August 2007 Archives

It occurred to me earlier that I am sad. What, I hear you cry? Leah, Queen of Fashion and all things good looking?

 Well a few weeks ago, when Frances was wandering about in her pink drysuit and pink BCD with pink cylinder cover etc, I realised that most of my dive kit is black or blue. But so is my kite kit (bar my kites, obviously, apart from my 4.8 which is black and mmm, but the Cent has a blue soulfly on it I guess).

And so, my mission to spend money on equipment that is mostly blue or black begins. May my days of red and black helmet, black jacket, red rucksack, camoflage trousers, blue gaitors and purple striped wellingtons be gone! Long live the era of sexy oversized black drysuits, pond weed filled hair or a sand covered face. As long as I coordinate.

Just a quick one really to note down that I've had some really trippy dreams lately!

 I know I had weird ones the other night, yesterday night I was dreaming about big ponds and fish and lizards and people wearing Kev's trilby, and last night was even stranger with a wolf turning into a man and giant aquatic badgers!

 Hopefully it's just the weather or something though they are pretty fun to remember.

Well in the couple of months I've been working at the Wheel I've already earned plenty of tips.

Jackie said when I started working there that if a tip is left on the table, it goes in the bowl to share between everyone (restaurant and kitchen staff), but if someone actually specifies that the tip is for you (or in the case of the other week, you and your associate in the restaurant) it's your discretion if you put it in the bowl or not.

Needless to say, the other week I put just short of £200 worth of tips (some notes, mostly pound coins and 50pence pieces) into the bank and treated myself to a nice new toy. A 4.8m PKD Combat (Proto) belonging to Si Bailey. Kev's got it just now but it isn't long until I can play with it myself!

A couple of weeks later and the tips are racking up again already but I've got to save these for something more constructive!

Well last weekend Frances and I returned to Stoney, me having my membership/ID In Emergency Type Thing Card and did a further 4 dives to help me complete my Sports Diver qualification.

The first two dives went no deeper than 22m, doing compass work and deploying the DSMB (Delayed Surface Marker Buoy) from a depth of 22m. On the second dive we delayed the SMB a bit too fast and the winch on the winder snapped in half, meaning reeling it back in was difficult.

For the third and fourth dives we were joined by a man from Frances BSAC dive club in Nottingham, so I could do my rescue work and Frances could watch easier.

The third dive was a dive I planned myself, going from the edge of the water on a bearing of 200 degrees until I found the 6m shelf edge, dropping down to 22m and onwards to the Wessex, a helicopter. My dive plan surfaced now, but we had loads of time and air left so carried on a wander looking at the perch and the freshwater sponges on the cliff edge, found somewhere to deploy the SMB and ascended, stopping to look at a crawfish "nest" under the pub.

The 4th dive descended near the emergency boat jetty and followed the track road down to 25m. This is the deepest I have been so far and I realised just how much darker it gets very quickly. It didn't help the viz down there was no more than 2m because of an algae bloom nearer the surface. We followed the edge up again to the 22m shelf and then over to the School Bus for a quick play about inside. Because I've never really been inside anything wreckwise yet it took a short while to realise how big (or small) some gaps are and how much room the equipment on my back takes up! We continued over towards the Stanegarth for a bit more exploration and then (eventually, after a long and air consuming detour causing me to end up breathing from Frances' pony regulator) finding out way back to the surface and doing our rescue ascent.

With most of my BSAC logs signed off now, all I need now is to go back and have Rob (DO in the Club) stamp and sign my book and I am officially a Sports Diver! Though I will need to buy some more equipment - luckily it shouldn't be too expensive!