Exmouth - The Revenge, May 2006

by Katherine Hutt

On May bank holiday last year, I went to Exmouth with Anke and dived the UK sea in a 5mm semi dry. The outcome of that weekend was that I ended up potted for 7 hours and forced by the diving doc to buy a dry suit!!!

Not to be beaten, a "revenge" trip was arranged for 2006.

The crew was "hand picked", with six from last year and four new comers. The "originals" were, Anke, me, Lou Whitehouse and Paul Beal, Matt and Greg. Newbies were Odin, Adrian Kelland, Paul (Foggy) and AndyC.

We were due to dive off the Wave Chieftain III with Rich Tibbs. This would be our first dive on his new cat. The anticipation was killing me!

With a dodgey dive the weekend before in Capernwray, I was still convinced that the dry suit had been hired by the Italian Mafia to try and kill me! On the drive down with Anke we had 5 hours for my moods to swing from "bouncing off the ceiling" excited and "I'm going to die" depressed!! There was much "pre dive" briefing going on in the car!!! It was my first attempt at organising a trip but the fact that I had dived with Rich before and we were using the same B+B the task was made much easier. Never the less, Anke still quizzed me the whole way down on "Dive Leading Expedition Planning" theory - sometimes there are draw backs to going on a trip with your instructor!! ;)

We arrived at the B+B (Lindhays in Lympstone) to find Lou, Paul, Andy and Foggy sat on the bench outside in the evening sunshine. A quick call to Greg and Matt confirmed they were on their way but we should start the steady walk to the pub for tea. We wandered into Lympstone village, Matt and Greg arrived and we all had a lovely dinner at "Redwings". We were all tucked up in bed for 11 ready for an early-ish start in the morning.

Well, 5.30 arrives and I'm AWAKE. Too excited to go back to sleep I lay there for about 2 hours then got up and went exploring!! The B+B has pigs, ducks and tadpoles. The two brothers who run it are great guys. The rest were up shortly and dream analysis took place over breakfast. I'd been dreaming all night that the Italian Mafia had been chasing me around the car park and I'd eventually hidden in Anke's car to get away from them. I then announced that as I had been up early I'd noticed that tadpoles sleep - dunno what I thought they'd do but they were all sleep when I saw them. "Perhaps they are Israeli sympathising tadpoles waiting in ambush for the Italian Mafia" (You may see a theme emerging from here on!!!!!)

We all trundled down to the water side to await our ride for the day. Wave Chieftain III is BEAUTIFUL!!! A catermaran with room for 12 (there were only 10 of us), a side door so you can just walk on or wheel a bag on with no lifting, and a lift at the back for post dive. The wheelhouse is enormous. More than enough room for the 10 of us to stand around drinking tea. Two gas rings and a gas oven means hot pasties all round next year ;). There's a proper toilet, with an electric flush that means EVEYRONE knows you've been.

Hugs all round for Rich and bitch boy Kevin (top bloke was there last year too) and we start putting kit together. The plan for the first dive was the Bretagne. She sits in about 28m of water and about 8m proud. Ropes off and the kettles on!

Dive One - Bretagne
After the other weekend, me and Anke had made a conscious decision to be last in the water, just to make sure I was really really happy. I'm sat, boil in the bag diver, in my dry suit, pony on, mask on, ready to rock and roll and Anke says "I'm not going, Matt/Greg, will you take her with you?" Normally this would have sent me into a blind panic. Diving with people who I have never dived before, not sure about my weighting, I'm either going to sink like a stone, or float like a balloon! But no - I think I did quite well, just threw myself over board!!

I couldn't believe my eyes. The vis went on for miles, not green but BLUE! Matt went first with a bubble check by Greg following and I was last. I'm sinking, not too fast!! We took a moment on the bottom to re group and we seemed to naturally fall into Greg in front and Matt behind me, both looking after me!!! I think we'd landed near the flat end (stern??) we swam along a bit and Greg immediately went diving into a dark hole bit. I knelt outside and kept his torch light in view. Then Matt went in too. Greg came out and asked if I wanted to go for a poke around. Furious head shaking!!! He got the idea! We swam over the top and dropped over the stern towards the sea bed. It took me a while to get my bearings but I spotted the rudder and prop. Covered in dead mans fingers and anemonies.

