12th December “What do we know about sewing, we’re all men!”

**Freef** · 13th December 2007, 21:33

Early starts in the summer meant that I had still some lieu time to use up, so a Wednesday at Stoney was arranged with Lesley, Toby and Barry. Lesley cried off on the Monday, blaming me for giving her a cold over the phone, but I think that it was really her lack of moral fibre that was going to prevent her getting on the water now that winter is upon us.

I arrived at Stoney and got my kit together while waiting for the others to arrive. I was using my favourite combination of 40% through the 60% jet on the Dolphin for a loop fO2 of 26%-ish. My buddy for the day came and parked so close to me that I would need to grease up the passenger side of the car if I was to be leaving first, and as we chatted Toby and Barry arrived with plans to hit the pit.

This left me to do a 20m dive as the poor bugger paired up with me is still kit fiddling and had a gurgling loop last dive, so we were having an easy day of it, which suited me. I sorted out the camera [MM2-EX] and the housing for my digital camera that I wanted to check for water tightness. Lugging the 7L bailout/deco/suit gas and camera down to the step gave me a look in the water, which was nice and clear, so we should be on for an enjoyable day. Of course, with your average inland dive site clear also means cold, and the predicted water temperature was 8C.

We waved goodbye to Toby and Barry and pre-breathed our way down to the step to get in and finish the kitting up. After sorting out a bit of skirt [unfortunately on my buddies mask, not the young lady variety] we dropped to 5m to do a quick bubble check before heading over the cliff and down to 20m. I was warned of dire consequences if I finned off too quickly, so instead settled in to following mode for the dive.

At the bottom of the cliff we headed around to the West for a bit, and I thought that we were going to end up at the BOP, but instead we turned left and went along the edge of the pit to the cairn, where I added a couple of stones. Earlier in the year a couple of Mensa high flyers had pushed the previous cairn into the pit and the new one is only half the size of the vandalised one at the moment.

Front of the coach in 21m.

From the cairn it’s a simple navigation to the coach where I took a couple of pics as I couldn’t be bothered swimming around it twice in pursuit of my buddy. The Stanegarth was, as usual, next on the list for the tour, and looking up with the sun shining down, the surface almost looked close enough to touch. The sun was rippling away, and it looked like there may have been a bit of a thermocline judging by the depth the light seemed to be being refracted at. The first Christmas decorations of the year have been left on the tug, and the giant poppy and sign that were laced in on Rememberance Sunday were still there.

As the sun was over the yard arm it must be time for the rum ration.

By now I was expecting my buddy to be cold, and unsurprisingly we were heading North to the helicopter. As I took a couple of pictures to contrast the damage done to the wreck compared to the one at Capernwray I noticed a sudden lack of buddy. CCR units are bubbleless unless they are broken so I set off looking for an errant diver. Nowhere to be seen near the Wessex, so I look up and around and start to make progress over to the white van, where I see the brightly coloured shell I have been looking for.

The vandals at least have some respect and have left this alone for over a month.

We plod our way around the bottom of the cliff to what looked like a slalom course of road cones, but on closer inspection turned out to be an arc of the things. I tried to check the alignment of them with the sun that could just be seen above the cliff top as I am sure someone has constructed their own ‘Cone Henge’. We didn’t hang around too long in case the builders were near looking for a virgin to sacrifice.

Looking forwards over the engine hatches on the Stanegarth.

A signal of ‘my hands are cold and I’m going up’ meant we were on the way back, and when we crested the cliff at 6m I could see that we were well on the way to the wooden wreck. This should be entertaining then as we were now 40 minutes into the dive, and although we were nowhere near a deco requirement, it will be a bit of a haul back.

A tour of the right side of the wrecked wreck of the Wessex-the nose.

The door and centre fuselage.

Start of the tail boom.

Mid section of the tail boom with a resting perch.

