Safety Hazard in Portland Harbour - The Return of the Muppet

[Kanga]

The last time I’d dived in Portland Harbour was 9th October, 2005. My log book entry reads: “Countess (AGAIN). Safety diver on wreck course. Suit leaked, viz shit, lost instructor. Diving is fun. Ho ho.” Isn’t it funny how familiarity breeds contempt? A week later I came down with a mystery illness, spent the end of 2005 shuttling around various medics, and on the 30th December 2005 began a year of grinding chemotherapy. To paraphrase the Scissor Sisters, No, no diving for me.

Fast forward through the misery of 2006 to January 2007 and I’m off chemotherapy and starting to foster enough hair to resemble an extra from Jarhead. Were it not for the steroid enhanced tits n’ass that I’m currently sporting, I’d probably be mistaken for a man. It’s definitely time to get back in the water. I drop some heavy emotional blackmail on my consultant, who fulfils his job title and consults with Phil Bryson at the DDRC. Several phone conversations and some intimate probing later, I get a fit to dive tick on my medical form.

And so it is that the 27th January 2007 finds me stashing cylinders under the benches on Scimitar and testing the quality of the chocolate biscuits. Four good friends join me in demonstrating that “clusterfuck” is the appropriate collective noun for a group of PADI professionals on a recreational jaunt. After a few photos and inappropriate comments next to the lifeboat that’s come off the Napoli, we head out of Weymouth and round through the breakwater into Portland Harbour. Unsurprisingly, Skin Deep is the only other dive boat in sight, sharking around the east wall. Having watched our kitting up antics with a bemused smile, skipper Smudge tactfully suggests we start with the Countess of Erne, a safe distance from Skin Deep who is toting an efficient looking complement of rebreathers and twinsets. I am relieved not to have any witnesses to my muppetry.


Sizing up possibilities for a new dive boat.

I have compiled an extensive list of “Things No One Tells You About Chemotherapy.” Item #249 is that many people actually gain weight during treatment – including me. A combination of steroids to combat nausea and the difficulties of maintaining any sort of exercise regime with the up/ down nature of the drug cycles has left me a hefty 10 kilos heavier than my former life. It takes all five of us to get me into my dry suit, although I pretend it’s just a team building exercise. I thank the sea gods that I have a neoprene suit with a certain amount of give in it, and that it’s an O3 with seriously sturdy seams. Fully testing the sturdiness of said seams, I struggle into the rest of my kit and waddle to the dive lift between my two buddies who have offered to babysit me. A shout from Smudge and I launch myself into the water like a giant rubber ball. Team Clusterfuck is waterborne.

The Countess is exactly as I remember her in winter: there are no fish, the viz stands at 3- 4 metres and the water is 9 degrees. I have a fantastic dive. No contemptuous familiarity here, just a sense of fervent relief that I’m able to do this again. Once under the water, all the skills I was worried I’d forgotten come back: knocking off buddies’ masks, kicking up the silt, bashing the wreck, scaring the marine life and sending up limp SMBs. It was as if I’d never been away. We achieve a maximum depth of 14.3m, and last a foolhardy 40 minutes. When everyone is sure they’ve frozen themselves good and proper, we head back up the shotline for tea & pasties.


Brrrr. Brrrrrrrrrrrr. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

For our second dive, we mooch over to the Landing Craft/ Bombardon Unit. Smudge assures us he’ll drop us on the Landing Craft, reminds us we can swim over to the Bombardon Unit along a fixed line and sends us all into the water at once. I drop onto the wreck and think, ‘Blimey, the Landing Craft’s changed in a year – it looks just like the Bombardon Unit.’ We swim round it and I swear the water is getting colder. I’m glad I bothered to squeeze a Xerotherm Arctic under my suit, even if I did underestimate my weighting and have to spend the whole dive exhaling. I’m doubly grateful that I’m wearing those daft 5mm mittens that render all hand signals incomprehensible. We swim along the line that leads to the other wreck, round that wreck (stopping only to try to liberate a weight belt stuck in the silt. Unsuccessful. Jules and I merely end up face first in the silt, clutching the weight belt, and it’s too cold to faff around with liftbags) and back along the line. It’s only 32 minutes into the dive that I finally realise Smudge had dropped us on the Bombardon Unit first, not the Landing Craft, which is why it looked so much like, well, the Bombardon Unit. Dive skills: fine. Powers of observation: crap. Team CF manage a maximum depth of 17.4 metres and a dive time of 40 minutes, achieving a neat reverse profile, minor frostbite and probably subclinical DCS.


Team CF (l - r, Jon, Sarah, Jules, Chris, & me with the bottle, appropriately)

Back on board, a half drunk mug of hot tea is whisked out of my hands by an efficient Smudge, who reappears from the wheelhouse minutes later beaming and clutching 6 clean mugs and a bottle of champagne. I manage to dissuade one member of Team CF who thinks it should be broken over my head in the manner of a ship-launch – I point out that this was more of a re-launch in the manner of Eternal. Someone else suggests shaking the bottle and spraying champagne all over the deck, a la Formula One. Never one to let good alcohol go to waste, we settle for drinking it, backs to the sun, surrounded by dripping kit and seagulls, all slightly hysterical from mild hypothermia. It’s good to be back.


Champagne on ice - we're all class

Big thanks to all of Team CF who smiled benignly at my protestations of 'I'll be fine' but hovered within arms' reach just in case, and to Smudge who risked his professional reputation to launch us into a year of diving.

[purple vonny]

What a fantastic report. And great photos too, so glad you had a good day out. Congratulations on getting stuck in again xxxx

[onthetrain]

Fantastic! What can you say to a post like this except - well done. Glad your back.

Alan

[JonP]

Cracking report. And another well done.

[Jules77]

Great report - what the photos don't show is the lack of feeling in fingers! Great to have you back.

[Chris Ringrose]

Cracking write up! Good to hear you're back!

[Digger]

Don't often bother telling people when they've written a good report (because I'm tight with my compliments!) but this was a good report showing all of us it's not just about what wreck it is or what gas or deco or anything else that matters, it's just diving.

Kanga, will be on Smudge's boat on Friday - good to see a good report on the boat, it's my first time out with him - and will drop off the wing for you this Friday at Portland.

Digs.

[Kanga]

Thanks all for the positive comments, and the odd green - that nearly makes up for the fact that my toes are still numb.

Originally Posted by Digger

Kanga, will be on Smudge's boat on Friday - good to see a good report on the boat, it's my first time out with him - and will drop off the wing for you this Friday at Portland.

Digs.

Digger - I'm crewing for Smudge on Friday (in payment for above experience, I suspect), so bring the wing with you to the boat. Now you know why I've been hassling you for it: I'm all new and keen!

[resting rifleman]

good report kanga, well worth a greeny, here's to loads more of the same
mike.

[Paul Oliver]

Great report, good to see you back in the water