The Famous Five do Gildy - A milestone!

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The alarm sang it's song to signify the start of a new day for Simon and Helen. Outside the weather wasn't playing fair. The wind was gusting past and the rain was pelting against the window and not entirely inspiring us. Pressing the snooze button for half an hour changed things and by the time we crawled out of bed the wind had died down and the rain stopped! The battle of Gildy was on!!!

In no time at all we had loaded the "Spaz wagon" and were whizzing our way north to Gildy to meet up with Jason (ScubaJay) and Mary (his lovely non-yd-ing other half) and Keith Henson (Keith_Henson )

Once arriving just after 9 we hooked up with Keith and had a cuppa and a chat whilst waiting for Jay and Mary to arrive. Whilst having our tea we were approached by the ones known as.... Mal Bridgeman and Madfish and their non YD pal! Another good bunch! (Was funny how you guys recognised Helen from the caption comp pic! )

Then started the the huge amount of kit fettling. Keith needed some regs swapping around. I needed to adjust my bolts as I wasn't using a V-weight.

Jay and Mary arrived and we all started kitting up in earnest... With another cuppa After we all faffed with our kit a bit more we were all ready. Helen, Jay, Keith and I were on twins (me with my LOVELY new frog midnight wing!!!! and a stage for a bit of practice) and Mary on a single. We opted for the super masshooosive giant stride off the high board and into the pool of wonderous delights which is Gildy.

The dive got off to a false start with Keith flooding his new dry gloves and getting out to change to the regular neoprene gloves. Then it was onwards and downwards into the crystal clear waters whilst kicking one or two of the multicoloured fish and mermaids out of the way down towards the Spanish Galleons and Military ships that bring people back to dive there again and again rather than journey to the sea

We had a loose dive plan of a bit of a potter about to use up the dreg ends of Helen and Keith's cylinders to do a proper buoyancy check with new 4th Element underclothes and torch respectively. I also had my new Frog Midnight wing to try out in the safer, controlled conditions that quarries are ideal for

We opted for a potter out to the bus with a bit of a swim through, on wards to the lorry (which I squeezed through the cab with twins and stage) and out to the Provost jet plane. All was as expected until heading to the Provost when all of a sudden there appeared to be a lone buddy below us finning along?!? I looked around for his buddy and found him to my left catching him up. All of a sudden he then dropped to the bottom all limp!?!?! I darted down to him but before I got there he was off and finning to his buddy again... Stirring up the silt nicely! All appeared well again...

Keith signalled that he was down to little air and we should start heading back. Sounded like a plan so off He, Helen and I went (coincidently losing Jason and Mary at the same time! Ooops!) Back we finned along the same path and lingered around the platform completing our stops. On the way back I could hear a bubbling from my kit and tried identifying it! I could see the bubbles coming from my Frog LPI hose connector. I disconnected the hose and continued my ascent. We finished our stops on the platform before jumping out and having another well deserved cup of tea and bacon roll!

When checking out the inflator hose post dive I found that the hose connector was not even finger tight!!! Easily fixed but a bit of an error on Frog's part! Check it out before you use yours!

Mary decided to skip the second dive as she was absolutely frozen!!! Dive 2 was much more structured... The plan consisted of finning around for about 20 mins before Jason and I would do some practice of unconscious diver lifts that we learnt about on our Tech Rescue Course with Mark Powell.

In off the skyscraper giant stride again and I then led the way towards the hydrobox and skyvan to try to find some better vis. Things were clearer and we hit our target without issues. A few swimthroughs in various directions entertained us briefly. I tried going in through the hatch in the roof but with a stage it was a bit awkward and I got stuck half way! I got myself out and had a quick look around to see if anyone had noticed... They hadn't!

Keith then took the role of leader and headed off in a random direction... for about 5m before looking lost and handing over the reins to someone else. I think it was then Jason who continued the trek... After a little while we came across a mysterious attraction that none of us had seen before. It was a very badly silted up car that we couldn't identify, with a large open box type structure next to it and some unidentifiable vehicle with wheels? Odd! Once there we explored every item fully before navigation was handed back to me.

I used my compass like a true professional and navigated the group back to the hydrobox near the shore. I was pretty pleased with myself as it was poor vis, we kept about a foot off the bottom to have a visual reference, and kept contact as a group signalling with our torches. A great team!

After some brief exploration of the box Jason and I signalled we were going to practice our diver lifts. I switched to my stage. Jason simulated an Ox Tox fit and fell limp. In I moved in once the "fit" had ended and grabbed hold of him and established neutral buoyancy for us both. I infated both his and my wings a bit more and started our ascent. I over cooked it a bit on the first attempt and we started lifting pretty quickly... I over compensated and back down we went. 2nd attempt was much better. Adjusted my position and this time ascended at a nice steady rate up to about 4m. We then broke and descended back down to 12 for Jason's go. He aced it and his lift was spot on!!! Nice steady ascent, very controlled! Excellent!! We dropped back down to find the others but they'd started their way back up from where we had left them.

I started to send up my blob... Unfortunately on unrolling it and opening the crack bottle it was empty! Arse!!! Jay sent up his on a spool and we started our ascent. Whilst holding our stop I rolled my SMB up again. We got out to find Helen and Keith waiting for us. Some apres dive banter was had whilst de-kitting and loading the cars.

An excellent day was had by all and I'm sure we'll all have plenty of dives again together! Was great to meet Keith for real too!


What I also realised on the way home that the second dive of the day was also my.............................. ONE HUNDREDTH DIVE!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!! I'd been hoping that it would be an exciting sea dive with perfect vis, lots of sea life, spidge coming out of my ears............. To be honest this dive was perfect though! I had an excellent day, with some excellent people, and all in all it was ever bit as great as I expected from my 100th! I'd like to thank everyone today for making it as good as it was! Cheers guys!


Turned into a bit of a huge report, sorry if it was too boring!