Bournemouth Barracudas Easter Trip to Plymouth
by Kathryn Willcocks

Organising a club dive trip is always a challenge. When the trip has to meet the needs of a massive group of 20 people with experience ranging from novice ocean diver to…..well let's just say very experienced… throw in meeting the needs of some non-divers, children and even Rusty the excitable chocolate Lab puppy the challenge is a lot bigger.

Of course a dive trip just wouldn’t be the same without something going wrong on the first day! The minibus had broken down before it had even left Bournemouth for the trip down to Plymouth!! The two ribs and a few other keen beans headed down to Plymouth on the Thursday to make the most of the long weekend. They enjoyed a lovely (albeit 2 hours late) meal in a local bistro. The minibus finally arrived very late Thursday night after a rollercoaster ride through the dark winding coastal roads leading to Whitsand caravan park where we were all to spend a very enjoyable weekend. All those aboard seemed ‘slightly’ relieved to have made it in one piece after their eventful journey.

The usual club ‘strike’ policy was in force throughout the whole trip (mainly so Iain – Diving officer and trip organiser could rack up a few free pints methinks). Strikes are awarded for negligence i.e. leaving cylinder standing up unmanned, not following plans, faffing and generally being a muppet - not hard for some of our club members then. Three strikes equals one pint so it pays to be smart and not do anything too stupid. Despite that I managed to get striked by lain for swapping caravans and then can you believe it for walking in his caravan with dirty feet!! An unfair strike if you ask me. All attempts were made to redeem myself… with no success.

Friday morning and the remaining club members arrived in time for a healthy fry up before making our way down to the marina in good time for a first dive on HMS Scylla. Well, it would have been good time if Steve hadn’t forgotten his Stab and dive computers and we hadn’t had to return to the caravans. So we set off for a second time for the marina for Stevie-boy-wonder to only realise he didn’t have his regs either….What a Muppet, and some definite strikes!!

After much general faffing by all, the more experienced divers boarded Iain's Rib ‘Niar’ and Martin's boat ‘Crystal maiden’ for our first dive to the Scylla. Everybody was keen to get in and get wet and was full of expectations for this newly sunk ship.
The trip out was fairly swelly and wet as we ploughed through some terrific waves in Niar whilst the pooch Rusty took flying lessons in the Crystal Maiden.

After a little confusion as to where the supposedly 3 yellow marker buoys attached to the ship were, I volunteered myself and Steve to plunge in first as the Guinea pigs. Having accidentally fallen in half way through the countdown we made our way to the buoy and after giving the ok signals followed the chain down into the water to the lowest point. We could feel the wreck beneath us with our fins so dropped off and landed on the wreck successfully…..So this was the Scylla. Visibility was rubbish probably around a metre. We slowly made our way down the side of the ship peering in holes and checking out many of the safety signs. At 25m barely any light was reaching the seabed. There were plenty of opportunities to penetrate the Scylla throughout but with the poor vis and our lack of knowledge of the wreck we decided not to.

Back on the surface people had mixed feelings about the Scylla, but decided not to make up our mind until we had the chance to discover her more, and in Neil and Jane’s case to discover her at all, somehow they missed her entirely and did a nice drift dive of a sandy ‘featureless’ bottom.

The Ocean Divers got to make their first entry into the water to do a nice little dive along the break-water. There wasn’t a huge deal to see but that never puts anybody off. Chris Middleton and Roger got their first strikes when they failed to put up their SMB (despite arguing that this was never their plan) and they slowly started to drift out towards the harbour mouth. All in all a successful first day's diving.

Saturday brought in a change of dive marshal in the form of Neil and Jane who successfully organised and planned the days diving. Everything ran smoothly for them and they gave any faffers a good kick up the bum.

An exciting dive took place on the Scylla with an incredible swell creating a washing machine effect. A challenging dive…the hardest part being holding on and not getting pulled off. Most people got the chance to explore and penetrate the wreck leaving everybody happy if not battered and bruised. Roger managed to complete his advanced nitrox practical doing some skilful regulatpr swapping mid water. So a big congrats to him.Mr Ewart got his first strike when he left his cylinder stood up. He denied and denied doing so, believing he had been stitched up by (his other half) Chris Middleton only later to admit he had done so to Chris whilst nobody was listening!!!

Mel and Jason arrived early afternoon and were eager to get into the water. The plan was to dive the James Eagan Layne with the Ocean divers, but the deteriorating weather got the better of us and another dive in the breakwater resulted.

Another overcast day on Sunday, made planning for the days diving tricky for myself and Steve- dive Marshals for the day. Conditions were too rough to enable safe diving on the wreck, so we got the Ocean Divers and some others in for a dive around the Fort. Mooad completed all his necessary skills to complete his Ocean diver qualification. Well done to him!! Jon got the chance to do a buoyancy check in the marina and discovered he didn’t quite need as much weight as he thought. Lots of faffing took place in the afternoon and that combined with a hung over Mr Flint (too much red the night before) who managed to break his torch bulb (obviously not a good sign) resulted in the planned dive not going ahead to a much disappointed Chris (Keen bean) Middleton- never has a man been more eager to freeze his balls off!

It wasn’t all bad though as it gave us a perfect opportunity to check out the Aquarium which everybody enjoyed. We even saw a seal in the harbour on the way out. We had a lovely meal out in the evening, everybody received their Easter eggs, had a few beers and were merry. Iain organised our buddy pairs for those who weren’t too tired for some more dives the following day, which unfortunately resulted in Chris Middleton not being able to dive the Scylla. This put the pressure on the faffers as if they weren’t on the boat at 9.30 then Chris would get their spot, much to his delight.

Monday, our last day of diving. Well Chris tried his best to put me off diving and it very nearly worked. The thought of putting on that cold smelly wetsuit was almost too much. When everybody turned up at the marina in good time he finally came to terms that he wouldn’t be on the first wave. Everybody enjoyed the dive with the best vis yet. Good stuff. On our return Andy and Chris got to practice some Sports diver rescue skills on the slip way, which was quite a sight for the spectators watching Andy try and lug Chris out of the water.

The rib went out for the last dive taking Steve (who thought he wasn’t diving) with them. With the boat back on the trailer and everybody changed and packed it was time to leave and head back to good ol’ Bournemouth. Another successful Dive trip!!!


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