Click
here
for pics
We decided to go anyway, as
we were in the mood for some more diving! However, during the St. Abbs trip I
had a bit of an ‘accident’, which Bob Humphreys kindly described in his bit
on the trip………. The doctor advised me not to dive for a few weeks. Pascale
and I decided to join anyway, so that she could dive. But when I heard that they
were going to dive the Aeolian Sky (which Arnold had described as a great wreck)
I decided to go diving as well, especially since my ear was sort of OK again. We
drove up on the Friday night and went straight to bed upon arrival at around
22:30, because we had to be at Tango at 7:00 the next morning so we would reach
the wreck at slack water. The weather was very calm which helped a great deal.
We descended to the max. depth of 30 m. The viz was reasonable and the sight of
the huge ship was pretty impressive! Since we were diving with one 12-litre
cylinder only, we did most of the dive at 20-25m. Afterwards I was very happy I
had decided to dive! Jean-Yves and Simon Bellwood dived with Clive and Helen to
build up their depth experience record. Beate had a problem with the feed hose
of her dry suit but handled the situation very calmly according to Chris. She
managed to disconnect the hose and came up on her BC.
The
second dive of the day was a great drift dive off Lulworth Banks. The viz was
quite good and we saw much life. We even saw quite a big ray! And we were
greeted by scallops all the way.
In the evening we had a meal
in the Smuggler’s Inn (surprise surprise…) and went off to bed quite early
again, because we had to be on Tango at 7:30. This time we were going to dive
the wreck of the Ailsa Craig. Phil had managed to arrange 3 more divers. The
weather was even better than the day before: the sun was out and the sea was
even flatter. This was going to be a 35 m dive so we were not going to be diving
very long with our 12-litre cylinders!! The viz wasn’t great while we were
descending and I was a bit apprehensive, but when we reached the wreck and I saw
the abundance of life (which Helen had assured us would be there; how right she
was!), I was very excited. As planned, the dive wasn’t very long but since e
weren’t too experienced with deep diving, it was long enough. We ascended on
the shot line and were ‘aired’ by Clive, Helen, Jean-Yves and Simon, who
were just below as; we couldn’t even read our gauges because of all the tiny
bubbles around us. The second dive
was another drift dive, which was
good but not as nice as the drift on the Saturday, I found. Beate caught an
edible crab, which she planned to eat, but according to Phil (who has been a
professional in the crab business) this particular one was not yet matured
enough to eat. The crab also managed to pinch Beate’s thumb. She was already
familiar with this feature of crustaceans however…………..
After
having had the cylinders filled, it was time to drive home again. All in all
this had been one of the best Tango trips I had had so far and I’m hoping
there will be many more to come!