The most hilarious dive in history!

Location: Eastern Kings – Type: Shore/Reef wall drop off – Max Depth: 29.9m – Length: 40 mins – Surface: Clear/Night

…MOST HILARIOUS DIVE IN HISTORY!!
1. Lost reef = lay on it! (12m)
2. Buoyant – buddy L holding to stop ascent (28 > 24m)
3. Realised – dumped air – face planted reef (24 > 28m). K caught me! 

The above is the entry from my buddy in my logbook which she took it upon herself to write after the events of, as she puts it, the ‘most hilarious dive in history’.

Just a few days after deciding I wasn’t quite ready to dive Eastern Kings, the tables had turned and I was getting set to give it a go one evening. The reef sits just off Devil’s Point (below the yellow buoy out to the left of the swimming pool) and is essentially a reef wall which drops off to 30 metres on one side and 40 on the other (I’d be sticking with my certified 30 metre limit). You have to dive the site at either high or low water, entering around 20 minutes before, otherwise you face a ropey return to shore battling a strong current in a shipping channel. You can’t use an SMB (because, as mentioned, you’re in a shipping channel) and if you lose your buddy you can’t do the usual minute search and surface (yup, it’s that pesky shipping channel again); you have to follow a bearing of 330 degrees back towards shore and only surface when you get to around the 1.5 metre mark. Not much info to keep in your head then!

There were four of us in the group and I was buddying up with someone who I trust implicitly when it comes to diving. If she hadn’t offered to guide me on my first Kings experience (she’s dived it countless times), I doubt very much I’d have done it yet!

At Kings you follow the sloping bottom down to the reef at around 12 metres and then gradually get to 30 metres by following the wall. Although I knew roughly how the site is shaped, I seemed to forget all of that once we’d got a little way down. I’m still trying to figure out how much weight I need with my new BCD and with a 15 litre cylinder instead of 12 as this was a deep dive I was having problems with my buoyancy. We got to 12 metres and the start of the wall, but not expecting such a drop, I started sliding down the wall. I managed to fall on my back with the cylinder weighting me down and essentially became pinned against the reef wall! At that point I didn’t realise I was on the wall and wasn’t making much of an attempt to right myself. My buddy had to pick me up and turn me round after realising I was getting nowhere fast!

Mishap number one complete and I couldn’t believe the sights that greeted me on the reef. Considering it was so dark, the vis was phenomenal and the colours, and range, of life under torchlight incredible. Just a few metres along the wall we bumped into a gigantic lobster. I’m betting he was about two feet long. He was a classic common red lobster but was shimmering under the lights looking rather pretty. This was the first of many times I wish I’d had my camera but given it was my first dive at the site I wanted to concentrate and as it turned out, it was the right call! Fortunately one of the others in the group had his camera so captured a lot of what we saw (thanks to him for letting me use his pics) though missed this beauty after taking a different path. Instead he met some smaller siblings along the way.



Our lobster was a grander version of this little fella

After the girls played a game of ‘let’s see how quickly Mr Lobster can move when encouraged by the light’ (pretty damn fast actually) we moved on through an array of crabs, spiny squat lobsters, olive squat lobsters, ballan wrasse, pike, tompot, sponges, anemones, starfish…it truly felt like all my Christmases had come at once. I was in awe of my surroundings and squealing like a kid, so much so that I very nearly headbutted a large metal pole sticking out of the sandy bottom along the way.

A very pretty anemone



A devil crab - okay, so that's not his real name (he's a velvet swimming crab) but you can see why!

A scorpion fish

A ballan wrasse

I was still having a few buoyancy problems at this point but nothing too drastic and managed to correct myself a couple of times while my buddy made sure I was in the right place the rest of the time (unbeknown to me until afterwards when she said she’d been holding onto me by the SMB attached to me at times to make sure I stayed in one place). That’s taking the guide role to a whole new level!

It was at 28 metres that the moment that resulted in this post’s title came about. What went wrong I’m still not quite sure, but regardless of that, we came to a point where I started drifting upwards quite quickly. My buddy was behind me and sprang in to action just in time to catch a fin while I was struggling to find my inflator hose to get rid of some air. I’d managed to get my snorkel tangled up with my hose and couldn’t get a hold of the deflate button properly, hence still creeping upwards. Having eventually managed to grab it, my logic was that I’d gone up so fast that I needed to get rid of a lot of air. So I held the button down as long as I could. Bad idea! In the space of a few seconds, I’d gone from my buddy holding my foot while I ‘stood’ vertically in the water above her,  to ditching all of my air, falling four metres, and hanging vertically upside down. All credit to her, my buddy was still holding onto my fin, albeit from a very different angle. As amusing as that sounds in itself, here’s the clincher. What I didn’t realise was that one of the others in the group was directly below us, a few metres down from where my comedy ascent/descent had started, so I’d managed to land head first on top of her, face planting the wall at the same time. As unsuspecting as she was, she did a great job of catching me!

