Dorothea 4/2/07 ........A looong day

[Twinset & Wing]

Today I had arranged to meet up with Tony (Tonyxxx) from on this board, with me residing in Manchester and Tony spending a large ammount of time with SWMBO in Southport, we traveled accross in seperate cars.

I was a little bit late and I think Tony had started to wonder if I was going to show but none the less I arrived, picked him out from among the people and the usual niceties were performed, some kit fetteling ensued as this was to be my first dive on my new twin 15s since I got them on Saturday.

Dive 1:-

40.0 M (max depth)
7.0 Deg
15-20M vis

The first dive of the day was a short bounce down to the 40M block house and the gnome garden, with Tony being on a single 15 and me being on twins we didnt hang about for too long, accended to 30ish had a bimble then up to the 22M tunnel, through andup to the crane, round the 6M ledge and slow accent after clearing our stops.

surface interval was had, leving gear down the slope on the pontoon cos i will be damed if I am carrying thise twins up that slope more than I have to, food eaten drink consumed and war stories told.

Dive 2
38M (max depth)
7.0 Deg
5-10M vis

upon preparing for entry for the second dive we bumped into a team of divers who have developed a motorised pontoon contraption to get about and use as surface support, they were about to lift one of the cars and move it.

we entered te water and had a nosy at the diving team setting up some heavy duty lift bags to move the micra @ 6. shook our heads and bimbled off, down to 36ishM with me dropping down slightly earlyer than Tony accross to the crane jib, turn around follow the wall with ur target being the 22M tunnel again to be met with minimal vis, decided to start the accent.

I had a new Halcon spool I wanted to try so fired that up with a blob, cleared the deco on 50% and then surfaced, Incidently the micra was not there when we passed that area again.

Pack up, off to the pub @ Meni Bridge, swift half while pouring over the diving videos on the laptop.

Tony headed back off to Southport and I headed off home along with my increasingly rouch sounding engine, I dont know much about engines but when a petrol engine starts to sound like a poorly Diesel car I decided to assume it wasn't good. pulled over, oil a tad low, top it up, still sounds rough. decide it is best to call the AA,little chat, decide to risk it and set off home 1.5 miles down the road rather large ammount of smoke engulfing the road I am on, limp back to the services at 20 mph with fog lights on resembling a coal fired power station. AA called again pick me up after a fair old wait, car now deployed outside local garage totaly buggered. got hame about an hour ago.


All in all good day until the engine blowing up thing.Thanks for the buddying Tony and I will research that habitat idea. Now potentialy in the market for a second hand car.

regards

Giles

[And]

Hi

Glad you had a nice day, and it is unfortunate about the car, but you aren't alone. Dorothea must have a connection with car problems. I locked my keys in the van by accident on Saturday and had to smash the rear window to get in, and then drive 180 miles home. Slightly embarrassing

It was a really nice day on Saturday and we took the scooters for a trip out. I was still tweaking the magnum for an upcoming France trip, and the other guys had Xscooters, which makes an interesting comparison when walking up and down the hill

We decided to ride round the circumference of the lake, at around 30 mtrs or so, and the viz wasn't as good as it had been the last time I visited, about 5 mtrs or so, which isn't much when travelling at 50 mtrs per minute or so . I was scootering along watching the other guys to the left swooping in and out of the trees as you do, which is always kind of cool, it feels like flying, and then looked in front to see a tree trunk straight ahead. Nothing I could do but hit it full on and be showered with silt, and then weave my way through the branches to get out, laughing my head off. Good fun though, and I was delighted that the magnum is now weighted and balanced properly

Andy

[Mark Davies]

Originally Posted by Twinset & Wing

Now potentialy in the market for a second hand car.

Apparently there's a Micra available somewhere!

[tonyxxx]

Giles I didn't realise your car was so ill, you should have phoned me and I would have gone back and picked you up and taken you back to madchester.
I thought it was a good day, vry sunny but not too cold. Thinking abt it the guys on the pontoon looked like they had fallen out of an episode of "Dad's Army" perhaps "faulty Towers" very intresting though:-).

see you later

[warmwaterdiver]

I can do you a cheap deal on a replacement Micra if yours is fubar'd Giles, got one my niece didn't want as an 18th birthday present, 02 reg, £1500