A bit more exploring and we got to another swim through. Greg asked "Under or over??" It looked light and I could see the big holes in the top so it didn't look too scarey!! "Under!!" We went under and Greg found an old dive knife which we started waving at me. OK he can be a bit scarey at times! We went in a bit further and it started getting a bit dark. *WARNING WOMAN ABOUT TO THROW WOBBLER*!!!! I screeched through my reg - "Greg I don't like it I want out NOW" I don't know if he ACTUALLY heard me or just turned at the right moment but I was OFF!! I turned around to be faced with a cloud of silt. ("Did I do that??") but followed the light out.

All too soon I was down to 100bar. Diving with a twinset diver who doesn't actually breathe and a RB diver meant that it would be me that called it! We had a bimble around for the shot then gave it up!!! Greg blobbed up and Matt reeled in and up we went. I was conscious of loosing my buoyancy so erred on the side of caution and did the slowest ascent known to man!! We weren't into deco but did we three min stop at 6. I could feel the weebles starting as Matt and Greg hovered looking far too cool for school! At this point I gave it up and stuck my hand on the line. Immediately feeling better just for having a point of reference I could touch and I was fine!

Surface and a lady in the lake impression on the lift and I couldn't stop grinning. "What a fabulous dive, magnificent vis, brilliant wreck and I'm not dead!!!!"

On the surface Matt asked if I meant to go that slow on the ascent. I was grinning like an idiot and bouncing like a puppy!! I felt so happy and relaxed it was un real (although Matt says I looked like a rabbit in the headlights all the way thro!)

Dive Two - Gallecia

Anke had made her RB behave for this one but we still aimed to be last off the boat. Anke had a choking fit on the surface, causing me much worry. I was seconds away from calling the boat over when she decided it was time. We went down the shot and the vis didn't let us down again. The Gallecia is much more broken up and I find it hard to visualise her. We found a dog fish which was so dopey Anke could stroke him! There were millions of clusters of squid eggs and star fish. I was definitely getting the feeling I was over weighted - Greg has told me to "clean wreck off my knees" after the first dive and I was leaving a pretty silty trail of destruction after me on this dive!! We swam all over the wreck. Anke found something in the silt and proceeded to try and excavate it! I still don't know what it was! Next to it was an anchor (well a four pronged shot grapple) and Anke wouldn't let me bring it home - it was to be my first spidge but she said it was nasty and not nice (sulking ;) )

This time, me and Anke launched my blob together as a team effort, but in a fit of inspiration I opened and then closed the crack bottle, so we were slightly "flaccid" on the surface ;)

That evening we were booked into the Globe in Lympstone for out tea. Given my dreams from the night before - perhaps deep fried brie as a starter might have been a bad idea. The tadpole theme just got more and more surreal and somehow tadpole punctuation came into it!

Dive Three - Peron

Anke was still not 100% with the breather and she said "we may have problems on the surface - oh stuff it let's not have a surface, I'll meet you at the bottom!" In she jumps and proceeds to try and take the shot with her on the dive. I'm chasing her down the shot trying to disentangle the tail of the shot from round her.

Knowing that Anke wasn't 100% put me a bit on edge. As the Peron was deeper and I was diving on an air computer, we hit deco too quickly. However, as I had loads of gas I failed to mention this to Anke!!! We got to 6m stops and then did another team effort blob launch. As we left the wreck we got to about 28m and some mono decided to REALLY love me and give me a big hug. Heebie jeebies hit me big time. Everytime I stopped finning for Anke to disentangle me, I felt myself tipping backwards, all this whilst still hanging onto to the blob line! I was actually thinking to myself - breathe - Anke won't let you die - breathe - keep breathing!

