Learning to Dive
- Thread starter BigonaBianchi
- Start date
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Sh4rkyBloke
Jaffa Cake monster
- Location
- Manchester, UK
I used to dive. BSAC Sports Diver for me - all in UK waters... there's nothing quite like diving to 30m in a dark, cold quarry and swimming past full trees underwater... following slate mountains down into the darkness... and coming across a set of garden gnomes carefully placed in some amusing poses. 
Most of my dives were at Capernwray for training, and Dorathea in North Wales which went down to about 110m and claimed a number of lives over the years I was diving there.
Yes, it's a risky sport, but the buzz of being weightless and able to 'fly' over the edge of an abyss is fantastic.
I gave it up when getting up at about 5.00am in order to get kit sorted and drive over to Dorathea for a couple of dives became just too much... it was basically most of the day taken up for those 2 dives and I was exhausted upon returning home. Manchester is not the best place to live if you enjoy diving as everywhere to dive is a long drive away!!
Most of my dives were at Capernwray for training, and Dorathea in North Wales which went down to about 110m and claimed a number of lives over the years I was diving there.
Yes, it's a risky sport, but the buzz of being weightless and able to 'fly' over the edge of an abyss is fantastic.
I gave it up when getting up at about 5.00am in order to get kit sorted and drive over to Dorathea for a couple of dives became just too much... it was basically most of the day taken up for those 2 dives and I was exhausted upon returning home. Manchester is not the best place to live if you enjoy diving as everywhere to dive is a long drive away!!
longers
Legendary Member
Sh4rkyBloke said:Most of my dives were at Capernwray for training, and Dorathea in North Wales which went down to about 110m and claimed a number of lives over the years I was diving there.
Jackdaw Quarry, we used to jump off the cliffs there as kids.
And I set fire to it once
Nice set up they've got there now, but we weren't happy at having our aquatic playground taken away from us. Have been up a couple of times and had a beer and watched the huge fish swimming about the divers as they get in/out.
I was learning to dive and wasn't far off going there for our first bit of open water but the one of the lads from the group a bit ahead of us in training got ran over by the boat and hit by the outboard motor. The group kind of fizzled out after that.
handsome joe
New Member
I did my PADI training on Kho Tao in Thailand a long time ago. The instructor was a Dane called Orson and Clement the dive master. Had a great time partying all night and diving all day, especially the night dive.
Orson used say to each pupil that they owed him a Carlsberg each time they made a mistake. Anyway our final night on the course we decided to surprise Orson with a crate of Carlsberg. We slowly made our way up, what seem like a mountain, to his digs and delivered our gift. Very pleased he introduced us to the owners of the guesthouse. The Grandfather used to be a Buddhist monk and cooked us some food, which was delicious.
We were working our way through the Carlsberg when Orson said he had a surprise for us. He brought back what looked like a Breeze block wrapped in newspaper. When he unwrapped it turned out to be the biggest block of Thai Weed i have ever seen. So we ended up passing around a giant bong for the rest of the night. Orson and Clement turned out to be the Cheech and Chong of Kho Tao!
All i can say is when we finally left i somehow got onto my Moped. The thing was that i forgot how steep this jungle track was. Afterwards my friends told me what happened. Basically i put it into 1st gear and shot off down the almost vertical road at speed. They said they saw my red tail light veer off and disappear into the jungle then hearing a crash. They found me smiling under the Moped oblivious.
Next day found i had a deep cut on my ankle. Still went diving.......boy did it sting! Funnily i had some small, blue and black fish following me sucking and nibbling at my wound. This and the sea water healed the cut very quickly.
Orson used say to each pupil that they owed him a Carlsberg each time they made a mistake. Anyway our final night on the course we decided to surprise Orson with a crate of Carlsberg. We slowly made our way up, what seem like a mountain, to his digs and delivered our gift. Very pleased he introduced us to the owners of the guesthouse. The Grandfather used to be a Buddhist monk and cooked us some food, which was delicious.
We were working our way through the Carlsberg when Orson said he had a surprise for us. He brought back what looked like a Breeze block wrapped in newspaper. When he unwrapped it turned out to be the biggest block of Thai Weed i have ever seen. So we ended up passing around a giant bong for the rest of the night. Orson and Clement turned out to be the Cheech and Chong of Kho Tao!
