Divecrew last Club dive of 2009

Up at 07.30… what am I doing? Diving at Vobster. Right, OK – need to be at the services at Chieveley for 09.00 to be picked up.

At 09.05 the Divecrew van appears in the car park with lights flashing and hands waving. It’s Penny Wilson and Tim Wyles, and after greetings and moans about the weather (it’s raining) we load my gear into the van and like the start of many journeys, we grab a coffee and then we are away.

 

With Jane navigating (satnav) we arrive at Vobster one hour and 45 minutes later. The car park is less than half full and we are met by the other hardy divers, they being Chris Jones and John Seccombe.

First things first – comfort stop and a top up of hot teas and hot chocolates.

 

 

Dive one

OK we have now geared up, and talked a good dive, so we better go and do it! Right, who’s guiding? Hmmm no takers, so that will be me then.

With shouts of “Yee-ha” then “Bloody hell that’s cold!”, we enter the water (a crisp 7 degrees).

We are off down the track way through the tunnel and under the wall of the old crushing works at 22m, working our way up the wall to our right on to the 12m level towards the tail section of the plane. This has been moved closer to the top of the crushing works with the open end facing the works. We tour around and through it. The cockpit and centre section are now here as well, with the cockpit turned 180 degrees.

Turning towards north-east we come to the concrete tubes, moving through them to the platform. A line is attached here to the 25m car wreck; lets see if we can find it… well it was part of the dive plan, so we follow the line down. It’s dark. We continue on but at the end of the line is an old granite rail truck! So much for the car. We work our way back up to the 12m level, along past the old Ford Escort, keeping the wall to our left side and returning up the track way.

After a 3 minute safety stop we return to the surface at the base of the slipway. 49 minutes – not bad. Now, where’s that burger and hot chocolate?

Dive Two

All re-warmed and with John’s fingers returning back to pink from blue but with still no takers, I plan the second dive. We drop back into the water, this time to the left of the shop.

Blimey the water seems colder or is just me? Looking at the others, no it’s not!

 

 

We drop down beside the old pipe works, moving off towards our right we find a new attraction. It appears to be a tank with the gun turret missing so we fully investigate it before moving on to the Jacquin 2.

After looking around and inside her, we turn in an easterly direction towards the wheel house. This is easy to get in and out of and so we do. On the back of the wheel house there is a line attached that takes us to the Luv Shack (well, an old caravan up to its tow hitch in the silt. Doesn’t do it for me but it takes all types). Back to the wheel house and moving south-west is the pit. Is there a car down there? Yes there is, and it’s cold and dark.

Moving over to the track way we complete our safety stop and return to the slipway after 38 minutes, to find we are the last group to leave.

 

I personally enjoyed the days diving – many thanks to Penny for arranging it and my fellow divers for making it such good fun. Well done rufty-tufty divers!

(minimum recorded temperature during the day 4 Deg’s)