What is UKRS? Click here to find out.
Sometime quite late in the diving season in 1999 it was decided that instead of just talking about diving we should perhaps actually do a few dives. The UKRS Dive Programme was the result. Any suitably qualified diver is welcome, we operate as a group and make group decisions, the only organisation is that we use our group buying power to charter an entire boat so that we can decide what we do.
If you want to know about other UKRS trips, check the UKRS Trips Page.
Jason Poynting organised this trip - thanks go to Jason "The Sandwich Murderer" Poynting (see below). Here is the pre-dive info which shows the type of info you will be given before attending a UKRS dive. Now, on to the trip....
Attendees;
Jamie "Bertie" Bassett
Steve Chaplin (me)
Megan Clarke
Cliff Coggins
Helen Coggins
Helen Jarratt
Simon North-Keeling
Jason Poynting
Dave Roberts
Karen Roberts
Gordon Henderson
Being from Bristol myself, getting to Exmouth presented no problems - except for navigating the M5 in driving rain of course..but, hey! I'm used to that. There were also two others coming from Bristol and we spectacularly managed to avoid any ride-sharing at all! I awarded myself the "furthest distance travelled" trophy for commuting from The Hague specifically for the trip.
The plan was to do some kind of lunch time dive on the Saturday (due to the tides) and then work it from there for Sunday, so we repaired to the local pub on the Friday night. Unfortunately, the usual witty UKRS banter was somewhat stifled by the strains of some local "diddly-diddly" Irish band who seem to think decibels are going out of fashion! Still, we did manage to shout "Forecast: Southerly 5 to 6" at each other during brief respite between "songs",
Saturday dawned dull and late with a
full-on fried breakfast (why do UKRSers hate tomatoes?). We ambled down to
South West Divers to learn the
worst. Unfortunately, the "worst" is 5-6 South Easterlies which
means a complete blow out for us! The geezer at the dive center (the one in
the PADI shirt) is gutted, as he's losing money (his own words). What to do
now?
The hardy amongst us (Simon N-K and "Bertie") opted for the manly pursuit of quad-biking (aka mud-splattering) whereas the rest went for the more sedate option of "Otter Spotting" at the local Otter Sanctuary at Buckfastleigh. Cue gratuitous underwater picture of otter. Cliff managed to resist the lure of the local steam engines but did recognise a kindred spirit in the form of Jack the Otter whose documentation noted that "He is going grey around his face and is a real gentleman. He tends not to swim too much if the water is cold or the weather bad... ".
...but this isn't uk.rec.otters...
Oh! By the way, Saturday evening we found out that we needed to be loaded on the boat by 8am to catch the slack on our target wreck the Bretagne. Hmmm! Unusually for UKRS dives, there's none of the usual "I've got 120% in my tanks so I can't go deeper that 6cm. Most people seem to have the correct mix for the Bretagne at 30m. Of course, yours truly is diving God's gas (EAN21) as it alleviates all that hassle! We had been instructed not to bring stage bottles (this is RIB diving after all) but I managed to sneak 2 along and even JP had one tucked away in his boot!.
Sunday dawns early and early and with strict
instructions to be on the boat by 8am, we faff around until about 20 past
by which time the skipper is gently chiding us that we will miss the slack
- which really means he won't be back to pick up the next lot of punters.
Gordon Henderson's car fails to start so Jason kindly walks back to the hotel
to push. Mr Henderson's Perspiration rebreather costs way more than his car!
It also sports a rather natty green and yellow sticker declaring that he's
diving Cidrox this weekend. For those not familiar with West Country ways,
Cidrox is a custom blend of local Cider and air and, as it's closed circuit,
we're spared the pungent aroma of local scrumpy.
The picture on the right shows Gordon fully loaded with Cidrox as we load the massive South West divers RIB in deceptively sunny conditions.
The landlady had kindly prepared sausage and bacon sandwiches and, having loaded the boat, everyone wanted to know where they were. More specifically, 10 people individually hassled Jason (as organisor) to find out where their breakfast was. Understandably, Mr Poynting got a little sick of this and was heard threatening to demonstrate his dive knife techniques on the next person to ask about "butties". Meanwhile Helen J seemed to trail a deposit of half-eaten sandwiches as if to rub it in even more.
