Well ’Ard Divers

Many divers develop a psychological dependency, and get twitchy if they stay out of the water for too long. Although symptoms can be alleviated by diving in the pool and by taking long hot baths, the only real cure is to go diving. Two of the biggest sufferers of this complaint are myself and Tricky, and so it was no surprise to see us both in Littlehampton marina on Saturday 11th December getting an early morning fix.

It was Ropes Off at 0730, and that meant an 0430 alarm clock. Or ‘stupid o’clock’ as it’s also known. A treacherous drive through thick fog (occasionally so thick I had to drive under the speed limit) and I was in Littlehampton. We were diving off Dive 69’s boat Defiant, a large catamaran with tail lift, plenty of hot water, and post-dive chocolate biscuits. It was dark when I got to the marina, and there was ice on the pontoons, but after carefully carrying my kit aboard without incident, I had a few cups of coffee and enjoyed the ride out to the dive site.

Leaving the marina the sun began to rise and it was obvious that we’d been very lucky with the weather. There was little if any wind, and the sea was as flat as a proverbial pancake. After a few cups of coffee (and I ate my packed lunch) Tricky and I started to wake up a little and were able to hold decent, if limited, conversations.

We were soon on the site of the first dive – the wreck of the Ramsgarth - and in the water. The Ramsgarth is a nice wreck in around 29m. It’s fairly broken up but there’s still plenty to see, however this dive turned out to be all about the wildlife. Tricky and I saw six or seven large congers, many huge crabs (including one which was possibly the largest I’ve seen) and a very, very big lobster. I measured the claws with my fists, and they were about 20cm long. We managed to get the lobster out into the open, and even allowing for the magnifying effect of the water, it must have been a good metre long. Although tempted to take it home with us, she was heavily pregnant, and so we left her to breed more lobsters for future dives. I also found and recovered a Buddy DSMBi (the type with the bottle), but it turned out to be lost by Kim, one of the other divers on the boat. I was slightly disappointed when I found this out, as I thought I had Pippa’s Christmas present sorted.

The water temperature was a relatively balmy 11°C, and I didn’t notice the cold at all throughout the dive. After half an hour or so we headed up, and, as I was diving on air, (my local dive shop wasn’t pumping Nitrox) I had 10 minutes of stops to do. Even during the stops I didn’t feel the chill, except from a couple of minutes from the end when my fingers started to go a bit numb.

Back on board with minimal fuss courtesy of a pneumatic lift, Tony the skipper supplied us with chocolate biscuits while I drooled over the rebreathers on board. After a nice long surface interval in the sun, Tricky and I jumped in the water for a drift over Kingsmere Rocks. We had some of the best viz I’ve seen in the UK. Even at a depth of 15m I could see my SMB on the surface, and we also saw plenty of wildlife. In the first seven minutes I counted seventeen (17) dogfish!

Back on board we headed back to port to be docked by 1430. Even with the early start, we’d had a fantastic day out. We’d done a couple of cracking dives, and we’d had flat seas, plenty of sunlight, and good viz. We’d been diving from a large stable boat, with a good skipper, so we didn’t have to worry about calculating slack or finding the wreck. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day of nice easy diving. But don’t tell anyone – I’m trying to maintain that Well ’Ard winter diver image…