The Year Ahead

Well at this time in the year I always start thinking of what I want to achieve within  the next year, this includes holidays. So where do I start, firstly my main goal is to complete all my PADi Tec 40,45 and 50m. Which will then allow me to do some deeper dives over the summer, gaining experience ready for doing my Tex Instructor course at a later date.

Hopefully by Easter 2011 I will have enough certs to apply for my Master Scuba Diver Trainer(MSDT) Instructor.

Holidays
To be honest I wouldn't mind going to Egypt to finish my PADi Speciality Instructor which will allow me to teach nearly 20 speciality courses. I'm already looking forward to going back to Zante in Greece for some more caves and caven diving, as for the rest of the year it's either going to be 2 weeks in Thialand or the Maldives.

Also a few long weekends in Malta to hopefully do the first of my PADi Trimix course.

Teaching Nitrox Speciality Course

Now that some of my PADi Speciality Instructor Certs are hrough one of the courses I can teach is the PADi Enriched Air (Nitrox) Course. So I've had a couple students complete the course.

So a big congratulations to Carl and George.

Onward to Tec deep, deeper and deeper still

Well having done some TDi Tech courses earlier this year, as part of my IDC package we can also go on to do the PADi Tec Deep Instructor.

This awill allow me to teach down to 50m evently, however you have to be a PADi Tec deep diver first, this means that I have to shadow the the Tec40 and Tec45 courses before I can go onto the Tec50.

These are going to be run starting in March 2011 and should be finished about June. Ryby will be conducting all the training from blueoceandiving.

Strange things that you capture with a camera

Digital Underwater Photography Speciality Instructor Course

Well tonight is the Digital Underwater Speciality course which I'm looking forward to, camera is packed and ready to go.

The first part will be in the classroom followed by a dip in the pool.

My setup is a Canon 500D dSLR with either a Sigma 10-20mm Wide angle lense or a Canon 28-55mm Lense, the housing is a Sea & Sea RDX450,and  6" dome and with a Sea & Sea Stobe, this is rated down to 60m

Well we had a play in the pool doing various things, here are a few from the pool session, note to self next time check the strobe batteries before getting into the pool.

SMB fun

Hoborough Lake 12th November 2010

Had a great day at Holborough on saturday,met up with Jon, Marcel and Jim(bearded diver). Jon and Jim turned upa little late, however this didn't put us off. The first dive we had another diver call Harry tag along with us as he was on his own.


Jim and Jon finally kitted up, so the order was Jim and Jon together and myself and Marcel and Harry would keep up the rear so to speak. Marcel wanted to try out his new sony camera and I took mine along and placed it in video mode. We entered the water and set off as the visability wasn't that good around 4-6meters.

We all managed the loose each other so we surfaced and swam out to the bouy and down to the platform and then set off around the lake. Jim and Jon (bloody bearded divers) seemed to be walking on the bottom with the amount of it they was kicking up. Well as Marcel only had a semidry on after 35 minutes it was getting to cold for him so we headed back to the slipway.

Dive 2: This was just Jon Jim and myself, I used this to play the roll of instructor and told them we was going to do some drysuit skills and sort out there bouyancy problems. I adjusted Jim's weighting by removing the ankle weights and attaching them to the front of him. I was going to conduct only 2 skills which was pin pivot and a horizontal hover. We entered the water and swam out to the platform and desended down to it.

Jim had some problems equalizing however he got over that, we was on the platform, On with the first skill of the fin pivot to be completed both with thw drysuit inflator and then using the BCD inflator. The second skill was  the horizontal hover, once they were both in a nice hover position I got them to swim around the position it was amazing that just changing Jim's weighting by removing the ankle weights he was nearly horizontal.

It was then back onto the platform and we all set off for a swim around the lake, I led the way following the ropes, we came onto a large wooden platforms and both Jim and Jon glided over it with any problems. I swapped positions so I could follow them and check the smoke screen however they was now only kicking up around 5-10% of what they did on the first dive.

