Freef

Venturing into flatland near a full moon may be seen as somewhat foolish, but as Steve wanted to get back in after his broken elbow absence I called in the reinforcements in case the remake of “The Wicker Man” has given the locals some odd ideas. Claire joined in the fun from my part of the world, and a phone call from Caroline confirmed that she, Ken and Keith were on their way from Kent.

Signing in at reception I referred to Caroline and the boys as “The C-Life Rabble” which went down about as well as most of my jokes, and I was press ganged into the buying of the first round of hot drinks. After a chat and Ken muttering darkly about revenge for the lump of granite I wedged in his twinset halo during the last half of the dive and the walk back to the cars last time we were at Stoney people wandered off to kit up. I decided to tidy up the table and found that one of the others hadn’t liked their hot chocolate that much and managed to throw half a cup of it over the table. Grabbing some napkins to mop it up was a mistake as they appear to be made out of oilskin. I think I will get a drysuit made out of them if I can, as they were extremely waterproof.

Back at the car the Dolphin is given the once over. For this dive I decided to use the 50% jet rather than the 60%, although I was still using 40% in the tank. As hyper- rather than hypoxia is the usual problem for me, I usually go with the 60 jet, but at the shallower Guildy depths even breathing 40% ‘raw’ wouldn’t be a problem. I was also using a new scrubber material, 1-2.5mm rather than 2.5-5mm. I have heard that some find this a harder breathe, but last night at home it seemed OK and not noticeably different to the larger grains that I usually use. I haven’t used Drager Divesorb since my first two barrels ran out because the price of it is now well North of £100, and the 1-2.5mm stuff I got for £57.

Predive checks complete I kit up and wander over to the next parking bay to find the others. Everyone other than Claire is diving on twins, so we look like we are either crap on air compared to her or sacrificing a non-techie to Poseidon [or Neptune, take your pick]. The big step is the only way in for me, so while Claire wanders down the ramp I am making a big splash. Caroline, Ken and Keith are off doing some practice drills, so we wave them goodbye and head down to the bus to start our meanderings around the lake. On the way down Steve and I bubble check, although if we would have seen anything in the green is up for debate.

We stopped at a platform on the way down, allowing me to perform the YD ‘Mobile phone’ joke, to mild amusement from Steve, and a sad shake of the head from Claire and a ‘you’re mad’ sign. Claire and Steve swam through the lower deck while I did a 1 minute vO2 test by fining hard against the side of the upper deck. The ankle I sprained six months ago is still painful when fining hard, and the increase in vO2 was noted, although it rose slightly during the ‘recovery’ period of fining to the next target. I may have to ask the gym I go to permission to strap on the Dolphin and take it in to do a test on one of the exercise bikes for a really thorough check as I can’t really fin too hard or long until I get the gammy leg sorted out.

Passing the lorry and car we reached the Provost, and having a look under the trestle it rests on revealed the first pike of the day. As the vis was a bit grim I ‘torched’ it for the others to see before we headed off to the wooden boat. Claire went wreck ferreting inside it, bumping into another pike in the forward cabin. She was looking at getting out of the front window, which was overly optimistic for her, thin though she is. I pointed back the way she had come, and to the right to a large hole, but she decided too wriggle out of the hole on the left, which I have to admit did rather impress me. Steve and I had bigger lumps on our backs than Claire, so we didn’t try going in. It’s not that we are of a larger calibre than Claire, honest.

Off to the coach next, and a swim through the inside, where I was stalked by a pike that didn’t look like it was going to let me out of the back door. We were eye to eye for a while until I moved forwards and muscled it out of the way. As it was about the same length that Dry Suit Diver claims a part of his anatomy is, I won the fight, but if it were any bigger I wouldn’t have chanced my arm that way.

Claire and Steve joined me, and as this is at the deeper end of the dive I was pondering the work of breathing [WOB] of the scrubber. It didn’t feel any different, but without a direct back-to-back comparison you can never really be sure. We are now 26 min into the dive, and my computer is set on 29% as a guess [sorry, I mean calculated loop fO2] although 31% would have been a more accurate setting for the percentage of O2 I was getting inside me. Following the rope up to 7m we come to the trailer mounted boat with the oh-so-funny poster on the back. This boat is home to a large number of perch, which got stared at for a bit by three weird fish before we made our way back around the lake. The vis had cleared up to about 7m at this point and we were on the hunt for pike. Around the sunken trees there were numerous pike stalking the perch fry. We saw truly giant examples almost a foot long, and the smallest was in the region of five inches. Weaving our way through the sunken trees [and once straight into one] we ran out of greenery and places for stalking pike to hide. We passed under the training area so I warned the others to watch their heads and we got back to the slope that Claire had used to get in to get out, 62 minutes after descending.

The C-Life rabble emerged just after us and we dropped our kit on a bench. I took off the 5L to refill it from the 15L in the car and joined the others for a round of tea. Ken and Keith had been practicing shutdowns and stage drills under Caroline’s expert eye and seemed happy enough. A sausage sandwich was washed down with a hot chocolate and tall tales told of diving exploits.

