Well, yesterday was my first ride out on the club's RIB - pretty cool, but very nearly didn't happen...
Yesterday was pretty disasterous- well actually, it started on Friday night - left from my home in Hertfordshire for a late-night drive all the way down to Plymouth (a 5hour 200+ miles drive!) which is not a good idea on a Friday night after a manic week of work! About 40 miles out of Plymouth a thought hit me like a thunderbolt - I hadn't picked up my contact lenses!!! AAAARRRGGHHH!!! Decided to carry on anyway and see if I could pick up some inserts for my mask or possibly even some contacts from an opticians in town when I got there.
Suffice it to say I spent the entire morning running around Plymouth chasing my tail - no opticians would let me buy lenses without a prescription, and none could give me an eye test that day... kinda my luck really...
The second outing of the RIB came and went, with me still sitting on the beach and chatting to the guys degassing from the first run, when one of the girls who were out on the second run asked if I was diving, and when I told her the situation shoved her hand in her bag and passed me a fresh pair of contacts the same prescription as mine!! AARRGGHH!! Why couldn't I have had this conversation with her 4hours ago??!!!!
You have never seen someone suit up so fast! I was in my wetsuit with my kit setup and running for the pontoon within 10minutes!
It was worth it - I may have only got one dive in that day, and only a 12m at that, but it was pretty cool - Plymouth is the British Navy's dumping ground and has been for years, with pottery, cannonballs and all kinds of oddities dotted over the seabed. Although there is quite a lot of kelp around, it is mainly in the shallower water, and as you get a little deeper it thins out revealing channels almost like roadways across the seabed.
Hopefully the weekend after next will be pretty cool - there's been a slight change of schedule in that I now have an extra day's diving scheduled in that with next weekend's diving being cancelled (due to a lack of kit) Bro and I are going up to Stoney Cove on Friday before I go shark-diving on Sunday.
Yes I know Stoney is not exactly the most adventurous of diving locations, but this will be the first time I've been for a bubble with Bro, so cool in a different way. Hoping it goes well, because it would be pretty cool to get a regular buddy going, even better if it could be my own brother.
Mental note: Pack 2 pairs of contacts in your dive bag, so they're already there when you forget!!!
Location: Mountbatten Centre, Plymouth
Number of dives: 1
Deepest dive: 12m
Longest dive: 33min
Equipment: 7mm Mares, boots, gloves, hood, SMB, knife