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Dive Reports '05
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20-03-2005 9:11pm#1New thread... the other one was getting messy imho. Sure merge em if you think it needs be
Hello again folks, been a bit quiet around here on the actual diving front lately but sure the season started (for me anyway) on paddy's day.
Took a trip up to Aquaholics to open the season up with a few dives. Just getting used to the kit after being out of the water since October. Drove up to Portstewart (from Dublin) Wednesday night, it took about 3hours maybe a little more. There was pretty bad traffic going out past the Port tunnel works, what a disaster.
Anywho... Thursday morning (St Paddy's day) we head over to Ballycastle which is about 30miles east of Portstewart. Richard (the dive operator) launches his rib (9m!!!!) from there.
There are only 3 divers on board for the day so we just about had enough room on the rib. Myself, (our very own scubaboard'er) Donny and a local diver named Colm. Colm would be showing us the main attractions of the dives as he'd done them several times beforehand.
The morning dive was the Lough Gary. The trip took about 25minutes in the rib to make it to Rathlin Island. Kitting up was a reasonable effort, no major swell. Actually AFAIR the sea state was very reasonable considering it was blowing like a banshee all night!!
The dive went fine. Dark and cold. the vis wasn't super but it was actually a pretty good dive. The wreck is pretty intact and you can still make out the tile flooring. There is a very large chain which is draped over the side to the bottom but if you follow it back it goes into a hold which apparently you can get some decent penetration inside. No pushing anyone’s luck, first dive back lets take it easy. There are still lots of electrical wiring running through the ship which you can make out. It runs along the edge wall/keel on the upper deck. TBH it would take a couple of dives to properly explore the wreck. We only saw the bow section and a small bit past the 1st hold (there could be further back). And due to the vis only being about 6-8m it was difficult to really appreciate the wreck itself in all its glory.
I fully intend on doing another couple of dives on this wreck to get a better feel for her...
This from Aquaholics website:LOUGH GARY -Government transport formerly of MacBrayne's Hebrides fleet struck rocks finally sinking off the east coast of Rathlin on 21st January 1942. Lying in 33 metres of water, upright and intact. Superb dive
The afternoon dive was the Templemore. Pretty broken up wreck but not a bad afternoon dive. She's pretty much flat except for a large boiler standing tall and her bow section which has twister or fallen to one side. Donny located a big n' honkin conger which predictably remained in its hole. Very short boat ride, maybe 3 minutes from the jetty.
This from Aquaholics website:TEMPLEMORE -Sank in Ballycastle Bay on 6th December 1911 in heavy weather. Lying in 18 metres of water, well broken up. This wreck is inhabited by loads of tame conger eels around boiler section, which may be hand fed by divers. Bow section full of fish life.
That was day one... time to get some food and a couple of hours kip before having a few cold ones to celebrate Paddy's day.
Friday morning...
We've missed the Lough Gary due to a communication error in the pub the previous night with Richard. Myself and Donny turned up at the shop in Portstewart at 11am and Richard was on the Jetty in Ballycastle (30 miles away) at 11am.... frack. We wanted to get back on the Lough Gary to explore the hold with that massive chain. Apparently there are guns and ammunition down there. Also you can make you way down the wreck for a while inside it. That will have to wait for another weekend.
So we tried for the back of Rathlin island, there is a wall dive which starts at 0m and drops sheer to 100+m. Nope sea too rough for that.
We too a smaller wall in a sheltered spot. Not a bad dive... bit of a current but when we turned and drifted it was very pleasant.
Friday afternoon we dived the Drake. Meant to be a bit of a scrap yard so I wasn't looking forward to it. However it turned out to be an excellent dive. Lots of stuff to see. Although its very broken up there are infact places you can still get inside the wreck. a little bit scary as the compartment was only about 3/4feet high. When we surfaced Richard said that we had only covered a small part of the wreck. But I knew we were going around in circles a but we kept finding interesting stuff to see!!!!
If we are very good and we ask nicely Donny may actually post links to some of the video he shot inside the wreck and during the deco I think?? I didn't get to view it all...
This from Aquaholics website:HMS DRAKE - 14100 ton heavy cruiser torpedoed by U-79 on 2nd October 1917. Lying in 18 metres of water in Church Bay, Rathlin Island.
Over all the weekend was an excellent break! The water was ssssoooooo coooooooold that at the end of 45minutes I was pretty much a block of ice. Any longer and I think all mobility would have been lost in my fingers. As it was it was tricky deploying my SMB for the end of the dive.
Dive operator was Richard in Aquaholics .
