8th & 9th September. The Leader Of The Pack
The day dawned bright and early on my first attempt to organise a diving trip, a return to Plymouth where I had dived in April with Eddystone Dive Charters [see end of report for contact details]. I had invited competent divers who could sort themselves out so there would be a distinct lack of planks on the trip. This needed to be the case as I had invited Ro along, who doesn’t like planks, and really didn’t want a boiled sweet shoved somewhere that would make my eyes cross. We all got there early on the Wednesday evening, except for Claire and Rob who hadn’t booked the day off work and so arrived at midnight. The rest of us headed up to the pub at the top of the hill for a bite and beer. Breaking with tradition we only had a couple of beers, unlike the usual image of British divers getting a skinfull, a greasy breakfast, and seasick. Seasickness would make a special guest appearance in the boat, or rather over the side the following day. Harvey and Colin from BSAC 955 in Northampton kept us entertained with the latest series of disasters encountered by ‘N’ from their club. Lisa was as mad as usual, and had overdosed on her white powder of choice [sherbet] by scoffing a load of flying saucers on the way down with Caroline, although I did manage to get my hands on some of them. Paul was a no show as work intervened, and he had to miss the trip.
The next day saw us scoffing our cereal and toast before heading out to the boat to dive Scylla and James Egan Layne. The sea was lumpy, and Lisa started to go a bit white as we kitted up, before she decided to give us some sea life to look at by feeding the fish. She was quickly followed by Claire, and both decided not to dive. Harvey made them feel much better with his tales of seasickness in his navy days, and the time he served with Nelson. A frantic reorganisation of the buddies later saw me diving with Caroline and Rob, as these were to be Claire’s and Lisa’s partners. Things got expensive for me at this point as my D8R [£120-ish] fell apart again, and it looks terminal this time, deep joy. We were chucked in on the bow shot and dropped down, passing Harvey and Colin on the way, who had stopped to sort out Harvey’s mask. We toured back from the bow past the weapons lift and bridge and had a few easy penetrations, including dropping down into the large pit that leads to the lower deck. I thought I was breathing a bit heavily at the start of the dive, but the pO2 in the rebreather loop was OK, and I was a little worried about the possibility of a CO2 hit from scrubber failure. As we hit the wreck my breathing slowed and I felt fine, so it looks like a bit of paranoia plus slightly harder work swimming into the current.
We headed along to the stern and into the helicopter hanger, where the roof has collapsed in. I’m not sure if this is due to corrosion or more nefarious activities as the rest of the ship is in good condition. We headed through the hanger and to the bow, again with some limited penetration, before turning around and zigzagging our way to the stern through the ship with some more adventurous travels to the interior. My original plan was to dive the length of the ship inside with Ro and Steve, but this had to change with the change in buddies. I was diving the Dolphin with a 7L stage filled with 40% for deco and bailout [in addition to the 3L 21% cylinder], from which I ran the drysuit feed. At the stern Rob still had 100 bar in his 15L, and Caroline shedloads in her twin 10’s so we headed back to the bow to ascend on the bow line. On the way back we stayed at the top of the wreck except for a foray into the Captain’s cabin, where we saw the captain’s log, which was in the captains toilet.
Dive 1
19.5m
46 min
Depth 15.0 19.1 18.3 18.2 14.4 av
pO2 0.82 1.03 0.95 0.95 0.83 --
vO2 0.79 0.59 0.74 0.73 0.70 0.79
%O2 32.8 35.4 33.6 33.7 34.0 33.9
On surfacing we saw Lisa had gone past pale, through white and well into grey, so we headed back in to drop her off on dry land, along with Claire. By this time Colin was feeling a little off colour so we dived the Breakwater Fort. Ro sat this one out so I was buddied with Steve. On the way to the fort we were chased off by a dockyard police RIB who wanted us out of the way of a frigate that was leaving. The boat was well clear of the frigate and it was behind us when the Dock Plod shouted at us, so I think they were just bored.
