Back at Dover and there were a few bruised and batted divers from the trip back but only the old farts like me and Howard looked totally screwed. Paul looked OK so i reckon he is on vicoden.
Talking of farts, my arse had gone from code red to code amber. I didn't bother getting off the boat for a big fried breakfast/lunch like the others as I felt that adding fuel to the lower intestine was a bad idea. The panty liner was no longer necessary but serious farting was out of the question for the foreseeable future.
Any how on to the diving
I seriously considered canning the next dive due to the sea state. Andyp hadn't shown up which was a surprise as i thought he would for the second trip but the message on the mobile told a sorry tail so i forgave him.
In the end i thought sod it i might as well go.
2 miles out said the skipper???? 2 Miles??? that cant be right. 2 miles out there is nothing but soup off of Dover. I know I had dived there before. OH bugger i wish i had gone home
Of we trog at about 2 knots to stop the boat flipping over in the rough sea. Oh bloody great 2miles out and its still going to take an hour and its going to be a soup dive.
Dave the skipper cheered us up with the story of the two bells he took off the wreck and the massive portholes still on her. A sample of which he had in his car for all to see. Levels of excitement grew and divers started clambering for lift bags. I of course being a hard core experienced technical diver knew for a fact that a dive two miles out would be crap so i generously donated my 65kg lift bag to Paul.
Shot in and i drop down with Howard and Coliniky, who sadly has lost his buddy John Perrin to a headache. With the wreck being only two miles out i didn't blame him.
But whats this?????? VIZ!!!! oh my god I reckon 8-10m this cant be true I can still see the harbor entrance??
But it was. I rather pointlessly tied in my reel and laid line and we set off around to the right quickly finding the end of the super structure. Doubling back to the shot we quickly found the bow? Blimey i thought. This is a small wreck
I clipped off the reel to the shot as it seemed a waste of effort.
We drifted up and over the side plating to the deck and Howard and i drooped inside for a look see whilst Colin held a watching brief up top. The inside of the wreck was a mountain of silt but it was fun to be there and we mooched up to the bow again before deciding to exit. Sadly we both did this at the same time through different holes. Had we got stuck it would have got interesting and I could feel Colin shaking his head at our stupidity but we made it OK so we just pretended it was easy and carried on
Back up to the super structure and Howard popped inside for a look whilst I looked at a boom that seemed to be extending out into the gloom. We followed this and in the distance I could just make out more super structure. Sure enough another big chunk of ship. This one had massive portholes with one dangling down ripe for the picking.
About now i was regretting lending Paul my lift bag
As it was a lot of wiggling and a quick survey with a trained engineers eye told me the port hole wasn't going any where soon without Semtex so we carried on to the next chunk of wreck.
Howard flashed me to let me know his historic diving equipment was showing the "stop breathing now as i am empty " warning so we begrudgingly headed back to the shot. With Colin and I on CCR I did contemplate carrying on after dropping Howard off at the shot but the tide was picking up so i decided enough was enough and its time to go.
No arguments from Colin so up we went.
Smart move as it turned out as deco was about as much fun as the diarrhea i had been suffering all morning. The up line tied into the dive boat was bouncing like a trampoline and we were riped all over the place as the tide made holding on compulsory.
The various deco schedules made it all rather interesting with divers climbing over each other to get to optimum depth and i thanked god i was on CCR and didn't care that much.
Once at 6m i am accustom to seeing my VR3 say stop for a very long time but today I was very pleased to see only 9mins showing. I almost laughed out loud.
The que on the transfer line to get on the boat lift was a PITA but i have to say i was very very pleased to be back on the boat. Unlike poor Scubajay. He was on air and suffering the full wrath of high percentage nitrogen deco. Paul took pity on him and went down and gave him a pony of 60% to speed up deco. Paul flashed loads of fingers at Jay to let him know he was on a rich mix and succeeded in scaring the crap out of him by making him think he was on 100% and deco-ing out at somewhere between 3 and 10m according to the strength of swell on the boat at that given moment.
After we had all had dinner, brandy and coffee Jay eventually got on the boat to rapturous applause and shouts of "buy some Nitrox you tight git" and we headed home.
A truly stunning second dive in conditions which we all agreed were amazing being only 2 miles out. John and Paul waxed lyrical about the time back in 1947 when we last had viz like that so close in and the rest of us just thanked our respective dive gods that we were there this day to witness it.
It was another cracking dive.
Thanks Paul your a star.
Thanks also to Dave Bachelor and his fantastic boat Neptune. That boy really knows his stuff.
ATB
Mark Chase