A few of us went ona little drive, we first went out to the WWII Airfield, not much left there though.  We explored the old control tower, found a few bomb shelters and the remains of what we think was possibly a cinema!  Need to check that one outwhen I get back though..  Took some photos, need to edit them and upload them later.

From there we drove out to Skara Brae, an old Neolithic settlement.  Not overly impressed with that though.  I was more interested in the seals bobbing round in the huge surf.  Back to Stromness for lunch then the rest of the day loafing

Forecast looks good for tomorrow though…

Started the day with a dive planned on the Kronprinz Willhelm to 36m for 35 minutes and the relevant deco stops to go with it. We were to be doing some small penetrations to practice line laying skills.

It started to go bad before we even hit the water.  With fifteen minutes to go till we got to the wreck Rob had yet to get the gas in his twins sorted.  He had too high a blend of nitrox for the depth we were going to which could potentially give him O2 exposure issues.  He hadn’t set his stage up and also hadn’t sorted out his bird nested reel from yesterday.  When we did get into the water there was a hell of a current running that made a s-drill nearly impossible and we didn’t do it particularly smoothly.

We dropped down the shot and the current was still just as bad.  I signalled to Rob that I wanted him to lead the dive but he didn’t really respond so after a minute or so of just hovering there looking at each other I took the lead and dropped down to the seabed.  The current was still strong and I was struggling to make any headway, these new fins are nowhere near as powerful as the Scubapro splits they have replaced.  After five minutes I had to stop and grab hold of some wreckage to try and get my breath back.  Carried on but was making no headway at all.  I signalled to Rob that I wasn’t ok, that I was out of breath but didn’t recieve any response apart from his now standard ok signal back.

At this point I was really uncomfortable, I felt out of breath and alone and a bit scared and I wanted out!  It felt like I couldn’t get enough gas through my reg which is ridiculous really as it flows something stupid a minute if you need it to.  I signalled to Rob to ascend.  Despite having a perfectly good slate, timer and stage of 50% we still managed to get to to the top of the hull at 16m without even thinking of doing any stops or a gas switch.  At 16m Finbar tried to get us to drop down 5m and run our plan but my brain wouldn’t even contemplate it, I still hadn’t quite got my breath back and could only think about getting back on the boat.  I hadn’t even realised he had come up with us! After a couple of minutes Rob popped a SMB up and we went to 6m.  I didn’t know how long to sit there for.  My computer was in gauge mode as was Robs, I figured that with twelve minutes at 36m I’d be able to do tem minutes deco and probably be ok.  Still didn’t think to switch to 50% or even to ask Finbar how long we needed, he did have two VR3′s strapped to his wrists after all..

By pure luck we broke the surface as one of the VR3s had cleared and were soon back on Valkyrie.  Marks SMB was up by this time and he was back on the boat a few minutes later.

We talked it over with a cup of tea, worked out what had gone wrong and how to stop it happening again but at this exact moment in time I’ve lost all my confidence, I hope that when I jump in tomorrow I will feel good and enjoy it…  I felt overwhelmed on this dive, I knew I had a problem and just wanted to be able to rely on my buddy to get us out of there but due to narcosis he was in a blissful state of unawareness.

Things we did wrong…

• Preparation.  Even when it’s your buddy and not you that’s left it all to the last moment it can still affect your mood.
• s-drill at 6m.  With the current as it was we should have done it on the wreck where we could have found shelter.
• Communication.  Non existent, Rob narked into oblivion!
• Stops and gas switch.  We still had plenty of gas and time but neither of us thought to run our stops or to switch gases above 21m.  In my defence I was pretty spooked but Rob should of thought of it I suppose?

Poor Mark, swims forwards to try and find a suitable hole to swim into and returns to find everyone has buggered off!

We started our TDI advanced wreck course today.   Mark Powell teaching us (poor sod!) as we were so impressed with him in Malta when he did our AN&DP course.

Dive one was on the Dresden, we dropped down the shot after a s-drill and swam towards the bow, round the bow and through a swim through in the hull.  Mark then made us take it in turns to hover in a confined environment but chucked a shutdown drill at me when it was my turn!  Managed not to move vertically but did drift forwards a little bit so room for improvement there.  Mark then took us into a coal bunker which involved squeezing through a narrowish gap, once we were through he stirred the silt up to show us just how quickly it goes from ten metres viz down to zero -  scarily quickly was the answer!

More swimming along the hull before he gave Rob a shutdown in a confined space.  Not so good for Rob as he immediately dropped his head and feet before bouncing off everything in sight!  Annoying thing is he knows he can do it as we spent thirty minutes practicing them last week with no problems

Rob then bagged up and a fairly uneventful deco to the surface began, though Rob did get handcuffed by Mark because he wouldn’t stop playing with his valves, I swear he gets target fixation…

Dive two involved some line laying skills on the outside of the wreck.  I went first and thought I was doing ok but rapid flashing from Rob showed he had managed to get himself caught up in the line.  Freed him and carried on but he then “managed” to get line caught round his manifold which I freed.   We then had to reel in while Rob was on my primary reg which went ok once we had been corrected by Mark and Rob had gone in the lead.

