5-8m viz, sunshine, champagne, strawberries & chocolate.... Must be Dover Easter 2007
Many thanks to everyone who made this such a wonderful gig!
Dave Batchelor skipper of
Neptune & viz seeker extraordinaire, Brian & Al crew (with Gerry an able substitute on Sunday morning)
The weekend team sheet:
The Dude
Gary WWD
Illy (& Avril for the bed & barbeque)
Padowan aka Simon (great to see you after so long, hope the sniffles get better soon!)
Coliniky
Nigel
puryevor of superb diving products
Andy P
Mark Chase
Howard Payne (pleasure to meet you Sir!)
Nevil (our sacrificial diver, you can come again & again! Welcome to YD and you are most welcome on any & all Kinky Divers trips!)
Paul Oliver
Alan Getafix
Dr Chris
Svenja
Ben Fatlaz
Cap’n Deco Jay
Keith Henson
Addive
Roy Plumber
[email protected]
Gary & Cat (brave souls diving semi-dry!)
& of course Juz & I
The sun was shining as we set off from home on Friday morning; as we came over the hill into Dover the sea stretched out still, shiny & sparkling in the glorious sunshine! This was shaping up to be a pretty special 4 days.
Almost everyone was there, Juz almost crashed when we saw Andy P already there, (he had spent the night at Mark’s) over an hour before ropes off!
It was great to meet up with both new & familiar faces; Gary WWD & Illy brought more chocolate (Cadbury & Mars) than I have seen outside the sweetie aisle in a supermarket, I brought hot cross buns (it was Good Friday) and crisps to sate the Dude’s desire for savoury, and of course there were the usual cheese & onion pasties from Neptune.
Our first dive of the weekend was to the
Seine (Champagne) Wreck French cargo ship The Seine was en route for England when she sank after allegedly hitting a Russian freighter and succumbing to stormy seas on July 16, 1955. Nigel was off down the shot in a flash searching for treasure, Brian & Dave brought up the rear guard & came out with a bag bulging with ½ bottles of champagne! Mark & Andy P emerged with a goody bag bulging with scallops, and everyone else came back excited but spidgeless!
photo kindly supplied by Brian (501 Diver)
Viz was 3m+ quite bright, but still needed a torch, 10˚
Brian gave me a wonderful DVD of the information on the ‘finding’ and recovery dive and when I can work out how to post videos I’ll set up a link!
The plankton bloom has started already with lots of particles flying past on our stops, here’s hoping that it all clears up by Le Dude plongee trip in May! A small tipple of champagne from a glass off the wreck, some strawberries and a splash of OJ, how very civilised! Howard Jr managed to snaffle a bottle to wet his DO’s new baby’s head!
We spent our surface interval over at the Flagship Pub on Snarsgate Street, which has not long been taken over by Dave, olives, crusty bread & balsamic vinegar & olive oil as we waited for our food, yum yum! They start serving breakfast at 7am weekdays & 6am on the weekend, definitely a good place to spend a SI!
Our afternoon dive we headed out to the Varne Wreck or Plate Wreck
which is next to the North Varne Lightship, and far enough out to get some viz whilst being well protected as the shipping avoids both the Varne Bank and the Lightship marking it. This is an Unidentified Wreck in 35m which was a wooden ship with a General Cargo including lots of crockery, glass, cement and muskets have also come up from this site. The ship has disintegrated and we are just left with a pile of spidge full of lobsters on the seabed. The centre of the wreck appears to have a large cargo of Cement Bags, whilst one end has the bulk of the crockery; there are lots of plain white bowls and plates around.
Viz dropped off to a dark 1m, 9˚, but felt much colder! The spidgers where in full flight; slit was everywhere & Juz called my line laying (lack of)skills ‘
[email protected]’ :embarassed: so we called it. (I have to agree on the line laying!)
Friday night Gary, The Dude, Juz & I ate at the Light of India, we were ready to eat the table legs by the time we were fed! Juz & I headed off to Illy & Av’s, The Dude & Gary headed for the B&B, were I think an early night was had!
Saturday dawned just as sunny, the sea remained calm and it was great to meet up with wave 2 of the weekend! It was a tad cooler this morning, and 2 more new faces to welcome on board. Our morning dive was on the
Unity SS 1091ton, armed steamer, triple expansion engines,
sunk 2nd May 1918 torpedoed by UB-57, 12 died.
Viz was a dark 1-2m, 10˚ again and my wreck identifying skills are quite pants, especially as the wreck is very broken up! I followed The Dude, thanking my lucky stars for his fluorescent pink line! Alan brought up a broken plate with the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Co crest on it
but there was not much else, quite a despondent group went back in to shore, some of us lunched at the Flagship again, whilst everyone else headed off to Chris at
Shorncliffe for fills for the afternoon dive.