However, it’s rather fortunate that we have come up to 6m where we did as we found a pair of pike in the weeds, surrounded by hundreds of fry. A good fish spotter for a buddy is useful in these situations and mine didn’t let me down. The last three shots of the film were used in photographing the pike, before the larger one looked a bit lairy and scared me off.

I DID only blow the bloody doors off.

I was giving my housing controls a twiddle on the return to check for water tightness as we made our way back and off gassed. We passed the 4m blockhouse and pub as we travelled back, then met up with Barry and Toby as they finished their dive. We managed to bimble back as a foursome, Toby forgetting dive etiquette and trying to muscle his way in front of me at the step where we were getting out.

The first view of the two pike.

Predator and prey-two pike and fry.

Once out I found myself buddyless as the cold had set in a little too far, and I was being blamed for an hour plus dive in cold conditions. Err, hold on a minute, who was leading the dive? The others had been to the pit and had a dive time a few minutes shorter than our 62 minutes. A bit of a worry was the soggy kitchen roll inside my digital camera housing. I replaed it with fresh and then dropped the housing into the lake for a shallow soak test.

Dive one profile.

Dive one loop fractions calculated from depth and pO2

As the food hatch was open it would have been rude of me not to scoff a soss sarnie while we let the nitrogen subside a bit. A lot of mickey taking was given and had by all, especially Lesley who was on site to ask our opinion about her new pockets and how to stitch D rings into them. The rest of us looked a bit lost as being blokes we weren’t au fait with this stitching and sewing lark.

Lesley lays down the law to a very naughty Barry.

Dive two saw me leading Barry and Toby astray. A trip to the Cessna ledge was planned, and we were looking at another 50+ minutes in the water. I was designated dive leader as [1] Barry couldn’t be bothered and [2] Toby didn’t know where we were going. Of course I fall under both categories, which apparently made me the winner with 2 out of 2. I retrieved the housing, which was dry inside, but not wanting to risk a camera I decide to take it back to 20m for a double check, with

Once in at the bus stop we dropped to 6m an then to 20m to find the BOP. Swimming past that we came to the rope to the box, which I followed as far as I could while being able to see the wall as well. As I lost sight of the wall I headed to it at an angle and kept at a depth of 22m until the slope rose up under us. Keeping the wall to the right we were led to the Cessna after what seemed a surprisingly long swim.

The port wing has now been ripped off, but is still in the vicinity of the wreck. Rather than navigate to the narrowboat we follow the edge of the 20m level around to see what we can find. A crayfish was interrupted in its wanderings by me pointing a camera at it, and responded by getting a bit aggressive. We carried on around to the car and the narrowboat. While Toby was playing inside the boat I wrote ‘HMS Troutbridge’ in the silt on the bow. For those not in the know, due to the inept navigation of a certain Mr Phillips, the Troutbridge was the only Royal Navy ship with two blunt ends.

The easy way to win at ‘giant underwater noughts and crosses’ is to be noughts and make sure that your buddy can’t find any crosses before you get three in a row.

A slightly crap bit of direction finding saw us missing the van and hitting the Cessna again. By now we were running out of non-deco time and began out ascent to keep ourselves at the lighter end of any required stops. With the water temperature getting low for winter a long stop isn’t such a good idea.

The advantage of staying at 20m as long as possible is to reduce the swim back to as short a time and distance as possible, but coming up earlier allows a swim through large schools of roach and the larger perch that wander around past the West side of the bus stop. We slowly carried on around the 6m level to the step and ladder where we got out as the light began to fade.

Dive two profile.

The gas fractions from dive 2.

The day wasn’t over yet though, and I persuaded Barry that doing a third dive with me was a good idea. I say ‘persuaded’, but ‘bribed’ would be a better word as it was a chocolate filled donut that convinced him. Barry looked a bit worried when he saw the size of the tank I hauled out of the car.

Checking buoyancy and trim with the 10L tank during the trimix experiment.

