Xmas Eve off Brighton - City of Waterford

[Paul Oliver]

Had my Xmas dive today out of Brighton on Nauticat

We were scheduled to do the Fortuna but went further out for some viz and dived the City of Waterford instead:-



This was a nice civilised 1200 Ropes off with only light Sunday traffic getting to Brighton, which was just as well as when i analised my Gas this morning i had 40% instead of 35% So after loading the car i had to shoot down to the club compressor and dilute it down a bit.

At Brighton, now with 35% there were only 6 of us on the boat, the other 5 were a group from Ipswich. Out we went on a gray but fairly calm sea. Shot was in and Steve was confident it was on the bow just by the winch so in we go, i was diving solo on this and once i got to the bottom there was the shot, on the bow about a foot from the winch top shotting as ever by Steve.



After the fantastic 10m+ of Viz off Dover on Tuesday i had hoped for something similar but instead had a very dark 2-3m, which was OK. I had a good look around the Bow before working back along the wreck, Steve had said someone has ripped a plate off the hull which now gave access to large entry point, so i was looking out for this, but managed to miss it

After a while i got dazzled by another pairs torches and carried on after my eyes had recovered to sea an Anchor halfway along the hull going along to this i realised i was back at the bow, by this time the tide was starting to run a bit again and the fish were all out feeding again.

So after an enjoyable 35 min i sent my DSMB up and drifted off.

A nice last dive to the year with the same skipper and boat i started the year on, i did not bother with the Pier dive afterwards. Steve's new boat is in the Marina and it looks fantastic, having an even wider cabin than Neptune.

[Dan Wilko]

Good detailed report, thanks

[big_si]

Cheers for the report Paul. Good one! Sounds pretty much the same as we did with Steve on the 23rd. Came down midships on the port side and headed round one side of the Stern and back up the other (even took a crab for a trip with me... But lost grip of it... Couldn't get my goody bag out from underneath my Santa Suit whilst underwater )
Attachment 3326
Vis turned even more naff though and we sent up blobs and came up around 25 mins.

Was great to get out in the briney though after being blown out so many times! Can't wait to get out there again!

[Paul Oliver]

Steve showed us a picture of you in your Santa Suit while we were loading up Good stuff

[thehappychappy]

Nice Report Paul.

[Paul Oliver]

Should have added Max depth of 31m and a water temp of 11 Degrees