Our afternoon dive was on the
UC-64 (an excellent report by Paul as usual!) I buddied Howie again on this dive, he is much better at lying line than I! :girlhug:
It was bright with a good 5+m of viz, but I then got the heebie-jeebies (even with helium in the mix) and called it! Even so it was my longest dive of the weekend at 50 mins. Lots of happy, smiley faces when we emerged, Cap’n Deco lived up to his name, and took the ribbing very well (all weekend in fact)
Only 7 of us made it to the New Moonflower restaurant for dinner at 9pm! It was late, we were all pretty pooped, but Dr Chris & Svenja, Ben (Fatlaz), Gary, John Perrin
Kent Tooling Diving Products, Juz & I all tried to eat our body weight in Chinese food!
Sunday, dawned bright and sunny in Folkestone but as we came over the hill into Dover a bank of fog sat over the hills blocking any chance of seeing the sea! Not good I thought; a quick chat with Dave and he decided to steam west, west, west to see if the viz was any better. We told Dave that safety was paramount and that he was the boss, so we dropped down on an un-named Armed Trawler with a good 8m of viz, well depending on who you followed!
As Juz & I got to the bottom of the shot there was a big plaice which Juz caught & put in the goody bag for my lunch later. I wouldn’t let him kill it so had a few ‘Oh my God what’s toughing my legs?’
on the deco stops!
Alan produced the
priest & dispatched the fish once on board, Keith gave a very quick 30 second demo on how to gut a fish & the gulls were happy! Ben caught a massive lobbie, (male apparently) and 2 big crabs and donated them to Keith’s fridge. Team Henson (didn’t he invent the Muppets?
) lay on the roof sunbathing on the way back to shore for the SI.
Viz 6-8m and bright, 10˚
Gary, Juz, Illy & I all headed up to Illy & Avril’s for a lunchtime barbie! The plaice was cooked & consumed and Juz was most proud of his ‘hunter/gatherer’ status!
Back for the afternoon dive where we were joined by 2 hardy souls Gary & Cat in semi-dry suits! As their fills were a tad ‘hot’ we headed back out to the Varne Wreck for the spidgers to ‘fill their boots’ I felt queasy so bailed on Juz, stayed on board to make hot drinks and make sure that Gary & Cat got changed into warm clothes when they got out! I soon forgot that I felt ill when everyone started arriving back, but you will need to find out from the rest what it was like!
Monday morning was a 5.30am meet and the Cuvier for the early birds!
The Steamship Cuvier built in 1883, displacing 2,299 Tons and measuring 100m long by 12m beam sank after a collision with the SS Douvre of Norway on the 9th March 1900 with the loss of 26 lives. This large, 12m proud and intact wreck sits in 43m of water with the decks at 32m and the holds down to 35m, she had accommodation for 80 First Class Passengers.
Nigel, Illy, Nevil, Jay (Cap’n Deco), Ben (Fatlaz) & Keith Henson were the only ones who made the early start, Someone else will need to tell you about that one! Team Henson then bullied Nigel into driving home & filling cylinders for the afternoon dive!
Our final dive of the week was planned for the Mandovi but as the water was murky sludge we headed over to the Unity again. I buddied
[email protected] and dropped into clear water, I could see a good 4m+ down the line, until the lights went out at 30m.
Once we reached the bottom it was a different story, the first few pairs in had stirred up the viz quite badly :frown: I knew that away from the shot would be much better. Ian lined off, & I rose up out of the scour to follow him promptly loosing the line, I saw a nice yellow fluorescent Kent Tooling line, but decided that I should wait for Ian by the strobe that was on the shot.
In the murk I couldn’t even see his torch. Juz came back to the shot & I indicated that I had lost Ian, he gave me the up signal & at that Ian appeared out of the gloom!
An uneventful deco on the line, but it was running quite hard when we were hanging there, by the time my deep VR£ stops were clear I had no deco, so just waited until Ian was happy to go and up we went. The reel that he had to leave behind came up with the shot, but I think a new birthday present may be on the cards!
Luckily the DCS mountain (i.e. the steps) were now almost flat, and unloading was a piece of cake! Daddy Dude we have your conger prodder. A swift drink in the Flagship and then the long journey home to strip the unit & empty the car.
Many thanks to everyone who turned up, joined in, jumped in, came back, took the p, took it on the chin, lost equipment and even a sense of humour! The weekend would not have been as marvellous without you lot!
Brian will no doubt be along to post the team pics for Friday and Saturday. (that is a hint by the way!)
there were a number of quite excellent quotes, that I will let the others reveal :teeth:
Mark Chase said:
When do we sign up for next year?
I have told Dave that we will gauge interest for next year, and let him know in a short while, Juz will remind me no doubt soon!
