We were a mix of diving configurations and preferences and the buddy groups fell into obvious groups. Chris Hastie and Josh Evans, Alastair Manning and Andy Dale had all worked hard to get themselves ADP (Accelerated Decompression Procedures) ready for the trip. They were kitted out like the proverbial Christmas Trees with nitrox twin sets, 80% deco stages, massive torches and other bits and pieces. They got the longest, deepest dives by a mile and saw the most though, so were happy with all the faff. Jon Arthur, Andy Bacon and Nick Todd Jones were simple air twin sets so had plenty of gas for time but were limited by deco considerations. Mark Jeffery and Sophie Hastie had single nitrox cylinders, so got longer bottom times and were happy a little shallower with the good light.
We dived all the classic WW1 German Fleet wrecks—the Dresden, Cöln, Karlsruhe, König, Kronprinz Wilhelm, Markgraf and Brummer. We also dived a couple of smaller, shallower wrecks—the F2 and V83. Emily’s legendry briefings gave us lots of background information on the history of the fleet and their place in WW1. The guidance on what to look for was invaluable as some parts of the wrecks looked like a pile of twisted junk metal. I have developed a new obsession with huge guns and reckon that the best place for them is at the bottom of the sea and covered in anemones and starfish. Most of the wrecks are covered in squidge life, congers and fish. Some of us were treated to diving guillemots and a seal on the Cöln.
The 11th was Chris 60th birthday and he woke to find the kitchen festooned with banners and balloons. The celebrations continued with a humungous cake on the boat courtesy of the amazing Emily and a slap up dinner at the house thanks to Alastair. A second cake followed dinner which had been smuggled into the car for the journey to Orkney by Sophie.
We managed to cram in some exploration of the island too. One surface interval was put to good use to visit the fascinating and informative Scapa Flow Museum on Hoy. This gave some excellent background to the history of Scapa Flow and its military importance. Some of the group visited Skara Brae Prehistoric Village, The Ring of Brodgar stone circle and St Magnus cathedral in Kirkwall which had an impressive model sun exhibition. A foraging otter was spotted at Ness point near Stromness one sunset by Sophie and Chris!
Thanks to everyone on the trip for being such great buddies and friends. Especial thanks to Alastair. His careful planning and attention to detail meant that the trip went without a hitch and everyone had a great time.
]]>The ferry security arrangements came as a bit of a surprise and interfered with our carefully made supper plans, but it wasn’t long before we boarded the ferry and set sail for Douglas. The journey out of Liverpool was particularly memorable, giving us some impressive views of the Mersey, the riverside architecture, and a very extensive wind farm, all lit by a setting sun.
Once on the Isle we headed south to Port St Mary to find our home for the next few days—a comfortable self catering house run by the same people as the boat, the excellent Isle of Man Diving Charters. We unpacked and got some sleep, ready for diving.
The next morning it was down to the dive centre to meet the skipper, Mike, and his crew, and to be briefed on the diving. As we got our kit together and ready to transfer on to the boat Mike described us as ‘quite efficient’, which should perhaps become the club’s motto! The boat, the Kirree Varrey, could probably technically be called a RHIB, but it is a RHIB in a different league to Hornet! With a spacious wheel house, lift and tea making facilities it soon became clear why they’d laughed when I asked if getting in involved rolling off the tubes!
Much of the diving was scenic, with one wreck (the Clan MacMaster) on the last day. The viz was very good to start with, but suffered a bit after the arrival of Storm Betty. Thanks to the crew’s skill and local knowledge we managed to get in three days of diving, including a seal encounter, despite the storm. Sadly Saturday was blown out as Betty battered the Isle of Man from the south east, the only direction that the skipper couldn’t find shelter from. Fortunately, despite the wind it remained dry during the day and gave us a great opportunity to explore a bit of the Isle and go for a bracing walk along the cliffs.
We also managed the odd outing after diving. One evening we set off to ascend Snaefell Summit (probably should have checked the transfer tables first ), but were thwarted by practice for a classic motorcycle race, which seemed to have closed half the roads on the Isle. After some complicated navigation we managed to get within sight of where we were aiming, but could go no further, so had to make do with watching motorbikes hurtling past. Some were more impressed by this than others.
