Swanage July 2010
We dived the Mary Jo and the Sidewinder. Both boats use a backward roll entry and have automatic side ladders for getting back in.This was the first weekend dive trip I'd organised. Tips for next time:
- Don't leave your wallet at home
- Do look at the dive times before you set off for the dive
- "Cheeky" and diving don't mix well
Dive 55
| Place: | Betsy Anna |
| Buddy: | Boggie |
| Equipment Details: | 13Kg weight, drysuit, torch etc |
| Visibility: | 5-8m, pretty good |
| Water Speed: | Slow |
| Weather Conditions: | Sunny, warm, F3-F4 wind though - two of the other people on the boat threw up! |
| Entry/Boat: | Sidewinder |
| Air in: | |
| Air out: | |
| Cylinder: | 12L |
I was a bit worried about this before the dive because I thought the bottom of the wreck was at 36m which would be my deepest dive. After checking with Divers Down on the pier it turned out only to be 26m which put my nerves at rest! It also turned out to be an absolutely lovely dive.
I was buddied by Boggie and this time I went down first. We descended the shot and arrived near the boiler. There were supposed to be conger eels in there but we didn't see any, just a squat lobster. I did spot a small one side on hiding under some plates though and showed Boggie. We headed towards the stern along the prop shaft. There were large shoals of Bib and a few blennys. On the way back we kept seeing huge lobsters. One was hiding right under the boiler and its claws were much larger than my hands. It came out at us so I moved away, something that size is not to be messed with! We were about to go into deco time so we found a spot towards the bow and ascended with Sarah and Phil coming up in about the same place. I did the DSMB (first time in a while) and went up far too fast in a few places. Had to fin down to stop myself ascending. Was no big deal but I was clearly a little under-weighted. Really nice dive.
Dive 56
| Place: | Fleur de Lis |
| Buddy: | Boggie |
| Equipment Details: | 15Kg this time |
| Visibility: | 5m |
| Water Speed: | Strongish current |
| Weather Conditions: | |
| Entry/Boat: | Mary Jo |
| Air in: | |
| Air out: | |
| Cylinder: | 12L |
The fleur is a wooden boat in about 11m of water just off the coast. We were first in the water and descended the shot. The boat is only small so we went around it twice. You can see the nails sticking out as they erode more slowly than the wood and you can see a latice of wood sticking up one one side. It is very easy to disturb the silt though and before too long it got a bit murky as other divers arrived. There were crabs and pollock on the wreck and a large shoal of bib just off it but nothing too spectacular. The current was really strong though so we tended to pull ourselves around the wreck. After going twice around one way we went once along the other before doing a drift dive off the wreck for another 15mins or so. We didn't see too much on the drift but there was a dogfish at one point.
Dive 57
| Place: | |
| Buddy: | |
| Equipment Details: | |
| Visibility: | |
| Water Speed: | |
| Weather Conditions: | |
| Entry/Boat: | |
| Air in: | |
| Air out: | |
| Cylinder: |
Cheeky Third
This was a dive under the pier with myself, Sarah, Chris and Trevor.
Dive 58
| Place: | Valentine Tanks |
| Buddy: | Sarah and Claire |
| Equipment Details: | |
| Visibility: | |
| Water Speed: | |
| Weather Conditions: | |
| Entry/Boat: | Sidewinder |
| Air in: | |
| Air out: | |
| Cylinder: | 12L |
Clarie's mask came off when we did our backwards roll entry. Decscended down the shot first followed by Claire and then Sarah. Sarah and Claire were official buddies with me tagging along. We got down to the first tank and Claire knelt on the gun and did a mask clearence very effectively. After that we swam around the tank. I spotted a conger eel but the visibility was pretty bad so I couldn't signal to the others. We circled two or three times spotting some large spider crabs scuttling off and some tompot blenny's. I also found the tail of the Conger. After a few minutes other divers had turned up and stirred up the silt so we found the rope heading to the second tank and started following it. Claire got out in front whilst I was looking at a crab and when I looked up I saw Sarah trying to catch her up. Aiden's stop signal came in handy but I was pretty sweaty for the rest of the dive! The second tank had a bit that had fallen off it which we reached first but there wasn't anything to see in it. Sarah was trying to show Claire a conger eel but didn't notice a large crab trying to attack her hand which she'd placed nearby. The dive ended with a slow drift where we saw a dogfish. I got back on the boat first followed by Claire than Sarah. Nice fun dive.
Dive 59
| Place: | Old Harry's Drift (Old Harry is the name of the square shaped rock at the end of the cliffs) |
| Buddy: | Sarah and Claire |
| Equipment Details: | |
| Visibility: | |
| Water Speed: | |
| Weather Conditions: | |
| Entry/Boat: | Sidewinder |
| Air in: | |
| Air out: | |
| Cylinder: |
This was a fast one. I was after a ray.
We all rolled in together after a count of three and this time my mask came off. I sorted it out and Sarah attached a buddy line to Claire. We desended with me following the DSMB line and only at the bottom did we realise how fast it was. We were moving at about 2m/s. There was lots of seaweed floating with us too and the vis was only about 5-6m so I trided very hard to stay close to the other two. It didn't really work with me in the middle because I seemed to go faster than the others so after trying to position myself next to both Sarah and Claire I decided it was easiest to stay out of the way of both lines and stick with Claire. We zipped along not able to look at anything for more than a second or two. Sarah spotted a Dogfish and madly finned backwards to show Claire. I shone my torch about to see what we were looking and Claire pointed me in the right direction just in time for me to see it drifting off. I also picked up a dead spider-y thing I showed Sarah (she thought might be a baby squat lobster or crab). About half way through the current dropped off a bit but was still fast. It felt like we'd gone in a circle but we probably hadn't (Boggie suggested it is just that we end up drifting sideways a bit without noticing and then the current appears to shift). Claire was doing her plane impression clearly enjoying it. Towards the end of the dive I managed to pick up a big snail which I passed to Claire who passed it to Sarah. We'd been going along for a bit with Sarah seeing a few more dofish when I suddenly spotted a huge beautiful ray right under me! I just had time to point it out to Claire before we had gone past it. Amazing thing. After that we only had about 100bar. I got a little worried becuase there were clearly so many boats wizzing around above us but we ascended on 70bar, did our saftey stop and got back on the boat. Great dive. Sarah saw 6 dogifsh and two rays, but not the one I saw. Just shows you what a difference 4m makes!