Ooops!

Freef

I managed to plonk the first few of these here:

http://www.rebreatherworld.com/surfa...-new-post.html

By mistake. If an admin could move them I'd look less of a pillock. Ta.

Anyway, probably best look at them first and then these to see if I evolved as a diver.

__________________
David.

Diving the mahogany rebreather.

Freef

Off to Dosthill again, this time with Rob. The carpark was quite crowded, but as I had been diving the site in the winter before maybe it is during the diving season [for those who have a break that is]. We had to park on the access road practically in a hedge. The Dolphin was in use again, with the plan of more note taking to work out my vO2 and then to be able to tune my gas choice for a greater depth.

Trogged down to the signing in hut to find a 25% increase in entry fee-now it’s a fiver. I nearly fell over at this above inflation increase. Trogged back up the hill to find some muppet had parked 6” from my rear bumper-well done. As I am not a plank [you may disagree by the end of this report] I had left enough space in front of my car to roll forwards a bit and to get in the boot. So we kitted up and jumped in for a wander to the right hand side. From about 14m down the vis went from OK to almost sod all. I was having a bit of a to do with my buoyancy and spent a few minutes stirring up the bottom and kicking Rob. Then Rob showed me his computer, which was blank, nice! I unstrapped my Vytec and gave him that. Although Rob dives with a backup computer/watch it’s not as easy for him to reach as my divetimer is for me to consult. We carried on the dive, which just got grimmer and grimmer. I was all over the shop and looked like I had done seven dives, not seven hundred. We bumped into the van, which I got Rob to swim through after I had stirred up the silt inside by one careless hand placement. Of course I played the same trick on him as I had Martyn and banged on the outside, but funnily Rob wasn’t impressed either. I need to find a buddy who is as easily amused as I am.

Things went further downhill from there. We somehow managed to find the little speedboat thing, and I was looking to head to the East side of the lake and ascend when my head went funny. I switched to open circuit and got ready to bail, but OC didn’t improve anything, and it was just my disorientation at the low vis. I have a scarred cornea from when I was a kid and if I look at a blank wall or surface I can see the scars, and it was this causing me to feel odd. We then saw a couple of divers below us, so we followed them for a bit until I checked my compass-North-and thought about turning right to the wall and ascending. So we went right, but instead of the bottom getting shallower, it got deeper. OK thinks I, lets try a heading of 45 degrees. Got deeper again. I’m lost now, as the depth should be somewhat less. Right, pop the blob then, so I signal to Rob we are scrubbing, and I switch to open circuit to inflate the SMB from my exhaled breath, something I can easily do while holding a 10m hover. But not today. I drop 3m to the silt, stir it up and feel a right prat. At least the blob went up OK. When we surfaced we were not too far from shore, and heading in the right direction, but I was totally clueless as to where we were. I’m glad I wasn’t leading a whole group around and Rob was too cold to take the mickey.

On the surface Rob was looking at an early bath. He hasn’t been in since 31st Dec, when he had to abort as he was coming down with a cold and felt bad. Today he was freezing cold and feeling bad. I was OK, a water temp of 8 and a rebreather helps, as does diving all through the winter to harden up. I got chatting to a lady in the queue for the food while Rob got a handwarmer out of the car. She was not having fun either, but she was still on her Ocean Diver course and in a drysuit for the first time, and foreswearing British diving. I made her day by giving her some gloves from a garage forecourt to make getting the wet gloves on easier, and leaving. I’m not sure which one made her day though.

I had a quick consult of the tables and we then got ready for dive 2, which was to be shallower and to the East side. The vis was better, and we went a little deeper while I looked for another object or 2 to play with, but below about 17m everything went very silty. At one point I thought we had found the shallow plateau at the South end of the lake, but we hadn’t. We turned the dive at that point and headed back at 5m and we came across the exit earlier than I thought we would. I had to commando crawl out to avoid a stuffing by the staff [no SMB on ascent], and bumped into Paul’s leg.

I know I was diving with Rob, and I hadn’t traded him in for another buddy, Paul was someone I used to teach with at Dodgy Dereks [Northampton Sub Aqua] and I haven’t seen him in years. We caught up and hopefully will be diving in the future, as I have enjoyed a splash with him in the past. Except for the Benny out of Portland, but that’s another story involving portholes, a missing DSMB, and thinking the boat had lost us.

Not a too unsuccessful day in all, lots of data for my vO2 calcs, and survived the experience, which is good. Into double figures on my Dolph too!

DIVE 1

24.3m 21 min vO2=1.15

SI 1h 15m

DIVE 2

17.7m 27 min vO2=0.90

__________________
David.

Diving the mahogany rebreather.

Freef

Off to Guildy for the first time this year. I was diving with Stuart who was getting wet for the first time in 6 months after he had a bijou bendette. Serena and Caroline were also there from C-Life, who I used to work for in Kent, and so were three divers who had trained with us, David, Tony and Ken. David had also been laid off diving for a while as he had fallen 15 feet off a bakery roof and very badly damaged his knee, but he had put the time to good use by having a very impressive full arm tattoo done on his left arm. The tattoo had cost him a grand, so a Dolphin works out at both arms and half a leg based on that price. Caroline, David and Tony were on the DPV course, and must have enjoyed it by the big grins after surfacing.

The Dolphin was in action again for the day, and I had 4 dives in total, the last one open circuit as Serena played with the Rebreather. ClubSub, a school from Rushden were also training 3 Open Water divers and I had the chance to catch up with Paul and Sven, whom I hadn’t seen in a year.

