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.







Aeolian Sky Wreck Dive

George and myself joined some of the usual Wraysbury divers for a trip on TANGO out of Weymouth for 2 dives the first being a dive on a Greek Container ship Aeolian Sky that was damaged in a storm around 20 years ago and the second dive would be a drift over a scallop bed.

George picked me up a silly o'clock (around 5.00am) for the 3hour journey down to Weymouth, well as for kit it was the usual twin 12's filled with 28% nitrox and a seperate 7Ltr pony with 50% nitrox, for the second dive I had just a singlw 12Ltr with 32% nitorx.

We arrived at the boat and loaded all the dive gear onto we was the first to arrive.
Finally everyone had turned up all the kit was loaded aboard and the engines was soon started and the mooring ropes was released and we started down the channel. The trip out was going to be about 2 hours so we had plenty of time to setup and check the kit. George and myself was going to buddy up together as we are regular dive buddies anyway.

We arrived at the wreck and Phil the skipper throw in the shotline, we arranged ourselves in order to go into the sea George and myself we the second group to go.

Phil brought the boat around and George and myself lined up to jump into the water, then splash we was in we swam over to the shotline. One quick last check and we started to follow the shotline down to what was the accomodation block on the wreck. Phil had managed to get it spot on we was at 18m. We dropped over the side of the accomodation block and onto the lower part of the wreck which was around 28-30m,

George was already looking for eating crabs or lobster, he;d already missed a lobster. As we continues to look at wreck we both saw the mother of all lobsters, what went through my mind was I was going to need a bigger bag to put it it, however this lobster was having none of it and then decided it would chase us, so we let it off.

After 30 minutes on the bottom it was time to ascend we moved up to around 25m and George sent up his SMB, we did a deep stop at 21m for a minute this allowed me to swap onto my 50% deco cylinder and then made a nice slow ascent upto 6m where our final safety stop for 5minutes.

Once on the surface Phil brought the boat around and George got on the lift first then I was on next, that was dive one completed.

Once everyone was on the boat we headed back in to Weymouth so we could do the Scallop dive, which was only going to be around 30 minutes. Phil provided us all with hot cross buns and more tea's and coffee's.

After nearly 2 hours we were ready for the second dive a few people decided not to dive however this didn't stop George and myself, so in we went again this time straight to the bottom and start looking for scallops, they was all around us and we managed to get around 50 between us.

Once back onboard we started to sort them out with all the undersize one going back into the sea, we ended up sharing about 40 between us.

We moored up again unloaded all the dive gear and went round for a drink in the local pub, then after we had fish and chips on the quayside

TDI Gas Blender

Having started down the road of TEC diving I thought it would be better if I knew how to mix the DEVIL GAS myself. I booked myself both the TDI GAs Blender and Advanced Gas Blender courses at Wraysbury. The Gas blender was the first course which gets you mixing nitrox blends upto 40% however with the simple formula's you can mix anything upto 100%.

AS Wraysbury has a HASKEL pump they can get the most from there O2 cylinders which makes blending more fun. There approach is more old school none of these modern mixing panels that do it for you. There your the one watching and controlling the dials to blend the gas.

Well I mixed around 6 different mixes, and it amazes me still that giving it a simple shake can make all the difference, all of my mixes were within the 1% allowed.