DIR UK Donegal

[Clare Gledhill]

Donegal Ireland DIR UK 2006

Fraser and I managed to set off for Ayr very early so a quick interrogation of the Sat Nav suggested that I could go south round Birmingham and wave my husband Nigel off on his first dive of his PADI OW at Stoney Cove.

We reached Loyal Watcher to find Darren (skipper) Linda (housekeeper) and Richard (deckhand) there to greet us and had a tour of the boat which was suitably impressive. Darren told us that the last week’s group had not made it to Malin at all – the weather had been too rough all week to make the crossing over the Irish Sea but he was hopeful that it would change.




Loyal Watcher

Day 1 (Sunday) was a wash out. Darren believed that the weather would be with us and so we made the crossing to Malin Head overnight but the wind was whipping in from the sea and the swell was huge. Even in the safety of Lough Swilly the boat was rocking quite alarmingly and diving was out….well nearly out – Fraser, JK and I decided to jump in and dive under the boat in 8 metres of water to weight our scooters.




Fraser and Andy

Day 2 (Monday) HMS Audacious

It was a rough ride out but waiting until late in the day meant that we could get the nod to dive.


I jumped in with Andy Kerslake and Fraser. Audacious is a battleship (Dreadnought) which lies upside down (as most do) in 66 metres. Viz was reasonable but poor for Donegal – about 15 metres and the wreck was dark due to the poor surface conditions. Numerous explosives were scattered everywhere as we swam down following Fraser on his mission to see the propellers of the wreck – which were impressive but given that they took our entire dive to get to he was not too popular!



Bob

We saw John Grogan and Bob Cooper scootering past (they covered the entire wreck) and far too soon we returned to the shot which we had to use for the initial part of the ascent to ensure that all teams were in the same body of water. Darren had agreed that we did not need to use a lazy shot so this was a compromise.

I ran deco and my long standing wish was granted to do a deco stop below the recreational diving limit (a long way under actually – our first stop was 48 metres) The ascent was uneventful bar a few small complications with AK’s stage. A good, comfortable dive which was a nice introduction to Malin Head and a bonus given the weather.



Kitting up


Day 3 (Tuesday) SS Empire Heritage

Jumped in with Andy and Fraser again, after being warned that worsening weather was on the cards and the planned scooter dive was off.

The SS Empire Heritage sank in 70 metres of water 27 miles off Malin Head in World War II complete with her cargo of Sherman tanks, military trucks and machinery. The cargo has made many describe the Empire Heritage as the Thistlegorm of northern waters and I have to say that seeing the tanks stacked up like dominos, lying where they fell 60 years ago was impressive to say the least.

The shot was by a huge Derrick which towers way above the central section of the wreck just by a large open hold. Scale is everything here – this ship was absolutely vast – bourn out by the size of her propeller and her boilers which are each as large as a house – and the stunning viz at around 20 metres helps appreciate just what a monster she was weighing in a 15,702 tins and 512 feet in length.

Deco was again uneventful and we all had plenty to reflect upon from such a stunning dive. Celebrating the fact that I had actually managed to return to the surface with the same amount of cylinders that I entered with Andy told me that my Tech 2 could be considered complete which was nice….and just in time for the Justicia – our intended dive the next day and the reason that I first approached Loyal Watcher about making the trip to Donegal.




John Grogan and Andy Kerslake

Day 4 (Wednesday) RMS Justicia

The trip out to RMS Justicia is long and was quite rough. Fraser took the brunt of this and ended up sitting out the dive at the last minute – leaving me to dive with Bob and John Kendall who would, hopefully, dive today having sat out the first two dives. Getting in with scooter, twinset and three stages was tricky – especially for John who had a large video mount rigged to his scooter.

We jumped in eventually (well sort of fell in my case) and made our way to the shot. I could already feel the effect of breathing hypoxic gas and signalled to John to drop down to 6 metres a.s.a.p. where life became more comfortable. With Bob’s arrival we made our way down to the wreck.

RMS Justicia (Royal Mail Ship) is absolutely massive at 33,000 tons and 225 metres long. She was a White Star Liner built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast and was sunk by a torpedo from the UB-64 on 19 July 1918. She lies in 70 metres and is considered an advanced trimix dive which, due to her size, requires either an extended bottom time with CCR or a scooter to see the whole wreck in one dive. She is also the reason I wanted to come to Donegal and the main reason I have done all my training this year since seeing a video of a diver hanging off her bow last year.




Oh boy was this fun!

We first saw her when we got to 50 metres – still a long way below us – the viz was amazing. Bob led off with me number two and John on video bringing up the rear. I had a mission to get to the bow like the diver in the video but we set off first for the props, navigating through the boilers on the way. Awesome – just awesome!