The 10L tank makes getting a reliable trimix easier and it was time at last for me to try trimix through the Dolphin’s loop. My 50% jet is inoperative at the moment, and while I wait for the replacement I was running the tank mix of 40/11 through the 40% jet. I needed to get some figures to see if the theory I had worked on would prove accurate in practice.

Does my unit look big in this? Heading over to the cliff edge.

Not being overly brave I was in with an experienced diver and had enough bailout in case things got entertaining. Would also need enough time for the gas to settle down from the descent where the ADV operates to a steady state.

Looking up at the balcony from 5m.

The howl of the gas into the loop at 10.4 L/min was amazingly loud compared to the usual gentle hiss of the 5.8 L/min 60% jet. However I had a 10L tank and wanted to check the theory with fractions of gas that would be close to those in the tank. With the SCR system the fraction of oxygen varies with workload so therefore the rest of the gasses do as well.

And the restaurant part of the pub where food awaits.

As my housing hadn’t leaked I had plonked my camera in it for a dive, and Barry took a couple of snaps so that I could check my trim with a huge lump of steel strapped across my arse. After the posing we dropped to 20m, where Barry started to look a bit worried that I wasn’t wearing any gloves while he was in his drygloves.

With a suitable number of depth vs pO2 readings taken we headed back up and were last out with 2 minutes to go before the staff release the piranha. Lesley and Toby were still lurking about to greet us on our exit and then leave us to dekit in the darkening car park. Once all the kit was stowed we hit the pub for fruit juice and hot chocolate which washed down cheeseburger and chips before we made our way home.

Dive 3 profile.

The depth, pO2 and gas fractions from the trimix dive. Using a higher flow rate means that the loop fractions are more stable at the expense of duration.

Dive data:

