Trip reports seem to be going out of fashion. Its all gone very Facebook
I look forward to reading about emmbees trip to Malta to do his OC normoxic tx course and his recent adventures with Hell & High Water aka Artur down in Doolin for cavern and intro to cave. I'd say he's just putting the final edits in.....
Anyways just back from probably the best week (actually 9 days) of diving I've ever had. Without further ado huge thanks to Barry McGill for organising the trip. Unfortunately Baza couldn't make it so Stewie rowed in so thanks to Stewie. We dive off MV Rosguill skippered by Michael McVeigh. The job of locating these wrecks, shotting them, deploying and retrieving divers safely so far offshore is harder than the diving. Kevin McShane was helping us on deck and has far more dives under his belt and knows an incredible amount of how the wrecks are put together than so called technical diver blow in like myself. Thank you all.
Sat 2nd: Dived an unknown wreck 83m deep. Turned out to be an WW2 german sub sunk after war by British in Operation Deadlight. We were first to ever dive it. I really enjoyed this dive. The viz was great and it is amazing to go down not knowing what you are dropping onto and see a wreck emerge in the gloom.
Sun 3rd: RMS Amazon 114m. Runtime was approx 3.5hours. 40 odd miles out to sea. This was a big day and a deep dive. We were also bang on springs so I did feel a bit of a drift on the descent and it was a long long descent believe me. I had dived it once before so fully focussed I had a bit of a wander over the wreck bridge section and first class accomodation. I found it a wee bit dark compared to last year. Diving to this sort of depth is all in the head. Last year I made the descent solo and my buddy had a couple of problems on the surface. You really do think to yourself - "this is it. yes or no? are you going to do it". I felt like I was going into outer space and the sense of euphoria when I got back to the deco station afterwards was incredible. No such drama this time around. I was a lot more confident this time around but you do have to remember where you are. Any incident at that depth will be extremely unforgiving. Don't let the guard down. To cap it all off I had just gotten out of my rebreather on the deck when a minke whale surfaced and swam around and under the boat. My mind was well and truly blown at this stage. What a day.
Mon 4th: HMS Audacious 63m. Absolutely class wreck. I've dived it a good few times and we keep going back. Always interesting. Nice to do a relatively easy and shallow day after such a long day at sea the previous dive. Kevin came in with us to have his first dive on the stern section of the Audacious and see the props. Nice one Kevin. We were also joined for the next five days by Norman Woods. It was a pleasure and a privilege. To say that Norman has done a bit would be the understatement of all time. If you discretely ask who found and dived these wrecks for the first time then a certain name keeps cropping up.
Tues 5th: the lads headed out to HMS Viknor 86m but I took a day off to give myself a rest.
Wed 6th: wreck known as Unknown West / possibly Dione II 102m. Another big dive. We dived the previously undived bow section. I must say that I really really enjoyed this dive. There was a fair flow on the descent which pretty much disappeared at depth but reappeared on the ascent. Might have finned down a wee bit too hard....
Thurs 7th: early hours woke with a throbbing pain in my left knee. Uh oh. I lay in bed thinking. Choices, choices. I ended up hobbling to the car and started sucking down on some 02. More thinking. More choices. Pain got substantially worse and then eased. Made my choice and went back to bed. Talked to the lads at breakfast. Pain subsided but still a bit of residual.
We headed out to RMS Justicia 73m skippered by John to give Michael his day off. When the station detached and drifted off I kitted up and dived to 9m on oxygen rebreather, stayed there for 30mins, jon lined in. Two other divers on the bar doing their deco and giving me cover. I did another 30mins at 6m and then got out. I don't recommend this to anyone. We can debate again whether it was a good choice or a bad choice. All I'll say is that rightly or wrongly it was my choice. Possibly a much better choice is to pack yourself off to Craigavon 2.5hours down the road. You decide.
Fri 8th: The lads headed out to RMS Amazon 114m. I stayed back at the house for another rest day. Indisputably a much better choice than that above.
Sat 9th: An absolutely fantastic dive on the bow of SS Roscommon 75m. 125mins runtime. I certainly hadn't intended to do this long especially on the back of an injury but to be honest I was filming and got disoriented on the wreck (Edit: I was filming for the first time and not paying attention to where I was) and spent 10 mins faffing about trying to find the shot. The footage didn't turn out either
Sun 10th: Another absolutely cracking dive this time on RMS Justicia 73m. 150mins runtime. Again this 32000 tonne, 225m long wreck is a classic and one that will be returned to time and time again.
The drive home was uneventful thank God.
What a week.
Divers:
Stewart Andrews
Andrew Thomson
Stephen McMullan
Pat Coughlan
James "English Jim" Macinnes
Norman Woods
Ger Dooly
Reza Soheil
John Malone
Kevin McShane
Skipper: Michael McVeigh (MV Rosguill)
Crew: Kevin McShane
