Team Starburst hit the TR Thomson

[Ian@1904]

It is a wonderful thing to wake up at 3.45 am and be on the motorway 40mins later with no traffic. OK so that is a fib. I like busy motorways. Anyway arriving in Brighton at 6.30 am with plenty of time to load kit and greet friends, the sea looked flat, the sky blue and the wind a figment of the imagination.

Marianne met Robert and was beginning to regret the lecture on 50% deco mixes that she had provided.

Plans were changed, and changed again and we finally settled on the TR Thomson, a wreck I have dived before. Always a mistake to admit this as other assume one knows the way around.

Anyway the boat trundles out and Marianne, Rob and I form team Starburst. We all jump in and arrive on the wreck intact. At this point is is worth noting the our team's combined lighting power is enough to power a small nation. So we trundle off, apparently a little too quickly for the unfit divers among us(that would be the marathon running, kick boxing, fan dancer then ). The wreck is full of life; bib, pollock, wrasse all the usual, but lots and lots of them.

Down to 70 bar in the twinset, with 3 mins of no deco time left I decide to put up my blob. Have to confess not my best attempt. I think I failed to clear my no 2 reg before breathing from it, lots of water in increasing amounts, so I can safely say the deployment was a bit pants. With three blobs on the surface we all started to ascend, Marianne at .0003 m per min, Rob at 3m per min, and me at 8m per min. So as not to lose contact with the others I opted to get tangled in Robs line . To pass the time I test out no 2 reg and all is fine again. I also check my gas and discover down to 60 bar, but oddly 220 bar in the left cylinder, oh the joys of a closeded manifold. So on to a few mins of deco, now with 125 bar, and back on board the boat, with Marianne and Rob still doing their accelerated deco on 50% or 100% depending on the theory being followed.

Surface interval with hot chocolate

We opted for a drift dive on the ledges. With hindsight this was a poor decision-sorry. It also helps if you actually follow the skippers instructions to find the ledge, and you take a weightbelt with you, mentioning no names, but it was not me. It was a lifeless dive, not much to see, and very little going wrong.

A rather good day out. Thanks to Marianne for organising.

[Prometheus]

Great to see you all on the boat today , weather was fair for a change, I jumped in with Ratty and PeeBee or Pappa Smurf as he is known as now , matching blue suit, gloves and fins . Lucky I missed out on the second dive as it meant I could hand down the weight belt to ................?

[PeeBee]

Great day, up at stupid o-clock and tom tom said I needed 2 hours to get to the marina, wrong, did it in 1hr 25 mins (observing the speed limit all the way of course ) so I even had time for a macmuck sandwich for breakfast once the kit was on the boat. Met Ian and Robert for the first time good to see that Ian has the same great taste as Prometheus and me in dry suits. Should seaskin offer discounts to YD members? T R Thomson seems like a great wreck, Paul did a great job with the shot and we all jumped in Ratty Prometheus and I dived as a 3, someone turned the lights out at about 18 m and I was pleased to see my new salvo working brilliantly. I led for the 1st half of the dive just cos I got to the bottom first, then Prometheus took over for the 2nd half. had a good crawl over the wreck in 2m to 3m of vis (far better than the last time I dived out of Brighton). Back at the surface I was pleased to see that I wasn't the only one with rust stains all over my suit.

2nd dive was the most exciting drift I've done all year, having said that it was the 1st. Frankly it was good being in the water but there is more life in the sahara. Ratty did a good job of spotting a nice lobby but I couldn't get at him so he lives to go in the pot another day.

Credits also go to Weazelz, Hebails, MJH, for being great company. Thanks all of you, team photo to follow

Oh and was it wrong of us to laugh when we heared from MJH that there were loads of folk up at Wraysbury who had been blown out while we were sitting on a near flat calm blue sea in the sunshine?

Pappa Smurf

[David Burke]

Top Report
good to hear that you all had a good day out
safe diving
dave

[dottydiver]

What a good day to dive - the weather was clear, the wind light, sea state slight, good company, .....

The hardest part was getting up at a silly time for a 1.5hour drive for a supposed 7.30am cast-off. Met a fewfamiliar faces and some new ones.

The first dive was a bit murky so we didn't manage to locate the 4.7 inch gun that was supposed to be at the stern. However, plenty of fish life to look at and a massive lobster that retreated into the wreck rather than be fried by the torch! Suggestions by my buddy to risk my fingers were, of course, ignored; where was Mr Kelland when he’s really needed to provide entertainment by such foolishness! Gentle ascent by all with the exception of Mr Polaris who raced up at 10m / min in spite of using a computer!

Hot chocolate, cake and a base tan layer for my next trip to Egypt were worked on between dives.

The start of the second dive was more of a swim than diving as I re-enacted that Eureka moment of (re-)discovering Archimedes principle! It certainly amused the skipper and those not diving when I popped up to be handed my weight belt from under the bench. After that it was a gentle drift across a large muscle bed with large starfish feeding on them.

Many thanks to Marieanne for organising a throroughly enjoyable day


DottyD

[Ian@1904]

Originally Posted by dottydiver

Gentle ascent by all with the exception of Mr Polaris who raced up at 10m / min in spite of using a computer!

I have just downloaded my dive logs. I did a 2 min deep stop at 15m.
That would be when your line went under tension with the line wrapped round my fin and twinset.

[weazelz]

I had a good day too - probably my best sea dive of the year so far

MJH had laid on some cracking weather - blue skies, sunshine & a notably slight sea state - but this had evidently distracted her from such things as remembering gas

the skipper had obviously agreed with my choice of wreck & we headed off eastward to the TR Thomson

Paul & I were first in, with much heckling of our very moderate 73 litres of gas, & down the line with a little tide still running, to the welcome sight of a large rusty thing, 2-3m of viz & just enough darkness to make the torches work nicely. a very pleasant 40mins on a 28-33m bottom, past the boilers & up to the - I think - pointy end, & a nice conservative ascent for a 68min runtime, & last back on the boat

back on the boat for tea, golden syrup cake & a chat whilst we cruised back to the mythical 'Ledges' for a drft

mythical in that I've never seen the buggers. after 15mins of sand the wetnotes came out for a game of O's & X's, Paul must have been narc'd, as he left an obvious row for my truimphant victory. once back on the boat, he very unsportingly suggested that I had cheated

all in all a most enjoyable day, good weather, a cracking wreck & a good bunch on the boat. many thanks to Marieanne for organizing it

[tom]

Originally Posted by dottydiver

we didn't manage to locate the 4.7 inch gun that was supposed to be at the stern.

That's the second time Ian has failed to see that gun. Last time was in pretty good vis, and he was virtually kneeling on it - so don't blame the murky conditions!

[tom]

Originally Posted by tom

That's the second time Ian has failed to see that gun. Last time was in pretty good vis, and he was virtually kneeling on it - so don't blame the murky conditions!

Ian has just reminded me he actually sat astride the gun last time.
On reading that, I had visions of Cher in that video, the one with the gun, but with Ian's face instead of hers.



I think I may have nightmares tonight.

[Spacehopper]

Originally Posted by tom

Ian has just reminded me he actually sat astride the gun last time.
On reading that, I had visions of Cher in that video, the one with the gun, but with Ian's face instead of hers.



I think I may have nightmares tonight.

OMG! You need some medication from Finless, and pretty quickly at that!