Dry dive November 11th at the London Diving Chamber



What a great time we had in the London Diving Chamber last night.

I met up with Helen, Jon and Marcel to do a 50 meter dry dive.

I now have 5 Instructor Specialities to be able to teach

I finally managed to gain 5 speciality instructor courses now that I'm able to teach, all I need now is to get some people to do the courses and then I can become a Master Scuba Diver Trainer Instructor (MSDT). So please I need some students (Victims) to practice on.




What speciality Instructor courses can I teach:-

Drysuit
Enriched Air (Nitrox)
Night Diver
Emergency Oxygen Provider
Boat Diver
Along with being a Open Water Scuba Instructor I can also do Peak Performance Buoyancy

Drysuit Speciality Instructor Course

Well another Instructor Speciality down and plenty more to go. Last night it was the turn of Drysuit Speciality Instructor.

Yet more fun was had in the pool with our drysuits on being spun around making sure that you are able to dump air from the suit should all the air end up in the feet of the suit.

Along with the usual hoovering and fin pivots both using the drysuit inflator hose and your BCD. The some kick and glide around the pool.

Can an SMB be to BIG?

 Sometimes you have to ask yourself how big do you need have your SMB(Surface Marker Buoy), well I've recently managed to get my hands on a 3meter (10 feet in old money) red smb with it's own cylinder that is used to inflate it.

Well as we was at holborough on sunday it just had to be done, we we sat doing a safety stop I passed the camera to George and out came the SMB, some people have called it a lift bag but I know it's an SMB.

I opened it up and slowly open the valve to allow som air

into the SMB, making sure I was holding the reel in the other hand and with my finger on the release button the SMB rocketed to the surface. We slowly surfaced to be greeted with all the comments form people about the size of the SMB.

However 3 meters is just right when you are doing dives at sea this gives the skipper a great view if where you are, and in large swells just makes it safer for yourself. The only problem is don't get caught up in it otherwise you'll  be rocketing to the surface with it and then you could be having a trip to the chamber in a helicopter.  

Hoborough Lake 7th November 2010

 We decided to visit Holborough Lake at Snodland in Kent on sunday, with a couple of goals, one was for George to test his drysuit after it's come back after repair and for myself to have another play with the Canon 500D dSLR and the Sea & Sea housing.

The weather was overcast and and slight wind blowing over the lake making it a little chilli. We signed in and left the cylinders to be filled.
We started to kit up it was then George noticed he'd left his BCD at home, not a great problem as you can hire them from Holborough at a reasonable price of £5 per day. The got the cylinders back and finished off kitting up and checking the equipment.

Next for me was the camera setup I'd done most of this at home so it was just a matter of doing the last few bits, checking the strobe was working making sure the lense was clean and clear of bits of dirt. A took a quick couple of photo's to make sure everything was working.

We planned to do 2 dives today, as George had never dived here before, Holborough is a great training with plenty of attractions for you to swim around and also lines run between all the items making it good for newly quialified divers to find there way around whilst having a good dive. For a inland lake the visability has always been a good 8-10m making it good for taking pictures.

 DIVE 1:For me dive 1 was all about taking some pictures making sure I could use the camera and get some good photos in the process. For George this was a checkout dive making sure his drysuit kept him dry. We headed out from the slipway following the lines to the platform , then onto the Sweet Mystery which is a large 30 foot wooden wreck in about 8meters of water. George decided to try hiding  however I found him.We left the wreck following another line this took us past a small tyre and onto a platform in 10meters of water. Onwards to the car half car in the side of the lake and then onto the old 100cc motorbike, we continued down the ropes and then turned back which brings you back onto a small rowing boat. Which we could see from at least 15+ meters. 

We started to head for the speedboat where the visability was still 10+ meters. Which made for some great photographs, one with George looking ratehr vertically challanged but nothing new there.

We then headed back out to the slip way and exited the water. on checking the dive computers we had just completed a 45 minute dive with a maximum depth of 10.1m
DIVE 2:This dive was only going to be a short one I was going to show George were the Gargoils was, I set the camera to video mode, and in we went to get them.

