[Digger]

Well, could take a while, but a brief outline of our little pootle in the Sound of Mull.

Firstly, the Sound of Mull is a long way from Nottingham. I didn't realise quite how far until the CD player had gone all the way round and was playing Sweet Child of Mine for the second time. Necessary Air Guitar obviously.

All arrived nice and early for a few beverages on the saturday night, lots of kit fettling, and some new toys here and there. No major problems, few beers then off to bed.

Day one - shake down dives. Just needed to get in the water, most people hadn't dived for a few weeks, so 20m dives to get a feel for things with kit and the boats etc. The morning dive was somewhere scenic (absolutely no idea where, but there was rock, kelp, urchins and crabs. Somewhere in the sea near the UK on that basis). Second dive was the wreck of the Ballista, I deflated my wing and suit a bit to descend, and promptly hit the wreck! It's about a metre under on the top! So a good look about the section we were on, then off to see what else was about. That's where the fun begins...

There is a large hull section, about 30 feet by 20, which is about 4 feet thick, with lots of bits of life on it, and lots of holes to have a look in. I had a look under it, and there was a nice swim through, the sort any one of you wouldn't think twice about. It was about 3' high at the entrance, and narrowed slightly in the middle before coming out the other at a similar height. The total distance can't have been more than 10 feet from one side to the other, with another exit over to the left from where I was looking. So in I went. I'm underneath, just enjoing the leace and quiet, it's a flat rock bottom under it, so no silt to worry about, and then I decide to carry on through and come out the other side. It was tight enough that I had my arms out in front, and had to slide my front on the rock and my tanks on the wreck a little bit, but nothing compared to some of the squeezes I've been known to get myself into! Just at this point, I hear a gentle rumbling noise, and I am pinned to the rock floor. The wreck is collapsing on me.

My first reaction was to push up. I reckon the piece of wreckage weighed about 2-3 tons, so my pushing was a total waste of time, but for some reason I still pushed. Then I couldn't breathe, because the gap was continuing to get smaller. I was properly stuck, and the only person who knew I was in there was powerless to do anything about it. They couldn't lift that much wreck any better than I could. It was getting a bit dark at this point, as bits of wreck are silting out the hole, and I'm starting to worry quite a lot. I do remember thinking that it would be ok to die right now, that at least I've not hurt anyone else directly in all this. I start grabbing anything which I can find to pull on. My legs have been finning as hard as they can since this all started, and it's not getting me anywhere. The wreck is still sinking, and it's getting tighter and tighter. I wriggle as hard as I can, making quite a lot of noise, and as we saw after, a fair mess fo the paintwork on my tanks! I popped out like a cork in time to get my head straight, and wonder what I could have done to get that close to dying that easily.

If the wreck had come down another 6 inches I would have died. I cannot see how my ribs would not have been broken or I just wouldn't have been able to breathe. I also have no idea what any other diver or the boat could have done to help me. Short of a lot of very large lifting bags that we did not have, I would have been stuck under there until I ran out of gas.

After the incident my computer was scratched, my tanks have lovely go faster stripes on them, and my drysuit has 3 fairly large gouges out of it. My KT reel amusingly had its handle bent 90 deg and stuck straight out! Took a fair bit of force to put it back too!

Injuries to me were pretty much nothing, other than a sense of lucky b*stard and a fear of getting under wrecks again all week and the muscles in my left leg being very tight and strained from kicking so hard even with cramp in the leg. I didn't have any choice. Pain went after the next day, and reminders from it will be mental ones from now on.

After that everything was very tame to be honest. We dived all the usual wrecks, Hispania Thesis Shuna Breda Rondo and the like, and it was nice relaxing diving for me on sites I'd not done before, other than the Breda when we were at Oban last summer. Went on a few scenic dives where I could get some depth which was good from a practice point of view, and there was enough pretty stuff about to make it interesting on deco. There was also a lot of singing going on when doing stops on the shotlines of most of the wrecks, just to keep goign in 7 deg water!

The only amusing bit of it was the Rondo - at about 30m there is a swim through right unde the wreck. It is about 4m wide, and easily done by diver with twins and stage on. James looks at me, and I look back, wondering. Sod it, thinks me. I go for a swim through first, and half way I hear a loud rumbling. I have never swum so fast. It was the skipper manouvering the boat on the surface. James came through after me and we came up the wreck and surfaced, my heart rate and gas consumption a little high after that!

Photos I'm sure will come from Mr Bantam, who was a gem as ever and thanks go to the YD guys - James Dave and Mark, for making the trip possible and such a good time.

And finally - I love Shearer! Long story.

Digs.