St Abbs Trip

[Jay]

First run of images have not been uploaded to the gallery. Will add more when Eddie gets his underwater ones developed.

Regards

[JohnK]

Cant wait to see the UW pics !!

[Jay]

Ok - we'll do the trip report as a team affair, so I'll make a start.

The long range forecast for last weekend couldn't have been more wrong as we pulled into St Abbs around 1pm with the sun cracking the flags. As we pulled into the camping area, I noticed that Andy, Rachel and Sophie had already arrived and pitched their tent. We quickly joined them and pitched ours before toying with the idea of going for a dive that afternoon. The arguments for and against were banded about for a while until a car with Netherlands number plates pulled into the field - the Mays had arrived!! First things first and Eddie pulls out a crate of Grolsch - no diving this afternoon then!!

Dave and Mark pulled into the campsite around 5.30 and proceded to unload enough camping gear to keep a band of gypos happy! Dave grabbed a beer and sat on his arse while Mark (bless him) worked his butt off putting up the tent (this was a flavour of what was to come for the weekend!!)

After a meal in a local pub, Ammers texted me to say she had arrived and we all went back to the site to get to know each other over a few beers and to talk about the dive plans for the next day. With the long drive for most of us, the day ended relatively early (in bed for 11pm believe it or not!) but the entertainment had only started!

As the (now full to bursting) campsite settled down for the night, strange noises started to eminate from Mark and Dave's tent, accompanied by a highly aggrieved Mark exclaiming "For God's sake, I can taste that one! Do it in your sleeping bag next time you smelly tw*t!"

Giggling into my pillow, with aching muscles, I fell asleep ...

[Davey Willo]

Lol.....

Ok... Mark arrived at mine with a trailer loaded to the gills, items including 2 tents, Huuuuge pagola, stove, seperate barbecue, camping chairs, table with integrated chairs, air beds, wind breaks, drums of water, pots, pans, utensils, cooler boxes, games, badminton raquets, torch's, beer, massive boxes laden with food and other items to many to remember or list..... but this is Mark all over, he is totally "Mr Prepared" for any eventuality that may arise... me... I just threw my sh*t into the stew and off we went.
The journey to Abbs was longer than expected cos we seemed to hit masses of bank holiday traffic all going in the same direction as ourselves but eventually we arrived at the campsite to be met by a smiling bunch of people that were to become good friends over the next couple of days....

I felt it was my duty on arrival to introduce ourselves to everyone and immediately crack open a bottle of beer (just for bonding purposes you understand) and proceed to get to know everyone.... Mark being the martyr that he is ripped out the tent and started pitching like a man possessed :smash: gaining everyones approval and making me look really bad... this was to go on for whole of the trip... Mark making me look bad that is...

After a few beers everyone went down to the pub for a meal, except me and our lad as we still had 14 ton of stuff to unpack and get sorted, it was during this period that we unpitched the tent that Mark had so furiously erected and changed its location and then also put up Pagola Palace... so now we had all of the tents surrounding this massive pagola and YD were well and truly ensconsed taking up about half an acre of land.... many other campers seemed quite put out by our monstrous theft of real estate but we were in and not moving for anyone...

After about two hours of getting stuff unpacked and sorted..  seriously.... we then decided to follow the others to the pub only to meet them coming back joined by non other than Ammers..

Now AnneMarie was a shock for me cos I expected to meet a ruddy cheeked, six footer with hairy knuckles and 'DIR Rules' tattoed onto a chunky forearm but no... I found myself shaking hands with a little five foot nothing wee Scottish lassie who didn't look like she could carry a 7ltr pony never mind a twinset and side mounts.. Altho she could swear like a Glaswegian docker and so I warmed to her immediately..

After showing off the new Camp YD to everyone and a frantic pitching of Ammers tent, we gathered beneath the pagola to while away the remaining hour or so before bed, whilst Mark ran around in the gloom constantly tidying and putting things right....
I'm sure that boy's got a speed habit... sorry kidda, only joking  ;)

Finally we hit the sack with me dropping some of the most obscene farts I've ever produced which had Mark slagging me off in everyway imaginable, but each wail of dismay just had me laughing so hard it was just making me fart more and more....
Quality!! :bang:

I curled up in my bag and drifted off to sleep already having a great time and we hadn't even gotten in the water yet.......


(Edited by Dave Williamson at 6:00 pm on June 4, 2002)

[Mr T.]

I don't which is worse.....Chinese Water Torture, or waiting for the next installment of 'YD Take Camp Runamuk'?!

Come on guys, this is edge of the seat stuff! And we haven't even begun with the diving yet! My finger-nails can't take much more of this

Yours, in eager anticipation,

[Jay]

YD awards for the St Abbs weekend as follows:

Most congenial member - Eddie (for his contribution of a crate of Grolsch - nice work fella!!)

Happiest Camper - Mark (the YD gypsy encampment wouldn't have been the same without you)

Most game for a laugh - Ammers!! (Yep - it takes real balls to meet up with a group of male divers and take the onslaught of abuse with a great sense of humour)

Swedish Chef Awards - Andy2tanx (Great breakfasts mate!)

Lazy tw*t award - Sorry Dave, but its YOU

PADI AWARE award - Dave again for taking time out to feed the fishes!

Superb weekend and made a lot of new friends - roll on the Farnes trip in July (why haven't we got a June trip organised??)

Regards

[Davey Willo]

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Quote: from Heads Up on 5:23 pm on June 4, 2002
YD awards for the St Abbs weekend as follows:

Lazy tw*t award - Sorry Dave, but its YOU

PADI AWARE award - Dave again for taking time out to feed the fishes!

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Thanks Jay... it's nice to know all of my efforts had been noted  :biggrin:  

[parahandy]

The St Abbs trip was the &quot;Epic&quot; I anticipated.
Well done, are there any more installments to the tale?

[Jay]

Yep - am gonna wait and see if any other attendees want to write a section. Eventually, it may be possible to piece together what actually happened!!

[Davey Willo]

well hurry up cos I've got a second novel written and it only covers dive two... :biggrin:

Its a good job I don't get charged by the word...