UKRS Dorothea

December 15th & 16th 2001

A number of us had decided to take up the offer of meeting up for some diving at Dorothea. The cast for the weekend included, Andy Cox, Digs, Pete Steggle, Simon North Keeling, Niall Revell, Rich Meese, Alastair Allen, (well he got as far as Aberystwyth) plus one or two others, whose names I don’t know.

The team descended on Dorothea mainly from 2 directions, those staying with Digs, and those with Andy from Aberystwyth.

I was buddied by Niall for the weekend and for our first dive we had a surface swim out to the double buoys then down the line to 40 metres where a gnome garden has been set up. The viz was excellent and you could see the 40 metres shelf from at least 15 metres away. After a short while we ascended back to 30 metres or so, and then had a general tour around finishing by a swim through the tunnel at 20 metres.

Back on the surface Pete was attracting attention as he was cooking bacon sandwiches in the back of his van.

Second dive saw us dropping down to 12 metres and swimming until we found the crane. We then dropped off the ledge to about 25 metres and followed the road down until we found the site of the jib at 34 metres. Then followed Andy and Ian back to the landing stage.

On day 2 Niall and I had a surface swim to the blue marker buoy which is close to the 20 metres swim through. We dropped down here to 28 metres and then followed the cables down to 41 metres to see the second gnome garden. As we toured around on the return leg I actually saw a fish!!, I was beginning to wonder whether they existed in this quarry.

Back on surface and a visit to Pete’s café for the best bacon sandwiches available anywhere. Pete was looking quite different today having had rather a drastic haircut overnight.

Simon and Pete drew a crowd of interested divers, no it wasn’t Simon’s yellow undersuit that they were interested in, but the brace of rebreathers. It looked as if several of them were hooked on the idea.

Unfortunately the day ended on a tragic note. A diver had got into trouble at 50 metres and, despite the best efforts of everyone who assisted, did not make it, and was taken away by the RAF helicopter.

The pics below were taken on the first day. Can I draw your attention to the first pic, No need to ask “who ate all the pies?” is there Rich?

Spot the anonymous visitor to Pete’s gourmet kitchen in the second pic