ScubaSmith

Saturday Dive 2 (25min)
This time we had a steady descent over 10 minutes down to 17m having a look at the helicopter on the platform and then on to podsnap, and then followed the edge very very slowly up back to the left hand causeway

Sunday Lou & Leigh (48min)
Down along side the training areas, down to the dreamer almost made it to the Orca but air was looking a bit low, so headed back to shergar and lou took some pictures and video, then back in to the shallows to feed the fish some sweetcorn and take pictures while I completely lost my buoyancy and had to be dragged back to the bottom as was heading to the surface fins first.

PPB Dive 1 (47min)
Off down through the training area stopping at the first flat bed to do some fin pivots and get neutrally buoyant, my feet as normal like to float to the surface so with the assistance of my buddy neil holding my fins to the deck I finally got it all in check, then headed off to the Lord Lucan to hover for a minute, one by one we all get taken away for what seems like an eternity, (well 5minutes) it was reassuring to see that everybody’s hover went up and down by about 6ft, but the first 3 made it then we started “testing our buoyancy” by sitting on shergar and trying to ride him, of course andy had to sit arse about face just so we all laughed and flooded our masks, then a where to swim next, where else through shergars legs, and not forgetting the limbo poles trying to fit and big man with a big tank on his back through a little gap, always good for a laugh

PPB Dive 2 (25min) (temp 16)
Back in for a final practice swim off to Lord lucan so Andy could do his hover, so the 4 of us boxed a perch in and kept pushing it back into the middle of us, silly fish if it went up we would have lost it but it wanted to stay at the bottom, but low and behold we were all hovering just above the bottom to chase a fish, no pressure from an instructor and we did it without even thinking, aren’t we wonderful, then off back to shore before we get told off for coming back 1minute from shout time, under the landing platforms this time, no problem, then swimming into the shore maintaining control for as long as possible, made it to 1.3m before neil broke the surface.

Monday Dive 1 (35mins) (temp 21)
Back to the sunny side of the pennines today with a loveley 21 degree water temp, no need to hoods or gloves in here, me being the only one with a compass gets volunteered to navigate not surprising we get lost, first we find the fighter plane but that wasn’t hard it was only 20ft from the shore then we aim for the wreck on the other side and get completely lost, but have a general bimble round and then realise we ain’t gonna find a thing so up to the surface for a reposition and back down we go, more back luck than judgement we find the cargo container cave in and up through there then a gently swim back to the entry point. Viz was very settled especially with the massive thickness of silt at the bottom, but there were billions of dragonfly larve and daphnia etc cutting the viz to 4-5 m on average (some nice trout in there would soon sort the vizout), never saw any fish just a few little newts.

Monday Dive 2 (39mins)
At last I discover neutral buoyancy, that swimming thing where you don’t use your hands to climb over the bottom instead you just relax swim in a straight line (well the compass said it was straight) but still never got to where we were heading (the tank) but instead we bumbled around gently following the contours of the bottom (without touching it) we did find an old car tyre which seemed to have become a dragon fly nursery as there were 3or 4 hatching dragonflies living there, if only we had a camera. Back to the compass to head back to the shore, and stumble onto a large boat hull what compass navigation (or luck) was that. A 25ft boat inhabited by only one very large crested newt, then finally back to the shore to dry out and sign logbooks

Piczo