The ride to the props from amidships took a stunning 7 minutes – at around 120 feet a minute. We skirted round them, and back off up the wreck – switching off stages on the way – on and on and on – Jesus this is a big wreck. Suddenly we started seeing anchor chains and bollards, the bow must be up ahead. And then it was there – and John got a shot of me hanging off it – just like the diver in the video last year which I had found so inspiring. At this moment the quarry dives in 4 degrees in the winter getting used to multiple bottles and scooters were all worth it.




Do I look happy?

We set off back to the midsection where the shot was tied in – but John, having not dived this week, had forgotten that we are required to return to the shotline and has reached minimum gas. Bugger. We thumb the dive from the wreck and start our ascent 30 minutes after leaving the surface. Short – but oh so sweet

First stop 51 metres today – another first – and we settle in to a nice steady ascent which John runs. It is worth pointing out that I have never dived with John and have only dived with Bob once yet our training means that we can dive as a team without any issues, communication is straight forward, planning is easy, all is as comfortable as it would be with my normal team.

Suddenly at 36 metres Bob waves at me and gestures me to look behind me…..

I turn round and am face to face with a seal which has clearly come in to have a look at what all the noise is about…. John reaches for his video but too late, our visitor has left us in no doubt that he is much more suited to the environment than we will ever be and has danced away with the grace of a ballerina.

We surface 50 odd minutes later – my longest, deepest and most enjoyable dive to date.


For the fantastic video shot by John Kendall see here....you'll see me at the rear and occasionally Bob "don't stop me now" Cooper - who was seeking to be a solo diver....

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?...69427&hl=en-GB

Day 5 (Thursday) We were to return to the Audacious but the weather is against us and we got underway to Ballycastle where we would spend the night. All caught up with sleeping, eating and various logs and journals on route.

Day 6.... well more of that later

[Dave R]

Excellent report & brings back fond memories of the UE-UK trip last year.
I think the only slight down-side with Malin Head, is the weather, which means the whole trip could get completely washed out.
Pleased that you got onto the 'big ones' & I enjoyed Johns Vid.
~ Can't wait to do it again next year.

[Clare Gledhill]

Originally Posted by Clare Gledhill

Day 6.... well more of that later

Day 6 – Empire Adventurer and another kind of adventure altogether…..



We were woken at 6am and told to get kitted up straight away. The lunar eclipse had led to huge tides and slack would be short if at all. I really didn’t want to get up and muttered something about option 1 at Fraser (BTW Option 1 is don’t dive)

Up on deck the dawn was glorious and the sea was like treacle – barely a ripple. We had been told that viz on this wreck was normally poor so we were required to line off from the shotline for the first time this week – and no scooters. I was to dive with Fraser and John Kendal.

I was leading down the shotline – and struggling to get anywhere at all. The current was absolutely ripping – two hands were required to make any movement at all down the shot and the viz was appalling too. At 36 metres I seriously considered thumbing it – but motioned Fraser to take the lead and had another go. It took us 8 minutes to descend 62 metres – over twice as much as normal and a great deal of gas was used in the process.

Fraser tied in to the wreck by the shot and tried to move off using the wreck as shelter. We immediately came upon Andy, John and Bob who were returning to the shot (very sensible indeed) and to get out of everyone’s way I rose about a meter in the water – to find myself blown backwards at an amazing rate of knots. Yuck.

The wreck was deeply unimpressive in these conditions, and sandwiched in the middle of a three what little the viz would allow me to see was lost anyway. Realising that I couldn’t read the gauge of my bottom stage, I switched, and minutes later I turned the dive and we returned back to the shot for the ascent – as the skipper insisted was required.

This was nasty – the three of us had to hang on with all our strength to keep being blown off the shot, and the current was pulling up all feet up like flags, leading to every one of us feeling over buoyant and unstable. I ran the ascent and signalled the stops down the team with my light until we reached 24 when I asked JK to bag up.

This proved a little difficult for him as his backplate storage was not immediately accessible in these conditions so I got a bag out and we all timed our letting go of the shot so that we moved off together. Each of us said afterwards that we felt that we were at risk of an uncontrolled ascent as we felt far too buoyant but our fears were unfounded and we dropped less than a metre when we let go….. phew.

We settled in to an ascent which was much more comfortable than the dive and watched large jellyfish pulsing in the current.

Surfacing to calm conditions still we handed our stages up, leaving our )2 bottles in place, and made our way back on to the boat. I made my way up the ladder and turned at the top – to feel my knee twist under me. Ouch

I sat down quickly and got out of my kit in my own time. My knee now hurt a lot and this was picked up by Richard the deckhand who, when I confirmed that I was in pain, made me sit back down and go on O2.

