Exmouth for May Day
OK Guys, kick off your shoes, get your cup of coffee because here comes another one of my marathon trip reports! (I can make a day at Capernwray last 2 pages!)
Aquaholic invited me to her gig on Exmouth, to be accompanied by Dr Beal and Fluice (hence known as Paul and Lou!)
2pm Friday I rolls up to Ankes house with what I thought was a lot of kit, a 15l and 12l single, my kit bag and box and a shoulder bag with clothes. Anke must have had 3 times as much stuff and I started to panic about what I had forgotten!!!!
Loaded up the car and sets off on a 300 mile juant "Darn Sarf". 5 CD's (including a rather good duet of "Its Raining Men") and a whole lot of Radio 2 later we arrived slightly worn out and the "Redwing Pub". Food and a pint later we go to the digs and settle down for hte night.
FIRST DAYS DIVING - Bearing in mind that I only REALLY know Anke, the other 8 people are complete strangers, I have NEVER EVER been in the UK salty stuff before, I and the least experienced of them all, I felt, shall we say, a bit inadequate. 7am brekky and 8am on the boat.
We were diving off the Wave Cheiftan II skippered rather excellantly by Rich, who is the toppest guy I've met. I think I would have been alright if the first dive was quite inland but by the time we'd gone an hour + out and nerves had set in. Out of the nine others, eight had twinsets or rebreathers (or sometimes both!) and then theres me in my little poniless 15l single. I was thinking that I had signed up for something that was completely out of my depth (literally), everything I had looked little and un professional - everyone else looked like they knew what they were doing!!!
I got buddied with Jo, which was great, I felt as tho she was competant enough to look after me but not too experienced to overwhelm me. Lots of deep breaths and a nice slow buddy check and by god I'm stood on the back of the boat with the hooter going.
Now or never guys - Geronimo!
BTW I'm in my 7mm semi and the cold water has just rushed down my back. Holy mary mother of god WHAT AM I DOING!!!!!
A quick check that we were both OK and down we went to visit the Bretange. The first thing that his me was the plankton, it was everywhere and floating in such a way that for a few seconds it was hard to focus on anything, leaving me feel a bit drunk but I got the hang of the fact that you find a piece of plankton and stare at it. It just helps get your focus a bit.
I envisaged that, as in any stressful situation, I would end up being light and all floaty but I wasn’t. If anything I was a bit heavy (probably because this was my first dive with EVERYHTING attached to me – torch, SMB the works!!
I have to admit that my recollection of this dive is pretty setchy, I spent a lot of time looking a gauges, buddy, pooter etc and not much looking at my surroundings! Apparently there were lots of crabs. We found the stern and Jo wanted to drop off the edge and look at the sides of the wreck, however, one look over the side into the black and the panicked look in my eyes said it all!!!! Jo reconsidered and we made our way to re find the shot.
Now I destinctly remember when we “landed” being next to three upright pieces of metal work. We found these three pieces but the shot had moved!!!! It had swung round in the current and despite my excellent navigation skills had not compensated for this. Damn.
Up went the SMB and now this was the bit I was dreading. Still not believing that I would be heavy, I was anticipating hitting six and doing an impression of a missile to the surface. I was concentrating on the accent it almost hurt my head.
Three minutes at six, heart pounding, please let me keep it under control. Hang on a sec, I’m not doing bad here. Three minutes were up and off we went, I was even under control at 2m, when the waves kicked in (now that’s a really odd feeling!)
Woohoo I’m still alive! (always a good way to end a dive!)
I managed to get myself onto the tail lift. As you get to the top face to face with Skipper Rich you are greeted by “Good dive? Fancy a cuppa and Mars bar?” What a guy!!!!!!
Dive two on Day One was the Galletia (don’t know if that’s right). I’d got over my first dive nerves and was feeling a bit more confident. Me and Jo are in and start the decent down the shot line. I’m at about 4m with Jo behind me and I feels a really hard tugging on the line. I looked up and Jo was flailing around in an odd fashion. She has the tail of the shot wrapped around her first stage. C’mon Jo, I know we had difficulty finding the shot but there is no reason to try and take it on the dive with you!!!!!!
Freed, we decsend. I’d taken the camera on this dive and we found some bits of wreckage that looked like a ship and I tried to take photos of it. I also found a crab. Unfortunately, the flash meant that I took a great photo of a snow storm of plankton and wasn’t quite organised to figure out how to turn off the flash whilst at the bottom.
None the less I can honestly say that I really enjoyed the dive, it all came together and I felt 100% more confident. Another perfect ascent, including the Hokey Cokey at 6m with Paul and Lou and we were back on the boat for another cuppa and a sandwich.
We got our fills from Jurassic Diving just round the corner and the fills were dealt with promptly. Air could be picked up with the half to an hour, nitrox was collected early in the morning before boarding the boat and it all seemed good.
Walking to the pub, Matt and Greg and I debated house names and I was told to name my house after my favourite wreck. Prior to this trip that stood as the “podsnap”!!!
DAY TWO.
The first dive was the Lord Stewart, sitting in 33m I was pretty happy. By this time I was starting the feel more comfortable with kitting up, habit about my slowness to kit up meant that I usually started getting ready first, but I found I was getting more streamlined about it too and often sat there thinking “I can’t be ready, what have I forgotten”!!!!!
Jo and I started to go down the shot line. I was learning what to expect about the darkness and thermoclines so felt better. However, we had to spend about three minutes wobbling between 8 and 12 m sorting out my ears, once we got that sorted I was straight to the bottom – no probs guv!
