I’m planning (weather-permitting) to run a survey dive on the Alex on the weekend of the 3rd & 4th December. Plan is to use the ‘new’ RIB out of Casteltown to shuttle to the dive site.
Dive plan (provisional):
Saturday 3rd
Dive 1
0830hrs launch RIB and begin loading kit.
0915 hrs all aboard , ropes off.
0945hrs – arrive at Alex and deploy shot
1010hrs divers in – start of slack – tide running SW 0.4 knots
1100hrs divers up – second wave in
1150hrs all divers recovered, pull shot and return to casteltown
Longer, safer bottom times and optimum decompression using rich mixes
Building on the foundation of Nitrox knowledge contained within Ocean Diver and Sports Diver training, the course develops this knowledge and in particular highlights the benefits that can be gained from using high oxygen mixtures to improve the efficiency of off gassing during decompression stops. This course takes your diving to a higher level.
Entry requirement
Entry level is BSAC Sports Diver who has completed the 2007 syllabus (with nitrox content) and has been endorsed as a Nitrox Diver, plus 20 additional dives including depth experience to 30 metres.
Alternatively, applicants must hold an acceptable diving and nitrox qualification with another agency which equates to the above standards. All students must hold gold standard buoyancy from the Buoyancy and Trim BSAC workshop.
What you’ll learn
The Accelerated Decompression Procedures course has a mix of classroom-based and practical lessons, teaching you:
• Knowledge of safe diving using Nitrox and accelerated decompression techniques
• Use of gas mixes up to 80% oxygen
• New concepts and skills
• Dive planning
Learning materials
Your course pack includes all the learning materials you need for the course. The pack includes: ‘Ox-Stop decompression tables’ (plus ‘Nitrox tables’ unless already BSAC Advanced Nitrox Diver), the ADP course manual and a Qualification Card application.
A two week stint in Scapa Flow is any British diver’s dream. Frequently suggested as the best diving the UK has to offer it should certainly be on your to-do list if you haven’t already been, and almost certainly on your ‘must return’ list if you’ve experienced it already.
Once you’ve recovered from the drive – from Oxford it takes about 11 hours + the ferry crossing to reach Stromness in Orkney, far north of Scotland. It really does make sense to fly, but only if you can get someone else to take your kit – excess dive baggage is apparently frequently discarded when planes are overweighted. The drive beyond Glasgow is quite scenic though, as is the ferry from Scrabster to Stromness, so that helps. It is certainly even better on the way south.
As the first stage to qualification for skippering the club boats the BSAC Boat Handler course is now being taught at Oxford BSAC. This equips trainees with the skills necessary to safely take charge of a vessel in open water. An additional 20 hours experience is required before then moving onto the Diver Cox’n (diver coxswain) course which then qualifies us to pick up divers and snorkelers. A bit of a palava, but it then means we are insured, which with an adventurous sport is a bit of a must.
On June 18th Chris Stevens and I started our 6 hour trip down to St Keverne for a semi closed circuit rebreather course using the Drager Rays we had recently purchased. Most of the first day involved getting to know the kit, i.e. how to assemble, check, test and maintain.
This expedition to Lyme Regis was organised by John Waterhouse.
We were staying in a large house at Axminster and had both the club boats ISIS and Gemini to dive from. There were plans to also do some snorkeling, but this did not occur.
You could not have asked for better conditions: neap tides, sunshine, no wind and a perfectly flat Weymouth Bay – truely like glass.
Our plan was to have two dives on our project wreck – the Alex van Opstal – one on each day. To do this we had to leave the marina at an un-weekendly (think I’ve just invented a new word there…) 7.30am. Despite all predictions we actually left 5 minutes early and made good progress in the perfect conditions.
It was all going so well
With a little early morning fog adding to the atmosphere we were starting sense this would be a good weekend. But with a sudden CRUNCH! that all looked a bit premature. We’d hit something. With lightning reactions the skipper shut off the engine, and we sent a diver in to investigate what had got tangled on the propellor.