Sitting in my wet drysuit and undersuit was probably not, in hindsight the best of ideas and I started to shiver so was taken to the bridge where Linda forced four litres of water down me in between sucking on the O2. I was still convinced that I had hurt my knee on the ladder but this was dismissed by the crew as they had heard it all before. “Get drinking and shove that reg in your gob woman”

Quite quickly, the water started to have an effect and I had to go to the loo several times. Favouring my left leg (I had hurt my right knee) I found that my left hip was starting to ache too. The inevitable followed……Skipper to Coastguard, Coastguard to Diving Doc, Diving Doc to helicopter – I’m being evacuated whether I like it or not. I didn’t like it at all to be honest as I was still absolutely sure that I had only injured myself and was firmly wishing that I had now kept my mouth shut. To be honest I’m quite scared too.

Things worked like clockwork though. Kerslake bosses Fraser who will accompany me to the chamber and makes sure that we have money, phones, a write up of my profile and stops. John Kendall does what he does best and reaches for his video camera…..

In comes the petrol parrot which, as I’m affected this time, I don’t really take in the skill of the crew like I always have before when seeing them operate. We are taken on board and off to a small town where security have cordoned off the playing fields and an ambulance awaits. Into the ambulance and straight to the Chamber where I meet the Chamber staff and the doctor who has been brought in to help out. He examines me carefully, looks through my dive profiles, and says….

I think you have hurt your knee

Apparently (let’s hope I never find out for real) DCI pain is non specific in origin whereas I have a sharp pain in one area of my knee which matches nicely with ligament injury. In his view I don’t need recompression.

The chamber operator is not too impressed at this decision – he believes that having done four 60-70 metre dives I should have a ride anyway due to the impact of residual nitrogen on tissue damage….but luckily for me the doctor consults Aberdeen and they agree that I am OK. I agree to hang around for a bit at the hospital in case I develop a bend at the injury site and thank everyone for their time and effort (feeling very embarrassed at all the fuss)

The hospital would prefer that I stick around at least 12 hours but the doctor agrees that 6 hours post dive is long enough and I am released at 2pm. We ask about getting back to Ayr where Loyal Watcher should have arrived and are told to get a ferry.

A what?????

‘Didn’t you know you were on an island?’

We make our way to the ferry terminal by taxi and cross to the mainland where Kerslake picks us up and takes us back to Loyal Watcher – where I find that the boys have sorted and packed all my kit and Fraser’s into my car which as much care and attention as I would have given it myself (packed better too). All are adamant that the call was the correct one to make – and on reflection – I guess that it was too. I’d have certainly taken that course of action if confronted with someone with similar symptoms so whilst I was unhappy at the time, understand and appreciate that they were made for me.

So there we go – a helicopter ride back to port at the end of an enjoyable trip. Nice to see how the system operates and very, very comforting to know that it is there for us in the UK.

[Depth-junkie]

Glad you had a good week Claire,

We were on watcher in August diving Malin, We got only 2 dives in Malin and were blown out by the weather so we had 3 dives in the Clyde instead(The Empire Adventura twice and U33 once) and i can tell you we dived the empire adventura in the same conditions as you guys No VIZ and a massive current the only diffrence was we were on big tides so we did not touch down on it till about 69m and the U33 was just no VIZ again not fun .

TBH it was the shitist week of diving i have done, Usual crap clyde viz no slack. that is the only problem with Malin sometimes you can get lucky other times you dont. And there's not much else to dive/shelter wise if it blows up. The 2 dives we did there were fantastic though.

Its just you are so at the mercy of the Atlantic over there, you pays your money you take the chance. But for us it was an expensive 2 dives, we are going to try again next year and if it dont come off then they will just have to go to the bottom of the list for a few years and slowly work there way back up.

ATB
Gareth

[milldog]

Is this your free helicopter trip by chance?

FREE RIDE

[ahar]

Sounds like you had a battle on to beat the weather!

Good to see that the chopper ride was 'forced' upon you as we're always told that denial is one of the symptoms of DCS. Turned out you were right in this case, but as the doc said, after the deeper dives you *could* have got a bend because of the injury, so all's well that ends well.

Hope the knee doesn't keep you from diving for too long.

[Clare Gledhill]

Originally Posted by milldog

Is this your free helicopter trip by chance?

FREE RIDE

Yup - courtesy of John Kendall - who did the others too

[Conor]

Originally Posted by Clare Gledhill

Nice to see how the system operates and very, very comforting to know that it is there for us in the UK.

Glad it turned out to be ok, but the pedant in me can't resist (would you expect anything less)

UK could be switched for British Isles (donegal not being in the UK )

[Clare Gledhill]

Quite right Mr Pedant

...apart from the fact that I was lifted from the Clyde in scottish waters...

[Conor]

Originally Posted by Clare Gledhill

Quite right Mr Pedant

...apart from the fact that I was lifted from the Clyde in scottish waters...

Doh!

Well pseudo doh! I think you get the same airlift support around the british isles