All in all it was a fantastic long weekend, superbly well organised by Alastair, and with a great service from Mike and the team at Isle of Man Diving Charters. For most of us it was our first visit to the Isle of Man and it was great to get to see and dive a new place. Big thanks to Alastair for organising it, and to everyone who went for being great company.
Having suffered a broken rib 12 weeks ago, I had only managed a few days at Stoney since qualifying, I was seriously doubting whether I should be going on this trip. I was reassured that this trip was designed for newbies and my dive buddy would take good care of me. We had a mixed forecast, cloud, sun, rain and plenty of wind. We were a group of 12 in a mix of different types of accommodation. I had opted to camp thinking this would be where the party was.
Diving on Saturday and Sunday was looking doubtful due to the exposed conditions – the forecast was force 5-6 south westerlies. On Friday morning, Bryan from Swanage Boat Charters cancelled all of our planned dives and it looked like we might only get to dive Swanage Pier. I was feeling quite relieved at this prospect—the only one!
We congregated in the carpark on the Pier to get ourselves ready. The sea didn’t look too scary, beautiful clear water, not too much swell and steps leading down to the waters’ edge. My buddy Angie at my side, looking out to sea, calmly talking me through our dive plan and assuring me this would be fun…
We kitted up, buddy checked and made our way into the sea.
The water was beautifully clear and not too cold, which was just as well for those with leaky suits. We made our way under the Pier in 3m of water to be met by many fish, most of which I didn’t recognise. Apparently, the fish to see was the Tompot Blenny—a cute little thing with horns on top of its head hiding in little crevices.
The dive went well, meeting up with other pairs from the group, posing for photos and trying to look like I had my buoyancy under control. On the return we were swished around with the returning tide. The biggest challenge to this dive was getting our fins on and off amongst the slippery rocks.
Due to the uncertainty of diving from the boat on Saturday and Sunday, Simon had managed to bring the trip to the Fleur de Lys forward to that afternoon… Was I ready?
We boarded the Viper, listened intently to the skipper’s brief and all too soon were jumping off the back. At the top of the shot line, heart in my mouth, Angie gave the thumbs down signal and off we went. Slowly we descended, eventually I could see the bottom and my breathing rate calmed and it was just like being at Stoney Cove, only here the visibility was much better with fish everywhere. As we set off the current became evident, and I didn’t always find myself where I wanted to be in relationship to my buddy (if only I had better finning skills!)—occasionally I was alongside, above, below and behind with fin in face. We made our way around the wrecks, there was plenty to see including numerous other divers who also had to be avoided. To be honest it was all a bit of a blur and time whizzed by. Eventually we broke onto the surface with BCD jackets inflated. Viper seemed to be charging back to us looking quite menacing from the water. We all grabbed the rope hanging off her starboard side. One by one we were lifted out of the water. Stepping onto the lift wasn’t as easy as it looked, light distortion plays havoc with one’s perspective. Kate had warned me about this and I lifted my knee extra high and was thankful for my short RK3 fins. As I returned to the deck my fellow divers gave me a warm clap, I think almost as relieved as I was, it had all gone really well. We were all treated to a warm drink on our return to shore. That night we dined together at the Anchor excitedly exchanging sightings, photos and experiences, it was a great end to a fabulous day.
Arriving early at the pier on Saturday we learned we were going to do a drift dive in the morning and if possible the “Valentine tanks” in the afternoon. Conger eels!!
We set off on Mary Jo to the drop off point and jumped off like lemmings one after the other. This time a controlled descent with no shot line. Staying close to Angie we slowly made it to the sea bed, our DSMB was launched and off we cruised, the sea bed whizzing along beneath us. This was great fun, pointing out to each other with excited squeals as we floated over the various marine life. This was my sort of diving, particularly as my finning muscles were fatigued! We saw undulated and spotted rays, dog fish, lobsters, crabs and flat fish. Sadly our gas supply indicated returning to the surface and we were collected 2 by 2. What a fabulous dive!