This was a simalar route out past the platform with the upside down bomb next to it onto the Sweet Mystery Wreck, but this time we went over it onto the raised platform and to another small speed boat. This fetched us to a large tractor tyre which always seems to have some large perch swiming around it. We then found ourself onto the mould where the Gargoils are the visability was amazing, shortly after the camera said memory card full. Somehow you can't change them under water. We followed the route back and exited via the slip way again. This dive was a maximum of 8 meters and only 25 minutes.

PADi Enriched Air Speciality Instructor Course

Well completed another PADi Speciality Instructor course last night.

After spending a couple of hours in a classs they are now letting me loose with students who want to complete there Nitrox course.

As for teaching the course it's a matter of letting the system do the work.

There is some nice formula's to remember how to do the maths because you're allowed a copy of them for the exam.

Right need some students to practice on who's brave enough then.

HSE Medical Passed for another Year

We'll got myself over to the HSE Doctor yesterday for the yearly medical that all diving professionals need within the UK.

Good news is that I'm clear for another year.

Holborough Lake 24th October 2010

Went down to Holborough Lake, Snodland in Kent for a dive today. When I got up the weather was brilliant sunshine which is always a good start to the day. Along with sarah we were meeting Helen and Jon and a few others from DiveBuddy UK.

We got there a little late due to an accident on the A21. Anyway when we got there we was told that the visability was 10+ meteres, we walked on the jetty and we could see clearly down to the botton of the lake at around 8 meteres.

We all started kitting up I was using a twinset with a 140bar of 28% nitrox left over from a recent wreck dive, everyone else was using single 12liter cyclinders. On entering the water it was a nice 15 degree's C. We swam out to the plaform and used the descent line using it as a reference line, Jon and myself went down first followed by Helen and Sarah with the aim of completing Sarah's navigation part of her PADi Advanced Open Water Course.

Sarah managed to complete the resipicle part before she had some problem with the cold and her throat so it was out the water for her.

That left the rest of us, Helen, Jon and myself time for a nice swim around the lake. We descended and followed the ropes from one object to another the visability was still in the 10+ meters which made an ideal photo oppertunitity. From the platform were we did the navigation from we headed over to the "Sweet Mystery" a large boat wreck, then onto the speed boat where Helen and Jon decided to get into it and try and drive it.

Then onto the large tracker tyres were we was greeted by six really large perch which seemed happy to have there photo's taken.

We carried on following the rope when the we started to ascend upto around 6 meters where on top of the mound was alot ot objects from a cannon, anchor and a ships compass, however the strangest object was a statue of a gargoil, Helen decided that it needed a kiss only to get a nice slimmy return kiss from it, good job she never used tongues. Over the mound still following the ropes we came to yet another platform then onto half a car burried in the side of the lake. You have to keep your eye's open as there is some unmarked objects, these include cannons, compasses, statues and old motorbikes.

The good news is that were going to return next sunday and have yet another look around the lake.

One thing to be aware of with Holborough Lake is there isn't any maps of what objects they have placed in the lake which makes every dive an adventure.

London Diving Chamber 50m Dry dive

Well a few of us made it to the London Dive Chamber last night to complete a 40m dry dive, however after a couple of people not turning up this all changed to a 50m dive. Got to say thanks to the guys that didn't turn up the rest of us enjoyed it even more.

Having never been in a hyperbaric chamber before I thought it would be a good idea to go have a look at one, the good people of the London Diving Chamber http://londondivingchamber.co.uk/ offer this for a small fee



Anyway on the list was Lindsey, Chantelle, Angela, Elwyn, Vicki and myelf(Paul). We paid our money and got changed into our jim jams ready to get into the chamber. We was asked to complete a simple test on the surface which would be repeated at 50m to check how we was effected by narcosis. After a briefing about the chamber and also about the dive, we all climbed inside and the doors was shut behind us.


