Stoney Cove

We returned to Stoney Cove, this time for the Sports Diver training with Sarah A and Aiden as instructors.

Dive 14

For the first dive I buddied Reiko, we went down to the Stanegarth Tug with Aiden. It took a while to swim out to the boy so we had a minute to rest when we got there. Then we descended along the line. We got down and had a look around. Reiko swam into the bridge and I followed then we swam back around the other side. Aiden followed and pointed out the propeller but neither of us quite knew why! As we were ascending Pip, Naoko and Sarah A descended and Pip ended up kicking me in the head! It was fine though. The only problem was that Reiko started descending again with Pip and Naoko and Aiden. My ears are always a little troblesome when making a fast descent so I motioned to Aiden to try to catch her. He later told me I should have gone myself as her buddy.

Dive 15

The second dive we practiced controlled boyant lifts but I can't remember too much else about it other than Aiden's feedback that I lifted Pip a little too fast.

Dive 16

The next day I buddied Naoko with Aiden as the instructor. We tried to go down to the Wessex helicopter by following a bearing. In descending though the visibility dropped to no more than a meter (probably because we were kicking up silt. I got completely disorientated, even with a compass and led us in the wrong direction. In hindsight I think it was because I wasn't vertical in the water and so the compass was actually stuck against the housing. Naoko didn't lke ti much (and neither did I) so we ascended. Naoko did the DSMB to start with but after a few minutes we hadn't got very far and had kicked up even more silt so I had a go instead and eventually we got to the surface. Not a very pleasant dive!

Dive 17

After some DSMB training on the shore we all went with Aiden to practice whilst Sarah B provided shore cover. Aiden tried to demo the DSMB but took the fidliest one for himself to give us the easier ones and struggled to get the air into it because it was so small. After the demo Pip and Reiko went first but Naoko and I were left at the bottom for about 15 mins to we devised a game of catch with some of the stones nearby! There were quite a few fish that came to see what we were up to but no other divers. Suprising how cold you can get when you stay still. Anyway, Aiden eventually returned and we had a go too.

Dive 18

For the final dive we were already running a little late but we had to each lead a dive and also practice laying and then following a line under water. Naoko took us to the cockpit on a bearing and I took us on a bearing to the Wessex. I went in a straight line, not following the ledge particularly and this was a bit of a mistake. Also I went rather fast because I wanted to fit everything in before we had to get out of the water. Sarah fed back that we should have gone more slowly.

My other memories of the trip were the huge amount of food we ordered at the Indian, telling Aiden he had "Pink eye" after having to go down to fetch Naoko when she lost track of here depth, lots of chips cheese and vinager from the kitchen at Stoney and good sized breakfast's at the B&B. All in all a fun trip. I completed everything I needed for sports diver except the DSMB and the test itself.