The decision had been made to take the boat out to the Valentine Tanks in the afternoon and go visit the eels. I wasn’t going to be able to get out of it!
That afternoon we descended the shot line to the tanks. As we only had a limited slack window, we all entered the water one after the other in a sort of clumsy conga.
There were so many fish around us that, at first, I hardly noticed the actual tank. Then I spotted an eel peering out at us from underneath it. It looked pretty content and whilst it was stationary, I was relatively happy but had no intention of getting close. There seemed to be dozens of eels of all different sizes, thankfully none of them came out to play. I really enjoyed hovering in the current amongst the shoals of Bib—I would have been quite happy to just stay there and observe. Eventually it was time to go. The downside of everyone entering the water together was that we all arrived back at the shot line at the same time. The poor little buoy couldn’t cope with a group of divers holding on in the current and gradually began sinking so a couple of groups set off their DSMBs and did their safety stops separately. At the surface the sea state was picking up and getting back to the boat was quite a challenge—I found a few muscles I didn’t know I had! More hot drinks as we returned to shore and a sense of achievement and euphoria setting in.
Shoreside we wearily made our way back to camp to freshen up. That evening we dined at the Kings Arms and took a taxi back to Swanage to watch the fireworks and join in the festival with much fun and dancing.
What a great trip, many thanks to Simon for making this happen, to Angie for being a brilliant buddy, to Bryan at Swanage Boat Charters for managing to get us all diving in spite of the weather conditions, and to all my fellow divers. What a wonderful group you are. I can’t wait till the next trip…
]]>Friday night saw a frantic game of Tetris trying to fit 3 sets of diving gear (6 cylinders!), 1 set of camping gear, 2 sets of overnight gear and 3 people into a Volvo V40! A plan for pick up at 6 am while Chris and Sophie were already enjoying a gin at their beautiful bell tent having gotten there earlier! We moseyed on down the M5 in the sunshine chatting all the way and arrived at Rob Perry to collect Hornet – the first success of the weekend, hooking up the trailer and boat to Chris’s new Kuga to tow it to West Bay.
Once in West Bay, fees all paid we set about loading the boat to go diving. A quick instruction on how to release the boat for Johnny and I, we guided Chris to the waters edge with Captain Sophie at the helm and Angie as second, we launched the boat – our second success!
The weather was glorious and although we were told there were some dolphins waiting to greet us, they didn’t appear so we set our course to the Baygitano to get wet. Shot set, Chris and Angie jumped in first and we enjoyed the glorious sunshine on top. On surfacing we were greeted by big grins and exclamations about the underwater vista beneath and the plentiful jewel anemones. On mine and Johnny’s turn, we saw what all the enthusiasm was about – the visibility was spectacular, a good 10 metres and thousands of bib and cod. Enormous conger eels in numerous holes and lobsters, crabs, blennies…so full of life. We checked out the boilers at the back and found gardens of beautiful jewel anemones in purples and pinks. As it was so beautiful and the hours were getting late, we decided to hang about and do our second dive on the Baggy following homemade sandwiches and doughnuts.
We headed back to port – Angie in the hotseat this time. She may have protested at the difficulty of sliding Hornet into a small-ish gap on the pontoon but made it look effortless to those looking on and we unloaded the boat, squeezing in a quick ice cream (would be rude not too!) and planned to congregate for dinner at the Five Bells. We enjoyed a lovely meal but by 9.30pm the 5am start was creeping up on us so we headed to bed with visions of bib infront of our eyes!
The following day we headed back to the Baggy to find many a dive boat had the same idea! Some faffing about finding out whose shot was whose, Angie and Chris got ready super quick to shoot down someone else’s shot before they sent it up. Whilst under, Sophie successfully defended them from a grumpy encroaching fisherman. Johnny and I shimmied down another’s shot too which meant a good opportunity to practice DSMB deployment for our ascent – success!