Even though this wasn't a real dive with regards to kitting up and getting wet this was going to be a first for alot of the group including myself down to 50m.
As we started to descend the chamber started tp warm up and we was soon at 15m we had a quick check to make sure that everyone was OK and then it was down even deeper we was soon at 30m , and then it started Chantelle couldn't controll her laughing so we worked out that she was NARKED already and we was only just over half way down. We soon was at 40m and onwards to 50m. After about 5minutes we was down at 50m, we was given a sheet of paper which had some wording on in a set time we had to circle as many L's as possible.

Well this sent certain people over the edge, like Vicki's pen not working at 50m. We started to ascend with the first stop at 12m for 2 minutes then 9m for 6 minutes, followed by 6m for 28 minutes.

After getting to the surface we all completed our logbooks and checked our dive computers mine read 50.2m.

Result for the narcosis test well I scored 25 on the surface and 25 on the bottom.

PADi Night Diver Speciality Instructor Course

Last night completed the PADi Night Diver Speciality Instructur course at Holborough Lake, near Snodland Kent. The tempature was dropping rether quickly with the clear sky's I'd say it was down to 5-6 degrees by 7.00pm.

Ryby(http://www.blueoceandiving.co.uk/) our course director went through all the explaination of what needs to be achived by the students over the 3 dives. This included signals, talking about torches and also how to prepare for the night dive. e all kitted up and headed into the water, it was warmer in the water than out.

It had been aggreed that we would do 2 dives tonight with a short surface interval then onto dive 2. We all descended down to an 8m platform.



Dive 1: This dive was more of a navigation dive around the objects in the lake this was with the torches on the visability was upto 10m and the perch and the small pike were out looking for food

Dive2: We descended back to the platform then one by one we switched our torches out waited around 30-40 seconds for our eyes to adjust to the light, then Ryby led the way as we all went off for a swim with the torches off. even though we had no lights it was amazing how much you can see with very little light, we all managed to get back to the platform.

Well that was another PADi speciality Instructor course completed so onto Enriched Air next.

Where Next ?

Well after completing my PADi Open Water Scuba Instructor Exam in about 10 days I'll be allowed to teach students for the first time.

The next thing I'm looking at is being able to teach some specialities.

Vobster Quay 10th September

Well as I was off on holiday I thought we could have a dive at Vobster Quay on the way down to Brixham.

We'd arranged to meet James and Mark, with Sarah and myslef travelling down together, James somehow managed to have a car accident the night before so it was just left to the 3 of us.

The traffic was terrible and we arrived just before 11.00am, Mark had been sat there for a couple of hours waiting for us.

DIVE 1: Anyway finally made it into the water with Mark and myself our first dive was going to be the deepest of the day. I've been wanting to dive the Jacquin II wreck for a while, so we set off to it the bouy and started a free decent down the line, the visability was a good 10m, as we got down to 8m we could start to see the wreck beneath us, the Jacquin II is nearly 60 foot long and was lying on it's side. After swiming round it, Mark managed to get a few pictures I headed over to the PIT which bottoms out at 26m with a car sat in the bottom of it, we headed out of the pit as it was a warm 9C in there. We swam on the 13 meter ledge over to the plane wreck and the tempature came up to a nice 16C. The plane wreck is split into three sections and the first part was the tail section, then swimming through the middle section and finally through the side door of the cockpit and out throught the back.

We headed over to the Ford Escort as we was making our way up the road, I showed Mark where the tunnel starts as we started our ascent up from 12m when we got to 6m we had the usual 3 minute safety stop and then exited the water for a nice cup of coffee.

DIVE 2: Mark wanted to have a look at the Crushing works and Sarah was going to join us for this dive. So we all did a giant stride into the water, we all started to desend however Sarah had a problem with her ear which ment she couldn't equilize properly, which ended her dive.

