Oops... haven't really been updating this blog very regularly have I? At least it's not quite a full year between postings (just)! I've been doing lots of scuba diving over the last year: 111 logged dives since my last blog! Been getting into instructing (to Sport Diver & Master Diver level) as well as moving towards a more technical set up with my kit. Had a great dive in the Firth of Clyde yesterday on board the Clutha skippered by Elaine. We dived the wreck of the Akka.
I collected Stewart en route and we travelled together. Was great to finally meet him after much correspondence on congeralley.com and finstrokes.com over the last few months. We arrived in good time at Inverkip Marina and spotted the dive boat. Unfortunately, we had turned left on entering the marina whereas we should have turned right. So we had to dart round to the correct car park & load all of our kit along the lengthy pontoons (limited trolleys were available). Once everything was loaded, we introduced ourselves & left port to head for the wreck of the Akka near Dunoon.
I buddied up with Stuart aka Lizardland who was using a KISS rebreather. I was using twin independent 12 litre 230 bar cylinders (air). We jumped in, swam to the white buoy and headed down the shotline to the wreck. On reaching the wreck there was a noticeable current running. Stuart led the dive during which we covered a fair distance around the wreck but still only saw a tiny proportion of it (it's a BIG ship). We spent all of our dive touring around the deck which is relatively intact with various protruding struts and ropes attached to multiple points. The rusting metal structure is covered with masses of brightly coloured anemones with a particular preponderance of the orange plumose variety. It was a very dark dive with no ambient light penetrating the water at the depth of the wreck. The horizontal visibility of 4-5 metres was about as good as it gets by all accounts for Clyde wreck diving. Most of the dive was spent at depths of 20-25 m with my maximum depth being 25.9 m. This profile incurred 4 minutes of decompression at 3 m.
At the end of the dive we both deployed our delayed surface marker buoys without problem and ascended fulfilling our decompression requirements hanging on our blobs. After the stop at 6 m, the deco was completed but another stop at 3 m was carried out to add a margin of safety. Upon surfacing, I had to wait a few minutes to be plucked from the water. The swell was quite strong so I just bobbed about with my reg in mouth and dSMB pointing up as the waves crashed over my head. Was helped back onto the boat (a very easy ladder to mount) and given a mug of warm delicious soup. Most welcome as I'd got quite chilled on the deco stops. A great dive!
I buddied up with Stuart aka Lizardland who was using a KISS rebreather. I was using twin independent 12 litre 230 bar cylinders (air). We jumped in, swam to the white buoy and headed down the shotline to the wreck. On reaching the wreck there was a noticeable current running. Stuart led the dive during which we covered a fair distance around the wreck but still only saw a tiny proportion of it (it's a BIG ship). We spent all of our dive touring around the deck which is relatively intact with various protruding struts and ropes attached to multiple points. The rusting metal structure is covered with masses of brightly coloured anemones with a particular preponderance of the orange plumose variety. It was a very dark dive with no ambient light penetrating the water at the depth of the wreck. The horizontal visibility of 4-5 metres was about as good as it gets by all accounts for Clyde wreck diving. Most of the dive was spent at depths of 20-25 m with my maximum depth being 25.9 m. This profile incurred 4 minutes of decompression at 3 m.
At the end of the dive we both deployed our delayed surface marker buoys without problem and ascended fulfilling our decompression requirements hanging on our blobs. After the stop at 6 m, the deco was completed but another stop at 3 m was carried out to add a margin of safety. Upon surfacing, I had to wait a few minutes to be plucked from the water. The swell was quite strong so I just bobbed about with my reg in mouth and dSMB pointing up as the waves crashed over my head. Was helped back onto the boat (a very easy ladder to mount) and given a mug of warm delicious soup. Most welcome as I'd got quite chilled on the deco stops. A great dive!
Very poor weather conditions (gusting Force 6) meant that the second dive of the day had to be cancelled. Elaine said that the forecast was for the storm to increase to a Force 9: sometimes discretion is the better part of valour. No-one was in any doubt that the skipper knew best in this scenario. A real shame for the main group on the boat who had travelled all the way from Huddersfield. Apparently, the next day's diving was also cancelled due to the weather meaning that it was a long trip for the Yorkshire divers who only got the one dive all weekend.
Davie (thehappychappy) has posted a thorough blog of the event here.