So the first official dive of the 2011-12 calendar (from the dinner dance in late March onwards) was in 1m of water cutting a plastic mail sack from our boat’s propellor. Auspicious indeed.
The Alex van Opstal
Problem solved we made it to the Alex on slack. We shotted the wreck and two divers started off the weekend’s diving proper. It was looking so good, until we realised they hadn’t moved off the shotline after being down about 5 minutes. Surfacing shortly afterwards they informed us that they couldn’t even see their own fins at the bottom, and despite being on the wreck had decided there wasn’t really any point in diving.
So, the mood slightly more sombre we enacted Plan B…
Lobster Alley and the Black Hawk
Not as exciting as the Alex, but with 4-5m vis we weren’t complaining. After months of being confined to inland dive sites after the weather ruled out trips it was just nice to be back in the sea. There were fish, crabs, lobsters, a slight current and all the random bits of this and that which make the sea so much fun to dive in! Plus it is around 3 degrees C warmer than the quarries, making it a lot more comfortable.
Day Two: Round the Bill
Having realised that Weymouth Bay was pea soup (possibly to do with run-off from all the Olympics construction?) we ventured West and round Portland Bill. When we headed for the wreck of the James Fennel and saw all the charter boats there we knew we must have got it about right.
James Fennel
On dive one, Steve L and I actually found the notoriously difficult-to-locate James Fennel, and were able to pinpoint it for the others to have their second dive on. I’d say this was more by luck than judgement, certainly on my part, but I think Lichy knew what he was doing once we’d started to find bits of wreckage and led me on a tour of the highlights! It really was a fantastic dive – 10m+ vis, calm water and loads of life. Despite locating the stern, prop shaft, boiler and plenty of scattered wreck, we also saw lobsters, pipefishes, conger eels, a stonefish, wrasse and so much more.
SS Gertrude
On our second dive Lichy and I tried to find the SS Gertrude, hidden amongst the bus-size boulders littering the seabed. We weren’t so lucky this time, although having located the anchor I suspect we simply needed to turn towards land rather than out to sea and we would have found it. Never mind – still a pleasant drift dive amongst the boulders, and a nice end to a cracking weekend.
This year the DO is challenging the club to make 1000 dives before the next Dinner Dance (in early 2011).
Things got off to a good start in Weymouth at the beginning of the year with 71 dives and after the Anglesey trip we were over 10% of the way there at 121. Then we had three more great weekends in Weymouth on Gemini II taking us up to 174 thanks to the lots of work by skippers and divers. The week in Weymouth was a bit of a disaster weather wise, but still 83 dives got done and with the Pirate event river clearance a few more took us up once more to 301. After some more Weymouth diving and the Isle of Mann trip we were at 410– over 1/3 of the way there!Three days later a training weekend in Weymouth added another 16 to the total taking it to 426.
The September training event at Burton Bradstock added 21 to the total and the sports sign off day on Gemini II another 15 taking us up to 462. The Alex project weekend added another 27 dives to raise it to a monster score of 490 – more than 3 of the previous 4 years. But…. this isn’t the end of the season! A dive expedition to Scapa Flow generated 67 more dives Raising the total to 557 – more even than the previous record year and the mass dive at Swanage Pier in October clocked up an impressive 33 dives to a total of 590. A trip to NDAC, a prop recovery dive in Weymouth and a last minute club trip to the Red Sea pushed us up to 616.
Come the New year 3 hardy soles dived in Hinksey lake getting us to 619 and then the Red Sea reef cleanup expedition clocked up 70 more bringing us up to 689. 4 bold souls risked the chilly depths of Vobster Quay to make 8 more taking us to 697 nearly up to 700…..
Finally in March a hardy bunch headed off to Cromhall Quarry to do some dive leader rescue exercises and racked up another 12 dives taking us over the barrier to 709. Not bad at all!
July 24th – August 5th 2011