We headed back West Bay direction to Golden Cap Boulders for a mooch to see what we could see – not much but an opportunity for Johnny and I to attempt to use a lift bag for the first time – success! We found nudis, crabs and I disturbed a cuttlefish, Angie found a starfish. Just a nice bimble!
Johnny had fun driving the boat on the way back while we all tried to manifest the dolphins from the day before but exclaiming how gorgeous the weather had been, how much fun we’d had and how successful the trip had been. One last hurdle to overcome…
Johnny, Chris and I jumped ship ready to re-hitch the trailer and set about retrieving Hornet from the waves. It appears that everyone in the harbour intended to do the same thing at the same time and after a bit of haggling and polite concourse, we got down on the slip ready to go – like a well oiled machine Sophie slid our boat home and we got her hitched. Back up the slip to unload and clean off – Success!
After much congratulation and hugs, we went our separate ways for fish and chips in the evening sun! Everything we set out to do this trip went exactly according to plan! We were all so pleased with the personal goals we achieved and the successes of the trip. Not to mention the sun shining on us gloriously both days. It really was a wonderful time with friends doing something we all love and proof to us all that we are capable, strong and make a great team!
]]>What a difference a couple of weeks can make! The Hornet trip to West Bay in April saw bad weather, cold winds and terrible viz make the diving very difficult. Fast forward to May and the picture had changed totally.
We were spoiled with sun, flat calm waters and superb viz. We took the opportunity to dive out at the Eddystone lighthouse and also a fantastic reef system called Hand Deeps. Both sites offer superb diving. We stayed out and had lunch on the boat making the most of the sun and lack of wind. It was almost mediteranean. On the return to Plymouth we even had a pod of dolphins escort us for a while. This is a sight that I will never grow tired of seeing.
Great diving that rivals anywhere in the world at these sites. Another weekend of great company and diving with Stratford Divers.
]]>The next day did not give us better conditions. We helped tow a stuck motorhome out of a very muddy campsite! We did launch and attempted a dive on the High Ground Reef but viz was so bad we aborted and went back for fish and chips.
Still a nice weekend. Hornet was running well and I enjoyed the good company as always.
]]>Simon has been an assistant instructor for a while and has been actively supporting the club’s training programme, proving himself to be a fantastic asset to the club. We’re delighted to have him joining the Open Water Instructor team and look forward to him supporting many more trainees on their journey to becoming qualified divers.
]]>We stayed at Portland YMCA (£22) where we had our own rooms which were comfortable and only a few minutes from Portland Marina. In the evening some of us popped across the road to The George Inn for a drink while Steve fettled with his CCR. We ended up having a lovely meal and a few more drinks. In the morning we headed over to the marina, picking up a snack on the way to meet Skin Deep our charter boat for the day.
The skipper Ed made us a brew while we kitted up. We knew the visibility was going to be poor and Ed offered us alternative dive sites, but we elected to stick to the plan and dive the M2. We arrived at the wreck site about midday, as Dive Leader I gave a dive brief to my buddy for the Low Visibility, >30m, Planned Decompression Dive from a Boat at sea. Alastair and I were diving with twin 12s on 32% Nitrox mix and a 7L 50% Nitrox Deco. The skipper shotted the wreck, we kitted up and dropped down on to the conning tower then headed to the bow to inspect the torpedo tubes at 32m. As predicted, the visability was very poor so we stayed close and used torches. We then headed to the aircraft hanger and onto the stern to see the prop shaft and returned to the conning tower before ascending the shot switching to our 50% deco at 18m. Onboard we were welcomed by Ed and a cream tea, scones, clotted cream and jam.
The second dive was an uneventful drift dive at 13m. Sunny, smooth, Viz: <1m, Air Temp: 20°C, Water Temp: 9°C
Here are the winners in each of the categories
]]>Hilary and Miles, Dan and Ellen, Jon A, Hoppo, Sally, Simon and Diane, myself (Abi) and Johnny boarded the first of 2 flights on a 6-leg trip to Negros Orientales. All went well if very long and we found ourselves at the hotel for the first night—what do we do? We need beer! So off out into the streets of Cebu city for some very lukewarm chicken and noodles (only cost us £20 for all 11 of us though!) and some 7.9% Red Horse beers!
