Capernwray

I have been looking forward to this Bank Holiday weekend. We were going diving. The original plan was to go to Anglesey and do some wreck dives near Holyhead. I was very excited for this - wrecks are a new facet of diving I am eager to try. But, unfortunately, the weather had other ideas. With there being so muh glorious sunshine early in the summer, I took it as gospel that it would be sunny this weekend just past. As we well know, that was not the case. And the weather in Anglesey was set to be much worse.

Like stormy seas, big waves worse. And considering that I felt queasy when it was still, it was probably a good thing the plans were changed. Rather than trekking a long way for a dive with poor visibility, the decision was made to go to Capernwray - as it is much closer and less affected by rainy weather. A quarry filled with submerged vehicles sounded like the much better option.

Anglesey will have to wait. The wrecks aren't going anywhere. I hope.

The plan for the day was to do two dives. I was going to buddy with my partner, Chris, and would dive as a four with a more experienced pair from the club, Bob and Liz. There was another buddy pair, Alan and Phil, who had the option to join our four but dived at their own pace. This was the plan, anyway. On the first dive's descent I basically completely forgot how to dive, how to breathe and how to not crash into walls. So we re-jigged the buddy pairs but stayed as a four. I was buddied with Liz, Chris with Bob.

After the stalled start, our first dive was a slow progression down to 17m. We went down to the plane and swam through it. Unfortunately, I spent a lot of this dive distracted by my mask. It was constatntly filling with water. If I looked in any direction other than forwards, it would quickly fill, so I was always clearing my mask. I didn't really get to see much or concentrate on where I was going. Thank goodness for buddies and bright yellow fins to follow!

We returned to the 6m shelf for a bit of an explore and to find the horse statue, Lord Lucan. Upon reaching the shelf, I was surprised to see a sturgeon casually swim through my legs! And it's not like sturgeon are little tiddler fish either, this one was about 1m long.

We did our 3 minute safety stop at the 6m shelf and then ascended a shot line. On the ascent, my mask was playing up even more - to the point where I was jut holding it off my face, screwing up my eyes and hoping the surface was soon. Why was my mask so tempermental on this dive? Because the hood I was wearing was much too big. To the point where I had an air bubble on the top of my head, which kept pulling my mask off. A quick swap of hoods solved that problem.

Dive two was a much calmer affair, and the dive the first one should have been. One of these days I will not wig out on a dive. One of these days! This dive took us down to the 17m mark and stayed down there for a good 35 minutes. On the tecnichal side of things, my bouyancy was much better on this dive. On Liz's advice, I was adjusting my BCD a little bit at a time, rather than mass dumping or inflating. This worked a treat and meant I could spend more time paying attention to where we going rather than on my kit. My mask behaved this time too.

We had a tour of some of the submerged objects; travelling from the helicopter and shipping container, to the minesweeper boat, back to shipping container, and then to the plane again. It was amazing to see these objects in the water. The boat was my favourite. Called the Podsnap and built in 1944, it was set on its side so you could see the keel as well as the deck, and into its bowels. There was a poem on the side too, giving some detail of its history. We went through the shipping container on the way back to the plane. That was surreal. The bubbles coming from our breathing equipment got caught on the ceiling, making these shimmery puddles of air until they found gaps to escape through. We had one last swim through the plane before making our ascent up the shot line, three minute safety stop at 6m included.

I'm really enjoying getting to do some dives which go beyond the training sessions we do in the pool. Having an explore and getting to grips with my own gear are helping me feel like less of a trainee and more like a diver. I'm looking forward to more dives. Especially Anglesey - I will dive you one day!

Alan, myself, Bob, Chris, Liz and Phil. Photo by Guido.