Trip report - TGI Friday - The Ramsgarth - 14th Dec - A YD Classic - and SQUID!

[Janos]

So blown out a week ago, and the week before that... Looking at the forecast on Tuesday I thought we might be in with a shot of a dive come the weekend and so I gave Steve Nauticat (Welcome to Channel Diving) a ring. He promised me 20m of viz or my money back. Actually that's a lie. He didn't promise me anything. But he did say that he'd do an inshore wreck with 6 people booked on, or an offshore with ten.

"Right" said I, phoned Mark to check I had a buddy, and then put it up on YD. And lo the trip was born.

GLOC came along looking for cool CCR divers. Quickly we phoned up the Dude. "Howard - change of plan - Steve's moved his boat to Littlehampton" and that got rid of him.

Instead we had SJT, Scubajay, and Trebor. GLOC taking the photies, and Mark and myself trying to look cool.

A leisurely start of 11:00 away meant that we had plenty of time to get down there and buy pork products in Asda. Steve's new boat (well a year old, but he decided to get new engines fitted after having Paul Oliver and the Dude on board simulataneously) is HUUUUGE and with six of us on board we had around 2m of bench spare each. Superb.

The sea around Brighton was chalky white. It turned a light green 13nm out over the Ramsgarth and so I wasn't expecting good viz. Mark left the video on board and we plopped in. Bubble check at six and then down, down, down to 25ish m where we hit the wreck. Viz was about 3m. Ah well. I signalled to Mark that he could lead and I'd follow, but he told me that I was in charge and off we went.

The reduced viz meant that we spent a lot longer looking at each individual piece of wreck. The Ramsgarth is well broken, with a bollard here and a winch here sticking up out of a stoney ground. Steve had placed the shot right by the boilers, and so we started with a couple of laps of those.

Feeling our way forward, I spotted a scallop, then another, and then a third, so got out my string bag and started to fill. We continued over the wreck, occasionally ventuirng off and getting a scallop.

Then came the SQUID!!! These were superb. I've seen little squid before but never these. There were two that I saw, about two to three feet long and a pinky purple. I don't know if it was the silent breathers or the bright HID torches but they came right up to us, so close in fact that Mark managed to grab one. He wanted to put it in my bag but I told him off and he let it go. Then came another and we had a play for a while. Superb stuff.

Mooching around the wreck for a little while and we came across the stern in a scout. "I bet there's a lobster in here" I thought and sure enough there was.

I decided to try and catch it.

Fate rolled a dice and it came up a six and I succeeded! I waved it in Mark's face then tried to put it in my good bag.

Ah.

Problem.

With around 30 scallops in the bag, weighing a couple of kilos, I couldn't let go of the bag without dumping the wing as I'd shoot up. And I couldn't dump the wing as I had a lobster in one hand and a bag of scallops in the other. Still we got it sorted and bagged Pinchy.

Soon after Mark got his own lobster, but it was smaller than mine.

We mooched around for a bit more, before Mark decided that his bladder was full and it was time to surface. 70 mins on the bottom gave us 20 mins of stops (I was diving 16/60 for this dive) and we were back aboard.

But not last.

Someone, let's just call him Jason aka Scubajay, forgot to set his computer to accellerate his deco and so did an extra 42 minutes of stops. Rip the piss mercilessly everyone!!!

Sadly it turned out that my lobster was in berry, so over the side she went, and Mark's was smaller than a Tesco's lobster, so back he went. However, we did have 36 scallops between us, and my 18 have just been cooked with a bit of ginger, lemongrass, and chilli, and have been superb.

However, best of all is going for a nice day out and getting in a nice salty wreck dive, even if it is in 3m viz. I'm sitting at home now with a big smile on my face.

Hooray for UK diving!

Janos

[Captain Deco]

Nice report Janos.

I had a really good day. It was nice to see you again as it had been ages since I last saw you and said hello. It was also nice to see Mark again, and finally put a face to face meeting in with GLOC, as well as meeting SJT.

Now.....as for my dive, and the mad amounts of Deco.

Steve had asked me to lift the shot up and I jumped at the chance because:

a) I know there isn't a cat in hell's chance of me ever finding a porthole or anything at all.....so launching the lift bag would be no loss.

b) I wanted to play with my lift bag!!

Anyway.....Being a perfect buoyancy fanatic I made the rookie error of trying to set the shot onto the lift bag in neutral buoyancy (spaz) and after faffing about for 10 minutes I relaised I couldn't do this, so I grew a brain, dumped the air and did it properly.

That's when I noticed one of my spools had been all naughty and wondered off. All 50m of it. So off Trebor and I tottled and recovered that.

Anyway, we had a swim round and I just played with the new bare suit getting used to the new set up.....some training needed there!!

Time to end the dive came up, and here I recalled that I had left the Vytec on Egypt/no gas switch mode. Stupid me. Well.....as I said I had a 90 minute run time to Steve J. I decided to do all the non switching deco stops (shown as air stops on the Vytec as I stupidly forgot to set the 30% and 50% I was diving) as an object lesson to myself. It was like doing lines at school. Now I have learnt I hope not to repeat the mistake!!!


A great day - It's always nice to be in the sea with good company!! Cheers Janos for organising and Trebor for buddying.

[big_si]

Sounds like a good trip! I'm gutted that work got in the way of me having fun AGAIN!!!!

I did the Ramsgarth with Jay in June (trip report) and had a great time with loads of fishlife and scallops too (and luckily didn't spend all day hanging on a blob!!!)

[trebor]

Hooray for UK diving!

Janos[/quote]

Defo great to be out. First trip in what feels like ages.... Great weather, shot on the wreck. Long slack and most importantly a good laugh.

Top hole...!

Rob

[weazelz]

glad you had a good day, was gutted not to be able to come too but I couldn't weazel out of work today

on the positive side, I am hopefully doing the Caleb Sprague tomorrow, and maybe the City of Brisbane on sunday, after many weekends of blown-out-ness

[Woz]

Bugger. Was in 2 minds whether to come down for this but stuff at home prevented it. Sounds like a great day.

Did I say bugger? Oh yes. I did. Oh well. I'll say it again.

Bugger.

[Paul Oliver]

Nice report sounds like an excellent dive.

Not only did i miss the dive 'cos i was working but also thanks to Eurotunnel delays i got back to the UK 2 hours late that meant even longer looking at the great flat sea from the Quayside in Boulogne

[trebor]

.
scubajay Quote>)
Now.....as for my dive, and the mad amounts of Deco.



Q. Where's Jay..!

A. Yes, you can just make him out on the horizon....

[Captain Deco]

Originally Posted by Paul Oliver

Nice report sounds like an excellent dive.

Not only did i miss the dive 'cos i was working but also thanks to Eurotunnel delays i got back to the UK 2 hours late that meant even longer looking at the great flat sea from the Quayside in Boulogne

Well I drifted for so long on my Mad Mega Deco that I am surprised you didn't see me!!

[trebor]

Originally Posted by scubajay

Well I drifted for so long on my Mad Mega Deco that I am surprised you didn't see me!!