The following day, we boarded the coach (and awaited Jon A) and began our very bumpy and squeaky 5 hour journey to the south of Cebu where we’d meet the ferry across to Negros Orientales. Cebu is a city of 2 halves like many in Asia – a sleek silver skyline of modern office buildings and malls adjacent to poor shanty towns on the banks of the river. We found much the same in Dauin, our final destination, and the strangeness of everything being in English! Our hotel was traditional Philippino architecture with rooms on one side in a 2 story thatched building and opposite across lawn and coconut trees, an open bar/dining area with the diving equipment facing the beach. It also features a lovely pool with views out to the sea!
We were greeted by Corrie and Jonathan and lashings of ice tea and fresh mango—so, so delicious! After some introductions, housekeeping and dive chat, we unpacked and stashed our dive gear in boxes to go on the dive boat—gorgeous traditional Bancas (on boarding the following day, we climbed the gangplank assisted by an unlikely handrail—2 sailors holding a trunk of bamboo!).
We were so fortunate with the choice of hotel—the rooms were bright and clean with lovely lounge chairs to sit and chill in-between dives. It was a shame we didn’t make much use of the pool as we didn’t have the best of weather, if we weren’t woken by the rain, we were woken by a range of cockerels, some regal, some strangled—didn’t really matter to us, we had to get up to get wet anyway! (I did brave it at 6am one morning in the middle of a downpour to the amusement of the kitchen staff—I think they questioned my sanity!) So, of an afternoon, after a nap, we’d sit and watch the rain, avoid mozzie bites and drink cocktails! We were very blessed with the quality of the food though—every night we were spoilt for choice on delicious Philippino, Italian and American dishes. The lovely bar staff kept us stocked with rum and cocktails. We even had a special night with a Philippino beach BBQ (it had a British touch with the rain!) music from our dive guides and a pack of very friendly beach dogs! Two nights we ventured out of resort, a 10 min wander in Dauin—once to see Jonathan sing with his Aussie pal at Finbar where we met proprietor Lucy, a British traveller who never made it back and the Lokal—where Hoppo got the waitress excited ordering “Sex on the Driveway”! Courtesy of the Noakes we had a hilarious evening of Bingo with Dan calling all sorts—eventually making up the rhymes to go with the numbers and Sally winning after repeatedly requesting her final number! It was all too much excitement for Jon A who fell asleep in his chair! One night we also celebrated Sally’s fantastic achievement of 1700 dives—Corrie had the kitchen prepare a beautiful cake as a surprise and we all shared stories of our some long and some short diving careers!
Our diving generally consisted of 2 dives in the morning from the banca with a coffee/mango/Choco Mucho bar break in-between then home for lunch then an optional afternoon dive. We had a fantastic crew and 3 dive guides—Ace, Rommel and Gabby. They were superb at locating so many interesting critters even if some in the group grew bored of the nudis! Most of us managed 3 dives a day as there was so much to see. The local government and dive shops have made such an effort to prioritise the marine environment and all along the Dauin coastline, carefully laid buoys and lines outlined the no boat areas of both natural and artificial reef and protected seagrass. On our days in Dauin, we’d scoot along the shore, never more than 15/20mins from the hotel and find beautiful life filled reefs full of colour and character. In-between were interesting areas of muck diving where we found all sorts of unusual things. We were amazed how healthy the artificial reefs were and remarked so to Jonathan who informed us how well they’d taken in light of them not being very old. Nearly every dive we met both green and hawksbill turtles (one evening Jonathan who it turns out is a turtle nut, gave us an enlightening talk about the local turtles and surprised us with many interesting facts, the main being that turtles can breathe through their bums but also that there are less than 20,000 hawksbills left in the world which meant our meetings with them took on another level of appreciation). We saw the usual reef inhabitants in numbers—octopus, ghost pipefish, many colourations of scorpion fish and schools of juvenile barracuda. On the muck dives, we’d descend to what appeared to be a lifeless muddy bottom but our guides managed to find a number of yellow spiny seahorses (my personal highlight), pipehorses, leaf fish, eel gardens, nudibranchs, knifefish, cowfish, mantis shrimp and cuttlefish. Amongst the seagrass we met more turtles, bristletail filefish, cuttlefish and more spiny and great smooth seahorses.