The dives with Stuart were to be sedate so he wouldn’t be stressed and he could have a gentle reintroduction to the under water world. He was following doctor’s orders and diving on 32% nitrox since his incident. For the first dive we got in at the left hand side of the ‘beach’ and dropped down to the 8m platforms for a quick checkup before proceeding. Stuart was straight back into his stride so we went off to the bus. Hiding in the bus were hundreds of fish, and we had a good stare at them before circumnavigating the wreck and wandering back. The visibility was pretty good, about 10m for most of the dive, and the second best I have seen at Guildy. During the dive I was on the remains of a 51% cylinder mix and tracked the pO2 v depth readings for the dive so I could have another calculation of my vO2. However the readings again appear to be spurious and I am wondering if my oxygauge may need to be calibrated immediately before the diving day in air. I have been both calibrating the night before in air and assembling the unit ready to go, and calibrating prior to first use, and it is the latter that seems to give the more accurate readings. I’m finding the unit really comfortable for diving now, and the buoyancy adjustments are becoming second nature. This was dive number 11 on my unit, no 15 in total on the Dolphin.

Depth pO2 vO2

We had an hour on the surface to soak up the sun and for me to get on the outside of a sausage sandwich. Dive two was to the left of the lake, again a slow wander around and see what we can find. Although this side of the lake is less well visited, we had a lot lower visibility on the return leg at 6-8m, which was disappointing as you can normally find a pike lurking in this area. When the vis cleared at the area close to the training platforms we spent some time looking for little life in the weeds that grow in that area. There are normally 3 different kinds of thingies in the lake, a small woodlouse type creature that is about 5mm long, a small fast moving thing of a similar size and a tiny red dot with legs at about 3mm. I think the red dots are only seen later in the year.

Depth pO2 vO2

Just over an hour was spent on the surface again, with Serena tempting everyone with her strawberry cake, and me embarrassing myself by telling Tony off for tucking his weightbelt end away. But it wasn’t his weightbelt it was his BC waist strap. Arse.

For Stuarts third dive we went at 10m to the right hand side. I jumped in from the platform that is about 2m above the water, Stuart swam around from the other entry point. As he is about 6’7” tall he was worried about hitting the bottom, which at his height is a fair risk! We took our time to enjoy the scenery and spent ages swimming in the sunken trees. Most of the trees are upright and quite small, but there are a couple the loom out of the darkness looking like giant squid with their arms outstretched, and one that looks like a ‘Graboid’ from the film ‘Tremors’. We were tiny life spotting again and I found a small worm [again in the 5mm range] falling off one of the trees. During this dive I noticed my unit venting fairly often, and after surfacing found that I had opened up the overpressure valve on the exhale counterlung slightly while showing the unit to some of the people I know up there.

After the dive I also showed them the amount of drool that collects in the mouthpiece and valve assemblies as I washed them out for Serena to have a go. Funny how no one wanted to shake my hand…

Depth pO2 vO2

Dive four saw me cross dressing into Serena’s TBK wing with single cylinder and integrated weights and her on my Dolph. We again went to the right to look at the sunken trees, and Serena was pretty good on the Dolph, but I think the positioning of the pony reg gauge, which comes over my left shoulder and sits next to the inflator, was irritating her. We saw a couple of divers pretending to be cable cars by swimming along with their octopuses [octopi?] hooked over one of the guide ropes. We both said ‘secure that ******* octopus’ I’m sure. Serena and I dive differently when it comes to buoyancy. I am of the drysuit for everything club and Serena is a member of the BC for buoyancy, suit gas for the squeeze fraternity. One thing I was aware of suddenly switching to OC from SCR mode was the need to actually bite the reg to keep it in my mouth. I’m used to the Dolph mouthpiece floating into place, and if anything pressing a little hard into my teeth. We had about 25 minutes under before I was blobbing up again from 5m to mark a rebreather ascent, something which all inland sites seem to insist on. Trying to launch an SMB while hovering at that depth leaves a sorry looking sausage on the surface, which Janette would describe as ‘no use to a girl’.

A good day was had by all, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and I got the last slice of the strawberry cake. During the last dive I felt a little colder, could it be that the Rebreather’s warm recycled gas is more than psychological, or just that 2 hours underwater in 10 degrees C water had finally chilled me? Which reminds me, as it was the first time this year I go a water temp of double figures C, summer is here, hurrah.

__________________
David.

Diving the mahogany rebreather.

Freef

Off to Stoney again for Dolphin diving with Steve, I’d rather have been trimix at Cheppy, but you can’t have everything. For this dive I was on a 42% mix through the 60 jet to lean the loop up in case we were off to the pit. With this combination the loop mix should be between 22 & 30%, just about enough for the pit. We decided instead to do a dive to the Cessna ledge, and I was to show Steve the wooden boat, which he had never seen. We were also to do the dive out at 20m, and return at the same depth, so Steve had his four tanks on, and I had the Dolph and a 7L sidemounted deco tank. The dive was also planned for deco, so the trusty Vytec was set on 21% for the Dolph and 50% for the deco. I usually dive with the computer set on 21%, but now I am homing in better on my vO2, and consequently getting more accurate loop calculations I will [hopefully] soon be able to start using a loop gas figure on the comp.

We swam down the road to 20m, headed to the BOP and over the pit keeping the wall to our right. By staying at 20m we were pretty much certain to find the 20m ledge. I’ve missed it before by staying too deep at this point, and as Steve was having to push four tanks through the water, the last thing he needed was for me to miss the stop. The vis on the ledge was pretty good at 10-12m. I found a small crayfish to annoy, which pleased me enormously. For the last couple of years the number of crayfish seems to have dropped off at Stoney, which is one of the only places the British crayfish is still found. The American Signal crayfish has taken over many of the White Clawed Crayfish habitats now, I just hope Stoney won’t be losing its population.

