It is a wonderful thing to wake up at 3.45 am and be on the motorway 40mins later with no traffic. OK so that is a fib. I like busy motorways. Anyway arriving in Brighton at 6.30 am with plenty of time to load kit and greet friends, the sea looked flat, the sky blue and the wind a figment of the imagination.
Marianne met Robert and was beginning to regret the lecture on 50% deco mixes that she had provided.
Plans were changed, and changed again and we finally settled on the TR Thomson, a wreck I have dived before. Always a mistake to admit this as other assume one knows the way around.
Anyway the boat trundles out and Marianne, Rob and I form team Starburst. We all jump in and arrive on the wreck intact. At this point is is worth noting the our team's combined lighting power is enough to power a small nation. So we trundle off, apparently a little too quickly for the unfit divers among us(that would be the marathon running, kick boxing, fan dancer then
). The wreck is full of life; bib, pollock, wrasse all the usual, but lots and lots of them.
Down to 70 bar in the twinset, with 3 mins of no deco time left I decide to put up my blob. Have to confess not my best attempt. I think I failed to clear my no 2 reg before breathing from it, lots of water in increasing amounts, so I can safely say the deployment was a bit pants. With three blobs on the surface we all started to ascend, Marianne at .0003 m per min, Rob at 3m per min, and me at 8m per min. So as not to lose contact with the others I opted to get tangled in Robs line
. To pass the time I test out no 2 reg and all is fine again. I also check my gas and discover down to 60 bar, but oddly 220 bar in the left cylinder, oh the joys of a closeded manifold. So on to a few mins of deco, now with 125 bar, and back on board the boat, with Marianne and Rob still doing their accelerated deco on 50% or 100% depending on the theory being followed.
Surface interval with hot chocolate
We opted for a drift dive on the ledges. With hindsight this was a poor decision-sorry. It also helps if you actually follow the skippers instructions to find the ledge, and you take a weightbelt with you, mentioning no names, but it was not me. It was a lifeless dive, not much to see, and very little going wrong.
A rather good day out. Thanks to Marianne for organising.