2nd July “You can kit up here and have a drift dive to the Bus Stop”.

**Freef** · 3rd July 2007, 21:58

Off to Stoney for a post sea ‘wash the kit’ day, or at least that was the plan. In reality it was a ‘sod it, I may not have been in the sea, but I have the day off work and it’s either tidy the house or go diving’ day. The post Plymouth day had been arranged with CCR Submatix wielding Lesley, and it would be rude not to make Stoney richer by a tenner.

Arriving at 0810 I was surprised to find myself first in the queue. Even when I was stitched up when I first learned to dive and was told that Stoney open ‘weekend’ times on Bank Holidays and arrived early on a Monday I was never first in line-and that was when Stoney opened at 0600 at weekends. Coffee drunk and rebreather site checked I went for a wander and saw Lesley arrive, 5th in the queue at 0820. We headed for the bottom of the car park as Lesley likes to fall in near the step.

As Lesley was kitting up I saw a bloke looking at my Dolphin. “Are you looking at my rebreather?” I enquire in my best comedy thug voice, and as his mate arrived I had a chance to tell more OC divers about the SCR rebreather operation, and then handed them to Lesley for CCR indoctrination. They did look a bit interested and then wandered back up the hill muttering ‘rebreathers are the future’-two more converts to the cause. The ‘bling’ cause of Lesley’s new hose covers takes a bit more converting though.

For this days diving I was using some spherasorb I bought from Lesley at £17-50 for 5kg. She then told me that the latest batch had cost her £15-00 for 5kg. I thought of asking for a refund for the stuff I had, and then buying the cheaper stuff, but her husband might be back from sea soon. The spherasorb was easier to pack than the 797 1-2.5mm I had been using on Saturday, only needing packing once rather than the three times I had to do on the Friday evening with the 797.

The ‘anti red eye’ feature of Lesley’s digital camera has the effect of ‘rabbit in headlights’ on the unsuspecting diver. You can see the 7L deco/bailout/suit gas under my left arm, and the 3L bailout/wing/spare suit inflation in the sock on the side of the shell on the right. [Photo: Lesley]

Kit check complete we needed to decide on a dive plan. ‘Jump in, get wet, get out’ probably wouldn’t cut it with Lesley, so I suggested that we hit the gnomes, then depending on vis [Lesley had said ‘I am a bit of an old woman, but…] either head straight across the pit to the Cessna ledge, or follow the wall round and up for an explore of the lesser visited part of Stoney.

Lesley had been diving her Subby using an air computer, and we had discussed the use of nitrox computers with CCR units. I suggested that she worked out the fO2 for the pO2 at maximum depth and used that as the starting point for her calculations. At 36m and a pO2 of 1.2 you would expect to get 26% in the loop. Lesley set her Vytec to 27% as she dives on 1.25. If the dive was to 22m, then she could set the Vytec to 39%. 21% was also set as a bailout. I was set on 21% on gas 1, 26% gas 2 and 40% gas 3, for lower pO2 than expected, pO2 expected [less 2% for safety] and OC bailout/deco.

We hauled ourselves down to the step for the purpose of getting in the water, prebreathing as we did so. Entry was made, as was a bubble check, and then it’s off to see the sights of Stoney. We headed over to the cliff edge and dropped diagonally down, making for the blockhouse that marks the start of the 210 course to the coach. I usually drop down to 12m on the road that leads from the cockpit and then head down to the blockhouse, but Lesley doesn’t enjoy diving the Subby at 6m so the sooner we hit the depth the better for her.

This is always useful in case I forget who I am diving with. Let’s be honest though, it’s bling.