We hit the Cessna, and I navigated over to the barge and van, before heading back along the drop into the pit. As we neared the narrowing of the ledge there was a large cloud of silt. Steve and I felt out way through it as it looked like it might have been caused by a diver hitting the bottom, and although we [fortunately] didn’t find anything, or any body, the boat was out a few seconds later.

We made our way back around the pit, and ascended as I swapped onto my 50% deco mix and Steve used his 65% mix.

Suitably refreshed by the food hatch, and insulted by the girls in the shop again, we kitted up for dive 2. For this one I gave Steve a series of bearings to follow after we hit the Stanegarth, following a navigation exercise I planned years ago. The full course goes blockhouse-coach-Stanegarth-mini-chassis on rocks-helicopter, and takes about 40 min to complete. We found the anchor chain to the Stanegarth and pulled ourselves along it. Steve then set off on the course and made a good show of it, missing the mini by a couple of metres, the chassis by the same and the heli by about 6.

Dive 3 saw Steve on the Dolphin. Dropping in at the bus stop we went to the new APC, and down to 10m, along the wall and up to the Nautalis. Steve’s buoyancy was pretty good when he got going, the git, and we had half an hour in the water. I was diving a single 12 open circuit, much more relaxing than all that tech diving paraphanalia.

Dive data:

Dive 1:

61 min
23.8m

Depth 15.7 18.0 21.4 20.1 20.0 18.9
pO2 0.92 0.94 1.01 1.00 1.00 1.02
Loop % 35.8 33.6 32.2 32.2 33.3 35.3
vO2 0.56 0.74 0.84 0.76 0.75 0.60

SI 1h 59 min

21.6m
35 min

Depth 20.4
pO2 0.97
loop % 31.9
vO2 0.86

SI 1H 26 min

32 min
11.6 m

__________________
David.

Diving the mahogany rebreather.

Freef

Finally it’s Stoney when I planned to be there. After the ‘plan B’ instead of Cheppy, I had arranged with Geoff from BSAC 955 to meet him for some rebreather diving. Geoff and his daughter Emma are Ray owners, and Emma’s other half has just taken delivery of an Azimuth, so semi closed runs in the family.

First dive was off to the pit. This would be the deepest dive I had done on the Dolph so I was using 40% through the 60% jet. From yesterdays figures this should yield a loop O2 of 30% ish, which is acceptable for 36m. Geoff was diving 36% through the 32% jet on his Ray. The Ray doesn’t have a combined dosing and bypass valve, but dosage valves that are swapped out depending on the mix. There are only two jets available, 32 & 50%, which restricts the choice of gasses more than the Dolphin. I was diving 50% as a deco mix again, mainly to get used to the extra gear. Geoff had his computer set to 25% O2, I had mine on 21 and 50 for deco. We went down the road to the pit, around the wall clockwise and up onto the Cessna ledge for a quick peep at the Cessna and then back to the step to get out.

I only had time to get two pO2 readings as I had to fin my legs off to keep up with Geoff. I don’t know if I am lazy from multi tank diving, diving with Martyn and his little legs, or from teaching and not wanting to fin too fast. The dive was a bit of a blur, but more from the effects of speeding through the water than narcosis. The readings suggest that I should try 38-39% for 36m, still through the 60% jet. Geoff demonstrated the flow rate of the 32% jet by using all his gas up on a dive where I got through 50 bar. The 7L I was using as a deco gas tank seemed fine yesterday whichever side I wore it, but today I felt lop sided if I wore it on the right, so I may be wearing it on the left and I’ll have to get my left hand deco regs O2 cleaned. I’ll give it another dive or two first though.

The surface interval was marred by Chris, Geoff’s non diving wife, taking the mickey out of me, and a sausage sarnie. It’s nice to see Stoney toughening up visiting divers by going back to the good old days of sausages that have been re heated so many times it is lke eating a burnt stick. Thankfully mustard, gallons of, iffy food for the disguising of, was available.

For dive two we, or rather Geoff, tackled the nav course. Thankfully the compass use slowed him down and I hardly had to use the DPV I had hired. Geoff owes me a new set of batteries for the oxygauge I lent him as it was alarming all the way through the dive. I think that there may be something wrong with it at higher O2 percentages as the readings he got suggested a negative vO2, and I don’t think he is a plant, and if he is I don’t think he would photosynthesise too well at 20m in a drysuit. I did feel a bit under dressed without a pO2 meter, but as I was on the same mix as I was in the pit I was not worried about high pO2.

All in all a good days diving with a fellow SCR user.

Dive 1

34.4m
48 min

SI 1h 47 min

Dive 2

21.3m
46 min

__________________
David.

Diving the mahogany rebreather.

Freef

The Saturday after helping Caroline with her gear saw me trotting up the M6 to Capernwray. I had dived this site before in the dim distant past with Nursy Anne, who I had helped teach her OW with Northampton Sub Aqua. She’s now an instructor-may god bless all who dive with her, amen!

I remember the site being very murky and moderately basic, slightly above Guildy standards. Well, things have changed. The site boasts an impressive shop and caff building, and they don’t mind wet clobber in the caff, a real high point compared with the dreaded hatch at Stoney and Guildy being all precious about wet kit. I suppose if I was in dry clobber and all these soggy diver types were dripping on me I would be a bit annoyed though. I made the 190 mile each way trip as Yorkishire Divers and the Drager users forum were having a meet. I think the main day was the Sunday, but as usual I was playing Cinderella and missing the ball. I was to meet Lee in the shop at 1000. He emailed me and said he was ‘tall and pierced’. I’m average and bland, so I wore a bright red sweatshirt as I wasn’t able to get a carnation from the florists in time.

