Clutha on the Clyde!

[Helen F H]

Well, i just got back having had one of the best trips i have been on in a while. The Clutha is a stotting good boat, simply one of the best i have ever been on, it is very, very evident that Elaine is a diver from the layout, the dive breifings, the equipment on board. All excellent. Massive thanks to everyone who came along, it was great seeing you all again. Also big thanks to Elaine and Neil for providing us with fantastic soup, banter and diving.

Arrived at the B&B with Martin aka Angus McNasty and were interrogated by Roberta as to whether we were a couple umm no, but i bagged the slightly less frilly room with the bath as well as a shower mwhahahaha. We were informed that the "big tall guy" was already in the pub (surprise surprise - that would be James then, Narked@50!) plus Nigel and Kev. Down we went to meet up with them and had a couple of pints, joined by the other James and Jen and then to the chippy for some healthy DIR type food of sausage and chips then back to the B&B for an "early night" which was a little later than anticipated.

The B&B has a nice new dining table which seats 8, but is also carved with 100's of little cannabis leaves. Im not going to be the one to tell her, i got told off for leaving some of my brekkie!

It was a 0900 meet at Largs marina (all very posh with new bits since i was last there) and load the boat up. We decided on the Beagle as our first dive, mainly as i wanted a site where the vis would be slightly better as to give the people who hadnt dived the Clyde before a chance to get used to the dark and murky conditions. I dived with Brian and Gary and the dive went pretty well, with us pootling around well within our deco limits, but losing Brian at one point in the green murk. It was fairly dark, and i was glad of my torch!
Max depth 32m, time 45mins, vis 3 -4m but dark.

The green plankton varied from looking like tendrills of snot in the shallower areas to strange nuclear fallout deeper down. The effect was strangely like snow sometimes, with the wrecks being covered with this gray green dusting of alage. There were also lots of Aurelia auritia (moon jellies) and plenty of comb jellies which i love because of the little fairy lights around the edges to keep us occupied on the shot line. I also saw some lions mane jellies too but not many (probably only one or two) but it is still worth keeping your eyes open for them on shotlines).

Second dive was the Akka, which lies the other side of Largs. Again i dived with Gary and Brian, but wasnt happy at the start as there was quite a current moving which really screwed my dodgy trim and kept on splatting me against the wreck. Once we were around the other side of the wreck it was actually very nice, lots of swim throughs and plenty of life, huge plumose anemones in white, pink and orange, smaller dahlia anemones in pale cream, a very pretty pale orange and darker green colours. Have no idea without interrogating the pooter what the depth or time was, but it wasnt too short or that deep

I then decided to jump off the roof. Now i think the boat has grown, or maybe i have lost some of my bottle, because i woosed out of the wheelhouse roof, but did jump off the weatherdeck Better than nowt but i did end up with what felt like most of the Clyde sloshing about up my sinuses. Some of the excuses for why others didnt want to jump were fairly inventive.....

Back in and back to Largs, where James booked us a table at the Indians. This indians, jeezuz. I dont know where they get the staff, but the "waitress" was defo a bloke. She even had a tash. I dont think she even smiled once. Food was great though and there was plenty of it.

Some of us decided that we wanted to go and talk bollocks somewhere smoke free, so back to the boys batchelor pad conservatory via the off license and we were all happy. Never ask James about cats found in storms. Ever. I am now apparently a "heavy Kylie" Thanks. I think.

Oh yeah, and we have a whole set of Hobbits, Brian can be Frodo as he has the hairiest feet i have ever seen and also gets 40lb wings mixed up with bagpipes and whales....strange boy Talking of hair, Stuart (Notdeadyet) my god, i dont know why you bother with an undersuit mate, you aint hairy, you are FURRY! Plus you are the only bloke i know who gets waxed for anything other than charity. You could probably sell the wax strips as door mats.

Today dawned bright and early, the weather remaining perfect ( i pre booked it when i booked the boat). A deeper dive was planned this morning, the Kintire which sits in 30 something down to 40 something. I was buddied with Stuart, which got off to a good start. His cry of "Ooops i forgot my dive timer. And my mask........." The mask was duly supplied, but we decided just to use my computer for this dive. We were the last in the water and had the joy of seeing some porpoises breaking the surface around 100 yards from the boat. Just as Stuart was getting kitted up, twannnnnng finstrap broke. Luckily Elaine carries a spare set of fins which apparently know their way around the wrecks themselves and we were soon in the water. Vis was patchy, i think it depended how close we got to where other divers had been. We followed one gunnel right down to the stern and then back up to the bow. The whole wreck festooned with dead mens fingers and plumose anenomes. At one point Stuart knocked a spider crab off the wreck, i swear it was giving him the "up yours you bastaaaaaaaaaaaard" as it tumbled off into the black abyss below Once we got back to the shot we had about 9 mins of deco showing, but also the option of going off the wreck and onto a disused sewer pipe. However, i had leaked from my neckseal quite bad and was feeling cold, so thumbed the dive. I showed Stuart the pooter to which he OK'd and up we went.

At this point things started to go.....well.....interesting. We got to 21m, with me above Stuart on the line (current running so we couldnt face). He stopped, so did i. A couple of minutes later i showed him the pooter again, the Suunto still adding stops to the dive....... "Ok" i got back. Ok, this must be some weird cave diving deco on the fly type table we are using here from the depths of Stuarts brain. Im not going to argue if my buddy wants to do some extra deco deepish stops. Finally after 10, maybe 12 minutes of freezing at 21m i went and showed him the pooter again (now showing 15 mins). The moment of "oh shit" was noticeable underwater........He had misread, thought we were at 6.........Up we went to 6 and shivered for 15 minutes. Brrrrrrrrrrr.
Depth was *cough43cough* time was 53 mins, vis was....umm well, not great but probably 2-3m.

