Mark’s original plan this bank holiday Monday was a trip to Dover to dive SS Unity and then Mindora. The SSUnity is still on Mark’s Bucket List since his research into Uboat SM UB-57 in 2018, the same Uboat that sank many ships around the south coast, including the Kyarra and Clan Macvey in Swanage, the War Monarch and her final sinking being the City Of Brisbane before her own demise. Then, of course, the Mindora for a little treasure hunting.
That all said and done, Mark received an invitation to join new club member Piers, a fellow Redbare CCR diver for a dive on the Aeolian Sky. Piers dived the Sky the other week, but this time the plan was a threesome, with non club member Becks on her open circuit twins.
With perfect conditions, Portland was the destination with a ropes off time of 09.00am. Wanting a leisurely commute, Mark drove down Sunday night for a recce as he had never dived from Portland before. Staying at the Admiralty Hotel for one night, he was first to arrive at the Marina on Monday to set up his kit. He was told there were lots of trollies. “Indeed, there’s one reason why there are loads of trollies at Portland Marina” he thought “And the answer is it’s a bloody long walk to the dive boat!”
The Sea Leopard
Of MV Salutay fame, we were diving from Al and Freda’s new catamaran, the Sea Leopard. Their new dive boat is a huge vessel, easily accommodating 10 twinsets or CCR divers with stages. The problem was that Sea Leopard was unable to moor close and hence it was a good ½km walk from the car park to the boat. With two trips needed with heavy kit, a nice cup of tea was welcome as we cast off.
With an hour run time to the Sky, the three of Piers, Becks and Mark cobbled together a loose dive plan. Becks was on a 32% Nitrox mix, with both Mark and Piers on their Redbare units. Mark and Becks did not want to encounter any decompression obligation, which may shorten the dive run time for Piers and hence Mark would ascend with Becks, allowing Piers to run a little longer and ascend on his own if he wanted.
The Aeolian Sky
The Aeolian Sky lays in some 32 meters of water on her port side. Varying along the length of the vessel, depth to the starboard side is around 20 metres. The conditions were dark, snotty and dank. Piers gauged around 5 to 6 metres visibility and Mark around 3 to 4. With an “all OK” signal, the ensemble bimbled around the bottom of the shot and then off into the darkness, ever mindful that “darkness” could interpret as “inside of” and with an ever mindful glance to lighter waters, meandered around. Mark spotted an anchor, which he thought was the starboard bow while Becks and Piers were in awe of a massive conga.
Back towards the shot area at around 40 minutes into the dive and the current was picking up. All three agreed in consensus to end the dive. We were told not to ascend the shot that we descended, as this was from dive charter Tango of Weymouth. And here’s where the fun starts. Piers deployed his DSMB as planned as Mark wanted to try a free ascent. All three left the wreck and drifted off with the current. Becks had perfect trim and Piers looked pretty cool too. Mark was happy, though felt a little overweighted. The long and short of it was, Becks and Mark met at 12 metres with no sign of Piers. Happy and stable, Mark and Becks headed for the 6 metre safety stop but with too much gas in his drysuit, Mark shot past 6 metres and was now hovering around three. Back down to six and with still no sign of Piers, Becks deployed her DSMB and the pair surfaced to see Piers’ DSMB just five meters away.
Perhaps not a textbook ascent, but we have all done worse. The only real catastrophe was that Becks did not clip off her spool on the surface. It started to unravel and plummet back into the abyss, all 30 metres of it, mandating a ball of spaghetti to detangle once on board.
Dive Time: 50 minutes
Max Depth: 27 metres
Ave Depth: 20 metres
Visibility: 3 to 5 metres
Surface Interval
Another cup of tea once all three were back on board and this time, accompanied by one of Freda’s legendary flapjacks. Piers bantering why Mark and Becks left him on the ascent, while the pair of them ganged up on Piers, chastising him for leaving the threesome. “We were at 12 metres waiting for you.” Chuckled Becks.
One of the great thinks about Sea Leopard is that those with single cylinders can get a refill during the surface interval. With the onboard compressor, you only need bring one cylinder.
Black Hawk Drift
Dive two was to be the Black Hawk. Mark has logged two dives here but has no memories of them. Perhaps they were indeed, not memorable?
The plan was that all divers would be dropped some 30 metres up current and free descend onto the wreck. After exploring the broken debris field, divers were told to deploy a DSMB and continue on a drift in a westerly direction back towards Portland in a ½ knot current. Although all three divers entered the water succinctly and descended pretty much instantly, there was no wreckage. So straight into the drift.
Piers deployed his DSMB and the threesome, in perfect arrowhead symmetry sped off over sand, shingle and rock. Mark’s facemask was leaking and as much as he tried, nothing would fix it. Not a huge problem for open circuit divers, but here’s the problem for anyone diving on CCR.
If you do not know, a Closed Circuit Rebreather is exactly that, closed. The breathable gas circulates within the unit. The unit will add diluent on descent together with oxygen to both maintain “loop volume” and attain a “PPO2 setpoint”. At 15 metres, the PO2 of air is 0.315 and with a setpoint of 1.20, every time one injects diluent, it will dilute the breathing gas as of course, 0.315 is less than 1.20.
So that’s the problem. Every time Mark exhaled through his nose to clear his mask, his loop volume dropped and with a squirt of diluent, the PO2 dropped too, invoking a squirt of oxygen and a fluctuation of buoyancy. Simply put, a constant irritation. So when Becks decided she wanted to surface, Mark decided to do so too.
They were around 32 minutes into the dive. Becks was low on gas as planned. She did not top up from the previous dive, knowing the depth would be shallow. Mark was irritated by his mask and the pair simply had enough of sand, shingle, rock, sand, shingle, rock, sand, shingle, rock and a little more sand.
Becks deployed her DSMB and Mark opted for another free ascent. Let’s put it this way. The nemesis for Mark was again between 12 metres and 6 metres. Piers continued the dive to 65 minutes while Mark and Becks enjoyed yet another cup of tea back on board.
Dive Time (Piers) 65 minutes
Dive Time (Becks and Mark) 37 minutes
Max Depth: 16 metres
Ave Depth: 15 metres
Visibility: 5 to 6 metres
The Commercial Impacts Of Covid-19
Back to Portland Marina and passing the Weymouth Anchorage, snaps of Cunard’s Queen Victoria and TUI’s Marella Explorer 2. They are two of seven cruise liners there, including Victoria’s sister the Queen Mary 2 and P&O’s Britannia. A sober reminder of the commercial effects of Covid-19 that has many negative impacts, not only to the crew but to the various tourist destinations around the world why rely on cruise liners for their livelihoods.
Back On Land
Having offloaded their kit when back at port, a quick coffee and banter for the day. Mark and Piers argued about what anchor they saw and all three critiqued their dives and came up with some positive solutions to some of the problems encountered. One constant was managing ascents and they agreed next time to appoint a ‘Deco Captain’. Not that they were doing any decompression diving, but a controlled ascent with 21, 18, 15, 12, 9 and 6 metre stops where we all know at what level to ‘meet’, confirm we’re all OK and then step to the next level.