All i can say is when we finally left i somehow got onto my Moped. The thing was that i forgot how steep this jungle track was. Afterwards my friends told me what happened. Basically i put it into 1st gear and shot off down the almost vertical road at speed. They said they saw my red tail light veer off and disappear into the jungle then hearing a crash. They found me smiling under the Moped oblivious.
Next day found i had a deep cut on my ankle. Still went diving.......boy did it sting! Funnily i had some small, blue and black fish following me sucking and nibbling at my wound. This and the sea water healed the cut very quickly.
wafflycat
New Member
- Location
- middle of Norfolk
WCMnr did PADI open water thinggie a few years ago out in the Red Sea to enable him to do some reef conservation work with Operation Wallacea. He doesn't fancy diving anywhere cold (wimp..) so hasn't done any diving since. He'd need to do a refresher course I would think.
HJ
Cycling in Scotland
- Location
- Auld Reekie
Wigsie said:
Why?? There is some excellent diving to be had in UK waters... wimp!
Real diver know how to dive in nil viz, it only scoobe doos that don't...
OP
OP
BigonaBianchi
Yes I can, Yes I am, Yes I did...Repeat.
- Location
- Iskele TRNC & Mordor UK
..throw some scoobie snacks over here then mate
Cubist
Still wavin'
- Location
- Ovver 'thill
Dorothea....bizarre place, especially when you follow the road down into the village and then go back round and look over the edge of the drop-off. I once saw a cave diver nearly burst a lung there. My buddy and I had just surfaced from a 40m dive and as we were beaching ourselves there was a huge burst of bubbles, and a diver shot out of the water, literally out of the water, screaming and belching horribly. He flopped back onto the surface and of course we swam out and towed him in. He was only semi conscious and in a very bad way. We kept asking him where his buddy was, expecting to see him surface, but it turned out he was diving alone.
We had some oxygen with us and while we were waiting for the ambulance got the story out of him. He'd been descending down the main wall to the right of the slipway (alone ffs) aiming for about 50 or 60 metres. He got his buoyancy all wrong, and suddenly saw the wall screaming past him, he realised he was going down too fast, saw his comp was reading about 90 metres. He hit the inflate button on his stab vest and the valve freeflowed, filling it to bursting. He was completely out of control on the ascent, and came up like a cork. He remembered his training to scream and this probably saved his lungs. shoot me up!
We had some oxygen with us and while we were waiting for the ambulance got the story out of him. He'd been descending down the main wall to the right of the slipway (alone ffs) aiming for about 50 or 60 metres. He got his buoyancy all wrong, and suddenly saw the wall screaming past him, he realised he was going down too fast, saw his comp was reading about 90 metres. He hit the inflate button on his stab vest and the valve freeflowed, filling it to bursting. He was completely out of control on the ascent, and came up like a cork. He remembered his training to scream and this probably saved his lungs. shoot me up!
HJ said:Why?? There is some excellent diving to be had in UK waters... wimp!
Real diver know how to dive in nil viz, it only scoobe doos that don't...
I learnt in zero viz, have dived in the UK a fair bit and done stoney cove a few times, but no more! wimp or not, diving in a quarry with no viz or with 50 hammerhead sharks, oceanic white tips and manta rays in southern Egypt? hmmm tough choice!
BigonaBianchi said:
Many years ago.....
three of us carried some diving gear (enough for 1 person) into a cave to dive through a sump. The cave passage was Y shaped with the two branches joined by the sump.
So we got there, and the first guy went in. We estimated it would take maybe 20/30 mins for him to dive through then carry the kit back round. After about an hour, we were wondering where he was so set off to see if he'd made it through. At about that time, we saw his light coming along the cave.
He got to us and said "there's a squeeze in the sump - i got stuck in it for while."
Then casually came out with : "Who's going next ?"
Errr, no thanks. Thats enough for one day!
HJ
Cycling in Scotland
- Location
- Auld Reekie
Wigsie said:
Stoney Cove is enough to put most off diving...
OP
OP
BigonaBianchi
Yes I can, Yes I am, Yes I did...Repeat.
- Location
- Iskele TRNC & Mordor UK
..bet those hammerheads were a sight to see eh? The white sharks at Dyer Island were scary but peaceful...quarry dives...erm why????
BigonaBianchi said:
Hammerheads are an awesome sight, when you are 40 meters down and have them above, below and on both sides, each one is the size of a volvo estate its the best place in the world.
Cave diving and wreck dives are great, Malta/gozo are good for a bit of cave diving and the local women are the prettiest!