Mark and myself waited for Sarah to safely get out the water so we could carry on as Mark wanted to have a look at the crushing works , so we swam round the side and descended down to 6m platform I led and swam over to a small boat wreck and then a drop off to 12 meters and over towards the plane wreck and onto the concrete swim through's as we came out of the last swim through we could see the top of the crushing works. Mark was snapping away , I thought it would be good to swap onto my deco cylinder of 50% as we was at 13m , after spending a few minutes looking at the steel work we headed towards the road to start our ascent to 6m for the usual 3minute safety stop at 6 meters.

We got out the water and had anoth cup of coffee, and completed our log books, the first dive had been Mark's 100th dive. Thanks to Mark for the pic's

PADi Instructor Exam

The Instructor Exams are being held in Bristol and at Vobster on the 2nd and 3rd of October 2010. The group from Blue Ocean will be travelling down on the friday and staying over night ready for the start at 7.30am.




Day 1

Meet up and get a breifing from PADi staff regarding the flow of the weekend

Standards Exam50 questions from the PADi standards this is an open book exam lasting 1.5 hours

5 Core Exams

12 questions on each topic closed book

Physics

Physiology
Equipment
Recreatational Dive Planning
Enviorment

Knowledge Development Presentation:
OWD Manual, Knowledge Review Chapter 5 question 6 eRDP ML

Q. What is the minimum surface interval required between a dive to 18 meters for 40 minutes followed by a dive to 14meters for 60 minutes.

A. 28 minutes


Skills Circuit: Jon was the lucky man to pick the skills circuit that we had to do, we later found that it didn't matter which one he picked they was all the same.

1. Weight Belt removal at the surface
2. Alternative Air Source Use
3. Hoover
4. Mask removal and Replace

5. Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA)

Teaching in confined water:

Skill: Neutral Buoyancy Underwater (Power Inflation) OWD Course Dive 2

Day2

Teching in Open Water

Skill 1: Alternate Air Source Stationary OWD Course Dive 2

Skill 2: Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA) OWD Course Dive Flexible Skill


Rescue Assesment
These are two very long days and you feel drained after you have completed after the exams you get some time to prepare the classroom presentation, then a short break and into the pool for the skills circuit followed by your confined water presentation. Is required the following:

BREIFING
DEMOSTRATION
STUDENTS DEMO
DE-BREIFING


You are then free to leave and relax that evening ready for day two. If you have failed any exams from the Core Exams then you can resit them in the morning, I'm glad to say that I didn't need to resit any part of the IE.

Finally I was given this

On with the PADi IDC

I've now started my PADi IDC (Instructor Development Course) with Blue Ocean Diving , the first 2 days are all classroom based, going through all the PADi standards and understanding how modules and courses are taught.

Tonight is the first pool session watching a presentation to get the feeling and know how it's done.

4th/5th September was a full on more classrom room presentations with my second classroom presentation of the "5 pieces of specialized equipment used for deep diving. After 6 -7 minutes of my talk I was told that I'd achieved the pass rate however I'd managed to get a 4.0, a 3.6 being the minimum pass mark.

The evening session (saturday) was to confined water presentation the first being partial mask flood, and fin pivot using low pressure inflator. Sunday's session was regulator recovery, the second skill was remove and replace scuba unit in water to deep to reach the surface.

Well another pool session last night thought I'd got away without doing another demo from the confined open water, wrong as Justin had man flew I ended up doing "Air from an alternate source I happy with the result I managed a 4.6 even that I got a couple of things wrong. So overall a great result and the marks are going in the right direction upwards.

The IDC is a massive learning curve and you have to be committed to it as you could get anything from any of the padi courses, meaning lots of reading, more revision and more practice.

Passed the EFR Instructor Course

Managed to pass the EFR Instructor course, and it wasn't as bad as what I believed it was going to be. Top marks have got to go to Ryby (Blue Ocean Diving) for keeping it entertaining and fun as it's not the best subject in the world.

EFR Instructor Course

Well the time is fast approaching for the start of my EFR Instructor course, currently I don't know if I'm going to enjoy it or it'll be a total ball ache.

Anyway by the end of the week I should be an EFR Instructor.