I met up with Lee and his friend who was over from the Czech Republic. How many times I have typed and deleted the phrase ‘Czech Mate’ you have no idea, but even I couldn’t stoop to that. I won’t even attempt to spell his mate’s name though, so I’ll call him ‘M’ as it sounded like it began with an ‘m’, although sometimes I think English is my second language. Lee, like me, has a pretty standard Dolphin, although he has a pair of 90 degree adaptors on the shell to route the hoses more comfortably. But he is a big bugger. I can make do with the standard rig.

Also there was ‘Narked at 90’ John, and his mate Andy and another chap who’s name I didn’t get. John and Andy scratch build their own rebreathers and convert Drager SCR into CCR trimix units. I was making sure that I didn’t turn my back on them for a moment in case I suddenly found I was diving a KISS valve CCR Drager.

Our first dive was with Lee and ‘M’. Lee knows the site well, so I played follow my leader and we hit the ‘oil rig’ heli, Podsnap and diving bell before our ascent. I lost Lee and ‘M’ around the oil rig, damned annoying not being able to look for bubbles, but I found them again after a couple of minutes. ‘M’ is one of those lucky gits with lead bones who doesn’t need any lead to sink, and Lee found a weight as we wandered around. The vis was in the 10m+ range, rather better than I remember. I had set my Vytec on 30%, but this was about 3% out for the loop gas. I will have to look at using the 50% jet and tuning my tank gas a bit more. It appears to be quite critical when using the 60% jet once you drop below a tank gas of 40%, and not something I want to risk. I will also plan using a vO2 of 0.90 and 1.15 for the worst-worst combination.

We had a good old chin wag on the surface, as divers, and especially those of a ‘tech’ orientation do. John and Andy had some interesting kit, I’m sure it works a lot better than it looks. The experimental CCR they were playing with was a Drager/Inspiration/KISS/Kerry McKenzie unit, with some hand made bits. It worked well according to Andy, and the only problem was a small leak from the right hand hose junction.

The second dive saw the six of us joining forces for a tour around the gnome garden, with ‘M’ taking our pics with Lee’s Nikonos 3 camera. From the state of it, I believe Noah may have used it to knock barnacles off the Ark. The Rebreather’s worked well, and we all had a great time following Lee doing his Red Arrows impression by stirring up the silt. I tried to get everyone into ‘diamond nine’ but we were three short. There wasn’t a lot to see on the dive, but we made do with what we had. There is the same type of weed at Cap’ as at Guildy, and I had a good look through for some life, but drew a blank.

On the way back to the cars to dekit we had a quick chat to some Inspiration divers. They were telling Andy he had beat the bookmakers by surviving two dives on his home brew, and since we were lined up in a row chatting they called us the ‘usual suspects’. Bloody ignorant YBOD* divers. The day was good fun, and it’s nice to be able to put faces to names when chatting on the net.

[*YBOD-Yellow Box Of Death, a term of endearment for Inspiration divers from Drager divers]

Dive Data

Dive 1

37 min 17.4m

Depth 16.4 14.4 15.9 16.7 16.2
pO2 0.79 0.67 0.71 0.79 0.79
vO2 0.92 1.08 1.09 0.94 0.90

SI= 2 h 24 min

Dive 2

48 min 18.0m

Depth 16.8 16.7 15.8 13.1 9.6
pO2 0.82 0.88 0.87 0.74 0.68
vO2 0.87 0.78 0.64 0.77 0.56

__________________
David.

Diving the mahogany rebreather.

Freef

A lazy Friday off work means a day at Stoney with Geoff and the Dolphin. Geoff’s Ray was out for a spin too, and now that he is using on oxygauge and a gas calculating spreadsheet he is tuning his mixes as I do. I ran a 40% through the 60% jet, and Geoff was running the same through his 50% jet. I had made a couple of mods to my kit for this dive, slinging the 7L to my left with a Scubapro reg, and moving the console for the bailout to the right hand side. I also bought a knife with a hose clip on it from the shiny new shop at Stoney, and as it’s made from titanium [although I didn’t know that when I bought it] I feel like a true rufty-tufty techie now. Geoff had brought Chris, his wife along to take the mickey out of me mercilessly, and Joanne his daughter to get me to marry her, more of which later.

The plan for dive one was to head over to the Cessna ledge and then around the perimeter at 20m Geoff’s tea was suitably spiked with a mild tranquilliser to stop him from fining off at 5 knots. While Geoff was doing his final kit checks I amused Chris and Joanne with a simple card trick. I also amused myself by forgetting to turn on the oxygauge before I hit the water. Although it wasn’t a serious error, and I was able to turn it on at 4m, it was somewhat complacent of me to miss such a simple thing. We wandered down the road to the pit and bottomed at 32.3 m where we wandered around the wall and onto the Cessna ledge. I haven’t been much past the plane before, usually turning right to the barge and van before heading home. I was having one of my over active imagination moments as we worked our way into the corner past the aircraft. The bottom had a circle of large-ish rocks around a darker patch, which I thought looked like the remains of a camp fire at 20m. Quite close by there was a similar formation. Geoff was swimming slowly so we could admire the view, and I was going to fill the tyre I found with air and send it up when I noticed about a dozen crayfish in it. I showed Geoff, who seemed impressed, although his admiration of my all round diving skills came to an abrupt end when I played ‘human pinball’ off just about every part of the wooden barge as I swam through it. We began an ascent to 12m at this point, swimming over the top of the transit and keeping the wall to our right we swam around the perimiter of the cove. We found a couple of 2½ foot pike to stare at, and in Geoff’s case dazzle with a torch, and a jack pike trying to get some p&q over the far side, which it was until we arrived. I was getting a bit hacked off with the hose that feeds the wing throughout the dive. It was pressing on the back of my head in the most annoying way. At 60 min into the dive we went to 5m to do a travelling stop and passed the winch block. At this point I also shut off my gas and went on to the stage. I must admit I don’t like the hose routing or mouthpiece on the Scubapro, both will have to be changed at some point. The first stage lacks the turret found on the DST4 first stage so I may put an Apeks first stage on the Scubapro second to see what happens. The other option is to use an Egress so that I am Apeks all round, but I shall have to dive one first. The position the tank sat in was also annoying, and I think I will have to reposition the ‘D’ rings to stop the bottom of the 7 hitting my left thigh, a problem I have with my 10 sidemount. One thing that did work well was using the knife on the end of the oxygauge hose as it stopped the floaty gauge a treat [pics of this are on my Dolphin site, under modifications]. I blobbed up at 70 min, the official duration of the scrubber in the Ray, and we were about half way between the pub and the galleon wreck.

