Training day

Stoney Cove – A Virgin’s Tale

This was my first trip to Stoney Cove so I was amazed at all the high-tech innovations they embraced that other inland quarry sites seemed to have eschewed.  This included tarmac which that have lavished over both access roads and car parks, and bricks with they have employed to create actual buildings.   Prefab is not in the Stoney vocabulary and neither is cargo container.

This just about made up for having to get up in the middle of the night in order to arrive for 7am, which meant I was early enough to get a place in primary car park.   As a result I didn’t get to see the overflow car park, but I am sure that the Stoney owners have been equally generous with the black stuff there too.

Jim and Angela arrived shortly afterwards followed closely by Alan, Matt and Jon.  Monica and Phil must have arrived earlier as Monica was spotted at the waterside whilst the rest of us were getting ready.    So with everyone here we set about getting kitted up.    

On this occasion I was diving with Jim who had brought his Rebreather.  This is a very high-tech piece of kit that made even the toilet block look pretty medieval in comparison (sorry Stoney your gonna need  Dyson air-blade hand drivers if you want to compete with Jim’s Rebreather).  Jim was quite happy to explain in detail the workings of his large yellow gadget, fortunately I was actually interested so this worked out well for both of us.  Impressive as it was, that fact you need to carry a large cylinder of air as backup ruins the overall effect for me.  Maybe someone needs to invent a Rebreather twinset with fully isolated closed circuits.  Aha, a gap in the market!

Being sufficiently kitted up, next was the stagger down to the water’s edge.  For some reason I seem to need to carry my own body weight in kit and lead in order sink.  Obviously more work needed here.   Next the buddy check  ....

Buddy, one off , check!

And into the water.  Was disappointed that Jim just used a giant step to enter.  I fully expected his Rebreather to shoot jets out of the bottom and for Jim to leap into the air like Boba Fett.  I followed and we descended into the depths of the quarry.

The plan for the first dive was to test whether I could cut the mustard at 35m primarily as a test before the Weymouth trip two weeks later.  To this end we entered onto the 6m shelf set  off into the 20m zone then headed over the wall and down to 35m .   So, what was 35m like?  Errr ... dark, much darker than expected!   And empty.  Okay, technically it wasn’t empty as if was full of water and at least two divers.   As it was early in the day (did I mention getting up in the middle of the night?), visibility wasn’t bad but there really wasn’t much to look at apart from the silt on the quarry bed.   Apparently there is a big metal box on legs, but I didn’t get to see it (and wasn’t overly disappointed).  We made our way back via the road.

 Buoyancy was a bit iffy on the way back as my dry suit and I could not agree on how much air it should retain.  I thought I was the one in control but it had other ideas.  We will be having words.

So, getting out of the water.  It seems that contrary to popular belief you actually gain weight during the dive.  This is the only way I can account for the massive exertion it took to get out of the water.  This was despite my best effort to empty the entire contents of my 15L cylinder!  In contrast, Jim seemed to managed on just one from breath from his Rebreather.  Respect.

A break for lunch at this point was very welcome.  Having been advised by Alan to bring sandwiches to Gildenburgh, I took the same approach for Stoney only to discover that most people were opting for the in-house fare.  I can only assume that this is yet another area that Stoney is better.  Angela had brought a salad because she doesn’t like the sandwiches she makes.  Still trying to get my head around that.  Over lunch Jim explained out to do partial pressure calculations.  So I guess that was half of the Sports Diver course done and it was still only 10am!

Dive two was a more leisurely affair visiting the sites of Stoney Cove in the 20m zone.  First stop was the airplane cockpit.  No idea what it was like when it was dumped in Stoney (dam fly-tippers) but I doubt its mother wouldn’t recognise it now.   Next stop was the helicopter which I happily swam in and out off.  Onwards then to the van where I was happy to muse that maybe at least one white van man had got his comeuppance!  At this point I realised that Jim was not swimming in and out of these sunken treasures.  I can only assume the novelty wears off.   

Then there were a couple of boats the second of which was the Stangarth and finally a footpath sign post for a very tall person.   I was impressed by Jims ability to navigate to all these locations seemingly effortlessly in what was pretty poor visibility compared to the first dive.

We ascended up the sign post at which point Jim tried to confuse me by stopping at 9m or was that 11m, no it was 9 (there was some bobbing going on here!) .  After a few minutes of this I though Jim had signaled to ascend and my dive computer seem keen to get on with things so I ascended.

 We came up in the middle of the quarry, so we had leisurely swim back to shore in what was now a bright sunny day.   On getting out I discovered that I had managed to gain even more weight (have they filled Stoney with heavy water or what?), so stripping off kit was a real relief.   Before leaving, I had a look around the shop with Jim and Phil.  Jim bought his wife a sweatshirt and cylinder, the old romantic.

Then finally it was time for goodbyes and the trek home.

All that leaves me to write is thank you to Alan for cajoling Jim into buddying up with my and to thank Jim for sparing his Saturday morning to show a noob the sites.

Anthony.