12 no 11 no 12 no 11 no 12 do Dover Hardcore

[Mark Chase]

Originally Posted by keith_henson

Mark Chase: "If i cant find a bungee in a car park, then ........." - how did that go mark? I cant remember the rest!

Oh yeah I forgot that one, duley amended

ATB

Mark Chase

[Gareth J]

Not as eloquent as Mark but here goes.

Ian (Gareth's Buddy) picked me up at 0700, for a nice drive down to Dover, much to our surprise we arrived at 1000. - What to do, we went shopping, (well we found the cafe for breake), then the Garage for supplies. By the time we got back to the car Howard had turned up, shortly followed by the rest.

Boat arrived, boat loaded, we set sail. I made a run for the cabin as we left the Harbour (I did learn after the last time), & those outside got wet!

We arrived on site, the sea state was moderate - in went the shot & ......... we waited ........ & waited ..... for slack, the sun came out (then went in again). Eventually the rebreather boys went in first, & the rest of us kitted up. Ian & I where towards the end. I waited for Ian to do his predive ceremony (he threw up twice), that over, we got in.

Dave passed me on the way down, at some point I met Keith & co on the way up, and then it all went wrong. I got to the bottom ............on my own...Hmmmmm, Ok, solo today!!
Reg switch to check all was OK (today I was on OC, diving 12's manifolded & isolated - like independents) by the time I got the reel tied in, Ian had arrived. Off we went, I guess it took me 5 minutes to really settle & start to enjoy it, then I got tangled up in a line, I waited for Ian to untangle me. I was very focused on the line laying (reg switch) gas check; hmm I using gas fast, on ward we go. After 15 minutes, I'm aware that I'm using gas to quickly, time to turn, reel in.

After 24minutes we're back at the shot, (reg switch / gas check). Start the Ascent, at the first stop I recalculate, I wait until we are 5 minutes behind the 30 minute runtime, then jump to the next stop, staying 5 minutes behind on all stops until we get to the second gas switch (12 m), from here I wait until I'm 4 minutes behind, 9m, 3 minutes behind, 6m I wait out the full time.

At the 6m stop, I fish out my Jon line, by my calculations it’s going to get crowded. Clipping in I float away from the shot, I can hold my 6m stop without to much grief from anyone else, as the current picks up I begin to enjoy the stop, unfortunately the shot starts to sink, swimming back to the shot I shift the Jon line up a couple of meters & go back to watching every one else fight it out on the shot. Ian clips in as well, later he hooks in to my line & slides back to tell me he's clear, we both move to 3m for a couple of minutes before returning to the boat for cold bacon sandwiches.

The run back to harbour was relaxing. Nice to have put a few more faces to the YD names.

Review of my dive. Poor vis' 2m maybe 3m. I'm breathing heavier now on OC after a year on CCR. Stages where comfortable, but not ideally placed, struggled to find the deco reg'. Was overly focused on the line laying, having a limited gas source obviously increased my stress in adverse conditions.
The new soft goodman’s handle worked well, although need adjusting on the bottom. Runtimes where off pat, trim was good, as was buoyancy. The gases where 19/19, 30/8, 70%. The bottom mix was mixed with gas left over from the last OC mix dive, the travel was from the previous dive with 02 added.

[Getafix]

Well…

I remember the day slightly differently.

It was a bit choppy outside the harbour walls, as is normal with a slight breeze. When we cleared away it calmed down. On site we had a slight delay as slack was a bit later than expected.
Nigel dropped in first, I was ready, but awaited the anticipated previous announcement that the YBOD boys would drop in first to do the line to the top of the wreck. After Mark shuffled in, closely followed by Howard, I grew a bit impatient, as the third member was still kitting up. I jumped in and possibly caused some confusion as I came upon Howard a few metres down, I gave him an Ok, and expected to move past him, but he turned and headed down… as did Mark a few metres further down… Ooops… ah well, not my problem! Down we went to 53m, the others buggered off and did their thing, and so did I.

