Getting wet again
So it's been a very long time since I was last in the water, so long in fact that not only have my tins gone out of test, they've gone out of the second test too!!
As part of my return to water, I'm doing some nice easy single tank only dives with some friends from work. On Friday I did a dive at a local puddle in Inverkeithing. I had been quite nervous about it because I imagined that I would be flailing about, unable to sink and generally suffer a complete loss and fabulousness.
Thankfully that wasn't the case, I was surprisingly comfortable, especially after the first 20 minutes where I started to relax. The result of this is a trip over to the west coast in the salty-stuff! The plan had been to go to St Abbs this weekend, but the forecast was looking grim, Loch Long was Plan B.
Going to the westside
At 630 am the alarm was going off. My lovely girlfriend has made me cinnamon pancakes for breakfast which I inhale. The car is loaded with surprisingly little gear (because I'm borrowing cylinders and I'm not using the twinset) and I head off to Uphall to meet Tam and Mark. A very fun game, which I had forgotten all about since upgrading to a Mondeo estate, of 3D-tetris ensued.
Amazingly 6 cylinders, 5 dive bags and three people got into a fiesta and we were off on the road for 830. The poor car did struggle on the hills though but we made it!
Both dives were identical, so rather than describe each one, I'll provide a general narrative that adequately describes both.
Dive 1
In: 240 out: 90
RT: 40
RT: 40
Dive 2
In: 160 out: 50
RT: 30
RT: 30
There isn't really steps down to the water front, it's more of a scrabble across a rocky path. It's easily do able, but I recommend taking your rig down, then your weights and then you go down when in your dry suit. It just means you are less likely to slip.
I had my brand new Santi BZ400 custom undersuit on so I was pretty bound up, between that and the weight belt (which I've never used before because normally I'm in a twinset) so it was a struggle but fins got on eventually - it's amazing how much finesse you lose when you don't dive regularly. I remember kitting up being a breeze. I remember on my trimix course having stages and even that wasn't really a problem, and here's me struggling whilst wearing a single 12!
Once in the water, the visibility at the surface was probably the best at maybe three to four metres.
Once the team was settled, we swam off. When swimming across the sea bed, I'd say it's sparse with life. There was the occasional crab but that's about it. After swimming about a bit we found a concrete pillar laying on the sea bed. These are your reference points to find what are called the a-frames.
The a-frames are a pair of concrete structures. Approximately triangular, stood up right spaced about 1m apart. We were at the 15m a-frames, there are more at about 25m where the visibility is said to be better. But because I certainly hadn't been in the water for a few years really, I didn't want to go deeper.
The a-frames are absolutely covered in life. I defocussed my HID light from the tight, light-sabre-type, beam to provide a wider beam for lighting the area up more.
In my mind I always imagined Scottish waters to be murky and the animal life to be muted colours like yellows and browns, but in reality there were many more vibrant colours, typically purple and pinks. I was very much surprised!
We would do two or three laps of the a-frames which usually meant we were at about 100 bar (the needle drops disgustingly quick on a single!!) before heading back the way we came to head back to the surface. Each dive was about 35 minutes long.
We were lucky that the weather was nice enough during the surface interval and post dive to allow us to breakdown our equipment and be dry.
I thoroughly enjoyed my dives at the a-frames and would definitely go back again, although I'd make sure to go when it hasn't been raining within the previous few days as that did noticeably cripple the visibility.
On the day a tanker was docked at the nearby terminal, I am guilty of wishing it would sink, that would make a fantastic dive! For those who have been to Malta, said tanker was at least the same size as the Um El Faroud! Generally a very good day out, thanks to Tam for driving and Mark for sourcing the extra cylinders!
