Eclipse yesterday in Portland

[MattBin]

A quick post about yesterday.
Grabbed my kit from the garage, bugger [1] I had sent Adam to Uni with my fins, his are huge bladed Seac's, would the foot pocket be OK, going to have to be. Bugger [2], this is getting like 2 weddings and a funeral, onsite realised I have grabbed my 'spare' mask, yes the one with a hole in the skirt. Bugger [3], now this isnt going to plan at all, the C8 isnt shinning at all brightly (bit like its owner). Over to UE, new mask, fins are OK and they hire Halcyon torches at £20 (10w focusable HID) not shiney but it will do. Who am I kidding, it will do!!!!! I'll say it will do. Can I convince Tom its mine, nah, I'm grinning to much when I tell him so he susses me out straight away.

Anyway, the diving, with Skipper/Eclipse. This is more like it, park up in the Aqua hotel carpark (£5 a day) and walk over to the boat, what 30yds, no more beach struggles, the day can only get better. Actually its already damn fine, weather is glorious, sea looks flat, diving is on and I have a bright torch, full tanks and the kit is good to go.

Nice gentle pootle (on Eclipse??? er that wil be a no then), Dave as usual guns the boat and we are on dive site in no time flat. "It's big" - OK so that is the dive bried done, (it was actually a bit more than that, but I wasnt listening). Drop in with Tom, haul ourselves down the shot as there's a bit of a current running, one of the things I like about Dave, the shot goes IN and he likes you to pull yourself down, so I do as I am told and there's the wreck. Viz isnt brill, but OK, the torch is a monster. Scuttle round at 30m (alex van something or other), Big conger lit up by the torch, Tom missed it as it reverses out of site, bit of life, a few crabs, Tom spots a Lobby, nice one too. We leave him alone (as usual). All too soon I thumb the dive as I'm down to the agreed turn point, the pooter is screaming deco and we ascend nice and slow, do the deco (not much) and await a pickup. There is Dave in the distance, my mind goes back to my last boat dives at Scapa and I start to wonder how long it will be before we are picked up and if I'll get cold waiting.
The boat and skipper in Scapa were excellent and we never had to wait too long but I did get cold a couple of times. Then I see Eclipse lift her front and Dave shoots her across a flat see in double quick time and picks us up. Now I'm no spring chicken and I wear twin 10's but that ladder is just so easy and I have come up in rough conditions too. Does make me doubt if a lift is worthwhile, I can manage a hardboat without a lift, even with their high sides and I can see the value if your in full Teck gear, but Eclipse sits so low in the water its just so easy to climb 4 or 5 rungs, swing a leg and your in. The offer of soup doesnt go down well with me and after a bit of gentle cajoling Dave makes me a coffee (ta mate). Dive over, usual banter and a blast back to harbour for a re-fill of the tanks in prep for dive 2. Dive 2 just Tom and I are in for this one, the Countess, in the harbour. Two or three minutes later we are on site, she's bouyed so Dave ties in and we drop in, nice dive, very peacefull, only me and Tom on her. Very silty but plenty of swim throughs, which I dont normally do, but its so big and open even I am happy to do them. I would imagine the viz would be less brilliant if it was busier, it isnt so we enjoyed a good dive. Cirumnavigated her inside and out a couple of times, dive time up (as agreed with Dave) and up we go. As I get up the ladder Dave hands me coffe, black, 1 sugar, cheers Dave, but can I get in the boat and some kit off first please.

Summation - I'm still grinning. Thanks Tom/Dave for a great day's diving.

Matt

[tom]

Matt, your memory must be fading... you missed out the most interesting bits, like the SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK

So I'll add some bits to your post, including the SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK (actually, I started writing up a trip report on the tube and I'm damned if I'm going to waste it, so I'll just add my bits to yours...)

Originally Posted by MattBin

Anyway, the diving, with Skipper/Eclipse. This is more like it, park up in the Aqua hotel carpark (£5 a day) and walk over to the boat, what 30yds, no more beach struggles, the day can only get better.

