilst I was contemplating what sauce to put on the chips to go with it, it had gone.  Plenty of crabs and lobsters on this gentle drift dive.

The third dive was on the Wreck of the Binnendyk.  What I saw of this wreck was pretty broken up with plates, girder and cogs strewn about -well worth a rummage about though.  Did see the boilers and saw the biggest lobster I’ve ever seen hiding in a pipe (the one that got away ? – although granted a few other divers saw it as well). There were loads of smaller fish on this wreck.

The fourth and final dive was a drift dive collecting loads of scallops Lulworth Banks.  Saw a nice size ray straight away and a plaice /skate (flat fish anyway) later in the dive. Also spotted a dog fish and possibly a weaver fish (need a fish ID slate me thinks!).  Quite a lot to see as there were loads of gullies to drop into some had some large shoals of fish (pollack / bib) sheltering from the current.  Filled a goody bag of scallops on this dive – thoroughly enjoyable drift with a few ‘different’ sightings.

Footnote –after some assistance from ‘Windy’ and the loan of a big pot from ‘Woody’ the crabs were cooked & shelled (apologies for making a mess of the kitchen Alan, well I didn’t know the goo was gonna go all over the place when you break the shell apart).  Had some nice crab sarnies during the week as well as the scallops (first time for me) and they were delicious.

On a semi serious note there were however some lessons to be learned for the weekend – no names mentioned but you know who you are: don’t try diving without:

  • A weight Belt
  • A Mask
  • Your dry suit zip still open

Also note that seasick patches don’t work

Big thanks to Wendy for organising the diving / weekend.

no comments