Vis was unspectacular, but do-able, pitch black without a torch, and maybe 3m with…… depending on how bright your torch was! I poked around a bit, found a few mugs, that I left behind as they seemed a bit dull, and some broken glass and bits of wood, I also got in a bit of a scour at 54m whilst doing so. In amongst these bits I found two brass keys, one of which fitted a safe that I stumbled across, and I managed to bag 5 ingots of Silver, unbeknownst to all onboard, as I kept my hoard secret, not wanting to cause a stir amongst the others. I decided to cut short my bottom time as anything after this was a bit of an anti-climax, everything went without a hitch as per usual. Back on deck it was bacon butties and back to port, with the usual tirade of deco and kit technicalities.

But then again it could just be complete bollox, like most things!

Thanks to Paul for organising, and Dave for skippering

Alan

Edit: Lots of starfish around, and a sizeable dogfish swam passed, other than that I didn't see much fish life!

[Ian_Benney]

Mark
Thanks for a good days diving. I may be a pukey diver , but I still get in a do my dive...
This was the first time I have dived out of Dover but hope it wont be the last rearly enjoyed the wreck.
Thanks for having Gareth and myself along.
Hope to puke/dive with you all again soon..

Ian

[The_Ferret]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

1. Paul Oliver (BOTTLED IT)
2. Pikey Death Box Diver - Diving Dude (HARD CORE DADDY)
3. Getafix (MILDLY IMPRESSED)
4. 3 of 5 - Mark Chase ( F-IT WHO NEEDS A COMPUTER ANY WAY)
5. Madscuba (HARD CORE)
6. Nigel Ingram (PASS THE CROW BAR)
7. Colinicky ( BEND??? PHA, LETS GO FOR THE SEA BED)
8. Keith Henson (2.34 pp02 YEAHHHHHHHH NO PROBLEM)
9. Muppet Son of a pikey - Gizmo ( I AM MAN ENOUGH TO WEAR A PINK KNIFE)
10. Gareth J (HARD CORE)
11. Gareth J Buddy (I LOVE THE SMELL OF PUKE IN THE MORNING)
12. Ray Peen - Madscuba's buddy (HARD CORE)
13. Steve - (LIGHT WEIGHT NORTHERN JESSY BOY)
14. Captain Deco ( TOO MUCH DECO FOR ME)


Soooo the real light weight's like Steve and Captain Deco bin the dive on the long range forecast and our valiant leader Paul finally bottled it after hearing Andy Neighs tails of doom. Which left 11 proper hard core divers to assemble in the car park ready to face the worst the Dover sea had to throw at them.

Keith analysis his twin set only to find he has a 29% nitrox mix, 29.4 actually but .4 is for poofs so we ignored that bit. Hummmmmm PP02 at 53m 1.82. Possibly not the ideal mix for the dive but sod it its only 1.45 at the top of the wreck so that will be OK.

I have a brand new Hammerhead and no back up computer (coz i sold the VR3's & my new Shearwater hasn't arrived yet). So I have DOTF and a Suunto Vytec on gauge mode backing up the somewhat unreliable Hammer Head. I also have forgotten my back up torch but thankfully i am testing out the Solus 1000 today so thats unlikely to break.

Sooooooo with young maidens throwing rose petals at out feet and wives and daughters sobbing into hanky's the intrepid 11 set aboard the evil (It will be fine trust me) Dave Bachelors boat of pain and woooooooooo boy thats fast

Having lashed down the gear it was time to prepare for the open sea. Some prayed some wrote letters to loved ones but most of us had a cup of tea. Leaving the the loving bosom of Dover's harbor walls, we were subjected to the full force of the cruel sea. It was hell, I got a bit wet and Howard spilled his coffee. Alan fell asleep and had to be beaten awake so he could at least do the decent thing and look a little anxious.

On we went relentlessly pressing forward against the elements for ohhhhhhh I don't know? 40mins?