It was a bit of a swim along the bottom of the cliff, but what the hell, we are on rebreathers. I started to take shots with my Sea and Sea Motor Marine 2EX as we headed to the coach. Once at the coach it was to the gnomes and the pit via the cairn. At the edge of the drop to 36m I turn around and pack paddle a bit to keep an eye on Lesley. I had switched to 26% on the computer as my pO2 indicated I had more than that in the loop. Once in the pit we had a bit of a swim to the South and then looked at heading over to the Cessna. Lesley indicated that she wanted to ascend, although the vis was good, [in the UK this means 6-8m]. It later transpired that she was getting a bit narked. Heading up to the 24m mark we carried on to the road, where I asked if we were heading to the Cessna or the Stanegarth. I didn’t offer ‘up’ as an option, although that would be Lesley’s call. Signalling that she was going even more loopy in the pit and that she was OK now, we decided to head to the Cessna. It’s a surprisingly long swim to the ledge from where we were, and as we crossed the rope from where the army oiks had moved the shallower of the hydroboxes used to be to the deep one there was still a long swim ahead.

More bling, in case Lesley forgets what make of ‘breather she dives.

We carried on following the wall around at the mid 20’s until we saw the ledge above us. We were now 32 minutes into the dive and I had just entered deco. The Cessna [although it’s not actually a Cessna, but that’s what everyone calls it] is found along the bottom of the cliff in 20m-ish. You first come across a length of rail and then the plane itself. At the plane Lesley wrote ‘Lesley’ in the silt on the wing, followed by my ‘chav girl’ and an arrow to her name. I was quite proud of myself for being able to write that upside down too. After another picture or two we needed to decide where we were off to next. I favoured the barge, but it depended how far into deco Leslie wanted to go. After a discussion using my wrist slate, followed by the Cessna as Lesley’s eyesight isn’t what it was, and my writing was described by a teacher as ‘a spider dipped in in crawling across the page’, we headed back, ascending as we did so.

We hit 6m before the 6M ledge and swam along the wall into a huge shoal of fish. We watched them for a minute or two then carried on to the ledge proper and passed the now quite shallow hydrobox and bus stop. At 6m I had 9 minutes of deco to clear, so we swam around looking at the fish life before slowly following the bottom towards the wall. I made Leslie hang around for an extra minute so we hit 80 min before we got out.

Profile for dive 1. Yellow triangle indicates entry into deco.

Once we had clambered out we had a minimum of a two-hour surface interval to kill. For me that meant scoffing as many jaffa cakes as I could after a sausage sarnie. I also chomped on an apple, and found that the local mallards also like apples. Call me odd, but I didn’t know ducks ate apples, but there you go.

Mallard vs apple core.

Jack Ingle was parked opposite us, so Lesley went over to say hello as I popped up to see the chaps we had spoken to earlier. A quick ‘hello, we did an 80 minute dive’ was all they got as the darkening sky opened up into full chuck it down and Lesley and I aborted to the shop for a drip and look at the merchandise. It turns out that I need a new photo for my Diverlog renewal will be needed.

“I’m still the same handsome devil”, I tell the bloke in the shop.

“We’ll need proof of that” he replies.

Lesley kept talking to me after I had wandered off in the shop, so after a while I stopped replying and left so she would appear the be a mad woman who had wandered in off the streets. Mind you, that pretty much sums up everyone at Stoney. The rain had stopped, but a torrent was pouring down the car park, and forming a waterfall down the steps near the bus stop entry.

You have to love the British Summer. The only way the average Brit can tell the difference between summer and winter is that the rain is warmer in the summer.

Dive two needed to be completed before the kicking out time of 1600, so we decided that 2 hours plus kitting up time would be enough of a surface interval, especially as the rain had stopped. The plan was for a 40-50 minute dive, and no deco. The 22m ledge was ripe for an explore with the Stanegarth and such on the menu. I suggested the Mini to the South of the tug and then, dependant on deco time, a heading of South, South East, or East to hit the wall on the way back. Lesley was keen to probe deeper on her Subby so we agreed that a 25m drop into the pit would be on the plan as well.

Lesley agreed and we kitted up. My digital camera was in for this dive, as was Lesley’s. During dive 1 I had the housing in my pouch to check for water leakage, and then remembered [when we were at 34m] that it is only rated to 30m. It hadn’t leaked though, and the lens defogger was applied and the camera inserted before we went in. Entry was via the step again, and the usual bubble check was completed before we headed into the depths. The first part of the route was the same as before, over to the edge and then over the cliff and right a bit to the blockhouse. My defogging of the housing port was a bit lacking and I was experiencing cataract style fogging. I only had to hope that after we hit the shallower thermocline the fog would clear a bit.