Sausage [for me] and bacon [for Geoff] sarnies were called for as usual on the surface break. Chris seems to think I am the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to suitors for Joanne. I think that her judgement took the day off when she made that decision, although the offer is tempting, as I would be six camels better off. I’m not sure Joanne is too happy with the idea of her mum trying to marry her off though. Chris’ mum was there as well, but I didn’t get much help from her when Chris was picking on me.

I had a quick relax in the boot my car while Geoff repacked his scrubber. I rerouted the hose from my bailout tank [pictures on my Dolphin site] and then it was time for round two. As Geoff was running the 50% jet, and I had not used the Dolph tank during the last ten minutes of the first dive I still had 100 bar left, and Geoff had 70. The nominal figures for the flow rates are 5.8 l/min for the 60% jet, 7.3 l/min for the 50% jet, 10.4 l/min for the 40% jet, and 15.6 l/min for the 32% jet. The short version is that I would be running at just under 80% of Geoff’s consumption of gas. When I test my jet flow as part of the set up procedure I have noticed that it is at the lower end of the allowable flow rates, so that may also be a contributory factor. In we jumped, remembering to turn the pO2 monitor on. We went from the bus stop to the cockpit, over the edge to the Stanegarth, which we reached by pulling along the anchor chain, a bit easier and quicker than fining out. From there Geoff led us East because my compass sticks and I was feeling lazy anyway. I need to have a look at replacing the compass module soon. Geoff was stirring up the silt at this point with his front slung 3L bailout, and I think he might have gone to the same dive classes as Lee from the Drager dive-in at Capernwray to the 6m ledge from where we could complete our swim around. We finished back at the bus stop, where I asked Geoff how much gas he had to which he replied with the clenched fist of 50 bar, so we had a quick tour around the APC that was dropped in this year. When we got back to the ladder Geoff had switched to open circuit as his Ray cylinder was empty. I asked why he had indicated that he had 50 bar left, and he laughed it off. “Well, I did have more than 50 bar in my bailout”, he replied. This is the man that told ME off for getting him down to 20 bar the last time we went diving.

On the surface I was chatting to the other two old lags that usually dive with Geoff on a Friday and one of those had come out with 10 bar on open circuit gear. Perhaps it’s the Kamikaze branch of BSAC this lot belong to. In the pub Chris was complaining that I was a slow worker and that Joanne and I weren’t even engaged yet. I don’t know if she was expecting us to run into the toilets for a quickie, but she was offering the use of her mums wedding dress. I made sure that all plans were put on hold by drinking a cocktail of grapefruit juice and coke, which tastes a lot better than it looks, which is fortunate. Chris lulled me into a false sense of security by not extracting the Michael too much, until she told me my nickname would be ‘Twinkle’. Nice.

Dive 1

32.3m
1h 10 min

Depth 23.1 30.6 25.4 22.4 19.0 13.0 avge
pO2 1.00 1.31 10.4 0.99 0.91 0.73 --
vO2 0.81 0.66 0.87 0.79 0.73 0.70 0.76
Loop% 30.2 32.3 29.4 30.6 31.4 31.7 30.9

SI 1 h 57 min

Dive 2

21.6m
34 min

Depth 19.9 20.0 19.9 15.5 5.1 avge
pO2 0.89 0.89 0.84 0.75 0.53 --
vO2 0.85 0.85 0.96 0.87 0.44 0.79
Loop% 29.8 29.7 28.1 29.4 35.1 30.4

__________________
David.

Diving the mahogany rebreather.

Freef

Time to place your bets on how many shiny new diver mistakes two divers with 900 dives between them can make in three dives. Off to Dosthill with Barry from BSAC 955 and the Plymouth trip in April. I had paid Barry a visit during the week as he wanted some advice on his twin and stage rig up. As kit fiddling is fun for me we repositioned a D ring on his waistband and changed his regs around for a more streamlined configuration.

We met up at Jacks Hill Café where Barry had brought his baby sister along to fill in the log sheet and buy us a hot choc between dives. A tea and soss sarnie later and we were off to the pond. We arrived at 0830 and began to set the kit up as the gate doesn’t open until 0900. They had a very stroppy bloke on duty in the food wagon, when I asked him if there was anyone in the shop to sign in with he snapped ‘If you’re patient’ before wandering around a few minutes later to sign us in. Service with a scowl, how nice. It appeared he was on his own, and being clever I would have moved the clipboard around to the food wagon to get people to sign in there if it was me. I made a point of being overly cheerful all day to annoy the bloke.