Claire was to lead Steve and me around for dive 2. For a change we were to head off the opposite way around the lake to have a look for any more life. Claire was made to walk the plank this time around, although I thought it would take a crowbar and kick up the arse to get her to jump. I had dropped a couple of kilos off the weightbelt this time around, and coupled with the dump valve problems, this led to me having a slower descent than usual. On the platform as a group of six I pulled the phone joke again to the amusement of no one. Caroline led off to the East with the boys in tow, Claire off to the West with me and Steve in her wake, Steve bleeding somewhat from a cut on his thumb from the scaffold pole he had injudiciously grabbed. To prevent shark attack I gave him my gloves to help control the bleeding.

I had gone back to the 60% jet with the lower flow rate of 5.8 L/min as opposed to the 7.3 of the 50% jet for this dive, with the computer set to 25%, although again, although an average of 29% in the loop and a lowest recorded reading of 28% would allow 27% to have been used with a measure of conservatism. I tend to calculate the mix, jet and loop %O2 from a vO2 of 1.1, which allows a comfort factor when heavy work is involved [a vO2 of 1.26 was the post exercise peak on dive 1], but at greater depths this means I am usually bordering on hyperoxia.

There is a square section of ductwork that lies in about 10m as you head West, and for many years I had meant to swim through it. One side has corroded, and I decided that now was my chance to bimble through it before it falls apart completely. Pushing the collapsing section to one side I wriggled in, then my wash pulled the flap on my legs, pinning me in. It was a simple matter to push it back and continue on, but then Steve blocked the exit. Claire hadn’t seen me enter the duct, so she couldn’t tell him to get out of the way, so a waving hand and the V sign to Steve got him to move. I could have just grabbed his leg I suppose, but he may have thought that a pike had got him.

We carried on around briefly before Claire’s fin strap came undone, a problem soon sorted. There was a lack of life in this part of the lake, and at 27 minutes Claire turned us and led us up to 6m for the swim back. Even at this depth life was limited to small perch and a few larger roach. I found a large mussel shell that had a couple of creepy crawlies on it. One was a small many legged light brown thing about 5mm long; the other was light brown and resembled mobile snot. It could draw itself out to about 10-12mm long and then the back end caught up and then it was fatter and about 4mm long. Trying to show Steve was a bit of a problem as he is getting long sighted and trying to see something that small is a challenge.

Finding a small pile of bricks on one of the platforms led to building a replica of Stonehenge out of bricks, Claire in charge of erection and Steve and I being the hod carriers. That used up the last few minutes of the dive that we had extended to 60 minutes and we surfaced again to a nice sunny day.

Steve and Claire had both had enough diving for the day and were off home, so I joined Caroline, Ken and Keith for another one. Claire was a bit wet inside her suit from a dribbly neck seal and leaky boots, but Steve was fine, and despite the restricted movement in his elbow could kit up with no problems.

The others had not seen any pike on their dive, so I offered to lead to the Skyvan and have a look with them. I managed to get Caroline and Ken [with a pair of 7L sidemounts in addition to his twinset] off the big drop, but Keith sidled in down the slope again. Congregating on a platform we sorted out running order out and I led off to the East at 13m, finding the Skyvan at 14m, with a diver vandalising it with his knife. We swam through the fuselage a couple of times and then went up to 6m for the swim back, finding a large pike on the way. Back in the trees there were numerous small pike hiding, some of them probably thinking ‘not you again’.

Looking back to check on the group I nearly swam into a rather larger monster. This one looked about four feet long, although it was difficult to be sure with the tail disappearing into the weed. Giving it a wide berth [and getting my breathing back under control] I managed to kick Ken in the face for the third time during the dive. I get the feeling he was getting close enough to do something horrible to me in revenge for my past jokes.

We got back to an empty training area that was full of perch fry. After watching them for a bit I signalled the others to surface and got out myself. I waited a while, and then the bubbles moved off. A staff member was watching me, and must have thought that I was solo, so I stuck my head back under the water and managed to grab the attention of Caroline who got the group together and up.

Caroline had found a leak from the tank/valve O ring after we surfaced, but as the tanks have just been O2 cleaned, Kent Diving will be having them back to try again. Ken bought cake for us all after we had tidied up and was last seen exiting stage left, pursued by a flock of geese.

Well, over the six months since I sprained my ankle I have managed a total of 22 dives, and I had done 28 in the three months leading up to my injury. I dive all through the winter, and I hope that next year I can actually get a salty one in.

DIVE DATA

Dive 1

19.5 m
62 min
vO2= 0.81

SI: 1:48

Dive 2

16.5 m
60 min
vO2= 0.60

SI: 1:38

Dive 3

16.2 m
37 min
vO2= 0.78

__________________
David.

Diving the mahogany rebreather.