After the drama of that part of the dive, we made our way back to shore a little more gracefully (though I still needed a helping hand). Somewhere near the end as the water was getting shallower I disappeared on up and promptly descended back down. My buddy said she was going to follow then decided I’d come back!

The below graph of my dive profile will give you some idea of my variety of ascents/descents. Generally, the smoother the line, the more controlled your buoyancy was, so you can see from the sharp spikes I was having problems!

Profile logged by my dive computer. Spikes = buoyancy issues!

We surfaced at the end of the steps up to the swimming pool; a perfect bit of navigation from my buddy. My first words: ‘Incredible’, ‘embarrassing’ and ‘what the hell happened there?’. Her first words were incomprehensible through her laughter! My entertainment value is priceless!

We got rid of our kit (I still had to be helped up the steps after the cylinder got ten times heavier out the water) and headed back down to the shore to meet the others. My buddy greeted the diver who I landed on with a shout of ‘nice catch’ while I muttered an apology of sorts!

Despite the various incidents, I’ve no doubt my first Eastern Kings experience was my best dive to date. It may not have been perfect in terms of best practice, but we saw so much, the vis and conditions were amazing, and we laughed until we were close to tears.

At every opportunity while you’re training, PADI literature will tell you that ‘diving is fun’. How right they are!

N-ice time for a dive

I’ve been finding myself doing more and more dives lately, and the more I do, the more I want to do! If I were to continue writing about every dive as comprehensively as I’ve done so far, I’d probably have to miss out on a couple of dives in favour of updating this blog, and that, my friends, just isn’t going to happen. As much as I love capturing the fun and frolics of every outing, I’ve decided I’ll have to start being selective. Otherwise I’ll get repetitive strain injury from typing so much and you’ll get bored too easily.

Instead, I propose a brief (don’t look up the dictionary definition of that word after you've read this post) mention of each dive but will stick to the detailed ramblings for the most enjoyable and interesting underwater adventures. In the last ten days I’ve logged six dives. By my standards (and that of diving in the UK in a wetsuit in January) that’s pretty impressive!

Location: Waterfront – Type: Shore – Max Depth: 7.3m – Length: 36 mins – Surface: Icy

It started with a trip to the Waterfront off Plymouth Hoe one evening. That was the day it snowed. I’d woken up to a blanket of the white stuff, a few centimetres deep. At 7am I was playing in the snow in my garden (as was Scuba Smurf), and by 7pm I was under the sea.

Scuba Smurf going for an ice dive

 

I think the word ‘mad’ was bandied around a few times during the afternoon prior the leaving work, but it was 8c in the water; none of that -1c we had on the surface.

We had a decent dive. The vis wasn’t great and I took a while to settle in having not done a night dive for a while, but I enjoyed it, saw a few different creatures and had fun with my two buddies. It did however scupper my plans to dive Eastern Kings (a 30-40m reef off Devil’s Point) late the following evening for a friend’s 21^st birthday. Having not done the site before (we tried on Xmas Eve but the vis was so bad we called it) and still being a little wary of diving in the dark, I decided to leave that for another day as I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s fun by having to babysit me!

Location: James Eagan Layne – Type: Wreck – Max Depth: 21m – Length: 15 mins – Surface: Overcast

I joined a trip the following morning to the James Eagan Layne; a 7000 tonne US ‘liberty’ ship designed to carry large amounts of cargo, which was sunk off Whitsand Bay after being torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1945. I was with a new buddy today, someone I’d not dived with before, but she was comfortable with what she was doing so I was happy. Unfortunately the dive wasn’t to be. We descended to 20 metres, following the shot line onto the wreck, plummeting into darkness. It wasn’t that the vis was bad in the classic sense (there didn’t appear to be much sand/sediment in the water), it was literally just dark, which given that it was a bright day on the surface was a little too eerie for my liking.

We found a metal object sticking up next to where we’d landed which had a few sponges and the like on it so we left the shot in the hope that conditions would improve. Not a chance! We couldn’t find the shot line again (neither of us had torches as we’d not expected those conditions) so we had to put an SMB up to ascend. This had its positives. The last time I put an SMB up I had to let go as I didn’t have the lever to release the line down far enough so would have ended up rocketing to the surface. This time, with a little help from my buddy, I managed a successful deployment and we headed back to the boat, bypassing a safety stop at five metres along the way as the swell had increased and neither of us could hold our positions. It’s not recommended, but we hadn’t been down long enough and deep enough for it to be a worry and neither of us were planning on diving again that day. I was greeted with a high five on the boat from the skipper who had been diving with me during the previous failed SMB attempt; let’s hope I can do the same again next time!

