Well everyone's been writing about this last weekend so I guess it's time to tell my side of the story.
I'd been booked on a club trip on our Rib out of Swanage for sometime, but the organiser dropped out with a couple of weeks to go and so I stood in. We keep our rib in Swanage, but much as I love rib diving (wee keep our club rib in Shell Bay, by the chain ferry) I also like it when someone else takes the stress and so the plan was to book Mike's boat the Killer Prawn for the Saturday and dive from the rib Sunday.
However, the weather was looking good and I had some holiday to use up, so when I heard that Mark Powell had some space on a boat out of Weymouth on the Friday I was severely tempted. The weather was looking so good on Wednesday that a quick phone call and some frantic rescheduling of meetings meant that I was also getting some cheeky dives in on the Friday. Well it would be rude not to.
Friday
Friday morning saw me getting up at stupid o'clock, saying goodbye to t'missus (off on a hen weekend so not able to object to the diving
) and then down to Weymouth. I'm always over-cautious when estimating driving times and so arrived in Weymouth at 8ish. After quick trip to Asda to pick up chocolate biscuits and donuts I arrived outside the pontoons at 8:30. The meeting time was 9:30 and ropes off at 10:30. "Oh well" I thought. I have time to sit in the car and read the paper. But no. All of Mark Powell's victi^H^H^H^H students were there ashen-faced and trembling slightly.
After a few introductions (it's always nice to put faces to avatars) we took the piss out of JAG for failing to do up his drysuit in Stoney a while back. Then Mark and Paul the skipper arrived and we boarded X-Dream, as KyarraToo was unavailable due to an electrical fault. Boats eh? A hole in the water you throw money into.
We set off for the balck hawk where Simon A and I had an excellent dive. Although the bow of the Black Hawk is in 18m (the stern is in 50m odd) it was a good dive. She is well broken up as you would expect, but large parts of the wreck are very recognisable. There are some nice swim throughs and to the North of the wreck there is a nice reef with plenty of nooks and crannies for fish to hide in.
Viz on the wreck itself was excellent, and there was plenty of fish around. It clearly is the year of the spider crab, as there were literally billions of the buggers around. At various points throughout the dive we saw other people complete with twinsets and stages but the odd one or two had lost a mask! We tried to keep out of their way as much as possible but at times it was like we were being followed. "Oh you again - sorry"
I was trying out a new (to me) wing, but it worked ok, although on occasion I had trouble finding the dump. A bit more practice needed to build up the 'muscle memory' methinks.
Back on the surface we relaxed on board in the sunshine. I like sunshine. A day out on a boat with sunshine is often enough to keep me happy on it's own, but it's brilliant if there's diving too. Anyway. Yes. Relaxing in the sunshine. Paul the skipper had cooked us a tasty lunch of pizza, onion rings, crisping chips and stuff in the galley (how can people cook in such a small space - beats me) and so we stuffed our faces and then he produced the donuts. Cor. Then it was back towards Portland to dive the dredger by the harbour wall.
While Mark was hatching his nefarious plots on his students, Simon and I explored the dredger. Then we played 'count the spider crabs'. The vast majority of them are on the hrabour wall, so we scrambled (I would say pulled-and-glided but it was more of a scramble) across the rocks in our search. We had a bit more of a look around then it was another mad scramble back again. Great fun.
Oh - I also fond a small reel by the dredger so if anyone's lost one then let me know.
Back on board it was back to port to get the tanks filled (very quickly - 15 minutes or so for 32%) in Weymouth before picking up our cars and packing away the kit. After a quick window shop in UE I said my goodbyes before heading off to Swanage to meet another four people (Paul and Jen, and Paul and Kathy) from my club who I'd be diving with on Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday
Saturday was a leisurely lie-in, before going down to the pier at 11ish. Some gits had taken the trollies and were using them to dry their kit on so there weren't many around.
I was tempted to just move their kit and take the trollies but Jen found one so we took turns with that. I met Rick, then Adrian and his mates and then we boarded the good ship Killer Prawn for a trip out to the Aeolian Sky.
Although t'Prawn is not the fastest of boats, she is well built with a lift and Mike has a tin of cake. Mmm. Cake. mmm
Sorry. Yes Mike has a tin of cake. Mmm. Cake...
Mmmm.
Right. Dinner time. I'm going to finish this later.
Janos