Under Pressure

What a superb days diving and a great weekend away drinking, having fun and socialising with fellow Cumbernauld Sub Aqua Club Divers.

I drove my new Scuba Bus up from Hamilton to Oban and with the help of modern technology (SAT NAV) right to the door of the great value Woodhouse Hotel & Hydro lounge bar.

The woodhouse is a small back street hotel (one star) however it is friendly & has a couple of fun bars with clean, basic rooms, is great value at £25 for a single room with ensuite.

A few quick drinks with the rest of the BAWBAGS then off to bed.

Up at seven thirty, headed along to the Oban Tesco for a big fry up with Billy & John then over to the North Pier to be picked up at the slipway by our dive boat for the day.

Just after Nine am everybody started arriving, getting changed into drysuits, setting up Scuba gear and generally having a good laugh, Bod complete with Intercity 125 car horn. Sponge Bob, Fran the Gran, Tall Jim, Redneck Chris & the budding Cameraman Stew to name a few.

The weather was forecast to be sunny and clear but as usual the rain was coming down from the skies although the clouds where moving inland so we kept our hopes up for the day.

Just as the rain stopped the MV Silverswift docked at the slipway and we started loading up our kit.

The Silverswift is a great wee boat (37′ Feet), plenty room for the twelve divers, with lots of deck space, racks to clip our gear too, seats and a large awning to let us keep out the rain or sun.

A large cabin with plenty seats with a downstairs cabin and toilet. Paul the skipper was very chatty, knowledgeable and very keen for us to have a great days diving, he insisted that we would not be rushing about and that we would have at least a two hour surface interval.

Once everybody was on board (we had the Silver Swift to ourselves as we had twelve divers from CUSAC) with Pauls expert knowledge helping us choose a dive site to match conditions of the day and our divers experience we discussed that we should do the the Breda, Rondo or Hispania as our first dive as we could make slack tide from Oban to any of these sites. After a quick chat we all agreed that the Hispania was the wreck to dive first with probably the Thesis after a good surface interval.

Off we headed, and the Silver Swift may be small but she is blinking fast with twin turbo diesel engines blasting us up the Sound of Mull at up to 24 knots!

The Skies had really cleared up, the weather was lovely and when we arrved at the site of the Thesis another boat (The Peregrine) was just collecting her divers, we kitting up, done checks and off we and went down in our buddy teams…….

Dive one: Hispania Start Time: 11:42 Duration: 27 Minutes.

Having never dived the Hispania before and having heard that she is one of, if not the best wreck in the Sound of Mull I was really looking forward to diving this, I was buddied with Gerry & Fran. Down the shotline we went, fantastic visibility (15 - 20 Metres).

The shot line took us to midships where we stopped and checked everything was good, Gerry was a little unstelled for a moment or two as he hadnt been in the water since November, When we all gave the OK signal, the three of us went across the deck and towards the bow along the starboard side of the wreck.

The soft corals and sponges where just fantastic, we came across a large Wrasse and a group of gorgeous Pollack, we finned through the open companion ways and made our way to the pointy bit of the wreck.

We turned from the bow and headed back along the port side with the wreck listing slightly to starboard the effect was a little strange, when we reached the companion ways Fran stopped in front of me and Gerry was stopped dead in front of her…..

After a minute or so I wondered what was going on so I finned outside the companion ways to be alongside Gerry, he looked a little less calm than his normal horizontal mode and was desperatly trying to dump air from his suit, we looked at each other and I knew something was up, I indicated a thumbs up and he gave the thumbs up back.

We where midships and the shotline was within a few easy finstrokes of us. I pointed to the line and we all headed for it, up we went, using the shotline for our safety stop just as we got to the six metre point the current picked up as the slack left us to turn to a flooding tide, we hung on the line like clothes blowing on a washing line on a warm windy summer day, up we went safely to the surface, Gerry was picked up by the boat, Fran was trying to tell me something but I couldnt mnake her out, she poped back under for a look and I was a little worried, I let go of the shot line and finned to the ladder as Fran followed me.

It turns out I had my hand on top of Frans on the line and had squashed her fingers, she ended up pulling her hand so hard out from under mine that she ripped her new gloves, eek! my bad Sorry Fran!

A great dive, one I cant wait to do again with less incidents. It turns out one of Gerrys weight puches from his ND weight harness must have been pulled free becuase he went very bouyand and thats why he was frantically dumping air.

Stew had his video camera down with him and has posted a movie of the dive on “YD with a video of the boat and the dive on the Hispania, it is well worth watching!
Profile:

Max Depth 22.7 Metres
Water Temp: 8-9 oC

Air in: 187 Bar, Air out: 118 Bar. SAC: 19.3 LPM (I am not normally as high as this for my SAC but it just goes to show what a little bit of pressure does to your air consumption rate)

Surface Interval:

Hot mugs of Tea & Coffee, home made yummy Shortbread! (Pauls wife runs a company that makes and sells, handmade shortbread) & tall tales of heroism and deep penetration…

Paul cruised up to the Isle of Mull and moored up at the Tobermory harbour (to a rapture of whats the story balamory! where we all dipped deep in our drysuit pockets and borrowed money from Tall Jim & Sponge Bob, off he headed to the fishermans pier and the great wee chippy van (also owned by Pauls wife)

After a nice relaxing wander round the village we got back on the boat and headed back down the sound of Mull till we reached the next dive site.

Dive 2: The Thesis Start Time: 14:59 Duration: 30 minutes

Having dived the Thesis once before with Billy & John I was looking forward to it again as I have done a lot of diving since then and my own in water confidence has improved lots.

This time John had split his cuff seal so wasnt diving and due to Gerry loosing half his weight he had decided not to dive again so Billy joined Fran and myself for a wee guddle around The Thesis.

With a flood tide the Thesis is sheltered from any fast currents and the visibility was at least as good as we had on the earlier dive. a stonking dive with lots of life shoaling mackerl, a great wreck with an exposed super structure, lots of dead mans fingers and plenty of nooks and crannies to look in.

Easy penetration due to the hull plates being off around the bow section.

Once again Stew had his video camera in with him and has put together a great wee movie, you can see me at 50 seconds, with the white regulator in my mouth.

Profile:

Max Depth 30.3 Metres
Water Temp: 8-9 oC

Air in: 108 Bar, Air out: 50 Bar.

Other Notes:

I was diving my new frog midnight wing for the first time and found the inflator hose a little short for comfort, I am used to the longer inflator on the OMS wing.

I used the Frog wing with the my OMS comfort harness and homemade SS backplate.

I’d spent some time adjusting the comfort harness and the buckles are in a much better position now.

Adendum:

Forgot to add that I took this picture of John having a going at being the skipper…..

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 2:24 pm and is filed under Dive Reports, Scuba Diving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.