Paul Kidson

Just sat down to log this weeks dive and have realised that it’s actually my 200th dive   I tell you,  I couldn’t have asked for a better dive to celebrate with though.

We were convinced on Wednesday that the dive would be called off but by the time we got to West Bay on Thursday it was dead flat, not even a ripple out there.

A lot of the regular divers are back, people like Tony Gates, Phil the Baker and Margot.  Still missing Mat Follas though, can’t really blame the guy, setting up a restaurant must be a right pain in the arse!  That’s what you get for winning Masterchef though.  Fourteen of us went out in all and with Gates on board there was plenty of banter.  We went out further than usual too, usually on a Thursday we just pootle out to Sawtooth Ledges but this time we went out further to East Tennents.

East Tennents is a world apart from Sawtooth.  Sawtooth is mostly flat sand with rocky ledges but East Tennents is much more interesting, it’s like diving in a field of boulders with loads of ledges and cracks to look in/under.  Plenty of fish life out here too.

In fact some of use were having a little bit too much fun!  Shompy, my regular buddy, decided he didn’t want to come up when I told him we were already on for eight minutes deco, a bit of underwater communications and we agreed on another ten minutes of bottom time.  All well and good but just hanging at five metres for the twenty minutes it took to decompress wasn’t so much fun!  We were last (by quite a margin) back on to the boat and received a cheer and a “about bloody time” from Gates.  Oh well, it was a great dive and I don’t think any of the others really cared

So there you go, Dive number 200 done with a total run time of 1hr03 minutes

Forgot to post these up from a dive a couple of weeks ago, went ferreting round in the ledges looking for something interesting and found this!  Just the right size for the pot

Before and after shots…

Went on my regular Thursday evening dive off Sawtooth Ledges last night with Rob,  first evening dive this year where I haven’t needed a torch.  May bloom is starting early this year as there is already some large bits of “gloop”.  We dropped down to about 25m and got a few Scallops to give to a couple of locals then went hunting in the ledges to see if we could bag a decent crab or lobster.  Spent 10 minutes wrestling this brute out of his lair.  All in all an enjoyable dive with a good 5-7m viz

As you can see from the picture Rob is absolutely comfortable with holding Crabs and in no way at all is he scared of them.   He made me take another picture where he managed a nervous smile but being the mate I am that one didn’t make it on here

First dive since our advanced nitrox and deco procedures course in Malta.  Good to see the skills have stayed pretty fresh in our minds.  We managed to do a decent bubble check/s-drill and definately dived as a better buddy pair.  Just need a stage now