At the coach we went to the cairn and over to 25m. We headed South for one minute as planned and then back up to the edge of the drop and back North to the cairn. On the way we came across a dead pike, which made Lesley go ‘ooooh’ through her loop. Rebreathers do make you sound like Teletubbies when you talk through the loop at times. Back to the coach we head over to the ex British Waterways tug. From the barred hole on the Port side that is about 1/3 of the way from the stern a course of due South saw us to the Mini. A quick scrawl of ‘bling my breather’ and decreasing non deco time saw us head South East to another Mini. Then it’s on to the parallel line of rocks and, after a long swim the wall.

Can you see what it is yet? Incorrect defogging leads to pictures like this.

There isn’t a lot to see at this end of the lake, rocks, silt and your buddy are about it. Ascending earlier would have got us the wooden wreck and blockhouse, but Lesley was getting a bit cold, and the deeper you are the less swimming you have to do. It also gave me a chance to annoy a crayfish with my camera. We did hit 6m the far side of the pub in time for a nice long stop.

“Lesley, when I said you should always carry a bailout table…”

The boat moorings were passed, and we swam past the Nautilus on the way to the slipway.

Despite appearances, Lesley is not a rail-mounted diver.

At the surface I adjusted the LESLEY part of Lesley’s loop cover for a quick photo of her chav loops covers. A de kit later saw us in the pub for a quick scoff [by me] and away.

Dive data:

Dive 1

33.8 m
80 min

SI: 2 h 32 min

Dive 2

25.9m
63 min

Video links [I’d advise broadband!]

Annoyed crayfish

Video of crayfish 1 - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Lesley waving