I would reccomend them to all levels of diving. The staff were friendly and helpful throughout the weekend.0
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Yet again there was the slow drag of the week before a weekends diving. I mean it was llike being dragged by a tractor across gravel for the week. You can tell straight away i LOVE my job. Well actually my job is great, but the place i work... gggrrr.
Hit the road at my earliest convienience on friday. Its tricky getting out of the city at 5.30pm. The trip up went fine, had the missus in the car for company. CD Player stop operation in Monaghan... frack. But the rest of the journey was reasonably clear and quick.
We (donny, barry, dom, myself & other half) rented a house for the weekend. It was very handy because its where the tanks get filled. So you can relax inside/eat a bit of well earned food while the compressor is running. The house was clean, warm and comfortable. Its a really sweet setup!
Get to the diving you say:
Dive No 1: U861
The sun is shining and the sea is near flat calm. Wooohooo!
In my dive log I have U861 Pt 1 (or not!). I also have U861 Pt 2 (or not!). Twice before i've tried to dive this wreck and beed whipped off it by the current. Its also been said that the U861 could be a tourist trap. The elusive wreck. Kinda like the emperor's clothes. All the locals know its just rocks down there... but just drop the noob divers into a bitch of a current to look at gullies and have a good ole belly laugh in the pub about it later.
When i got to the bottom of the shot, i was writing my dive log in my head. U861 Pt 3 (or not!). There was no wreck... just the familiar sight of rocks. Maybe thats what the U861 was... a uboat that looked like rocks. So the Allies wouldn't bother wasting ammo on rocks... Just then one of the divers that went in before us was on his way back and he indicated that the wreck was in that direction... which also happened to be into the current.
7 minutes into the dive we found it. So there is a uboat down here huh. Its pretty broken up at this stage. It was hard to get a proper handle on the dive. It was dark and the vis wasn't great. Maybe 8m. And there was a current. So even though i was finning like crazy i wasn't covering much of the wreck. There was one section that seems to have broken clean off at the bulkhead so you can stick your head through the hatch way and look inside. Nice wreck. Wouldn't want to have fought a war inside one though.
Sooner rather than later the 25 minutes was coming to a close and it was time to pop smb's and head for deco. Todays deco will be about 35minutes ladies and gentlemen, please settle in as its gonig to get chilly on the willy. My new Weezle extreme plus did a reasonably good effort of keeping me warm. Only felt the chill in the last 10minutes or so.
On the deco, there were 3 of us (myself, donny and Jan (German Jan, DIR diver)). Jan was doing deeper stops than myself and donny so we handed Jan the reel and we headed up to continue our run time. About 10 minutes later i felt a tank clunking off me. Thought it must be donny, but he's right infront of me. Maybe its Jan, but he's anoother 7m below me. Turned out (and this is a handy trick) than Jan had finished with his large (80Cuft) stage. He clipped it to the smb line and let it go. It just floats to the surface. I must remember that for anytime i'm diving a second stage. Pretty cool.
Dive over, job done.
Dive no2: Argo Delos
I sat this one out. QT with the missus. The sun was beaming down too much to spend another hour under the water.
The guys however came back and made me sick with their tall tails of better vis, no current, giant swim throughs.
It wouldn't be like a diver to rub someones nose in it :rolleyes:
Dive no3: Argo Delos
We had our choice of going back to the U861, Argo delos or the less favoured other Uboat. We decided to leave the other uboat until another day with better vis.
Arog Delos it is... woohooo (again!). I was furious that i didn't get to do the swim throughs so this was keeping me happy.
Yet again the weather was kind to us. no wind, a bit cloudy but nice and warm. Also flat calm.
Dropped down the shot and onto the wreck. One of the lads found his torch straight away, he lost it on the previous days dive. There is a huge break int he wreck so we headed in. Loads of space to get inside. Must have spent maybe 4/5 minutes in there as you can't go out the other end. You have to turn around and come back. Pretty cool inside the wreck though.
We came out and followed the hull and eventually found the second swim through. This one was quick enough because our bottom time was getting clost to our planned time of 22min. Shorter dive time as we planned for a max of 48m.
Dive time up, headed for deco. Today though i seem to be wet under my suit. I think it was me looking around in funny ways, i let water in at the neck. So it was getting cold towards to end.
On our 9m stop we had an unexpected visitor. A gannit (spelling?). its unusual to see a bird on deco. I reckon he spotted our bubbles and figure it was <Gollum voice> lovely juicey fishes </Gollum voice>. He made a couple of passes on us and got pretty close. Its a bit of a weird sight.
That was the lot for our weekend. I can't say i'll be rushing back to the U861 until the vis clears up a bit. Argo Delos was an excellent dive though.
Information on the Argo Delos can be found here
Information on the U861 can be found here
Dive op was divenorth in his lurvely rhib.
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