Rob then laid line the other way but I soon got a fin buckle caught in the line, he didn’t notice my flashing and carried on laying line.  As soon as I had freed myself my primary torch failed and I had to stop and get my backup out, Rob was still laying line and was two ties up the wreck.  Mark spotted this and immediately put him out of air and in his rapid swim back for my air he bird nested the reel.  We sorted this latest problem and reeled back in before starting our deco plan.  Thirteen minutes at 6m flies by when your trying to learn to backfin!

Lessons learnt so far… Keep the line taught and at arms length, at the moment I’m holding it to close which is causing me to get tangled up easily.  Also the reel man is always at the back on the way out, even if his buddy is out of air! Oops

Roll on day two!

The car has averaged 52.3mpg so far.  Not bad!  Especially with all the weight it’s carrying, two sets of twin 12′s, a set of twin 7′s, two stages and all our kit.  We sat at around 80mph most of the way.

We were going to go out but it’s been a long day so we’ve ordered a pizza in.  going to have a early night as we need to leave here at 7am so we cab get to Gills Bay for 9:30 and give my old twin 7′s to their new owner.

The bottle still had liquid in but it smelt really bad so we had to rinse it all out!  The box I’m pretty sure is made of Pewter and I’m guessing it’s some sort of jewellery box?  It still has it’s wooden inlay   Must go back soon and try and find the lid…

Pretty pictures for you…

It all starts on one of our usual Thursday dive days.  A few of us had gone down to Swanage to dive the Kyarra with Swanage Boat Charters to keep the skills in and maybe find some treasure   I did find a pewter jewellery box and a glass bottle with it’s stopper still in so was in a good mood when we returned to shore, we all had a bite to eat and discussed some future wrecks we want to dive.

Anyway, I was stood outside with Mike and just happened to glance at my D9 to see what the time was when I saw a layer of condensation on the inside of the screen   I was less than impressed, especially with our Scapa trip only a month away.  Got home and rang Suunto UK and was advised to send it on for an assessment so the next day (Friday) it was on it’s way to them.  I’ve had this computer for nearly three years and it’s well out of warranty though so I wasn’t going to hold my breath!

I rang Tuesday to make sure it had arrived, the lady on the other end of the phone said it had and was being “looked at now” and they would give me a call later.  At this point I’m expecting at best a large bill for fixing/service ar at the worst a dead computer.  Wednesday comes and no computer/phone call so I dig out the old Aladin to use on our next dive, it would get bent as it doesn’t gas switch but would at least give me depth and time so I could run the slate ok.

Thursday I get back from our dive to find a parcel waiting for me, it’s my D9, fixed, tested and serviced and returned to me with no charge!  Not even for return postage.  This is a three year old computer remember that I didn’t even buy in the UK.  This (to me at least) is superb customer service and has pretty much guaranteed that my next computer (for after our Trimix course) is going to be the Suunto HelO2. I was 50/50 before but now..

So to summarise…  Suunto UK = best customer service ever!  Thanks Guys

An 08:15 leave on Blue Turtle saw us over the wreck about an hour and a half later.  Sea conditions were good so Seasick Ric  didn’t feed his breakfast to the fish as usual.  Wreck shotted at the stern and after a quick bubble check and s-drill at 6m we were off to the bottom.  We started off by swimming up the starboard side admiring all the portholes, these were amazing as most still had there glass in and the one that was open actually moved when I applied some force to it!  Not bad considering she’s been down there 95 years.  After that we swam around inside where her boilers are before drifting up to the bow.  Came back down her port side, had a look at her mast (snapped) before making our way onto the top of the wreck to send up the SMB and begin all our stops.

Stops were pretty uneventful, gas switch to 80% at 9 meters and surfaced after our planned 96 minutes had passed to be greeted with sunshine Yay!

The day was not without some bad luck though.  The last time we dived for this long I came really close to losing bladder control so this time I decided to use the p-valve I fitted to the suit for Scapa last year.

Right, for those that have no idea what I’m on about I’ll quickly explain.  A p-valve is a one way valve in the leg of my suit that connects to… well, little Paul shall we say.  In theory you apply a external catheter in the morning, plug into the valve and you can just go underwater.

Knowing I was going to go equipped I did a bit of careful pruning around little Paul in the shower, not enough as it turned out as I immediately managed to stick some rather tender hairs to the really sticky catheter, oh well, nothing a hot shower later won’t sort I thought to myself.  Once on the boat and kitted I realised I have yet to cut a hole in my new undersuit for the hose to go through, a few tense moments passed as I managed to use a 6″ dive knife to cut a hole without stabbing myself in the thigh.  All clipped in and that was that?

Managed to go successfully several times through the dive, much to the upset of my buddy Rob, especially as I made a point of telling him as we were hanging on our stops and he was starting to get desperate.  But with a couple of minutes left to go I felt the need to go again but forgot I had closed the bolt on the valve with predictable results   That awful feeling of a warm liquid running  down my leg.  I think Rob nearly choked with laughter when he saw the look on my face and I ended the dive with a cold, smelly leg!

Took me two days to get all the glue off me, but that’s a story you don’t want to hear…

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

Before and after shots…

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