Then finally we were above the Andaman and relative piece broke out with the silencing of the mighty engines.

After the further torcher of.......


Ohhhh bollocks I cant keep this up, OK it was mildly choppy on the way out and Howard did spill his coffee which was a bummer

Dave shotted the wreck but was instantly aware that the shot had not go in the way it should. Keith was some what limited by his back gas so i suggested I would run a line to the wreck from 40m on the shot so they didnt need to descend to the sea bed to find it.

Howard Colin and i drooped in first and I led the way down. I decided to wait until the wreck came into view before tyeing off the transfer line. Sadly I ended up on the sea bed at 53m with only the ships mast in view A quick look about and i found the main wreckage so I signaled Howard and re ascended the line to 40m to tie in the transfer line. There was no hope of finning across to the wreck so I went down the shot again and across the sea bed and up to 37m before tyeing in. This was about 29m off the shot. I know this because my 30m spool was now empty.



I was also alone. I didnt like this as I had no back up computer. I scanned around for signs of a torch beam in the pitch black sea but there was none. I checked the Hammer Head and then realized my Heads up display was missing . The cable tie had broken and it had fallen off. Dam I must fit the new mounting bracket ASAP. The hand sets were interesting because they were showing I was on Air??? Thats not right as I was on 20/45 when i started the dive. I switched them over to trimix again and did a quick life check.

Hand sets fine, breathing fine, bail out gas working OK, quick check of BOV mouth piece shows new gas connector working OK. Trim and buoyancy OK. Bugger hand sets are back on Air. Thats not good. Switch back to trimix again and make sure i confirm the switch.

I spend a min just watching the hand sets and everything seems fine so I decide to reel off from this position and try and find Howard and Colin by heading down and roughly in the direction I last saw them.

Shortly after this i stumble upon a bright pink line! Now who would use a bright pink line? It had to be Howard so i tied off and cut my line and followed the pink until I bumped in to my erstwhile buddies again.

About now some 20mins into the dive i can start to try and enjoy it. Colin and Howard were doing fine so I switched my Solus on to full power and unleashed 1000W of LED power on to the nearest unsuspecting star fish.

The torch was on loan from Barrie (Bang On) in Ireland and I was to be writing up a test on it. No video today conditions were crap but it was a good test for it in high silt conditions and pitch black. It was doing well. The color temp was about the same as the Salvo 21W and the back scatter was minimal. The beam was a lot wider than the light saber Salvo and it didnt cut through the gloom as far but it did light up a bigger area of the wreck immediately in front of the diver.

Id like to tell you all about the Andaman and what we saw, but frankly i cant. The viz was rubbish and we had no idea where we were on the wreck (probably mid ships due to position of mast). I saw a lot of velvet swimming crabs and a lot of steel and not much else. Not even a conga for Howard to abuse.

Howard mean time was demo-ing his newly acquired line laying skills. A fine job he did too. (Well done Mark Powell) . We went into a large over head area which demonstrated just ho easy it would be to accidentally do this on a dive on this wreck. No drama for us we followed Howard in and lead hem out and headed back to the shot.

On rout we found a large glass dish. About 500mm across 5mm glass curved like a shallow bowl or a watch face. I considering bagging it up but in the end I am glad i didnt as the tide was running hard. I did however find a lovely co- co cup which i hope is original to the Andaman.







Ill do a pic when i clean it up

Fortunately My Hammer head worked perfectly and was staying on Trimix and showed all the deco on the way up. Deco was deco and we ended up with a run time a min or two short of two hours.

Not a good dive but enjoyable none the less. Sadly my transfer line idea hadn't worked to well and Keith and his buddy didnt make the wreck. The line was too deep for the gas.

Bacon sandwiches were ready top side but the OC boys got the hot ones whilst the CCR divers got the stone cold ones as punishment for making every one wait so long

The sea on the way home was flatter than a flat thing and we all laughed at the forcasts of Force 5-6 conditions.

Dave had called it well and proved again the power of local knowledge.