Video of Leslie [1] - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

**Freef** · 5th July 2007, 16:05

3rd July 2007, 21:58	#1 (permalink)
Freef Custom Title Disallowed! Current Rebreather/s: Dolphin Other Rebreather/s: Dolphin Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Land of the Freef, UK. Posts: 1,356	2nd July “You can kit up here and have a drift dive to the Bus Stop”. Off to Stoney for a post sea ‘wash the kit’ day, or at least that was the plan. In reality it was a ‘sod it, I may not have been in the sea, but I have the day off work and it’s either tidy the house or go diving’ day. The post Plymouth day had been arranged with CCR Submatix wielding Lesley, and it would be rude not to make Stoney richer by a tenner. Arriving at 0810 I was surprised to find myself first in the queue. Even when I was stitched up when I first learned to dive and was told that Stoney open ‘weekend’ times on Bank Holidays and arrived early on a Monday I was never first in line-and that was when Stoney opened at 0600 at weekends. Coffee drunk and rebreather site checked I went for a wander and saw Lesley arrive, 5th in the queue at 0820. We headed for the bottom of the car park as Lesley likes to fall in near the step. As Lesley was kitting up I saw a bloke looking at my Dolphin. “Are you looking at my rebreather?” I enquire in my best comedy thug voice, and as his mate arrived I had a chance to tell more OC divers about the SCR rebreather operation, and then handed them to Lesley for CCR indoctrination. They did look a bit interested and then wandered back up the hill muttering ‘rebreathers are the future’-two more converts to the cause. The ‘bling’ cause of Lesley’s new hose covers takes a bit more converting though. For this days diving I was using some spherasorb I bought from Lesley at £17-50 for 5kg. She then told me that the latest batch had cost her £15-00 for 5kg. I thought of asking for a refund for the stuff I had, and then buying the cheaper stuff, but her husband might be back from sea soon. The spherasorb was easier to pack than the 797 1-2.5mm I had been using on Saturday, only needing packing once rather than the three times I had to do on the Friday evening with the 797. The ‘anti red eye’ feature of Lesley’s digital camera has the effect of ‘rabbit in headlights’ on the unsuspecting diver. You can see the 7L deco/bailout/suit gas under my left arm, and the 3L bailout/wing/spare suit inflation in the sock on the side of the shell on the right. [Photo: Lesley] Kit check complete we needed to decide on a dive plan. ‘Jump in, get wet, get out’ probably wouldn’t cut it with Lesley, so I suggested that we hit the gnomes, then depending on vis [Lesley had said ‘I am a bit of an old woman, but…] either head straight across the pit to the Cessna ledge, or follow the wall round and up for an explore of the lesser visited part of Stoney. Lesley had been diving her Subby using an air computer, and we had discussed the use of nitrox computers with CCR units. I suggested that she worked out the fO2 for the pO2 at maximum depth and used that as the starting point for her calculations. At 36m and a pO2 of 1.2 you would expect to get 26% in the loop. Lesley set her Vytec to 27% as she dives on 1.25. If the dive was to 22m, then she could set the Vytec to 39%. 21% was also set as a bailout. I was set on 21% on gas 1, 26% gas 2 and 40% gas 3, for lower pO2 than expected, pO2 expected [less 2% for safety] and OC bailout/deco. We hauled ourselves down to the step for the purpose of getting in the water, prebreathing as we did so. Entry was made, as was a bubble check, and then it’s off to see the sights of Stoney. We headed over to the cliff edge and dropped diagonally down, making for the blockhouse that marks the start of the 210 course to the coach. I usually drop down to 12m on the road that leads from the cockpit and then head down to the blockhouse, but Lesley doesn’t enjoy diving the Subby at 6m so the sooner we hit the depth the better for her. This is always useful in case I forget who I am diving with. Let’s be honest though, it’s bling. It was a bit of a swim along the bottom of the cliff, but what the hell, we are on rebreathers. I started to take shots with my Sea and Sea Motor Marine 2EX as we headed to the coach. Once at the coach it was to the gnomes and the pit via the cairn. At the edge of the drop to 36m I turn around and pack paddle a bit to keep an eye on Lesley. I had switched to 26% on the computer as my pO2 indicated I had more than that in the loop. Once in the pit we had a bit of a swim to the South and then looked at heading over to the Cessna. Lesley indicated that she wanted to ascend, although the vis was good, [in the UK this means 6-8m]. It later transpired that she was getting a bit narked. Heading up to the 24m mark we carried on to the road, where I asked if we were heading to the Cessna or the Stanegarth. I didn’t offer ‘up’ as an option, although that would be Lesley’s call. Signalling that she was going even more loopy in the pit and that she was OK now, we decided to head to the Cessna. It’s a surprisingly long swim to the ledge from where we were, and as we crossed the rope from where the army oiks had moved the shallower of the hydroboxes used to be to the deep one there was still a long swim ahead. More bling, in case Lesley forgets what make of ‘breather she dives. We carried on following the wall around at the mid 20’s until we saw the ledge above us. We were now 32 minutes into the dive and I had just entered deco. The Cessna [although it’s not actually a Cessna, but that’s what everyone calls it] is found along the bottom of the cliff in 20m-ish. You first come across a length of rail and then the plane itself. At the plane Lesley wrote ‘Lesley’ in the silt on the wing, followed by my ‘chav girl’ and an arrow to her name. I was quite proud of myself for being able to write that