Sunday at Wraysbury and a few friends from Dive Buddy UK

Some of the Dive Buddy UK members planed a dive at Wraysbury Dive Centre, well With Cel, Tony, Phil and myself (Paul) managed the early morning. With Diego giving it a miss at the last minute.

The weather was overcast however the temperture was twenty degrees, after a few coffee's we got ready and headed into the lake.

Tony, Phil and Cel and myself was the buddy group. This was a checkout dive for the new camera housing and the Canon 500D, all the time I was thinking I hope it doesn't flood. To help with my buoyancy problems my wing was leaking air so I had to use my drysuit instead of the wing which was fun considering I had a twin 12's.

Tony took the lead and started to guide us all over the lake we visited a few platforms and then off to some boat wrecks, back to the VW Camper van. Then through the trenches to large boat wreck and onto the dragon boat.
The visability was not at it's best however with Tony guiding us round the lake we was heading in the right direction.



As we had been in for some time Cel was getting low on air, it was getting time for us to call the dive.

Cel and myself managed 52 minutes , while Phil and Tony swam round to the other exit point in the car park.

We all regrouped at the cafe and food and drinks was ordered, as we all got talking Cel turned his attention to my twinsets and after a few minutes I said that he could try mine if he wanted to. After a few minor modifications the 4Kg V-weight was removed and we kitted him up and off Tony and Cel went for him twinset try dives.


Yet another great day diving with some friends of DIve Buddy UK, if you fancy coming along on any dives, please just come along the more the merrier.

The road ahead

As my journey to become a PADi Scuba Instructor the time is fast arriving for me to complete my EFR Instructor course.

I can remember falling asleep to the EFR dvd over a year ago, so it's going to be an early night on the thursday and then some large vodka's when I've completed it.

Completion I'll have to pay them £80 for a shinny new EFR Instructor card.

PADi Oxygen Provider Certification

I recently spent a enjoyable sunday morning down at Blue Ocean Diving in Maidstone and completed my PADi Oxygen Provider Certification.

This is the perfect addition to the EFR and the PADi Rescue diver courses.

Eastbourne Airshow

After the Alunia dive we headed back into bay at Eastbourne to watch the Airshow as we had plans to dive the Oceana later that afternoon.

This was a great way to let the time go by while waiting for the next dive
All to soon we headed back out to sea for the second dive of the day the Oceana, unfortunately I didn't have enough gas for this dive so I sat it out along with George.

Alunia out of Eastbourne

On sunday the 15th August George arranged for some of the members of UK DiveBuddy to dive the wreck of the Alunia about 10 miles out from Eastbourne.

We all met up at Eastbourne Marina at 8.00am ready to board our boat for the day "SUSSEX". George and myself was joined by Tony, Mark, Cel and Dieago.

Wind could have been better however we gave it a go and headed to the lock, and then the 10 mile trip out to the Alunia.

The Alunia is one of the largest ship wrecks on the Sussex coast approximately 532 feet and standing about 6-8m up from the sea bed and lying in 30m of water. As we all kitted up and checked our gear the usual banter started .

This was Cel and Dieago's first real UK wreck dive, so we buddied up George and Dieago with Cel and myself this left Tony and Mark to do there own thing. The skipper lined up and the first 2 divers went in and down the shot line, the 4 of us had aggreed to go last in giving everyone else a chance to get clear as we knew there could be possible problems with Cel never being deeper than 18m's. It was our time to get into the water as we stepped off the lift one by one into the water. We gathered at the top of the bouy and prepared to desend down the shot line, Dieago and George went first then Cel and myself followed slowly, we got to about 12m and Cel just needed a few seconds to settle himself then down the shot line again we went. we had soon reached 20m so I stopped and shock Cel's hand he'd already been deeper than ever before, this also had the effect of taking his mind of how deep we was, we looked down and could see the dark mass of the wreck below. We reached the wreck the visibility was around 5-8m's the torches was switched on as we started to peer through the hull, George managed to spot a huge conger in one of the holes, the hull had hundreds of small pouting and the occasional pollock swimming by.

