Another 3:45 am start to go to Stoney Cove. This journey was one of the worst to date as there was thick fog for virtually the whole journey. I arrived at about 6:15 to find a group of UKRS divers already congregated at the T junction.

Once we got inside buddies were sorted out and I was diving with Digs, and eventually joined By Iwan Currie. I say eventually as Iwan has a certain knack of finding something to do at the last moment, just as his buddies are ready to go into the water.

The 3 of us got in at about 8:20 and had a surface swim out to the buoy attached to the Stanegarth. As we descended the viz was very good, probably in excess of 10 metres. After a look around the outside we went inside for a poke around, but no sign of the large pike that I have seen here before. From here it was on to the Wessex which I located with my exceptional navigation skills (I mean luck), then along the rock face and up the roadway to the Viscount cockpit and then back to dry land.

Iwan led our second dive for which we went down the roadway and then to the coach, from here to the Wessex again. From this point we came up the rock face and then into the blockhouse, and returned to the slipway via the Nautilus.

During the surface interval it was nice to meet some new faces, and also meet up again with some I have met before. Keith was the only one who took up the challenge of a “themed weekend” by dressing up as a Xmas fairy complete with tutu and magic wand.

A number of us had planned to stay over and dive on the Sunday also. This saw Digs, Andy (fuzzy) C, Bob and myself staying at the Badgers Mount, which I can certainly recommend.

For the first dive on the Sunday Digs and I were joined by Barry G. (Also wondered whether Iwan would make a last minute appearance). Unfortunately for Digs she had to abort as she had an air leak from one of her valves. So Barry and I continued alone, I thought that I knew Stoney quite well, but Barry comes second to none in my opinion. We went down the roadway to the blow off point, and then to the small hydrobox, from here we followed the line down to the deep hydrobox, where I managed to record 36.5 metres with the help of digging in the rocks. We then came up the rock face and Barry led us straight to the coach, after a short swim through we went off to the Stanegarth and went inside again, including one tight area. Barry then led us off to find 2 minis, which I had never seen before, then back to the Wessex up the wall to the sub and the room below the pub. A total dive time of 51 minutes, and getting quite cold.

For the final dive of the day I went in with Andy Cox and Sophie, I was using Digs’ twin set. Apart from not being able to reach any of the valves, which I made sure Andy was aware of, it felt fine and it is probably just a matter of time before I move to a twin set myself. Anyway, for the dive itself we dropped over the ledge and then followed the anchor chain to the Stanegarth, no penetration this time as I was not using familiar gear. So we just did a tour around before returning to the ledge.

For some pics that were taken see Sharon and Chris’ web site.