upside down too. After another picture or two we needed to decide where we were off to next. I favoured the barge, but it depended how far into deco Leslie wanted to go. After a discussion using my wrist slate, followed by the Cessna as Lesley’s eyesight isn’t what it was, and my writing was described by a teacher as ‘a spider dipped in in crawling across the page’, we headed back, ascending as we did so. We hit 6m before the 6M ledge and swam along the wall into a huge shoal of fish. We watched them for a minute or two then carried on to the ledge proper and passed the now quite shallow hydrobox and bus stop. At 6m I had 9 minutes of deco to clear, so we swam around looking at the fish life before slowly following the bottom towards the wall. I made Leslie hang around for an extra minute so we hit 80 min before we got out. Profile for dive 1. Yellow triangle indicates entry into deco. Once we had clambered out we had a minimum of a two-hour surface interval to kill. For me that meant scoffing as many jaffa cakes as I could after a sausage sarnie. I also chomped on an apple, and found that the local mallards also like apples. Call me odd, but I didn’t know ducks ate apples, but there you go. Mallard vs apple core. Jack Ingle was parked opposite us, so Lesley went over to say hello as I popped up to see the chaps we had spoken to earlier. A quick ‘hello, we did an 80 minute dive’ was all they got as the darkening sky opened up into full chuck it down and Lesley and I aborted to the shop for a drip and look at the merchandise. It turns out that I need a new photo for my Diverlog renewal will be needed. “I’m still the same handsome devil”, I tell the bloke in the shop. “We’ll need proof of that” he replies. Lesley kept talking to me after I had wandered off in the shop, so after a while I stopped replying and left so she would appear the be a mad woman who had wandered in off the streets. Mind you, that pretty much sums up everyone at Stoney. The rain had stopped, but a torrent was pouring down the car park, and forming a waterfall down the steps near the bus stop entry. You have to love the British Summer. The only way the average Brit can tell the difference between summer and winter is that the rain is warmer in the summer. Dive two needed to be completed before the kicking out time of 1600, so we decided that 2 hours plus kitting up time would be enough of a surface interval, especially as the rain had stopped. The plan was for a 40-50 minute dive, and no deco. The 22m ledge was ripe for an explore with the Stanegarth and such on the menu. I suggested the Mini to the South of the tug and then, dependant on deco time, a heading of South, South East, or East to hit the wall on the way back. Lesley was keen to probe deeper on her Subby so we agreed that a 25m drop into the pit would be on the plan as well. Lesley agreed and we kitted up. My digital camera was in for this dive, as was Lesley’s. During dive 1 I had the housing in my pouch to check for water leakage, and then remembered [when we were at 34m] that it is only rated to 30m. It hadn’t leaked though, and the lens defogger was applied and the camera inserted before we went in. Entry was via the step again, and the usual bubble check was completed before we headed into the depths. The first part of the route was the same as before, over to the edge and then over the cliff and right a bit to the blockhouse. My defogging of the housing port was a bit lacking and I was experiencing cataract style fogging. I only had to hope that after we hit the shallower thermocline the fog would clear a bit. At the coach we went to the cairn and over to 25m. We headed South for one minute as planned and then back up to the edge of the drop and back North to the cairn. On the way we came across a dead pike, which made Lesley go ‘ooooh’ through her loop. Rebreathers do make you sound like Teletubbies when you talk through the loop at times. Back to the coach we head over to the ex British Waterways tug. From the barred hole on the Port side that is about 1/3 of the way from the stern a course of due South saw us to the Mini. A quick scrawl of ‘bling my breather’ and decreasing non deco time saw us head South East to another Mini. Then it’s on to the parallel line of rocks and, after a long swim the wall. Can you see what it is yet? Incorrect defogging leads to pictures like this. There isn’t a lot to see at this end of the lake, rocks, silt and your buddy are about it. Ascending earlier would have got us the wooden wreck and blockhouse, but Lesley was getting a bit cold, and the deeper you are the less swimming you have to do. It also gave me a chance to annoy a crayfish with my camera. We did hit 6m the far side of the pub in time for a nice long stop. “Lesley, when I said you should always carry a bailout table…” The boat moorings were passed, and we swam past the Nautilus on the way to the slipway. Despite appearances, Lesley is not a rail-mounted diver. At the surface I adjusted the LESLEY part of Lesley’s loop cover for a quick photo of her chav loops covers. A de kit later saw us in the pub for a quick scoff [by me] and away. Dive data: Dive 1 33.8 m 80 min SI: 2 h 32 min Dive 2 25.9m 63 min Video links [I’d advise broadband!] Annoyed crayfish Video of crayfish 1 - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Lesley waving Video of Leslie [1] - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting __________________ David. Currently owner of two differently sized ankles.
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5th July 2007, 16:05	#2 (permalink)
Freef Custom Title Disallowed! Current Rebreather/s: Dolphin Other Rebreather/s: Dolphin Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Land of the Freef, UK. Posts: 1,356	More pics. __________________ David. Currently owner of two differently sized ankles.
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