Cel followed me to the seabed where eh managed just under 27m of depth again this was another personal best for him. We continued to explore the hull however all to soon our time was up and we had to start back to the surface. I signalled George to send up his SMB passing me the reel he inflated the SMB and off it rocketed to the surface. I then inflated mine and another SMB missled to the surface we split into our buddy pairs andslowly ascended to the surface.

The boat came round and Cel got on the lift first, then follwoed by myself Dieago and George had already been picked up, as we dekitted the boat manouvored around to pick up Mark and Tony. Soon we was all safe on the boat , with Cel having completed his first wreck dive and achieved 27m also.

Rescued by the RNLI



They have found us!

 Well the first dive off the rib didn't go as planned, the day started off badly and this was before we got out of the harbour. I'd arranged to meet up with Loraine, James, Mark and Steve in the car park at Sovereign Harbour Yatch club. I was getting some petrol for the rib when James called to say he was lost and could I guide him in. I told him to meet me at the Eastbourne Swimming pool and I'd help him from there. Finally they made it, never give and ambulance driver a GPS and get a woman to drive. Well I got them to follow me down to where the rib is parked and told them that they could unload there gear and then would have to move the car to the side of the car park and then we could go round and pick Mark and Steve up from the right car park. Well they went off to park the car and was never seen again what should have taken no more than 2 minutes.

Well after waiting nearly 30 minutes I decided to go round and pick Mark and Steve up. It was no better with them Steve managing to loose his mask in the carpark, and Mark just taking his time so we'd already missed the tide to do the wreck dive so it only left them with a drift over the shoals.

Finally with Mark and Steve on the rib I headed back round to my mouring to see if I could find the others, then I had a call from the Marina asking me if I was missing 2 divers. Not a good call when we've not even got to sea yet. Finally I picked them up by the locks and there was 4 divers and myself onboard, I headed into the lock and waited until we got the green light to leave to lock and start getting out to the drift area. On the way out the engine decided to cut out and I got it restarted OK.



Finnally at the dive site they started to get ready it was decided that one from each side then the next 2 divers they would meet on the surface and then descend together and would share a SMB between the buddy pairs, this didn't go to plan as James and Lorraine was already in the water before Mark and Steve had completed kitting up. Mark flipped off the boat then Steve, however Steve managed to loose his mask I asked him if he had a spare and he said no. So that was the end of his diving for the day. Mark headed to the other 2 however it soon become notoceable that they wasn't together as a group so I decided to follow the SMB of MArk, after around 30 minutes, finally surfaced and I moved the rib round and picked him up. James and Lorraine made it surface and I fetched the rib round and got them on the boat.



On the way back into Eastbourne the engine had enough and cut out and no matter how much I tried it had different things on it's mind. After a call out to Sovereign Diver Eastbourne  BSAC's local dive boat and them not hearing me, it was time for the call you never like to do.





Steve & Mark



"Dover Coastguard, Dover Coastguard this is Cobra 1 we are dive rib out of Eastbourne with 5 persons onboard we have engine trouble, our position is 6miles south of Eastbourne Marina" this was follwoed by " Cobra 1 Cobra1 this is Dover Coastguard please standby on channel 67"



Switched to channel 67 to be told that Eastbourne Lifeboat was already out playing games with there crew and they would be heading over to us shortly.



After around 30 minutes the lifeboat was along side and we tied on a tow rope and then the long tow back to Marina. Once is the harbour entrance we was brought along side and waited for the work boat from the marina, they explained that the Coastguard would be waiting to talk to me in the lock which was nothing to get worried about. Sure to there word they was waiting for me. After a short chat nothing that I couldn't answer or provide they was happy.

We was first out the lock and was soon on the mooring it was then time to get everyone back to there cars with there stuff, this was just not my day.



I drove Mark and Steve round with there kit, then spent over an hour with Loraine trying to find where she had parked only to find it was round the corner.



Sad Day for James





I headed back to the boat to finish up sorting it out and getting the cylinders back in the car, monday would be fun ringing up to get someone to fix the engine.