Location: Eastern Kings…just visiting

The same day, I decided to pay a visit to Eastern Kings not long before midnight to see my friends’ surface and greet the birthday boy. As I’d had to pull out of the dive I wasn’t content with sitting at home wondering how they were getting on, so I positioned myself on the walkway next to the swimming pool at Devil’s Point, alongside a few others who I didn’t know but soon realised were there for the same group, and waited in freezing temperatures for the guys to surface. I have to say, despite not being in the water, I really enjoyed it. It was so peaceful sitting in the dark watching the sea glowing under the few lights around the area and it was great to find out what they’d seen on the dive. It was most definitely the first time I've indulged in chocolate cake in the early hours of the morning in that location! 



The birthday boy de-kitting 10 minutes before he hit the big 21

Location: Elk – Type: Wreck – Max Depth: 29.9m – Length: 20 mins – Surface: Clear

A few hours kip and with the birthday diving in full swing, I was back out on the boat to join the man himself (buddy y) and his girlfriend (buddy x) to visit the Elk; another wreck which resembled a fish bowl the last time I dived it. Buddy x had forewarned us she may have ear problems though had been fine the night before so we were hoping all would be well. Unfortunately she couldn’t clear on the way down so she had to wave goodbye and left myself and buddy y to continue on down which was disappointing, but onwards and downwards. Torch in hand (I’d learnt from the previous day’s experience, although the vis/light was far better), we arrived on the Elk at 30 metres to be greeted by an array of fish. It was great drifting over the top of them, though the current was playing havoc with my ability to stay still long enough to take a decent photo!

There's a fish there...honest!

 

All too soon we had to think about surfacing. Our computers were down to 10 minutes’ no-decompression time, which is generally the point you make your way up. We ascended casually and planted ourselves at five metres for the safety stop. Having not achieved much photographically speaking on the bottom, I set about capturing some stunning portraits of some lesser known species at that depth; well, I went with what was available!

Buddy Y and moi

The shot line on the way up

My computer had completed the three minutes, but I was still waiting for buddy y to clear. We waited and waited (all of a couple more minutes) and then he told me to carry on up. In retrospect, he agreed it might have helped to let me know that his computer had told him to do another safety stop at three metres (something to do with having done a couple of dives in the previous 24 hours and the computer settings being conservative) but he was concerned I was getting cold. I on the other hand, on hovering at the surface wondering what he was up to, was getting concerned myself. Having got a yell from the boat to ask if everything was okay (I should have signalled okay on surfacing rather than continue looking under water), I hovered for a bit longer and buddy y appeared, none the worse for wear and asking why I hadn’t got back on the boat! Next time I’ll just stay in the same place!

After a great weekend of diving, a stop off at the local pub and a quick check of the tide times threw up plans for the next day and what was to become the ‘most hilarious dive in history’. But that’s a story for another day.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this little gem…I found Nemo (almost)!

'I'm a real fish!'

 

Twenty leagues under the sea

Location: HMS Scylla – Type: Wreck – Max Depth: 24.1m – Length: 40 mins – Surface: Overcast

No, I’ve not misspelt the title of the Jules Verne classic, this was my 20^th dive. I’d hoped to hit this number before the end of 2012, but the weather stopped that from happening so it seemed apt that it was my first of 2013 just a few days into the New Year.

We were heading out to the Scylla; the first time I’ve had a chance to dive it since the wreck dive on the advanced course (if you recall, the conditions were very rough). It couldn’t have been a more different picture this time round. It was overcast but there wasn’t much of a swell and the further out we got the more the sun tried to poke out through the clouds. The biggest shock was the temperature. Our dive computers were logging 15c air temp (I was disinclined to believe mine but two others said the same). It had felt warm outside but that’s ridiculous for January!

There were 10 on this dive, nine familiar faces and nice to catch up with after the holiday, and one stranger. Though I didn’t realise he was a stranger at first. I like to be friendly and this guy was just hanging around at the centre not really talking to anyone. I thought I’d seen him around before and it’s not uncommon for me to forget names if I haven’t seen someone for a while so I set off with the line ‘I’m sure I’ve met you before but I can’t remember your name’. Introductions over (the name didn’t sound familiar) I heard sniggering behind me. I, of course, wanted to know what was so funny. ‘You’ve not met him, he’s not dived in the UK before.’ So my attempt at being friendly, followed up by ‘oh, you must just look like someone I know’ turned into what sounded like a really lousy chat up line (that really wasn’t my intention)!