But what of the diving...?
Certainly a powerful RIB but still a bit of a trek out to the
Bretagne. Head on into the wind, it was a little bumpy prompting most of us
to hang on (except for Gordon who seemed to fall asleep lying on the tube).
The Bretagne was in about 28m when we dived it and a little murky after the
Saturday gales. I dived with Simon N-K who was on a single 12 of 32% whereas
I had twin 10s of the aforementioned 21% plus a 3L stage of 80% which gave
me a chance to " catch up" with Simon on the deco. In the end we
only did about 35 min even though we had wound the skipper up by telling him
we would all be 1 hour! The Bretagne is pretty intact and lies upright so
orientation is easy. We descended the shot to arrive on the Starboard gunwall
just aft of the bows. A quick descent to the sea bed to check out the pointy
bit at the front revealed that it was pretty featureless so we ascended back
onto the deck on the port side to explore the full length of the wreck in
about 22m.
There is a large, impressive winch on deck at the bows. We proceeded towards the rear checking out the rather silty holds before arriving at the super-structure. We swam in through a front window to look inside what could be the wheel-house or galley before emerging through a starboard doorway. We then explored the engine room but I could find no sign of the prop-shaft. We did find some interesting looking cubes where I would expect to find boilers! There was a huge amount of life on the wreck, but I can't tell you what any of it was as I'm useless at that kind of thing! We then proceeded to the stern following the bizzare shape of Megan's force fins. Apparently her frantic hammering on the wreck signified her finding the spare prop mounted on deck but we chose to ignore this being distracted by the ever present sound of Gordon singing into his rebreather... at least I hope that's what it was.
After 30 odd minutes, Simon indicated he was getting low on his single 12 so he bagged off and we ascended with about 5 mins of safety stops even though neither computer required this. Despite hassles from the skipper about missing slack, there did not seem to be any current to speak of. Water was 18 deg C and vis was about 4m.
There's loads of info on the Bretagne on the Bristol Aerospace Web Site as they own this wreck.
Back in Exmouth and the only thing to do is grab a quick fill
(everyone seemed to opt for air) and a good stuffing in the local greasy spoon
(which I chose to forego as it looked a little too transport caf' for me).
The dive center was busy briefing 32 army types for a pool try-out which shows
how busy they really were. In fact, the next set of divers had been queued
up on the jetty when we arrived back from the first dive. Thus, we made sure
we were loaded on time for the second dive only for the skipper to be late
for which he received a light-hearted joshing.
Unfortunately, Dave and Karen skipped this dive (Dave had a dodgey shoulder - incurred before the first dive) so there were 9 of us this time which gave us a bit more space. 11 people and a goodle sprinkling of twin-sets is probably a bit ambitious even for this massive RIB.
The Galicia is only a few minutes out from Exmouth unless you have to circumnavigate the sand-bar which lies just outside the harbour (which we did). Another wet and bumpy ride took us to the wreck. Vis was about 3m on this wreck and Simon's torch chose to give out too but, of course, he had a back-up. The shot was close to the boilers but, as this is a bit of a splat wreck, even this part of the structure is badly broken. We spent 53min in 17m poking around in a bunch of small holes and under plates which made for a relaxing pootle and a welcome relief from the usual "scenic drift" which so often comprises the second dive. As this was only 18m, even I didn't take any stage bottles.
Again, loads of fish 'n' stuff here.
South West divers provided us with an excellent service and even prompted Jason to comment that they were extra-efficient. I think we all agreed that we would use them again. The Dolphin Hotel was ideal - very close to the dive centre and a pub with decent grub although I think they should make it clear that Motorhead are playing in the local hostlry! Exmouth is only 90mins from Bristol (M4/M5 interchange) and is within striking distance of many decent wreck sites. I suspect this dive operator will see repeat UKRS business.
Again, thanks to Jason for organising and to South West divers for getting us bang on the wrecks both times.
Oh, and here's an arty shot of an otter to close with.
Thank you and goodnight!
Steve Chaplin (25.09.2000)
