This weekend was Lady Weekend! The ladies (Tina, Penny and myself) were out on tour at Stoney Cove to run a Deep Diver Speciality Course, ably assisted by Alan, with our four student divers including one AI and three TDMs.

The journey to Stoney was rather eventful, to say the least. Before we even left, Alan rang to say that the M1 was closed, then we discovered that the cigarette lighter wouldn’t power Tina’s sat nav … luckily, Penny seemed to know roughly where we were going (and she got us there in the end!). Tim passed us along the motorway in his shiny TVR – “I can catch him,” Penny announced, leaning forward over the steering wheel, as the van did its best impression of a V8 engine. Perhaps not the best plan, we realised later, when I was jolted out of my pre-dive snooze when the exhaust suddenly blew. We weren’t too far from Stoney by then, although we got a lot of strange looks as we blasted through the sleepy village lanes.

Finally, we arrived, and mechanics Duncan and Alan got down to examine the damage – the exhaust had split in two, no wonder the noise had been so loud. The RAC popped out at lunchtime to fix it up so that we’d be able to drive home – thank God!

We unpacked the van and got ready for our first dive, which would be on the Stanegarth – a short surface swim out, then a dive to around 22m followed by a slow ascent. We were all using pony bottles, which is part of the course – some people were already accustomed to using a pony, but for some of the students it would be their first go. The pony adds quite a bit of weight to the dive kit, which is already heavy! So we were all quite anxious to get in quickly once we were kitted up.

As the instructor, Penny descended first and I was bringing up the rear with Chris and Duncan. We slid slowly down the rope into a jacuzzi of bubbles from the others below us, until we reached the Stanegarth. We explored around it, and on the stony bottom, I modelled my drysuit so the students could examine the change in colour of the red.

We added some extra skills practice and did buddy breathing on the deck of the boat, all the students were brilliant – as we’d expected of course, being TDMs and AIs! We ascended very slowly, with the computers registering a beautiful dive profile.

We met Alan (shore cover for Dive 1) back on dry land, and then since I would be shore cover for the afternoon, we decided to have a short surface interval then squeeze in a lunchtime dive together.

We planned to follow the path down to around 20m, swim along the wall to find the Wessex helicopter, then ascend up the wall and look for the crayfish under Nemo’s bar. It was a fabulous dive, the visibility was not bad, and the helicopter – almost rusting away and covered in wires – was cool. Alan found two crayfish, which I was fascinated by, not having seen them before.

We surfaced after that, sticking to our allotted 30 minutes so that Alan had enough time before the next dive. I was starving and had to run for a cheeseburger …

Shore cover isn’t the most interesting job in the world, so I amused myself in the afternoon by taking photographs of ducks and a moorhen that posed and nibbled at a plant rather obligingly. I also made friends with a gorgeous little puppy called Bonnie, although she was less obliging for the camera and more excited about meeting all of these new people walking around in funny outfits.

The divers were practicing DSMB deployment, and so I took photos as their SMBs started to rise up from the water. Some were fairly impressive, although others were rather more floppy … let’s just say there were a few rather rude jokes going around after that! (check out the photos at the end of the post …)

Saturday evening was time for a well earned beer while we filled in log books. Tina and I admired Tim’s fancy car and even posed on it while the boys looked on. After that we had a yummy dinner and off to bed for a good night’s sleep. Sunday morning started with a tasty cooked breakfast to fuel ourselves up for the deep dive first thing.

As we were about to kit up for our first dive, we suddenly heard shouts from the water’s edge, and Stoney Cove staff sprinted across the car park. Alan was just returning from seeing off Andrew and his two divers, and reported back that one poor diver had surfaced having difficulties. The Stoney Cove boat was off within the space of a minute, powering across the lake to the scene – it was amazing how quickly they kicked into action. Luckily, the man seemed to be coughing and spluttering but OK.

Before the dive, Tina drew a grid of numbers 1-9 on her slate, then we timed the guys as they pointed to the numbers in order. We did this again at the bottom, and everybody was slightly slower as the effects of even mild narcosis kicked in.

The deep dive was on the hydrobox, which sits a few metres above the bottom at around 38m. We swam around the edge putting our computers to the bottom to get the depth reading, but even with 28% nitrox our bottom time was very limited and it wasn’t long before we had to start our ascent. I had hauled a stage tank out and attached it to the buoy, so it dangled at 5m from the surface and we all had a go of breathing from it during the safety stop.

We ascended slowly, slowly, up the rope, through at least two thermoclines as the water got mercifully warmer again from the 7 degrees at the bottom!

The very last dive, I was navigating with the hope of finding the helicopter. We started off well at the beginning of the path, with the cockpit of the plane just as we descended, but as we descended further down the wall, visibility shrank to only a couple of metres. I was swimming slowly, Duncan and Chris were right behind me every time I turned, but it seemed a lot further to the helicopter than it had the previous day! It was more difficult to see where the wall was as well, but eventually we found it – hooray!

Our ascent was nice and slow, up the wall, to the shallow area near Nemo’s bar – but we didn’t see any more crayfish, although there were loads of perch hanging around waiting to see if we’d dig anything up from the silt. After a safety stop, the students completed an alternate air source ascent – not part of the course, but always useful to practice.

And so four new deep divers were let loose on the world! Via Nemo’s bar of course, where we filled in cert cards and had a tasty beverage and refuelled ourselves before heading back. Then it was off for what was luckily a less eventful trip home … except for one slightly hairy moment when we thought Tina had left her car keys in the hotel (she hadn’t). The exhaust held out (thank you, Mr RAC man!) and we even got back to the centre in time to wave at the IDC students still working hard and wish Collin a happy birthday

Fun with DSMBs