Dive 1

22.3 m
62 min
40%
5.8 L/min

SI: 2 h 25 min

Dive 2

23.5 m
62 min
40%
5.8 L/min

SI: 1 h 0 min

Dive 3

20.1 m
20 min
40/11%
10.4 L/min

13th December 2007, 21:33	#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	12th December “What do we know about sewing, we’re all men!” Early starts in the summer meant that I had still some lieu time to use up, so a Wednesday at Stoney was arranged with Lesley, Toby and Barry. Lesley cried off on the Monday, blaming me for giving her a cold over the phone, but I think that it was really her lack of moral fibre that was going to prevent her getting on the water now that winter is upon us. I arrived at Stoney and got my kit together while waiting for the others to arrive. I was using my favourite combination of 40% through the 60% jet on the Dolphin for a loop fO2 of 26%-ish. My buddy for the day came and parked so close to me that I would need to grease up the passenger side of the car if I was to be leaving first, and as we chatted Toby and Barry arrived with plans to hit the pit. This left me to do a 20m dive as the poor bugger paired up with me is still kit fiddling and had a gurgling loop last dive, so we were having an easy day of it, which suited me. I sorted out the camera [MM2-EX] and the housing for my digital camera that I wanted to check for water tightness. Lugging the 7L bailout/deco/suit gas and camera down to the step gave me a look in the water, which was nice and clear, so we should be on for an enjoyable day. Of course, with your average inland dive site clear also means cold, and the predicted water temperature was 8C. We waved goodbye to Toby and Barry and pre-breathed our way down to the step to get in and finish the kitting up. After sorting out a bit of skirt [unfortunately on my buddies mask, not the young lady variety] we dropped to 5m to do a quick bubble check before heading over the cliff and down to 20m. I was warned of dire consequences if I finned off too quickly, so instead settled in to following mode for the dive. At the bottom of the cliff we headed around to the West for a bit, and I thought that we were going to end up at the BOP, but instead we turned left and went along the edge of the pit to the cairn, where I added a couple of stones. Earlier in the year a couple of Mensa high flyers had pushed the previous cairn into the pit and the new one is only half the size of the vandalised one at the moment. Front of the coach in 21m. From the cairn it’s a simple navigation to the coach where I took a couple of pics as I couldn’t be bothered swimming around it twice in pursuit of my buddy. The Stanegarth was, as usual, next on the list for the tour, and looking up with the sun shining down, the surface almost looked close enough to touch. The sun was rippling away, and it looked like there may have been a bit of a thermocline judging by the depth the light seemed to be being refracted at. The first Christmas decorations of the year have been left on the tug, and the giant poppy and sign that were laced in on Rememberance Sunday were still there. As the sun was over the yard arm it must be time for the rum ration. By now I was expecting my buddy to be cold, and unsurprisingly we were heading North to the helicopter. As I took a couple of pictures to contrast the damage done to the wreck compared to the one at Capernwray I noticed a sudden lack of buddy. CCR units are bubbleless unless they are broken so I set off looking for an errant diver. Nowhere to be seen near the Wessex, so I look up and around and start to make progress over to the white van, where I see the brightly coloured shell I have been looking for. The vandals at least have some respect and have left this alone for over a month. We plod our way around the bottom of the cliff to what looked like a slalom course of road cones, but on closer inspection turned out to be an arc of the things. I tried to check the alignment of them with the sun that could just be seen above the cliff top as I am sure someone has constructed their own ‘Cone Henge’. We didn’t hang around too long in case the builders were near looking for a virgin to sacrifice. Looking forwards over the engine hatches on the Stanegarth. A signal of ‘my hands are cold and I’m going up’ meant we were on the way back, and when we crested the cliff at 6m I could see that we were well on the way to the wooden wreck. This should be entertaining then as we were now 40 minutes into the dive, and although we were nowhere near a deco requirement, it will be a bit of a haul back. A tour of the right side of the wrecked wreck of the Wessex-the nose. The door and centre fuselage. Start of the tail boom. Mid section of the tail boom with a resting perch. However, it’s rather fortunate that we have come up to 6m where we did as we found a pair of pike in the weeds, surrounded by hundreds of fry. A good fish spotter for a buddy is useful in these situations and mine didn’t let me down. The last three shots of the film were used in photographing the pike, before the larger one looked a bit lairy and scared me off. I DID only blow the bloody doors off. I was giving my housing controls a twiddle on the return to check for water tightness as we made our way back and off gassed. We passed the 4m blockhouse and pub as we travelled back, then met up with Barry and Toby as they finished their dive. We managed to bimble back as a foursome, Toby forgetting dive etiquette and trying to muscle his way in front of me at the step where we were getting out. The first view of the two pike. Predator and prey-two pike and fry. Once out I found myself buddyless as the cold had set in a little too far, and I was being blamed for an hour plus dive in cold conditions. Err, hold on a minute, who was leading the dive? The others had