A Dolphin upcheck and Barry forgetting both to turn his gas on, and to get his fins out of the car, we hit the water. I went in first to recover Barrys mask that he had dropped in at the steps, in exactly the same place I managed to chuck my torch last time I dived here with Martyn. We wandered off to the deep bit where the lights went out, and I couldn’t navigate as I am still kit fiddling and hadn’t put a compass on my kit list for today. By luck we found a line and I managed to make it look like I knew what I was doing, and I think I got away with it with Barry, or I did until he reads this. We hit the boat and U turned to the boat on it’s side and the caravan before switching to deco. This time the left handed reg was fine and not uncomfortable, although I will need to remember to drain down the Dolph loop after turning the gas off. Barry switched to deco as well for the practice and we blobbed up as required by the staff to mark a rebreather ascent. I was also using the 7L stage for the suit gas as well, to conserve the pony gas. It worked well and I will probably change to this way of inflating the suit in future. It was only on surfacing things went a bit wonky with any of my kit, as my pO2 gauge had fogged up. Not good. For this dive I was using a set of Dacor regs rather than Apeks on the 3L bailout and a Scubapro for my deco. I will need to look at the layout of the Dacor, as it was rather annoying to dive with the hoses configured as they were, and I will have to hunt down the dumpy 3 with a bit more vigour to tidy up the kit some more. For this dive I was on a 40% tank gas through the 60% jet, which gave 30% [lowest reading] in the loop at a vO2 of 0.86. I was also diving on -2kg over the weight I had been using up to now and felt comfortable in the water.

During the surface interval Barry felt my hot scrubber, and we had a can of coke each. I only managed to drink the 1/3 of mine that wasn't spilt when Barry kicked the can over. Barry was comfortable on the wing rigged up with the extra 'D' ring to the rear, and he decided not to take the sidemount in for dive two as he wanted to sort out his buoyancy on just the twins and 50 bar.

Due to the poor vis on dive one we decided to wander around to the East side at 15m ish to stay above the worst of the crapocline*, and to use up Barry's backgas I was to go onto his long hose on the way back. I demonstrated my superior dive skills by forgetting to both do my waist strap up and to connect my drysuit hose. The hose reconnection was done while Barry was looking elsewhere. At 15 min we turned and I started to help Barry gulp his gas. I had turned the Dolph off and had a breathe down on it to vent most of he gas, and the trip back was a little saw toothed as Barry and I had to stay close as his long hose is still only 1.5m compared to my 2m. As we are both experienced divers it took some time for us to gulp the gas and I had to resort to purging the regs. At 50 bar I gave Barry the reg back and returned to my own 7L to blob up. I am using a D ring to the rear of the Dolphs weight pocket for the stage, which is a comfortable configuration, although I have a little difficulty reaching the rear clip out of the water. Barrys weighting was fine, but I needed an extra kilo so be neutral with some air in the suit once I had dumped the stage, so for warm water diving I need +3 kg over my standard weightbelt

Back on dry land we indulged ourselves in some of the rather superior hot chocs that Dosthill do, and another sausage sandwich for me. I offered Barry a play on my bagpipes of death and rigged up my 10L for the last dive of the day. I gave Barry a run through of the Dolph and he was happy to dive it after I had explained the workings. I also confessed to not connecting my suit hose up, and Barry said that when I had turned my back he had a chance to do his up. Planks all round then.

We dropped in and Barry found he needed a few extra kg for the the Dolphin, so a quick weight up later we dropped onto the 3m platform, then onto the 6m one before swimming off in the opposite direction from last time. I got Barry to do a barrel roll to see how position affected the breathing on the unit. We wandered along at 10ish metres for a few minutes then came back at 5m where Barry had a 'rebreather moment' with his buoyancy, but he managed to recover before he hit the surface. Barry appeared to enjoy his dive, but he is not convinced that a Dolph is the way he wants to go, which is a fair comment, as they are not for everyone.

A good days diving fine tuning the kit that we were using,and both of us are happier now with our kit configurations. I'm comfortable and relaxed with the Dolphin, and I will be diving it in the sea on the 8th & 9th of September as long as the weather holds. The next thing for me to fine tune is the cylinder mixes I can use for the various jets. I have a large data set now of vO2's for various dives, so once I compare inland to sea I will be better able to custom mix my gasses. A 'frank exchange of views' on the Drager site with someone from Eastern Europe led me to look at mixes for the 50% jet, and it looks like I will rarely use this one, as the 40% jet would give more leeway for the sub 40% mixes.

*Crapocline-layer of poor vis above or below which lies clear water [clear for the UK being 4m+]. Can be associated with a thermocline at inland sites, and is usually caused by rain run off when inland or close in to the coast or a river estuary.

Dive Data

Dive 1

23.5m 29 min

Depth 22.5 21.1 21.6 22.2 avge
pO2 1.00 0.98 1.00 1.07 --
vO2 0.86 0.80 0.79 0.67 0.78
Loop% 30.8 31.5 31.6 33.2 31.5



Dive 2

SI 1h 34 min 19.2m 30 min

Depth 16.5 18.2 15.5 14.6 avge
pO2 0.91 0.96 0.93 0.89 --
vO2 0.59 0.61 0.41 0.44 0.51
Loop% 34.3 34.0 36.5 36.2 35.3


Dive 3

SI 1h 19 min 13.7m 18 min

__________________
David.

Diving the mahogany rebreather.

Freef

The day dawned bright and early on my first attempt to organise a diving trip, a return to Plymouth where I had dived in April with Eddystone Dive Charters [see end of report for contact details]. I had invited competent divers who could sort themselves out so there would be a distinct lack of planks on the trip. This needed to be the case as I had invited Ro along, who doesn’t like planks, and really didn’t want a boiled sweet shoved somewhere that would make my eyes cross. We all got there early on the Wednesday evening, except for Claire and Rob who hadn’t booked the day off work and so arrived at midnight. The rest of us headed up to the pub at the top of the hill for a bite and beer. Breaking with tradition we only had a couple of beers, unlike the usual image of British divers getting a skinfull, a greasy breakfast, and seasick. Seasickness would make a special guest appearance in the boat, or rather over the side the following day. Harvey and Colin from BSAC 955 in Northampton kept us entertained with the latest series of disasters encountered by ‘N’ from their club. Lisa was as mad as usual, and had overdosed on her white powder of choice [sherbet] by scoffing a load of flying saucers on the way down with Caroline, although I did manage to get my hands on some of them. Paul was a no show as work intervened, and he had to miss the trip.