Agreed - Eclipse will be very much missed at Selsey, but it has to be said that the facilities at the Breakwater are superb. Very civilised indeed.

haul ourselves down the shot as there's a bit of a current running, one of the things I like about Dave, the shot goes IN and he likes you to pull yourself down

Let's just clarify here - the brief isn't 'haul yourself down', it's 'do not let go of the line until you reach the wreck' which is a tad different! Of course Matt means to say 'we did a perfect neutrally buoyant descent, swimming down the line to the wreck' so hauling isn't really on the agenda. But even if it had been, that shot's going nowhere

Scuttle round at 30m

OK, we could do with a bit more detail here I think. And I've written it, so I'm damn well going to post it. Including the long awaited bit about the SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK

Dive 1 was on the Alex van Opstal, in 31m. Matt and I were thrown in slightly before slack, while there was still a little bit of tide running - probably a good idea as it turned out, as it dropped off a little then picked up again, with no real slack period - after about 25 mins it was getting a little uncomfortable. The current really just swung round rather than stopping, but I think we got the best of the conditions by going in early. Vis was about 4m and it was reasonably dark from 20 down.

The shot was well stuck somewhere in the middle of the wreck - around the engine area I think. The wreck seems quite sizeable and bits of it were pretty proud. However, we seemed to end up in the bit Dive Dorset describes as 'a tangled mass of girders' so I never really got an impression of the wreck as a whole.

Wildlife wise, the main thing I noticed was that there were lots of sponges, including a rather pretty semi- translucent grey one. We ran across a couple of baby (5cm) cuttlefish as well - very nice. The second one decided it didn't like the torch (10w HID) Matt was using, so it hid from us by turning its back - working on the assumption that if it couldn't see us, we couldn't see it! Nice big lobster wandering about in the open as well.

The current was really picking up by this point, so we drifted back across the wreckage and ended up following what seemed to be a pair of steel masts running parallel. Due to the current I was using pull-and-glide rather than finning much, and that was what led me to discover a drawback to the technique...

I put my hand down next to a hole on the mast, when I felt a sudden jolt - it wasn't that painful, more like the level of electric shock you'd get from a car battery. I looked down, and there was a big grey head sticking out of the hole - Mr Conger was obviously getting territorial. Fortunately it had only given me a warning nip, rather than being in full hunt-and-devour mode. The teeth didn't even penetrate my glove. Could have been a horribly different story though! Lesson learned - be a wee bit more careful where the fingers go...

By this time we'd had enough anyway so Matt bagged off and up we went.

the pooter is screaming deco and we ascend nice and slow, do the deco (not much) and await a pickup.

OK, again we need to do a little bit of digging for the truth here...
We'd done the dive on 32% and started our ascent at round about the NDL due to current/gas limits/ SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK
Really nice ascent, couple of pauses on the way up, sit at 5-6m and clear the computers. I clear and indicate that to Matt, he shows me his computer and it's showing another 8mins! Can you guess, dear reader, why that might be the case? or will Matt be forced to confess?

Anyway, it was good practice at holding stops...

We had a good dive (to be honest the SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK just added to it for me). However, a couple of the others on the boat were new to UK diving and I don't think they were particularly enthused by the conditions. One of them showed me a message on a slate that she'd written on the bottom to show her buddy - I just wish I could remember exactly what it said, because it was very funny, with swearing and everything.

Dive 2 just Tom and I are in for this one, the Countess, in the harbour. Two or three minutes later we are on site, she's bouyed so Dave ties in and we drop in, nice dive, very peacefull, only me and Tom on her. Very silty but plenty of swim throughs, which I dont normally do, but its so big and open even I am happy to do them. I would imagine the viz would be less brilliant if it was busier, it isnt so we enjoyed a good dive. Cirumnavigated her inside and out a couple of times, dive time up (as agreed with Dave) and up we go.

Yes, this was a really nice dive - I wanted to do this one as I've never done the Countess before, and I've heard it's alright despite being much maligned. It's a really nice little wreck, I enjoyed it. I'm glad we were the only pair on it as I can imagine it's a bit less pleasant when the silt's been kicked up (I think we had about 3-4m vis). We did the full length of her on the decks, then dropped down inside and came all the way back on the inside, then came out again and dropped to the seabed, looked at the rudder, and did the length again on the seabed. Lots of life- shoal of bib at one end, Pollack at the other and in the holds, lots of 'little stuff'. I saw a nice dragonet with its fins up, and found a shark-family egg case (big black one, bigger than Dogfish size). So a nice dive, even despite the lack of a SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK .

