Chepstow 20th December 2003

While on the recent Weymouth trip I suggested a final get together before Xmas. In the end I managed to get 6 of us to turn up. In addition to myself there  was Rich Meese, Joao Delgado, Danny Burchett, Nicky Glastonbury & Adrian Smith. Several others were going to come along such as Paul Feakes, who came down with flu, Chris bell who was going to come with Paul, and Louise Thompson, who decided to go out partying on the Friday night instead, no commitment some people.

Rich had stayed over at my place the night before, he of course arrived late.....and this new car of his is supposed to be fast!!!

Next problem was trying to wake him the following morning, obviously he thinks that 7:30am means something different when applied to Welsh time.

We arrived at the National Diving Centre (Chepstow) at about 9:15. Yes I know it is not exactly in Chepstow, as those who cross the Severn Bridge to get there will agree to. You pay £4.50 (Surely a small price to pay to visit God's chosen country) and then minutes later as you leave Chepstow on the A48 you find yourself back in England. So I guess that makes me a regular foreign traveler lately.

Despite the days leading up to the weekend being dry and cold, with more of the same forecast for the weekend, with some showers maybe. It was with some dismay to go out and fine it absolutely pissing down. This continued until after we had finished our dive.

I needed to fill my tanks first as Rich and I were planning a trimix dive. he already had 18/40 in his tanks but I was going with 18/30. Because of the weather there was no real rush to get into the water and Rich and I did not actually start our dive until 12 midday. Our dive consisted of dropping down the shot line to 46 metres. (it was originally close to 50 metres but they have lost a lot of water through the summer). At this point I attached a strobe and Rich tied off and we went down to 62 metres. Actually there was no need to have reeled off as we could still see the strobe from our maximum depth. We left her at 15 minutes then when Rich had recovered his reel we did a wall dive at around 50 metres. We left the bottom at 30 minutes and then had 50 minutes of deco to do. It did get a little cold towards the end. The water temperature incidentally was 7 degrees at 62 metres and 8 degrees while doing our final stop at 6 metres.

The others who came along for the day each did 2 dives, and apparently the viz in some of the shallower parts we quite poor due to the wash off from the sides of the quarry. Never mind it was at least 15 metres viz where were went.

After we all finished it was back into Wales to the Chepstow Hotel for a couple of shandies before everyone went their separate ways. However I now have to fit in at least one more dive this year as during 2003 I have done 99 dives in the UK.