been to the pit and had a dive time a few minutes shorter than our 62 minutes. A bit of a worry was the soggy kitchen roll inside my digital camera housing. I replaed it with fresh and then dropped the housing into the lake for a shallow soak test. Dive one profile. Dive one loop fractions calculated from depth and pO2 As the food hatch was open it would have been rude of me not to scoff a soss sarnie while we let the nitrogen subside a bit. A lot of mickey taking was given and had by all, especially Lesley who was on site to ask our opinion about her new pockets and how to stitch D rings into them. The rest of us looked a bit lost as being blokes we weren’t au fait with this stitching and sewing lark. Lesley lays down the law to a very naughty Barry. Dive two saw me leading Barry and Toby astray. A trip to the Cessna ledge was planned, and we were looking at another 50+ minutes in the water. I was designated dive leader as [1] Barry couldn’t be bothered and [2] Toby didn’t know where we were going. Of course I fall under both categories, which apparently made me the winner with 2 out of 2. I retrieved the housing, which was dry inside, but not wanting to risk a camera I decide to take it back to 20m for a double check, with Once in at the bus stop we dropped to 6m an then to 20m to find the BOP. Swimming past that we came to the rope to the box, which I followed as far as I could while being able to see the wall as well. As I lost sight of the wall I headed to it at an angle and kept at a depth of 22m until the slope rose up under us. Keeping the wall to the right we were led to the Cessna after what seemed a surprisingly long swim. The port wing has now been ripped off, but is still in the vicinity of the wreck. Rather than navigate to the narrowboat we follow the edge of the 20m level around to see what we can find. A crayfish was interrupted in its wanderings by me pointing a camera at it, and responded by getting a bit aggressive. We carried on around to the car and the narrowboat. While Toby was playing inside the boat I wrote ‘HMS Troutbridge’ in the silt on the bow. For those not in the know, due to the inept navigation of a certain Mr Phillips, the Troutbridge was the only Royal Navy ship with two blunt ends. The easy way to win at ‘giant underwater noughts and crosses’ is to be noughts and make sure that your buddy can’t find any crosses before you get three in a row. A slightly crap bit of direction finding saw us missing the van and hitting the Cessna again. By now we were running out of non-deco time and began out ascent to keep ourselves at the lighter end of any required stops. With the water temperature getting low for winter a long stop isn’t such a good idea. The advantage of staying at 20m as long as possible is to reduce the swim back to as short a time and distance as possible, but coming up earlier allows a swim through large schools of roach and the larger perch that wander around past the West side of the bus stop. We slowly carried on around the 6m level to the step and ladder where we got out as the light began to fade. Dive two profile. The gas fractions from dive 2. The day wasn’t over yet though, and I persuaded Barry that doing a third dive with me was a good idea. I say ‘persuaded’, but ‘bribed’ would be a better word as it was a chocolate filled donut that convinced him. Barry looked a bit worried when he saw the size of the tank I hauled out of the car. Checking buoyancy and trim with the 10L tank during the trimix experiment. The 10L tank makes getting a reliable trimix easier and it was time at last for me to try trimix through the Dolphin’s loop. My 50% jet is inoperative at the moment, and while I wait for the replacement I was running the tank mix of 40/11 through the 40% jet. I needed to get some figures to see if the theory I had worked on would prove accurate in practice. Does my unit look big in this? Heading over to the cliff edge. Not being overly brave I was in with an experienced diver and had enough bailout in case things got entertaining. Would also need enough time for the gas to settle down from the descent where the ADV operates to a steady state. Looking up at the balcony from 5m. The howl of the gas into the loop at 10.4 L/min was amazingly loud compared to the usual gentle hiss of the 5.8 L/min 60% jet. However I had a 10L tank and wanted to check the theory with fractions of gas that would be close to those in the tank. With the SCR system the fraction of oxygen varies with workload so therefore the rest of the gasses do as well. And the restaurant part of the pub where food awaits. As my housing hadn’t leaked I had plonked my camera in it for a dive, and Barry took a couple of snaps so that I could check my trim with a huge lump of steel strapped across my arse. After the posing we dropped to 20m, where Barry started to look a bit worried that I wasn’t wearing any gloves while he was in his drygloves. With a suitable number of depth vs pO2 readings taken we headed back up and were last out with 2 minutes to go before the staff release the piranha. Lesley and Toby were still lurking about to greet us on our exit and then leave us to dekit in the darkening car park. Once all the kit was stowed we hit the pub for fruit juice and hot chocolate which washed down cheeseburger and chips before we made our way home. Dive 3 profile. The depth, pO2 and gas fractions from the trimix dive. Using a higher flow rate means that the loop fractions are more stable at the expense of duration. Dive data: Dive 1 22.3 m 62 min 40% 5.8 L/min SI: 2 h 25 min Dive 2 23.5 m 62 min 40% 5.8 L/min SI: 1 h 0 min Dive 3 20.1 m 20 min 40/11% 10.4 L/min __________________ David. Currently owner of two differently sized ankles.
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