18JUN07 Brighton - 2 dives - Beauty... and the Beast!

[big_si]

Today ScubaJay and I were diving the Ramsgarth with Steve Johnson.

The wreck was a small British merchantman of 1550 tons. She was captured on 28th November 1916 by the UB-39 who boarded her and eventually sunk her with explosive charges that blew holes in her bottom. The crew managed to get off in their boats and were eventually all saved.



The alarm went off at 0400 and I left home at 0430 to beat all traffic and whizz down to Brighton for a 0700 ropes off.

There were supposed to be 8 of us on Steve Johnson’s fantastic new boat Channel Diver! It’s a thing of beauty with loads of kitting up room! Even more so with 8 people… And positively luxurious with the 5 of us who actually turned up (shame you missed this one Mr Henson, see you another time soon.) and we met a couple of groovy new buddies, Matt and Anne.

0700 ropes off. Pretty lumpy on the 75 minute journey to cover the 14 miles out to the Ramsgarth. Jason started logging the dive as soon as we left the Marina as he was getting soaked every time we hit a wave… The rest of us didn’t laugh at all! Also it was not hilarious in the slightest when I shared my cup of tea with Jay by throwing it into the wind and getting him square in the face too! Lucky he was diving wet today whilst his drysuit was being repaired.

Due to the lumpiness of the water I was feeling a bit sick by the time we got to the wreck at 0815 and Jason and I dropped in and descended to get away from the waves. The depth is about 25m and much of the wreck at about 23m. To maximise bottom time I used a 40% mix which meant no deco for our planned 50 min bottom time.

We hit the wreck and were both immediately pleased with the vis. Once we shoved all the pouting to one side (I think that’s what they were? That’s what they looked like when consulting my fish ID card!


) we could see the wreck. It was a green 4-5 m that made it nice to explore the wreck with our torches. I lead the first part of the dive and the very first piece piece of wreckage showed a huge crab hiding away so I thrust my goodie bag into Jason’s hand and grabbed the crab and man handled it into the bag that he held open for me. Onwards we continued having to fight through the fish the whole time!

I think we started the wreck from the aft so we continued on our exploration of the wreck heading up the deck side of the wreck towards the stern, exploring all the nooks and crannies along the way. We soon came across the wrecked area and a big tube (which I’ve just this minute learnt was probably the cylinder as the piston rod could be seen.Useful diagram here to see how the engine would work) This provided a good swim through due to the hole in the side of the chamber.

This wreck was covered in sea life as far as the eye could see. There were fish everywhere, we also saw 2 conger eels and plenty more crabs. Heading along we also ambushed a Lobster. I chased it, but missed… Jason lifted a bit of metal plate it was hiding under and I had a 2nd go… But it slipped out of my hand and stirred up the bottom so I couldn’t see anything… No lobbie for the pot today!

After a bit more pottering and exploring we found some circular things on the floor under the sand. On investigation………. SCALLOPS! Hoorah! Unfortunately most of them were too small so went back to grow a bit more. There were a couple of good sized ones though and they were harvested and seared on returning home. Tasty tasty!

Scouting around the surrounding area for more scallops found me kneeling on a soft thing on the floor. When I looked closer it was a mottled thing… I touched it… It was soft and fleshy… fcuk! A fish! I prodded again… It didn’t move… I couldn’t see the edges… It looked big! I flashed Jason and he looked over and shrugged a shrug which spoke volumes. It mainly said “So? A nice bit of sandy bottom with a bit of carpet or something on it… Great.” I gesticulated wildly and prodded it. He leant forward and prodded it. His expression changed as he realised it was a flat fish. I ran my hand over it to find the edge… It was huge! I tucked my hand under it and it swam off… This thing was ENORMOUS! It was approximately 1 metre in diameter and wouldn’t have fitted into a goodie bag even if I’d wanted to put it in one! It had enough of being prodded and grabbed and so swam off right in front of us (at which point I heard Jason utter a loud “FCUK” when we saw exactly how big it was!) The fish obviously didn’t realise how big it was either as it bashed into a piece of wreck before managing to squeeze through! Turned out that it was a Turbot! Excellent experience!

(It was about the size of this one… )

We scouted around for a bit longer looking for treasure and animals. Under the bow of the ship we spotted an ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS lobster with only one claw. He was well out of the way (and far too scary looking) so there was no chance of him coming out! All too soon it was time to leave this watery world and start our ascent. This happened without issue (other than some difficultly venting my suit.) An excellent dive! One of the best!