Lots of piss taking on the boat about us being fashionably late, but hey, we invented a new deco schedule the Stuart-and-Helen algorithm. Worked for me. Surface interval was spent lounging on the roof of the weatherdeck with Foggy and Stuart which was lovely as it was sunny and out of the wind.
I did declare that i wanted another buddy as this one was clearly broken, but since no-one came forward i dived with him again in the afternoon. This was the Wallachia, a nice wee boat but with very variable vis, ranging from bugger all to probably more than 5m.
A breif moment of song was exhanged pre-dive with the charming tones of the welly song "if ye didnae hiv yer feets in yer weeeeeelies" and the "four and twenty virgins went up to Inverness" song.
A nice pootle around on this, racking up around 10 mins of deco. The shotline was a little crowded, with me and a certain small green person becoming closely acquainted at one point, but hey, if you hadnt got so many dangly bits it would never have happened (love you really).
Surfaced and climbed the ladder (i hate ladders), to find Gary sucking O2. He had a twinge in his shoulder so we were met by Elaine's mate from the hyperbaric chamber who gave him a good look over and decided it was just muscular. Better be safe than sorry!

Thanks to all for making it a cracking trip. I will probably edit this about 10 times when i remember new bits, but i want a bath and a sleep.

[Helen F H]

Oh yeah, and when do we want to do it again?

[alross]

yip i'd second that trip report, i cant wait to get back out on clyde now!

i'll add in the fact that i managed to come out of the first dive with dry hair despite a dive time of 30mins and a max depth of 34m - concluded i must have been exhaling thru my nose forcing air under my hood!!!!!

Ally

[Mcnasty]

What a great weekend, my face is redder than a red thing!

Cheers Helen

Angus

[parahandy]

A nice read Helen , another good gig

[Foggy]

Porg forgot a few things..... less haste more ... sommat

Apparently badgers are dense... try running one over and see who comes off worse! This could explain why they don't bother to look when they come to a road. Now otters are alegedly quite bright and have learned their green cross code! Ever wondered why you never see an otter in an indian restaurant?

Yes this was a YD trip. We did have a stonkin curry, but the watresses hated the indian staff, and their delivery driver obviously hated them all. Our waitress was well euhamistically F***kin huge, and the "lass" taking phone orders made our waitress look diminutive!

Sunday dawns and my finger nuckle hurts- well I'm just been a bit jealous of all the free chamber trips and the attention people have been getting recently, so I rings the help number and several questions later (it doesn't help to have Porg laughing her head off when the question is "has your personality changed?") it is decided that crushing the digit on friday is the cause not DCS. Now how did that get reported to the group Helen? I must say that the alledged injury could NOT have happened in that way as I use my other hand for that purpose!

Otters apparently have a 35 minute metabolism from injestion to ejection, which is probably why you never see them in an indian restaurant, they probably just have take aways. If the restaurants got comodes, then hey they'd probably corner the market and clean up!

Who said the Clutha is a modified dutch clog? Well she certainly dances up the Clyde and makes an excellent dive boat. Loads of shelter a good skipper and crew. Superb soup. And on sunday they even got the number three roller out and smoothed the clyde!!

Just one last thing on our last dive, hanging there, dodging Lions maine wobbly jobs, bumped into Porg and Stuart on the shot. Well, I have never seen anyone underwater, rolling round the floor laughing and slapping the floor to make you stop....... just cos I got more deco than you H. Anyway time comes for Helen to leave, and.......... OMG I have been assimilated by the Porg! shes only managed to wrap her dangly hoses round my neatly stowed torch! Then when she does get free, I feel a pop........ a sort of weightbelt pop..... steady girl that can wait till we're back on the boat I've still got another 7 mins to do! I then find I can't do it back up and hold on to the shot, well thank god for my excellent buddy! It turns out it is just my harness waistband, but too late I've already cacked myself!

Cracking trip, thanks to everyone who made it such fun and especially to Porg - couldn't hve done it without you!

Cheers, Paul

[Foggy]

Hey I've just remembered,

When I signed up for this trip I was told that the Clyde is full of "Ming". Now I hunted on all the dives we did, and I didn't even find a shard of cheap pottery let alone priceless ming.......... so common tell me..... which one of you's got it???

Cheers, Paul

[Kev W]

Great meeting up with you guys and girls for the weekend ,thoroughly enjoyed the gig.Thanks to Porg for being mum and looking after the organizing side of things.
roll on the next one.

[Helen F H]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Now how did that get reported to the group Helen? I must say that the alledged injury could NOT have happened in that way as I use my other hand for that purpose!

It wasnt me who said that......it was one of the boys! The thought never entered my mind!

[Narked@50]

Great trip.

Thanks again to Helen for organising it. Only believe the good bits about me, the rest is just made up cobblers!

4 geat dives, all ending as full on deco jobs, but the force was with me in the form of Foggy, Master Yoda, called Paul at the weekends, so no problems there, he was great to dive with.

As always, good to put faces to names, though within ten minuits of meeting Kev and Nigel I was calling them both Steve? I was the only one on O2 before I even dived!

See you all again sometime.

James