SO a jolly meet up and we got wet on a work day so we cant complain but a tad more viz would have made the day.

ATB

Mark Chase

Nice report enjoyed reading it ....

[Mark Chase]

Originally Posted by Getafix

Well…

I remember the day slightly differently.

It was a bit choppy outside the harbour walls, as is normal with a slight breeze. When we cleared away it calmed down. On site we had a slight delay as slack was a bit later than expected.
Nigel dropped in first, I was ready, but awaited the anticipated previous announcement that the YBOD boys would drop in first to do the line to the top of the wreck. After Mark shuffled in, closely followed by Howard, I grew a bit impatient, as the third member was still kitting up. I jumped in and possibly caused some confusion as I came upon Howard a few metres down, I gave him an Ok, and expected to move past him, but he turned and headed down… as did Mark a few metres further down… Ooops… ah well, not my problem! Down we went to 53m, the others buggered off and did their thing, and so did I.

Vis was unspectacular, but do-able, pitch black without a torch, and maybe 3m with…… depending on how bright your torch was! I poked around a bit, found a few mugs, that I left behind as they seemed a bit dull, and some broken glass and bits of wood, I also got in a bit of a scour at 54m whilst doing so. In amongst these bits I found two brass keys, one of which fitted a safe that I stumbled across, and I managed to bag 5 ingots of Silver, unbeknownst to all onboard, as I kept my hoard secret, not wanting to cause a stir amongst the others. I decided to cut short my bottom time as anything after this was a bit of an anti-climax, everything went without a hitch as per usual. Back on deck it was bacon butties and back to port, with the usual tirade of deco and kit technicalities.

But then again it could just be complete bollox, like most things!

Thanks to Paul for organising, and Dave for skippering

Alan

Edit: Lots of starfish around, and a sizeable dogfish swam passed, other than that I didn't see much fish life!

Bugger so it was you that got the bulluon!!


Its amazing hearing another divers perspective. When I saw Howard behind me on the shot line then a third diver came into view i just asumed it was colin. Viz was not good even in the shalows so it was more of a blob than a diver but I do remeber thinking Colin had lost weight

After my line sorting escapade I found Howard and Colin all together so I didnt even realise there had been an issue?

What we need now is a report from Colin on how he eventualy found Howard ???

ATB

Mark Chase
ATB

Mark Chase

[Mark Chase]

Originally Posted by Ian_Benney

Mark
Thanks for a good days diving. I may be a pukey diver , but I still get in a do my dive...
This was the first time I have dived out of Dover but hope it wont be the last rearly enjoyed the wreck.
Thanks for having Gareth and myself along.
Hope to puke/dive with you all again soon..

Ian

Dont thank me M8 it was Paul Olivers trip I was just along for the crack.

Pukey divers who dont puke in front of me are fine. If they do then i puke too which is not fine

My M8 Pete pukes on a regular basis and still goes out 50miles to do a wreck???????I keep thinking he should opt for a land bassed hobby. By far the best one in the gas diving bunch is John K who pukes if its more than choppy but beleive it or not he works on tug boats for a living????

ATB

Mark Chase

[colinicky]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

What we need now is a report from Colin on how he eventualy found Howard ???

ATB

Mark Chase

Very easily actually ,with a sort of a bump & a nice soft landing at the bottom of the shot

[Diving Dude]

l had a great time as well. The added bonus was that "lift & bog breaker" wasn't on board so we could use both the lift and the loo.

Also l met my new rebreather kit bitch for the first time, please enter the ring Gareth. Sitting next to me on the bench he soon learnt that the best thing to do is kit me up and get me out of the way and then de-stage me later to avoid me crushing him, did all this without moaning...... sorry, he did have a moan when l pointed to my stages and told him where my landy was.

Keith, you are a plank, turning up with 29%.

Woo Hooo, first time l'd connected the HUD since scapa and it worked perfectly.
l now realise that the HUD picks up a dodgy cell 4-5 dives before the handsets.