I was thinking ‘ho hum, a scenic dive’ and I was regretting the lack of large lump of metal, but the dive was made more interesting by Steve who decided to demonstrate a little underwater archaeology by lifting the large steel plates that litter the seabed and poking around underneath. We found a flattie, all of 5” long, which was swimming in circles, which I think was caused by Steve having his finger on one side of the poor bugger. We also saw loads of those fish that sit still on the bottom until you approach and then they shoot off. The closest thing to them on my fishy slate is the rock goby, so I will say they were that until I am corrected.
The highpoint of the dive for me was Steve getting attacked by a crab as he put his hand over a piece of plate. He didn’t believe he was pinched, so he did it again for luck, and was nipped again for his trouble.
Despite the skipper’s dire warnings that if we wandered too far from the fort a frigate would mince us, we explored a little to the side before we decided to surface. I wasn’t diving the 7L this time, so I was a little light, and so didn’t put any gas in the suit, which means an extra kilo will be needed in future for sea diving, and two for when I need thermals. Our teams were pretty good in the water, but there was a trio of divers coming the other way, which stirred things up a little. Judging by their garb they were fairly new or trainees, and we have all been there so I wouldn’t complain as much as if they were experienced.
Dive 2
SI 1h 50 min
12.3m
43 min
Depth 9.3 9.2 7.5 8.5 9.5 av
pO2 0.67 0.69 0.64 0.60 0.75 --
vO2 0.65 0.67 0.25 0.82 0.33 0.55
%O2 34.7 35.9 39.4 32.4 38.5 36.2
When we got back to shore and decamped to the b&b we were met by Pam who had made us a small snack of a Desperate Dan Cow Pie each. I serviced the Dolph first to change the scrubber and de gunk the loop a little before eating. I was well stuffed when I had finished my plate full and we had a rest and shower before heading back up the road to the pub for any food that people wanted-which was ‘lots’ in Harvey’s case. Our original plan of a Greek restaurant was torpedoed by Pam’s cooking and I settled for a couple of pints, the second with Rob as all the others retired to bed. We raided the shop at the bottom of the road for some sweets, as we couldn’t find a chippy or kebab shop.
Day two saw Lisa sitting out, as she was still feeling ill. I tried to make her feel happier by scoffing another handful of flying saucers before I dropped her in town to go exploring. This is a bit risky in a new town as Lisa is known for acting like someone who has just come over the wall from the asylum given the right stimulus [sugar, coffee, bright or colourful objects, alcohol, squeaky toys etc] as was witnessed by her wanting a piggy back from me on the Wed eve when we returned from the pub.
We loaded up the boat to head out to the Persier, at 5 300 tons a similar displacement to the cruisers at Scapa Flow. I was buddied with Caroline, Rob with Claire, Colin with Harvey, and Ro with Steve. Stuart was the deckhand again, as he has retired from diving after he copped a bend while DM-ing. His wife has had to give up diving as well; so he decided to call it quits while he was ahead, which is a shame as he is a good buddy. Being told not to teach any more had taken a lot of the pleasure out of diving for him, so it’s time for him to have a change of hobby.
The Persier lies in 30m, and with my mix of 42% in my rebreather allied with a vO2 of 0.8 I was getting to the limit of the pO2 I could dive, and I was hovering around the 1.3 mark for most of the dive. I had a loop mix of 32.9% on average and I was diving with my computer set to 21%. Caroline was diving on 27%, and I hit deco at 20 min, but we stayed down for a total of 32 min, which left a 15 min ascent time for me. After we hit the bottom I freed up the shot [Steve repositioned it further when he and Ro descended] and we wandered off. During out tour we got as far as the boilers, only half way along the wreck. A more determined fin could have seen us at the bow, but at the stern where the shot was planted we were adjacent to the prop shaft tunnel and we swam through that before exploring the stern. Rob and Claire were heading the opposite way to us and I signalled that the swim through was worth doing. We were exploring the stern with the rudder and quadrant for a while, and I was looking for the spare propeller, which should have been close to hand, but I couldn’t find it. Hiding in the wreckage was a cuckoo wrasse, always a nice bright fish to see on any dive. We swam along the aft mast where we saw Claire and Rob sending up their delayed SMB, then on to the boilers by way of a pair of large winches, where we found a scorpion fish in one of the fire tubes and a mid sized conger wrapped around the crank shaft. We turned at this point, our deco building and headed towards the shot, but decided to blob up before we found it. I decided that a deep stop for a minute at 17m would be an idea, where I also swapped onto my 40% stage, and we completed our deco at 6m, although I also did a 5 min/zero m stop.
