Off to Eyemouth to do my PADI advanced open water after having been certified in Grand Cayman a month earlier. Had tried the drysuit in a pool but hadn't used the thing in anger yet. Drove up at 5am to get there nice and early to find out everyone else had gone up the night before and were suffering the effect of long discussions in the bar! A hearty breakfast followed whilst everyone tried to bring themselves round meaning that no decisions were made on the weather immediately.
Sea rolling over the retaining wall onto the promenade made it unlikely that we'd be diving but the Instructor insisted he'd go to Nessends and check.
Came back half an hour later to inform us the weekend was canned there BUT if we'd like to drive to Capernwray we could get there in time to do one dive later the same day.
Being as keen as mustard I elected to set off in my Clio and see if I could make it before closing time. Arrived a Capernwray on a Saturday at 3.20pm to find the place deserted. Now at this time I had no idea that the place should be swarming with divers, dog, small children, and assorted other animal life as I'd never dived in the UK. 15 minutes later the centre bus rolled up followed by another keen diver trainee.
The instructor looked around in amazement at the deserted car park and had just turned towards the shop when the reason for the situation became apparent. HSE officals were making a beeline for the transit van.
Lots of pointing and arm waving ensued, before the Instructor came and confided that none of the DM's who had come on the trip had HSE medicals and we therefore couldn't go diving that day. BUM!
I decided I was off in anyway, and recruited the other trainee to buddy up for a quick dip in the water for the brief time remaining.
Jumped in and sank with no problems but the auto dump on the drysuit was anything but.... my bouyancy was completely shot but we submarined ourselves over to the gnome garden and I felt like a real diver.
I'd checked my gauges regularly, but the combination of my first UK dive, drysuit, non-auto dump, and general uneasiness had meant I was sucking air like I had 10,000 litres of it on my back rather than the single 15lt tank, filled helpfully to 180 bar by the dive centre.
On checking out the gnomes, I was suprised to find I had less than 50 bar. I signalled to my buddy, showed him the gauges, and we agreed to surface, with a three minute stop at 6m. My lack of understand of the auto-dump had me bouncing up and down whilst my buddy held a perfect stop. In the end I gave into the irresisible forces in operation and popped to the surface.
There then followed the longest swim, well it felt like it, from the gnome garden back to the entry point on the surface. I had pulled my mask onto the top of my head and my reg out of my mouth and was attempting to use my arms to increase speed through the water. Fortunately, due to the lack of any observers whatsoever, the boat wasn't called out.
Perhaps this should have appeared in the 'I learned about diving from that', but it's one dive I'm happy to have walked away from with just embarrasment.
The following day the dive centre had rustled up another instructor with an HSE medical and my diving training continued.....