Portland Harbour 22nd & 23rd march 2003

This trip was a Winter special" offered by the Breakwater Diving Centre at a cost £66 for 4 dives, including 2 nights B&B. There were only 3 of us traveling for this trip, Louise, Sheila and myself.

I left home at 4:45 to travel to Lou's place, and then left her house at 6pm, got to Portland about 8:15

 Sheila was planning to get there by 6pm, but then sent me a message to say that she had been held up in work and that she was going to arrive by about 10pm. However she wasn't feeling too good and as our first dive on Saturday wasn't until 11:00 she changed he mind again and was going to travel on Saturday morning, she finally got there at 10:15 and decided not to do the first dive. 

Both me and Lou had decided to dive the whole weekend on air instead of nitrox, as we couldn't see the point of the addition expense of using nitrox for relatively shallow dives. 

First dive was the Dredger, which is just outside the harbour wall. It was rather boring and we both got fed up after no more than 5 minutes so we moved off to do some exploring, eventually found some more wreckage, about 150 metres or more further on. Did 49 minutes on this dive. Only problem is that it was on Saracen a RIB, I hate RIBs!!!! Had a small incident at the end of the dive as my reel jammed as I was sending up the dsmb and had to then come up on Lou’s dsmb. 

Second dive and all others were on Top Gun, a hardboat with a tail lift, ahhhhhhhhh luxury. This dive was supposed to be a drift in Ballaclava bay, however the skipper gave us the option of doing the Countess of Erne instead. Much better dive, a nice upright wreck and you can go into the holds and swim through them, lost Lou and Sheila near the end of the dive when I went into a hold and they didn't see me coming out. So continued the rest of the dive by myself, about 10 minutes or so. Dive time 48 minutes. Miracles do happen and I actually came up the shot line, Lou said that it was more luck than judgement that I found it. 

In the evening we ate at the same place each night, The Royal Breakwater Hotel, great food there and very cheap, a typical divers pub. 

The first dive on Sunday morning was on the Enecuri a wreck notorious for being in bad viz, so was amazed when we went down and it was 3 metres. Still managed to get separated from Lou and Sheila at the beginning of the dive though so did the rest by myself. Total dive time was 41 minutes. It is very relaxing diving by oneself. But I don't take any chances and will not go inside any wrecks when I am unaccompanied.

When I sent up my dsmb I started drifting as I was ascending and drifted past Lou. (Sheila had just gone up to the surface as she couldn’t dump air quick enough) Just as I was approaching Lou was sending up the dsmb and she jammed the reel, so she hitched a lift with me and we came up on my dsmb. 

Final dive of the day was on the Landing craft, a slightly disappointing end to the weekend as the viz was only 1 metre at best and when we went down inside it, one of our buddy trio kicked up the silt thereby reducing it to exactly ZERO viz. Finally got fed up and came up after 34 minutes. 

Although I filled up one of my tanks at the end of day one, I later calculated that with the air that I used I could have done all 4 dives on the air that I took with me in the twin set. SAC was between 11 and 12 litres per minute.

Managed to wash all the kit down as they have a hose pipe in the car park. Then Lou and I had a shower (not in the car park) and headed off home at 4:45.  

Unfortunately it took me 4 hours to get home. This was not helped by me getting stopped by the police in Bristol for going through a red light, well it was only just red. Anyway I didn't get booked, I must have looked like an innocent sort of guy.