Babbacombe Beach, Burning Clutches & Penguin Poo!

[dlegros]

Well, just had the most diverse weekend of my life!

The original plan was a trip down to Babbacombe Babbacombe beach, followed the next day with a bimble round Bristol...

Friday night, head down to Bristol with my wife to pick up her twin sister who was to be my dive buddy at Babbacombe beach to get into the sea (far too much time spent in quarries again!).

Spent the night at the Exmouth View Hotel (watch out for the dodgy music on the website!), then up at 07:00 to get the car down to the car park to blag a good spot!

Walked back to the B&B (about 10-15 minutes) and had a lovely fry-up to set us up for the day.

We got back to the beach and kitted up in time for high water and ambled in for a great hour-long wander about, which culminated in a great spotting of a dogfish, about 2ft long who swam around for a bit, then lay there giving us a bored look.

As it was also the first chance to get the new 21W Salvo Lightsabre wet (even though it is of limited use when you max out at 7m!) we did find out it is great for repelling spider crabs (appreciated by my crab-phobic buddy)

Between dives, we met another diver known to my buddy, who was off to Bristol Zoo on Sunday to help clean out fish and penguin tanks - did we want to come and help? No hesitation in saying yes - couldn;t think of a more "different" diving experience

After a brief SI, we headed back in for a dive that could only be described as "Crab-fest" (said buddy not too impressed by that one!).

Unfortunately the highlight of dive two was the recovery and disposal of about 10m of monofilament line.

Once we got all the kit stowed, re relaxed with a bacon baguette before facing the return trip up the hill.

Unfortunately the Cock-er-ney sounding loudmouth who made most people's life a misery, was in front of me and decided to stop! just after the steepest part of the climb midway up - guess where that left me....

Stuck, on the steepest section, in an estate loaded with two people's dive kit and three occupants cue a lot of smoke from the clutch and tyres - got going only to find the eejit now stopped at the passing point, so I had to go through it all again - not impressed.

After we finally got up the hill, I found somewehre to stop and let the engine bay ventilate to get rid of the vapourised clutch fumes and back to Bristol for a BBQ.

So, Sunday morning, we meet up at Bristol Zoo and haul our kit in through the maintenance gate for a quick brief on what was to come... We were to clean the windows and underwater walkway at Penguin Coast.



The Seal pools were out of bounds as they had a 3-week old pup who was deliciously cute

We had to kit up in the service yard and walk out to Seal and Penguin Coast - much to the amusement of the Zoo visitors who are all lightly dressed for the great weather and we go trooping past in full kit!

So we load up with "more lead than you think you need" and jump in sans-fins. Well, you need even more than that, although I was weighted for the beach dives the following day, I could barely get down and every time I started scrubbing windows I was all over the place

Another tip learned - ankle weights are your friend for this kind of diving! Not having my negatively buoyant jets meant I kept inverting!

It was great seeing the reactions on people's faces as they would come round the corner to see me with a scouring pad instead of a penguin



After we were done, we were free to wander around and enjoy the zoo which was a nice way to spend the afternoon (especially the meerkats, always a favourite of mine )

Then back home to reality (and very fishy smelling kit to rinse!)

Dom

[triplefin]

Wow...bit of a different experience sounds like a good laugh....the penguin tanks I mean!

[wilbo]

Dom - for submitting us to that midi file on the hotel site - you need to be flogged or at least have rotten fruit thrown at you.

Let me same others the pain by saying please dont click on the hotel link.

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by wilbo

Dom - for submitting us to that midi file on the hotel site - you need to be flogged or at least have rotten fruit thrown at you.

Let me same others the pain by saying please dont click on the hotel link.

Probably on his mobile phone now too