By the time we were ready to carry on up I'd clocked up 11 mins stops. Bugger! I supposed I should have done a normal ascent, but I still felt more comfortable going very very slowly. We ended up doing a very dull 11 minutes at 6m. The stop was relatively stable but I was cold and needed a wee! BORING!!

Many cat calls about delayed tea and biscuits because of our stops and we were back on board. (ended up coming back with 30bar!! Ooops!!!!) I also got a talking to about planned no stop dives turning into deco dives!

After lunch and a cuppa tea we planned to dive the Ore Stone. Apparently, there's a big fissure through the rock making an interesting cave dive.

Dive Four - The Ore Stone (- or not!)

Rich dropped us as near as he dare, and we surface swam across. Andy C was having probs with his ears so Foggy joined me and Anke. We went down and went into the entrance of the cave. Foggy then immediately turned around and swam out of it. Eh????? Stuck his blob up and off he swims - bit mental really!! So off we swims around the Ore Stone, millions of star fish - it was like a star fish field. We came across Matt and Greg and ten million anenomies and masses of kelp - its very easy to lose an RB buddy in kelp!!! As I turned around I noticed that Andy C had rejoined us. Bizarre!!! Me and Anke tootles of our own way - leaving the boys to it. The max depth was about 8m or so and I was very conscious of my buoyancy. After about half an hour we were getting a bit chilly. Anke held out her hand for the blob - nah - I'll have a go at this one on my own. It was a success, it went skywards and I stayed down - jobs a good un. 2 mins into a 3 min stop tho I lost it!!! I did a nice slow ascent from 6 to surface just 1 minute early!!!!

Back on the boat Andy says - "You didn't let Foggy navigate did you???" - thanks for the warning!! A ninja tadpole would have done a better job!

Sunday night we went all the way to Topsham to be introduced to the Globe pub (the number of times Odin has rung me whilst staggering home from there is un real!) and his rather exciting award winning curry house! The food was excellent, it was just a shame we got there so late because we all wanted to go to sleep straight after it! The general concensus was that the boat was going to STINK of garlic the morning after!

Dive Five - Boma

The weather on Monday was supposed to be "iffy" (technical skipper-y term!!) We'd always said that Monday would be hit or miss and we might end up having to can it for the weather.

However, glorious sunshine and a sea like a mirror meant we were going out.

The Boma had been my favourite dive last year and I was REALLY REALLY looking forward to this. Odin had canned the dive not feeling well (the amount of booze consumed he'd already been relegated to deck bitch!! But he bailed altogether - preferring his bed!!) and the blokie from Jurassic diving tagged along. After the mix up with the O2 the Saturday night he put on a brave face being surrounded by people grumbling about their fills etc etc. He entered into the spirit of it and made a cracking cuppa!

Anke and I dropped in and headed down the shot. It would seem that the vis was finally cracking under the strain. The bloom started at about 12m but it was quite big clumps of bogie so it wasn't too bad - its that pea soup stuff that gets me!

Vis was down to about 5 or 6 metres. I have to admit, I Love the Boma. We saw the bow (pointy bit???) and there was something huge there. I gesticulated to Anke that I wanted to take it home - despite the fact it probably weighed about 4 tonnes!!! She was still as beautiful as I remember, with parts of the engine exposed. I find circular things fascinating underwater - cogs, wheels, things like that I love them!!!! All too soon we end up running out of no stop time, a quick "discussion" with Anke - "Please can I play out for two more minutes mummy" ;) I really DID NOT want to come home. Times like that I wish for an RB or a richer mix and not an air computer and a deco trapeze with more air - anything to make me stay longer.

Well she aint got away from me yet - I'll be back to see her again!

Back on the boat and the kit gets taken down, bags packed, tea drunk and chocolate eaten!

A swift half in the Beach pub on the corner, hugs all round and its back up the motorway to Leeds.

It was a fabulous weekend, the diving came together, the weather and plankton bloom held off for us, we were blessed with a fantastic weekend!

Anyone for next year??????

K XX


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