Two of our diving days were spent in Apo Island—a small island surrounded by protected marine reserve about 45 mins across the channel from Dauin. Although we didn’t set foot on the island, Tesco Express came to us in Philippino style as ladies in small bancas pulled up alongside and boarded with bags and bags of goodies. There was a wide range of diving experiences to be had on Apo – glorious reefs walls descending to 30/40m where we found a very unusual electric clam – we all got close for a nosey before finning backwards at pace when our guides slate stated it had 5000V! Turtles (they almost became humdrum!), morays, huge bluespotted cornetfish, batfish, and more! Beautiful shallow coral gardens thronged with turtles and clownfish filled anemones and unusual starfish including Dan’s favourite that looked like Patrick from Spongebob and Jon A pointed out a large crown of thorns. An exciting drift dive off the northern side of the island on which we saw schools of jack hanging out and sea kraits. And on our final dive, a very unusual dive site where bubbles are released from the sea bed – it was such an unusual sight and the feeling of warm fizzing bubbles under your hands was strangely thrilling! Our journey home that afternoon took a dismal turn when we were blanketed in fog and drizzle and completely lost sight of the coast – but trust in thy faithful captain we had and he soon had us home, we have no idea how, we passed the time singing sea shantys under Sally’s excellent conduction!
We also had the opportunity to do a night dive—and it turned out to be truly remarkable. We couldn’t believe it when our guides managed to find all of the above on a single dive! Seeing seahorses at night and their colouration under torchlight was amazing, we came across a sleeping turtle, Sally spotted a huge sleeping scrawled filefish, we found a teeny tiny cuttlefish wandering along an outcrop with its tentacles and a beautiful squid who almost looked like it was glowing before jetting away. Gabby found the tinniest of frogfish—we really were amazed at their eyesight and skill at finding all these beautiful things for us to admire!
Our first rest day saw us pile into a coach to head up the mountain to the famous Red Rock Falls—only Hoppo, Johnny and I braved the thunderous waters underneath the main waterfall but we all swam in the smaller pool and Simon dislodged a coconut for us all to play piggie in the middle with! On the way there, we stopped to hop out to admire the jets of steam escaping from the ground beside the road and wandered along a very Indiana Jones-esque rope bridge where Diane took her life into her hands when she stepped on a slat that tumbled away beneath her. After the falls, we ventured a bit further down to the hot springs which weren’t as natural as we were all expecting, but rather large stone ponds fed by the springs full of locals enjoying a warm social soaking! We had a slightly ropey lunch then onto a local World War museum which was owned, stocked and run by an older gentleman who had personally undertaken to find and collect as many artifacts as possible – some very reverently displayed alongside Darth Vader’s helmet and a 1980’s Dalek karaoke machine!
Johnny and I also ventured out on our second rest day on a habble-habble (a motorbike with an extended seat which took up to 5/6 members of a family!) up to the coffee plantation at the top of the mountain. At the end of our hike into the rainforest, we were rewarded with beautiful views out over the coast to Apo island and a enlightening tour of their medicinal and edible plants. We concluded our tour with a very, very strong coffee and hot chocolate before heading back down (luckily abit slower!) to the hotel.
For a 10 day adventure at the end of a 34 hours journey, I really think we made the most of our trip – the hotel, its food, lodgings and staff went above and beyond, the scenery and Philippino people are so beautiful and welcoming and the diving, well it was really special. Massive thanks to Hilary for organising such a brilliant trip, we all had such a great time! Congratulations to Sally for getting to 1700 dives and Big thankyous to Miles and Simon for facilitating Johnny and my final 35m depth progression for Sportsdiver. Need to go back to spot a whaleshark, not just a fin next time!
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