The next day saw us scoffing our cereal and toast before heading out to the boat to dive Scylla and James Egan Layne. The sea was lumpy, and Lisa started to go a bit white as we kitted up, before she decided to give us some sea life to look at by feeding the fish. She was quickly followed by Claire, and both decided not to dive. Harvey made them feel much better with his tales of seasickness in his navy days, and the time he served with Nelson. A frantic reorganisation of the buddies later saw me diving with Caroline and Rob, as these were to be Claire’s and Lisa’s partners. Things got expensive for me at this point as my D8R [£120-ish] fell apart again, and it looks terminal this time, deep joy. We were chucked in on the bow shot and dropped down, passing Harvey and Colin on the way, who had stopped to sort out Harvey’s mask. We toured back from the bow past the weapons lift and bridge and had a few easy penetrations, including dropping down into the large pit that leads to the lower deck. I thought I was breathing a bit heavily at the start of the dive, but the pO2 in the rebreather loop was OK, and I was a little worried about the possibility of a CO2 hit from scrubber failure. As we hit the wreck my breathing slowed and I felt fine, so it looks like a bit of paranoia plus slightly harder work swimming into the current.

We headed along to the stern and into the helicopter hanger, where the roof has collapsed in. I’m not sure if this is due to corrosion or more nefarious activities as the rest of the ship is in good condition. We headed through the hanger and to the bow, again with some limited penetration, before turning around and zigzagging our way to the stern through the ship with some more adventurous travels to the interior. My original plan was to dive the length of the ship inside with Ro and Steve, but this had to change with the change in buddies. I was diving the Dolphin with a 7L stage filled with 40% for deco and bailout [in addition to the 3L 21% cylinder], from which I ran the drysuit feed. At the stern Rob still had 100 bar in his 15L, and Caroline shedloads in her twin 10’s so we headed back to the bow to ascend on the bow line. On the way back we stayed at the top of the wreck except for a foray into the Captain’s cabin, where we saw the captain’s log, which was in the captains toilet.

Dive 1

19.5m
46 min

Depth 15.0 19.1 18.3 18.2 14.4 av
pO2 0.82 1.03 0.95 0.95 0.83 --
vO2 0.79 0.59 0.74 0.73 0.70 0.79
%O2 32.8 35.4 33.6 33.7 34.0 33.9


On surfacing we saw Lisa had gone past pale, through white and well into grey, so we headed back in to drop her off on dry land, along with Claire. By this time Colin was feeling a little off colour so we dived the Breakwater Fort. Ro sat this one out so I was buddied with Steve. On the way to the fort we were chased off by a dockyard police RIB who wanted us out of the way of a frigate that was leaving. The boat was well clear of the frigate and it was behind us when the Dock Plod shouted at us, so I think they were just bored.

I was thinking ‘ho hum, a scenic dive’ and I was regretting the lack of large lump of metal, but the dive was made more interesting by Steve who decided to demonstrate a little underwater archaeology by lifting the large steel plates that litter the seabed and poking around underneath. We found a flattie, all of 5” long, which was swimming in circles, which I think was caused by Steve having his finger on one side of the poor bugger. We also saw loads of those fish that sit still on the bottom until you approach and then they shoot off. The closest thing to them on my fishy slate is the rock goby, so I will say they were that until I am corrected.

The highpoint of the dive for me was Steve getting attacked by a crab as he put his hand over a piece of plate. He didn’t believe he was pinched, so he did it again for luck, and was nipped again for his trouble.

Despite the skipper’s dire warnings that if we wandered too far from the fort a frigate would mince us, we explored a little to the side before we decided to surface. I wasn’t diving the 7L this time, so I was a little light, and so didn’t put any gas in the suit, which means an extra kilo will be needed in future for sea diving, and two for when I need thermals. Our teams were pretty good in the water, but there was a trio of divers coming the other way, which stirred things up a little. Judging by their garb they were fairly new or trainees, and we have all been there so I wouldn’t complain as much as if they were experienced.

Dive 2

SI 1h 50 min
12.3m
43 min

Depth 9.3 9.2 7.5 8.5 9.5 av
pO2 0.67 0.69 0.64 0.60 0.75 --
vO2 0.65 0.67 0.25 0.82 0.33 0.55
%O2 34.7 35.9 39.4 32.4 38.5 36.2

When we got back to shore and decamped to the b&b we were met by Pam who had made us a small snack of a Desperate Dan Cow Pie each. I serviced the Dolph first to change the scrubber and de gunk the loop a little before eating. I was well stuffed when I had finished my plate full and we had a rest and shower before heading back up the road to the pub for any food that people wanted-which was ‘lots’ in Harvey’s case. Our original plan of a Greek restaurant was torpedoed by Pam’s cooking and I settled for a couple of pints, the second with Rob as all the others retired to bed. We raided the shop at the bottom of the road for some sweets, as we couldn’t find a chippy or kebab shop.

Day two saw Lisa sitting out, as she was still feeling ill. I tried to make her feel happier by scoffing another handful of flying saucers before I dropped her in town to go exploring. This is a bit risky in a new town as Lisa is known for acting like someone who has just come over the wall from the asylum given the right stimulus [sugar, coffee, bright or colourful objects, alcohol, squeaky toys etc] as was witnessed by her wanting a piggy back from me on the Wed eve when we returned from the pub.

