Decided on a long weekend so took the Friday off work and then picked up Louise and Darren in Bristol just after 3pm. After having a walk around the “town” we met up with some of the others in the bar. After a few shandies most of us relocated to another pub just across the road for a bite to eat, and a little more refreshment.

The liquid refreshment seemed to affect Dave Appleby’s vocal chords as he then spent most of the night imitating the mating call of a bull seal, as the other 5 people in the room will testify to. Anyone who is going on his trip to Malta next year will take note of this when asked what room they would like to be in.

Well “bright and early” Saturday morning saw us all eagerly waiting our first dive of the day, except of course those who were hiring equipment from the shop that opened at 8:30, the same time as the boat was due to leave???

The first dive was on the bows of the Black Hawk, a wreck which had been blasted several times, and this was the shallowest piece, in about 18 metres. Our group were on Saracen, which proceeded to bounce us around quite nicely in the force 4-5 that was blowing. This was not appreciated too much by Rich who looked decidedly grey. (That’s what you get for being last back to the room the previous night Rich) As for the dive itself the viz was an excellent 5 metres and although well broken up was quite interesting with plenty of marine life to see, my buddies Rich and Jas saw a conger, but I, being very observant as usual, missed it. There were a couple of bits to swim through and indicated at one point to Jas that I was going though, his plan was to meet me on the other side. However the flaw in that plan was that I was not supposed to get stuck inside, and eventually has to engage reverse gear to get out. However we met up again and continued the dive, only to lose Rich and Jas a few moments later, as my computer showed 53 minutes by this time I sent up my SMB and surfaced at approx the same time as them.

The second dive, after partaking of the “all day breakfast” (well we expend so much energy that we have to get a cholesterol fix), was onto the Countess of Erne. A nice wreck in a maximum of 14 metres. Apparently it went down after a collision with the harbour wall in 1935. It was a paddle steamer and weighed in at 820 tonnes. My buddy for this dive was Richard Clark. He missed the first dive due to being very conscientious and working late the previous evening. The wreck is quite silty, as most of them seem to be in the harbour, however it is upright and quite intact with lots of entry points. Not a lot of life on the wreck but there was one large shoal of pollack off the bows. After doing 2 full circuits of the wreck we decided to call it a day after about 55 minutes, still lots of air left, I knew I should have dived with a 12 litre instead of the 15 litre. I sent up the SMB, the line of which decided to get caught, fortunately I managed to free it before either the reel or me attached to it, made a rapid ascent to the surface.

That evening was virtually a carbon copy of the previous evening, with one notable exception, Dave A was not snoring????

The first dive of the following day saw those of us that were bounced around by Saracen on Day 1, relegated to Ptarmigan. Now I don’t really know how to describe this “vessel” but let me just say that going outside the confines of the harbour in it would be about as welcome as a fart in a space suit.

Our dive was onto the wreck of the Enecuri (aka The Spaniard). The skipper explained that it was in two pieces, I fully expected to find a third piece of wreckage at the bottom, however that would have meant a long surface swim home.

Well what can you say about the Enecuri???? Difficult to see, until I hit the deck at about 9 metres, which I failed to notice until I was about 12 inches from it. However things did improve and at times the viz was almost 1 metre. One thing still amazes me how, and more importantly why, did I stay down there for 40 minutes.

Well after another all day breakfast, and a long surface interval it was back into Ptarmigan again to dive onto the Hood (Thank God this was the HMS Hood that was in Portland, and not the other one).

For the record it was scuttled in 1914 across the harbour entrance to protect the other ships from German U boats. She was a 14,000 tonne 100 metre long battleship.

Quite a current running which meant that Richard and I had to stay on the sheltered side. Quite an interesting wreck, and the first that I have visited that is upside down.

There are quite a few entry points on the Hood and we ventured into a couple of these and surprisingly the viz was very good, up to 8 metres in my estimation. After a bottom time of 49 metres Richard and I got back into the Ptarmigan for the trip back to the quayside.

I am convinced on future UKRS trips we will have a sentimental dive onto the wreck of this boat, It can’t be long now!!!!

A very enjoyable weekend for my second UKRS trip, and pleased to say that I was one of the 12 that managed every dive. Others were not so fortunate, due to equipment problems, illness, feeling cold, and worst of all injury, poor old Keith fell over in the car park and broke his foot, just when Iwan thought he would win the self mutilation award for a dislocated thumb.

Finally many thanks for Alastair for organising the weekend.