All in all - very good day out, cheers guys. Looking forward to doing it again in a couple of weeks (M2 on the 23rd if anyone fancies it!).

[Gary K]

Originally Posted by tom

SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK
SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK
SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK
SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK
SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK
SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK

someone have a problem with a savage conger attack?

[tom]

Originally Posted by warmwaterdiver

someone have a problem with a savage conger attack?

You must spread some SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK around before giving it to warmwaterdiver again.

[MattBin]

Morning Tom, thought it a bit unfair to write everything up, so I left some bits for you, including THE SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK, I was stil chuckiling about that when I got to work this morning. Mind he/she did have a bit of a big head, until he/she got a 10w HID in its face (Borrowe/hired from UE across the raod, very tempted, resisted though) and decided to back-up into the hole. So more uses than just light your way for a big H. (actually a small H)

32% is that what we were on???? I thought you said 21% on the boat

OK OK I forgot to set the damn pooter to 32%, we needed stop practice anyway, we were going for a re-fill so all that gas at 6/3m would have been vented for dive 2 anyway. That's my excuse, I was rusty, havent dived for weeks.

Matt

[Gary K]

Originally Posted by MattBin

I was rusty

that hip going already Matt

[Janos]

Excellent write up. :thumbsup:

Tom you sound dead brave. If I'd been the victim of a SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK then I would be telling all the girlies about it and hoping they'd be impressed. Which I'm sure they are.

Janos

[MattBin]

Dont go there Janos, I really cant repeat what Tom said on the boat, with girlies present too.

WWD - we had Ian going in Scapa though didnt we.
Matt

[Mdemon]

Nice trip report(s)!


Actually, I think Tom's kind of underplaying it a bit - I think I would have NEEDED my nappies if a conger had had a go at me! Or was it just a teeny one?

Still, they are all evil at the end of the day...

[HelenM]

Sounds like a cool weekend. Even with the

Originally Posted by tom

SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK

Blimey

I thought our Plymouth weekend had everything, but now I feel like we've really missed out. No SAVAGE CONGER ATTACKS there

I did see one on the Persier. But it didn't attack me, which is clearly disappointing. More disappointing still was its failure to maim my buddy Doh.

Originally Posted by Janos

Tom you sound dead brave. If I'd been the victim of a SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK then I would be telling all the girlies about it and hoping they'd be impressed. Which I'm sure they are.

Oh, absolutely. Although, to be completely honest, I'd have been more impressed had there been blood

[the Doug]

Originally Posted by HelenM

I did see one on the Persier. But it didn't attack me.

It probably didn't like the smell of puke.

You only saw one. You should've cleaned your mask out before you put it on.

[tom]

More details on the SAVAGE CONGER ATTACK seem to be required...

John - it was about medium size, not small but also not one of the ugly old monsters you sometimes see. Not a beast I would have chosen to get close to in any case.

Helen - on the blood front, I did think about stabbing myself in the hand a few times in a vaguely bite-shaped pattern just to make the story more impressive. Might still do it before I go down the club tomorrow night

[David Wallace]

Nice trip report.

One day you guys might have a really booring dive .... then you can wax lyrical about what a great boat and skipper you had rather than BEING ATTACKED BY CONGER!

[tom]

Originally Posted by skipper

you can wax lyrical about what a great boat and skipper you had

That'll cost you biscuits though

[MattBin]

Originally Posted by skipper

Nice trip report.

One day you guys might have a really booring dive .... then you can wax lyrical about what a great boat and skipper you had rather than BEING ATTACKED BY CONGER!

When we find one, we'll let everyone know

Matt
(sorry Dave, you know we love you really, else we wouldnt keep coming back)

[tom]

Originally Posted by tom

That'll cost you biscuits though

I've just realised I made a really serious error in my response to Skipper's post.

In fact, what I should have said was "a boring dive? Off Eclipse? NEVER!".





(that's two biscuits I want now )

[David Wallace]

Originally Posted by tom

I've just realised I made a really serious error in my response to Skipper's post.

In fact, what I should have said was "a boring dive? Off Eclipse? NEVER!".





(that's two biscuits I want now )

Whole box going on the boat waiting for you