We loaded up the boat to head out to the Persier, at 5 300 tons a similar displacement to the cruisers at Scapa Flow. I was buddied with Caroline, Rob with Claire, Colin with Harvey, and Ro with Steve. Stuart was the deckhand again, as he has retired from diving after he copped a bend while DM-ing. His wife has had to give up diving as well; so he decided to call it quits while he was ahead, which is a shame as he is a good buddy. Being told not to teach any more had taken a lot of the pleasure out of diving for him, so it’s time for him to have a change of hobby.

The Persier lies in 30m, and with my mix of 42% in my rebreather allied with a vO2 of 0.8 I was getting to the limit of the pO2 I could dive, and I was hovering around the 1.3 mark for most of the dive. I had a loop mix of 32.9% on average and I was diving with my computer set to 21%. Caroline was diving on 27%, and I hit deco at 20 min, but we stayed down for a total of 32 min, which left a 15 min ascent time for me. After we hit the bottom I freed up the shot [Steve repositioned it further when he and Ro descended] and we wandered off. During out tour we got as far as the boilers, only half way along the wreck. A more determined fin could have seen us at the bow, but at the stern where the shot was planted we were adjacent to the prop shaft tunnel and we swam through that before exploring the stern. Rob and Claire were heading the opposite way to us and I signalled that the swim through was worth doing. We were exploring the stern with the rudder and quadrant for a while, and I was looking for the spare propeller, which should have been close to hand, but I couldn’t find it. Hiding in the wreckage was a cuckoo wrasse, always a nice bright fish to see on any dive. We swam along the aft mast where we saw Claire and Rob sending up their delayed SMB, then on to the boilers by way of a pair of large winches, where we found a scorpion fish in one of the fire tubes and a mid sized conger wrapped around the crank shaft. We turned at this point, our deco building and headed towards the shot, but decided to blob up before we found it. I decided that a deep stop for a minute at 17m would be an idea, where I also swapped onto my 40% stage, and we completed our deco at 6m, although I also did a 5 min/zero m stop.

Dive 3

29.0m
53min

Depth 27.3 28.0 27.5 28.5 27.7 28.6 av
pO2 1.25 1.24 1.17 1.24 1.27 1.28 --
vO2 0.74 0.83 0.91 0.84 0.73 0.77 0.79
%O2 33.5 32.4 31.2 32.2 33.7 33.2 32.9


Pete the skipper hauled us back on with the lift after pulling the shot and we headed for the breakwater to find calm water for a cuppa and lunch. During lunch Colin and Harvey showed me their computers which had both locked up. Colin’s dive timer had also recorded a fast ascent so they had to sit out the James Egan Layne, which was one Harvey particularly wanted to dive. The cause of the lockup was trying to hold a 3m stop in the sea, so Ro and I explained that 6m is the shallowest stop that can be reasonably achieved in any sort of weather. We had some lunchtime entertainment when the skipper spotted a buoy on the top of the breakwater and Rob went in to recover it. It was only after Rob had done his SBS beach assault that we saw the ‘Keep Off or you will be someone’s prison bitch’ signs.

Lunch over we motored back out into a sea that was getting steadily more lumpy, although not as bad as the day before. Harvey and Colin had dekitted and packed away, so were on hand to help the rest of us get ready. Over the JEL, and we were lined up like parachutists awaiting ‘green light’. A parp on the boat’s horn and I led the way into the sea, and a smooth line of divers followed me in. Caroline and I dropped to the bottom following Steve and Ro, with Claire and Rob bringing up the rear. As usual for me on the JEL I dropped to the seabed and looked up at the bow, before collecting a few shells and swimming along the side of the wreck for the first entry. I changed my computer over to 25% at this stage to make sure we wouldn’t hit deco [the loop mix was 32% on average, so this was safe to do].

Penetration on the JEL isn’t that difficult as there are a load of holes and not much in the way of overhead obstructions. We swam all the way to the broken section, but again I missed on the stern as our first dive had used a lot of Caroline’s twin set gas, so we had a slow fin to the broken section and back. I found the memorial cylinder to a diver again, and something like that does remind you that diving is dangerous. I had a shiver down my back on my first deep solo dive at Scapa on the Coln when I found a plaque to a diver who had died on that wreck.

We saw Claire and Rob as we turned and waved hello as we passed, and we then looked around the wreck to see the electric motors and other equipment needed to run a ship. We returned to the bow shot and were doing our stop at the deck level [6m] when Claire and Rob appeared, shortly followed by Steve and Ro. Back on the boat Steve showed us all a tap he had found, much to Stuart’s displeasure as he advocates ‘look but don’t touch’ on all wrecks. The previous evening saw an animated discussion on when you can and can’t take things off a wreck.

Dive 4

SI 2h 5 min
19.2m
35 min


Depth 18.5 16.3 14.1 14.1 15.0 av
pO2 0.84 0.82 0.77 0.89 0.83 --
vO2 10.3 0.91 0.86 0.47 0.76 0.80
%O2 29.5 31.2 32.0 36.9 33.2 32.6


On the way back in I turned on my phone to find a couple of texts from Lisa, the first saying she had seen an octopus and seahorse, and was looking for the sharks, and the second just saying “SHARK”. So it’s safe to assume she found an aquarium then! Back on shore once again and we said farewell to Pete, and packed up for the trip home. We all arrived back safely, and had a good couple of days diving. I’m going to be booking with Pete and Pam again, as they run a good set up, and I couldn’t recommend them highly enough.

So, an invitation only trip is a good idea to avoid those who are out of their depth in a footbath, and the only eedjut on the trip was me, so I had no competition.

__________________
David.

Diving the mahogany rebreather.

Freef