It
all started so well. The dive
was planned for the Acclivity, tides were OK and weather not bad.
We set off on a falling tide, planning to shot the wreck and wait for
slack. Like I said “it all
started so well”.
We
got to the site with plenty of time to spare and found another RIB already
doing a sounder search for the wreck. It
was a 5.3m Tornado pushed along by a very tasty 80 horse Yam outboard.
All in all a good, well balanced package.
This looked like a well clued up bunch.
Appearances can be deceptive.
Then
things didn’t go to plan. Phil
lasted well but eventually two stroke fumes, swell and heat took their toll
and we returned Phil to Amble before the inevitable.
We headed back to the site to find the other crew preparing to dive.
They kitted up one diver in an Inspiration, a 12lt side mount and
argon suit inflator, dropped him in and promptly shot about half a mile
away! We were puzzled.
The RIB eventually drifted back while we kitted Mark and Willie up.
Steve dropped them onto the shot and they descended, returning
promptly when it turned out the dive was crap.
Dale,
Matty and myself decided to give the dive a try and proceeded to gear up.
Meanwhile the other crew dropped all their divers in solo!
One got two metres down panicked and shot up in a cloud of bubbles,
arm waving frantically and eyeballs almost popping out.
No response from her cover boat.
Steve called “distress, hang on” and promptly nailed the throttle
to it’s end stop. We all
grabbed anything that was moderately secure and hung on.
We got to her in a matter of seconds; she was in a “fairly
distressed state”. After hauling her in and making sure she was ok we
started our dive, on the bottom I discovered it was as dark as a dark thing
in a very dark place and the vis was lousy, my torch bulb blew and there was
still quite a tide running. We
were not having a good day.
When
we surfaced it was to find our boat picking up more of the other boat’s
divers, so we waited until called and drifted off the shot to be picked up.
Back on board it turned out that the reason the other boat’s Cox
hadn’t picked up his divers was that without his glasses he was as blind
as a bat!!
We
hung around for a while to see if there would be any more theatre from them,
once they confirmed that the lone re-breather diver was ascending we made
for home amazed, astounded and hopeful not to read about them in next
year’s incident reports.
As
we finally returned to Amble we saw a wrecked coble at the harbour mouth,
but that’s another story.
Steve
Waters
TALES, STORIES AND
THINGS YOU JUST
COULDN'T MAKE UP