Fumblies, fettling and muck diving

[purple vonny]

Peebee, SwissDave, Steve L and I met this morning on Swanage Pier. The plan was to simply go for a quick dip or two under the pier.

If we had been a bit more organised , I would not have zipped up my suit and forgotten to lock the car. Unzipped the suit, locked the car. Zipped up the suit, unzipped the suit to get the key to unlock the car to get Peebees keys to get something he had forgotten out of the car.......By this time we all needed another wee. Oh the joys of being old and having a small bladder.

EVENTUALLY... we got in. The vis was slighlty more than nil. Kirstie would have had a fit with the plague of huge spidercrabs which were in your face by the time you saw them. After 45 minutes, with numb fingers and full bladder (thanks to all the pre dive coffee) I surfaced to see Janos and his friends in their RHIB. Peebee and Swiss were out, various kit gremlins cut their dive short.

Off to the greasy spoon over the road for bacon butties and copious amounts of dog stroking - they have a sweet doberman pup - more caffeine.

Dive 2 - only me and Peebee went in for this one. The vis was worse, the spidercrabs were more numerous and we needed a compass to get back. I managed to get out Via a boat who offered me a hoist via their lift, accross the boat and onto the pier. Fantastic. Then I dropped my camera back into the water. Bugger. By the time I had got back and retrieved it, I managed to wipe all my crab photos off. (Bet you are all gutted about that eh?).

Funny thing about Swanage though, we still had a good day and the sun shone. That always seems to happen there.

I thought about Janos' booking system and booked several people, things and inanimate objects

Peebee - for not putting his suit inflator hose on and causing me some unzipping

The doberman pup- for licking up my nose while I was eating

Swiss - for having a hole in his suit (ppp=ppf?)

Janos for not giving me a tow with his RHIB

A cuttlefish -for causing me to chase it out into the bay

The pier for bruising my left buttock as I plonked down for a seated entry

Spidercrabs - for being menacing

my bladder - for being so pathetic.

[Madfish]

An excellent day out it appears - I am quite jealous. Dog licks are very special Vonny - you clearly had something interesting up your nose - a spider crab perhaps?

I spent the afternoon deadheading dafodils.......

Do you think that we could get someone to make a 'Diver Booking Book' rather than a boring old log book - then we could all go around booking.... I have decided to book Rob, belatedly, for driving the lawnmower at me...

Di

[Scubee]

I expect PeeBee deliberately forgot his drysuit inflator as a good opportunity to remind everyone he has recently been on holiday.
(well, it is somehtign I have done )

Glad you had a nice time, sorry the viz was shite, sorry you wiped your pics, but look at it this way - at least you weren't at work.

[Sixsquid]

Originally Posted by purple vonny

Spidercrabs - for being menacing

Ha ha ha

Nice report and glad you all managed a dive, albeit a blacked-out one

Torch looks pretty lovely I'm needing a new small one that can be helmet mounted, so probably not as expensive as that one, but is it heavy? It looks heavy

[purple vonny]

Originally Posted by Sixsquid

Ha ha ha

Torch looks pretty lovely I'm needing a new small one that can be helmet mounted, so probably not as expensive as that one, but is it heavy? It looks heavy

It's rather heavy so you might have a lop sided helmet (ooo err missus). But it is rather lovely. The boys had a fondle (of the torch) and made approriate appreciative noises.

[purple vonny]

senior moment. double post.

[purple vonny]

Originally Posted by Madfish

An excellent day out it appears - I am quite jealous. Dog licks are very special Vonny - you clearly had something interesting up your nose - a spider crab perhaps?

I spent the afternoon deadheading dafodils.......

Do you think that we could get someone to make a 'Diver Booking Book' rather than a boring old log book - then we could all go around booking.... I have decided to book Rob, belatedly, for driving the lawnmower at me...

Di

We definitely need a booking system. Janos is onto something there.

Originally Posted by Scubee

I expect PeeBee deliberately forgot his drysuit inflator as a good opportunity to remind everyone he has recently been on holiday.
(well, it is somehtign I have done )

.

No he's just a befuddled old buffoon.

[Scubee]

Originally Posted by purple vonny

No he's just a befuddled old buffoon.

[PeeBee]

IT WAS SPIDER CRAB CITY!!! Bloody hundreds of them, every little rock got up and moved as we got close to it and turned out to be a spider crab or a decorator crab with a few velvet ones sneaking in from the periphery. Kirstie would have been in heaven Some of these crabs were minute, others were the size of dinner plates

Not a blennie in sight but we had a great day, my memory is going as I get older and couldn't remember how much weight I needed with a single so first dive was cut short due to not enough lead and the spare lead being in my car... which Vonny had the keys for, never mind Swiss Dave and I had a nice hot chocolate As for the vis... PANTS! Thank God I'd gone in to practice using my strobe with macro settings on the camera anything more than 6 inches away (100mm for you young folk) would have been invisible to the camera. I got a few shots which I won't bother trying to clean up with photoshop, there's no point as I was just practicing and certainly didn't see anything to really spend ages on. As always with a YD Gig, the company w made the day, great to see Swiss Dave (congratulations on the new job Dave) and Vonny (still smitten and counting the days and hours) again and to meet Steve L who had taken the trouble to drive from Bristol cos he'd heard the rumours about Vonny.

So here are my attempts, apologies to all the great photographers on here, you have no competition yet from me

[PeeBee]

Oh yes, nearly forgot, Vonny got some nice spidge too