Dive 2 was largely the same but finished without the same positive excitement. This one was a shallow (12m) drift and a reminder at how dangerous this diving lark could quite easily be if you don’t follow the rules and use common sense!

Jason and I entered the water with an average of 60 – 70 bar (in twin 12’s) each and thought it would be ok for a nice little bimbly drift. We spent about 20 mins of leisurely floating along together and spotting a plaice as well as a load of small fish and crabs.

I was down to 20 bar and decided it was time to come up, Jason had 30 bar and was going to do another few mins. The ascent was fine. At 4m I could feel that the reg was beginning to get tight as I breathed down the cylinder so I swapped to my other indie reg and finished my ascent and inflated my wing as much as I could with most of my remaining air. I left my reg in as the waves were pretty big and covering me at times.

I raised my fist to signal to the boat that I wanted to be picked up. The boat was quite far off though and didn’t spot me… My air was getting lower and my wing not as inflated as I’d have liked… I was finning to stay high in the water and breathing heavier… From the moment I had made my ascent I had been drifting right next to Jason’s SMB and knew he was near by. I looked under the surface and saw him on his safety stop. My reg was getting tighter and tighter… I could feel the panic beginning to set in. I tried swapping regs… No better. I had to take the reg out to get some air… Jason surfaced and could see the look on my face and how hard I was breathing. He gave me his long hose but he didn’t have much air than me! Reg getting tight again… More panic creeping in. At this point he orally inflated my wing to capacity and within seconds I realised I no longer needed to fin… My breathing slowed… The panic subsided… The boat spotted us… Thank feck!

By the time the boat arrived I was relaxed again, I was relieved that my stupidity, panic and therefore lack of thought to orally inflate my wing wasn’t the start of that dreaded incident pit! What is more is that I was glad to have an excellent buddy with me and that we hadn’t adopted our more regular drift practice of ‘same ocean diving.’ A bit of a reminder for everyone… Stay calm and… Stop, think, act. That would have stopped it all! I won’t be intentionally in that low gas situation again! Cheers Jay! I owe you one!


(One slight silver lining was that I was weighted correctly to hold a stop at 3m with this low amount of air which was something that I wanted to do today. Might possibly be able to drop another KG... We'll see!)

[keith_henson]

sounds like an ace day i still cant hear or taste anything

bring me that turbot - thats good eating that!

[Captain Deco]

It was indeed a lovely day's diving. That wreck seemed to go on for ages and had loads of interesting nooks and crannies!!! A top day.......well....all diving days are top, but this was as well!!!

[big_si]

Originally Posted by keith_henson

bring me that turbot - thats good eating that!

Have you got a pan big enough to cook it in?

Originally Posted by keith_henson

i still cant ... taste anything

So this wouldn't be any good then...

(Read in a Ramsay stylee)

Diver caught scallops - seared with butter and lemon

Catch scallops on fantastic dive.




Prepare them like an expert




Sear the scallops, season, and serve in the cleaned shell




Eat immediately





Diver caught scallops - seared with butter and lemon.... Done!



Hehehe




These were the massive Crab claws too!!!

[ardhill]

Sounds like a great day.

Hey at least you lived to tell the tale - poor crab and scallops - murderer!
.

[big_si]

Originally Posted by ardhill

Sounds like a great day.

Hey at least you lived to tell the tale - poor crab and scallops - murderer!
.

At least I didn't stab the turbot like multiple people have suggested... I'd still be down there being dragged around the channel otherwise!

[ardhill]

Originally Posted by big_si

At least I didn't stab the turbot like multiple people have suggested... I'd still be down there being dragged around the channel otherwise!

Yeh, like you are going to wrestle with something that size. I guess it might put up a bit of a fight. I wonder if any of those that suggested you do it would like to try themselves

[Mark Chase]

Nice report M8, I love the progress picks of the evening meel fantastic


Great job Scubajay, trust you to think of a blowjob streight away

ATB

Mark Chase

[big_si]

And for completeness here is a pic of the Indian spiced crab cakes with sweet chilli sauce that I've made this morning and I'm enjoying right now

[ardhill]

We all know who is cooking dinner at Scapa now