Dive 3
29.0m
53min
Depth 27.3 28.0 27.5 28.5 27.7 28.6 av
pO2 1.25 1.24 1.17 1.24 1.27 1.28 --
vO2 0.74 0.83 0.91 0.84 0.73 0.77 0.79
%O2 33.5 32.4 31.2 32.2 33.7 33.2 32.9
Pete the skipper hauled us back on with the lift after pulling the shot and we headed for the breakwater to find calm water for a cuppa and lunch. During lunch Colin and Harvey showed me their computers which had both locked up. Colin’s dive timer had also recorded a fast ascent so they had to sit out the James Egan Layne, which was one Harvey particularly wanted to dive. The cause of the lockup was trying to hold a 3m stop in the sea, so Ro and I explained that 6m is the shallowest stop that can be reasonably achieved in any sort of weather. We had some lunchtime entertainment when the skipper spotted a buoy on the top of the breakwater and Rob went in to recover it. It was only after Rob had done his SBS beach assault that we saw the ‘Keep Off or you will be someone’s prison bitch’ signs.
Lunch over we motored back out into a sea that was getting steadily more lumpy, although not as bad as the day before. Harvey and Colin had dekitted and packed away, so were on hand to help the rest of us get ready. Over the JEL, and we were lined up like parachutists awaiting ‘green light’. A parp on the boat’s horn and I led the way into the sea, and a smooth line of divers followed me in. Caroline and I dropped to the bottom following Steve and Ro, with Claire and Rob bringing up the rear. As usual for me on the JEL I dropped to the seabed and looked up at the bow, before collecting a few shells and swimming along the side of the wreck for the first entry. I changed my computer over to 25% at this stage to make sure we wouldn’t hit deco [the loop mix was 32% on average, so this was safe to do].
Penetration on the JEL isn’t that difficult as there are a load of holes and not much in the way of overhead obstructions. We swam all the way to the broken section, but again I missed on the stern as our first dive had used a lot of Caroline’s twin set gas, so we had a slow fin to the broken section and back. I found the memorial cylinder to a diver again, and something like that does remind you that diving is dangerous. I had a shiver down my back on my first deep solo dive at Scapa on the Coln when I found a plaque to a diver who had died on that wreck.
We saw Claire and Rob as we turned and waved hello as we passed, and we then looked around the wreck to see the electric motors and other equipment needed to run a ship. We returned to the bow shot and were doing our stop at the deck level [6m] when Claire and Rob appeared, shortly followed by Steve and Ro. Back on the boat Steve showed us all a tap he had found, much to Stuart’s displeasure as he advocates ‘look but don’t touch’ on all wrecks. The previous evening saw an animated discussion on when you can and can’t take things off a wreck.
Dive 4
SI 2h 5 min
19.2m
35 min
Depth 18.5 16.3 14.1 14.1 15.0 av
pO2 0.84 0.82 0.77 0.89 0.83 --
vO2 10.3 0.91 0.86 0.47 0.76 0.80
%O2 29.5 31.2 32.0 36.9 33.2 32.6
On the way back in I turned on my phone to find a couple of texts from Lisa, the first saying she had seen an octopus and seahorse, and was looking for the sharks, and the second just saying “SHARK”. So it’s safe to assume she found an aquarium then! Back on shore once again and we said farewell to Pete, and packed up for the trip home. We all arrived back safely, and had a good couple of days diving. I’m going to be booking with Pete and Pam again, as they run a good set up, and I couldn’t recommend them highly enough.
So, an invitation only trip is a good idea to avoid those who are out of their depth in a footbath, and the only eedjut on the trip was me, so I had no competition.