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.

RYA SRC (VHF Radio) Course

Sarah and myself signed up for the RYA SRC(Short Range Course) course, this is the renamed VHF radio course we did this with Sea Training Sussex based down at Eastbourne Marina, the home port of our rib.

The course consits of 2 parts the first being the correct manner into using the radio for voice calls, and the second part for using the DSC(Digotal Selective Calling). The second part is the new part of the old VHF Radio course. One of the great advantage of using DSC is if there is an emergency onboard then by simply pressing the DSC button on the radio this will alert the Coastgard that you need assistance.

At the end of the course you have to complete a test however this isn't that bad and then you'll be awarded the RYA SRC Cert.

Vobster Quay Feb 2010

We had a little trip over to Vobster Quay, rather than the usual dive lake we use.

Diego, George and myself made the 160+ mile trip to Vobtser Quay. We picked up Diego at about 7.30am because we was running late more to the point I over slept.

It was a crisp -2 degrees when we left and the 3 hour journey had made us all want some breckfast before we started.

This was Diego's and George's first visit to Vobster, I'd planed 3 dives for the day, thefirst being the deepest dive down to 20m, followed by 2 shallower divers to 12m. We all started to kit up I opted for my twinset with 28% enriched air in.

We completed our buddy checks and jumped in to discover it was a rather warm 4 degrees, we decided to can the deep dive and just go for a swim around the 12-15m mark.

Twinset Familiarisation

Booked a place to do twinset familiarisation with Mark Powell of  dive-tech yes that's the bloke who writes is Sports Diver, however I didn't know this before booking. I'd had a long converstaion with Mark before the big day and I was told there could be a few more students.

Well the sunday morning had  arrived so it was time to set off to Wraysbury from Hastings I noticed that the temp outside was a crisp -1C, the drive up there was no problem.

I arrived and parked up and waited for Mark to arrive, we sat down with a coffee and I filled in the forms and had a chat as to why I wanted to use twinset and also what I thought I was going to get out of it.

Once I'd finished the forms we went to the back of Mark vehicle where he had a selection of twinsets starting at 7L and going upto 15L, also with a few different wings to choose from.
Mark setup a twinset for me which was twin 12L's, Apeks XTC40 wing which was attached to a stainless steel back plate and harnes system, and a set of Apeks ATX Regulators.I got change into my drysuit and we put the twinset on for the first time, it was amazing how much they weighed. Well into the water for the first time with a twinset this wasn't as bad as I thought.

We went down onto a platform were Mark would demonstrate the skill then I would try my best to do it. the first skill was just a simple hoover over the platform so I could get used to the weight and feel of it all, then followed by swimming round the platform also also over it without touching it. Skill 2 was a gas shut down which simulates that one of the cylinder valves is leaking, so you have to switch of the manifold valve, then swap onto your backup regulator, and reach behind an isolate you right cylinder and see if this clears the problem, if not it's then open the right cylinder valve and swap regulators again and switch off the left cylinder valve. Finally you have to open both the manifold and right cylinder valve. We continued with a swim around and then out for a warm drink and a chat of what had happened with the dive.

Dive 2 Mark went over finning technique and was yet again a quick hoover over a platform and then a nice long swim making sure I was getting used to the wing for my bouyancy.

The day ended far to soon with my head just exploding with Tec this and Tec that, what shall I buy.

From on I was hooked into the Tec world.......!

Night Diver Course

 Well I wanted to do my PADi Night Diver Speciality and found a local club down in Eastbourne that could do this. After speaking to them they told me it could be done over 2 nights in the Marina, which was good for me as it was on the way home so I could take my dive gear to work and then straight to the dive centre to do the diving.

The Instructor Dee went through all the classroom items first and I'd already completed the the reviews.

The first dive would just be for 20 minutes and this would be the navigation part of the course, which was good as I'd dives the marina a few times and had also already completed my PADi Underwater Navigation Speciality.

As we spent a bit longer on the first dive we didn't have time to complete the second dive that night. This wasn't a problem as we always had next week.

The next week we met a little earlier so we could get the two remaining dives completed, we all kitted up and got into the marina as we descended into the darkness I led the way out, we would then stop and switch off the torches and alllow our eyes to adjust to the darkness, it's amazing how much light there is and to what you can see, the silver flecks of the small fish.

Dive 3 was really just putting it all together and we completed the dive apart from my torch decided go pop and I had to switch to the backup one .

Anyway another speciality completed.

Master Scuba Diver Certification

Finally completed my PADi Master Scuba Diver, not bad when you think I only qualified as a diver on 22nd August 2009, I managed to rack up 52 dives and five specialities which include, navigation, drysuit, Peak perfamce Bouyancy, Nitrox and Search & Recovery. As well as Advanced Open Water Diver and Rescue Diver.

Next Stop Divemaster......!