I landed on the LS feet first, then went onto my knees. I immediately felt something around my shins. Looking down there was the thinnest monofilament around my lower legs. I took hold of it and held I away from me thinking I might be able to step out of it but as I pulled it away from my body I felt it tug on my octopus and gauges. I waved my torch frantically to attract Jo’s attention, which she promptly ignored! (She’d found some bug or something in a hole near my feet!) I got her attention and a very excited Jo got to use her knife for the first time!!! Apparently it was all around my fins and everywhere, I’d landed in a right ball of wool!!! One cut and I was free but VERY conscious of getting too close to the wreck again.
It felt really spooky, looking at the wreck draped in netting, for anyone visiting soon, it’s a real tangled mess and according to Rich, new nets being added all the time. It was a good exploration tho, I enjoyed the whole dive and we saw some creatures again!
It was another good ascent (I’ve been on form this weekend!) I even controlled the reel (I’d been avoiding task loading up til now) and my first official Deco Dive, involving 2 mins of dancing at 12, three at 9 and dunno how many at 6 excpet that we had “Head Shoulders”, “Birdy Song”, “Don’t Blame it on the Sunshine”and the Hokey Cokey! We were herded into the boat quite quickly and told to stow everything under the benches. Whilst we were under, a diver had become entrapped on some nets and ditches everything and come shooting to the surface from 30+ m. It s a very scarey thought, especially after my own very very minor entrapment to imagine how that guy must have felt to feel his only option was a free ascent.
Rich said he’d come up head first and left the water to his knees before falling face down on the water. He was conscious and receiving first aid in a rib when we got up with the Heli en route. We knew we would either take the casualty for the heli to lift from our hard boat OR take the ribs divers whilst the lift took place. The decision was made that we would pick up the remaining underwater divers whilst the lift would take place from one of the other boats, giving the casualty as little movement as necessary.
I have to admit, watching a little boat “race” with a SeaKing helicopter is amazing. After the heli had dropped the winchman they came and did a fly past for us, waiting for the pick up, and even waved at us from the side. It feels a bit like car crash TV and I would have liked to see the SeaKing under other circumstances but never the less it was good to watch (if scary as hell!). We all got a few photos of the helicopter and the lift and I’m sure I speak for the rest of the group when I say good luck and best wishes to the guy. Rich and his team are going to dive the Lord Stewart again on Wednesday to recover his kit if they can.
After a sober lunch break and a few more hot cups of tea (what a guy!) we were going to do a reef dive with bit of a drift. Jo and I were fourth pair in, decended into thick pea soup. The vis was so bad that I didn’t see the bottom. I was knelt down and couldn’t see the sea bed. We blobbed up for the drift and tried to feel which way the very gentle current was pulling us. With no visual reference points we had no way of knowing if we were going in completely the wrong direction (give my and Jo’s previous attempts at nav’ing this was a possibility!). After about 5 minutes of feeling about in .5m vis I made my first executive call as dive leader. Improvised hand signals said “Vis is w*nk, we’re off up”. We were the first pair up and spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out what everyone else was looking at. How interesting can different shade of green soup be!
But we did get first dibs on the tea and Mars bars!
Home again for our final tea out at the Swan Inn at Lympstone. It was great to feel that I had come into the weekend knowing one person, kind of knowing two others and I was leaving with nine great mates!
THE LAST DAY 
Dodgey weather had almost meant calling the days diving off but fortunately the weather hadn’t lived up to its reports! A mill pond sea over the Boma and the last dive. We had been dropped in very slightly up tide of the wreck as apparently it can be really silty and Rich said the slight current would carry the crap away improving vis!
Never the less me and Jo hit the bottom and had a minor break down of communication. She handed me the SMB and I was like, eh? We’re putting this up now?, so up went the blob (confused – you will be!) and off we started swimming to find the wreck. Jo found some great shells but the wreck was no where to be found. Then I had a flash of inspiration (hey it doesn’t happen often). If we’d been dropped up tide of the wreck, why were be dragging the SMB BEHIND us!????!?
So we turned around, hit the spot we’d come down on and not two fin strokes later – the edge of the wreck – I thank you sir!
It would seem that Jo had expected me to use the SMB as a buddy line but she couldn’t be bothered to un clip it so given me the whole lot. But by launching the SMB we’d found the wreck! Accidentally on purpose I say!
It was another good wreck, with lots of shippy looking things! A wave at Matt and Greg, Anke and Julian as they all coasted by (probably wondering why on earth we had the SMB up!!) A few photos and my comfort level was WAY up. We went into deco as we were approaching the highest point of the wreck for our ascent. Another beautifully controlled ascent (I’m getting the hang of it now I think!!) waving bye bye to the wreck, featuring “The Time Warp” and the old favourite “Hokey Cokey” again! Jo danced whilst I filmed her on the camera theres a bit half way thro where I drop the camera because I am laughing so much!
And that was it, five dives, four wrecks, two official deco dives, the UK salty stuff and nine great mates – what more can a girl ask for. I had a great buddy who did a fab job of looking after me, eight other team mates who after the debacle at the club, restored my faith in divers as mates. A skipper who makes a cracking cup of tea and knows his stuff.
So finally, a HUGE thanks to Anke for orgnaising the trip and inviting me along, to Jo of being a great buddy, to Mike, Jan, Lou and Paul for squishing up on our side of the bench (why were there only four on the other side!) and to Greg, Matt and Julian for lending me your shower (the upstairs one had no pressure!!!).
A gang who I would be more than please to dive with again, if they’ll have me that is!!!
K XX
(Officially a hard core UK deco diver! – in a 7mm semi!)
why shouldn't divers have a dirty sense of humour - we go down, we get wet, we wear rubber!!
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