I was buddied with someone who I became friends with very early on in my short diving career; we did our open water course together and I was looking forward to getting back in the water with her as we hadn’t dived together since the summer when she went off to Australia for a couple of months. Checks on the boat done, we entered the water and started descending. We had to stop a couple of times as I was having ear problems (nothing unusual and I’d pre-warned my buddy). We got down to 19 metres and my buddy signalled she had a problem so we both stopped. She then signalled that her heart was racing and she needed to go up. Before I had a chance to react she was off. I tried to keep up to start with but she was going too fast so I slowed my pace and carried on up the shot line. I passed a couple of other divers coming down the line, signalled as best as possible what had happened and that I was okay (one of the guys said later that from my overdramatic actions he knew exactly what was going on) and continued up. I stopped at five metres for the three minute safety stop, wondering whether in this situation I should do the safety stop then get to the surface and check on my buddy or stay where I was. I’d never been in that situation before!

Fortunately a few seconds later the final pair from the boat came down which included an instructor. She checked I was okay (by that time she’d already seen to my buddy on the surface) and signalled for me to stay where I was while she went back up. When she came back down she signalled for me to join them to make a three. I asked if my buddy was okay and got an ‘ish’ response. I knew they wouldn’t have carried on the dive if there was a serious problem so felt okay to continue. I found out afterwards that my buddy couldn’t get her breathing under control and just needed to get to the surface and breathe fresh air. Not recommended, but panic attacks underwater can happen. She was more concerned that she’d left me whilst I was more worried about her coupled with the uncertainty of what I was actually meant to do!

After that eventful start, the dive went well. We skirted around the starboard side of the Scylla while I kept myself busy taking photos. Visibility was about four metres at best though I’d say two to three for the most part and it was pretty dark though brightened up it certain places. The wreck is covered in Dead Men’s Fingers so that was the order of a lot of the viewing.

Dead Men's Fingers on the Scylla

When we made it up towards the deck we were greeted by a few starfish. I managed to snap a couple of pictures of some smaller fish with big beady eyes but was surprised there weren’t that many around. I think part of the issue may have been that I still need to work on taking note of my surroundings whilst making sure my buddy is still in sight as opposed to there not actually being any fish there! The one time I did stop to take the below photo I lost the other two briefly. They were of course just a little way along the wreck; I knew they couldn’t have got far if I continued to follow the side of the ship in the same direction.

Yet to discover what this little blighter is if anyone fancies enlightening me   

Before I knew it, or so it seemed, we were ending the dive. It always takes me a little while to settle into a dive and sort my buoyancy out so it feels like it’s over before I’ve had much of a chance to really enjoy it. I’d imagine that will improve with experience and this was also the first time I’d used my new BCD on a proper dive (discounting the failed xmas eve attempt) so although it was incredibly comfortable, as I used up my air I started floating upwards a little and had to make more of a conscious effort (nose dive and lots of breathing out) to stay down. It also took me a minute to start my ascent at the beginning of the dive in the first place so it may be that the extra padding in my BCD means I need a bit more weight; I’ll have to test that theory!

We settled onto the wreck where we weren’t disturbing any marine life to put up an SMB. The instructor got hers out, started to fill it with air and suddenly let go of it. The rule is if it doesn’t unravel properly and you’re hanging onto it, let go otherwise you’ll go shooting to the surface with it! I got mine out, not fully convinced I was going to manage it (wrong attitude to begin with I guess) as I’d only ever done it once before with help (incidentally, also on the Scylla). After fumbling about trying to unravel it and getting myself in the right position to hold the reel release lever down and fill the SMB with air, I went for it. All too quickly I was being pulled up with it so had no choice but to let go. Not a great result! Two SMBs down, we had to do a free ascent. All went fine. We did a safety stop at five metres though were told afterwards by the instructor who spent the whole time hovering above the two of us that in the interests of safety (i.e. a boat not realising we were there) it would have been better to bypass the stop altogether.

Back in the boat, we set about retrieving the lost SMBs. The elastic on the instructor’s had got caught around the reel which was why she had to let go. I had no good excuse, though on folding it back up I did realise that my reel has just over a foot of line that unravels by itself so I would say that I thought I have the release lever held down as it initially was unravelling when I didn’t at all! Reassuringly there was also a third SMB to pick up for one of the other divers, so it was a day of lost SMBs, which doesn’t happen often.

This was certainly a dive of new experiences. The first incident left me feeling like I need to review ‘what do I do if…’ situations. We discussed it afterwards and it seems that I did do the right thing making the safety stop but I’d like to go through it in a bit more detail, especially what would happen if I wasn’t aware there were still divers on the surface as there were this time. The second realisation is that I need to practise my SMB release skills! Scuba divers never stop learning!