Captain and Corporal Deco hit the sea

[Captain Deco]

I dived yesterday with Miss Captain and 4 others on The Wet Wrecks boat 'Zeus" out of Southwold, Suffolk.

Miss C. is a newcomer to UK sea diving and have a number of 20/20 dives under her belt. She likes diving - and with me to boot, so I have been going with her to get her acclimatised in the UK for a while now. Part of the small dives we have been doing is to just build her confidence and show her that she is a 1000 times better than she thinks she is. NO small task

Dive 1: The wreck of the HMS Waveflower (armed trawler - s. in WW2 - loads and loads of spidge, and a nice wreck). It was a terrible dive and a great dive.

Terrible - wreck was 25-30m and the viz was maybe 10cm Very Very dark. Deep. Plankton everywhere and Miss C. openly stated that she had a panic attack. Total terror + her first real experience of Narcosis - so much so that she was screaming to get out of the water (in her head, not vocally). I have to say I was very proud of her as I knew this was a big deal for her. It took ages to get to 29m as well due to a long long time for her ears to clear.

Great - Miss C. displayed this panic with a small flash of the torch and a little thumbs up - "Let's go please". Only the massive saucer eyes belayed fear so we tootled back up. Out of the water and fear over but she was awesome - no panic getting the better of her on a first real deep dark UK dive.


Dive 2: The wreck of an unknown ship with a bronze prop. Same viz, same depth, same dark.

Miss C. and I had discussed dive 1 and this was going to be a challenge for her as she knew what was coming. Once we got to the bottom of the shot we found that we had missed the wreck and anchored into some random pile of rope laying on the bottom. Never mind - we couldn't see fook all anyway. Mary and I stayed at the bottom for a few minutes just beating her demons and she persevered like a trooper. Although still scared she was calm and collected and felt a lot better.

Not a great day's diving for seeing sutuff, but a great day's diving for learning. Always a good result.

After tea and medals we went home - Egypt on Friday!!!

[Paul Oliver]

Well done to her, i have had similar bouts of fear when diving with Captain Deco

[Twinset & Wing]

That is great,

I am sure most of us have had moments like Mrs C at some point or another, good on her.

G

[big_si]

Massive well done to Mary!!!! Did a great job!

[Captain Deco]

Originally Posted by Paul Oliver

Well done to her, i have had similar bouts of fear when diving with Captain Deco

Shut your face. Your face - Shut it.

[purple vonny]

Oh dear, that sounds frightening. I just edited this because I saw you wrote that she had been doing dives to acclimatise to UK diving.

I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet right now about people doing dives they are not prepared for. This follows seeing 3 people choppered off to to the pot in the last 7 days because 2 of them were not prepared or practiced enough to dive in poor vis or on dark wrecks.

It can be scarey out there if you are not expecting the lights to go out

[Captain Deco]

Originally Posted by purple vonny

I don't want to sound finger wagging here, but isn't that a bit deep and dark for a UK sea virgin? No wonder she was scared.

I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet right now about people doing dives they are not prepared for. This follows seeing 3 people choppered off to to the pot in the last 7 days because 2 of them were not prepared or practiced enough to dive in poor vis or on dark wrecks.

Just a thought......

She is not a UK sea virgin. I have dived with her in the shallows of Swanage and also had some boat stuff planned that a bad breakfast and nerves bollixed up for her.

I have dived with her in Brighton on wrecks in the range of her quals (AOW).

The dives yesterday were within her quals - the only difference being that they were pitch black, and she has done dark in Stoney and Gildy with me. I had a massive torch, and so did she - we never left the shot line, and everything was done in super slow time.

At some point HSE has to go out of the window and you can only learn by doing. Mary knows that doing something wrong at depth is a death sentence or a trip to the pot, and my endless yammering about diving must have gone in because despite her fear she ascended so slow I thought she might be sightseeing.

I appreciate your concern, but she was in good hands - and she must have thought so because she repeated the experience with the goal of beating her demons.

The same depth in great viz recently was a great dive for her. She wants to dive with me and vice versa, so dark will have to be encountered.

[purple vonny]

I edited the post, sorry, re-read yours. I am a dim wit.

However, I still think that if you are doing a 30 metre dive here, you need to be pretty self sufficient, especially in poor vis. One fin kick in the wrong direction and you will find yourself alone and needing to cope.

I know the only way to learn is to do it, and to do it with a competent buddy (like you) who will look after you. But 2 weekends on the trot we've had bent divers who, due to lack of experience diving here, got in a right pickle.

[Captain Deco]

[Sixsquid]

Nice one and nice write up.

I think The Vonster had a good point and I was under the impression this was a 1st UK sea dive experience but you have now expanded. I was going to suggest coming along to Wraysbury as I think it is a marvellous place to get accustomed to low viz. I know Martyn Farr was pleased to hear I frequently dived Wraysbury when I went for my Cavern course in 2006 (Can't beleive it was that long ago!)

Anyway, good for Mrs Deco and I look forward to meeting you both soon