Trip Reports
Portland 04/11/2006
Divers: Piers, Chris M, Steve M, Dougal, Heidi, Andy K, Amy, Sky, Tom E, Chris O
It was a freezing, but clear and calm Saturday morning when 10 divers met at stores for the intrepid mission of loading the club boats into a van to take them down to Portland for a days diving! All was good, and after only a little faff we were on the road by about 8:15am, to arrive in Portland by around 10:30.
With a really good effort from everyone we were out on the water by 12:00, speeding our way towards the countess of Erne on the breakwater wall, and narrowly missing a sailing dinghy on the way! We had the countess all to ourselves for most of the dive which was great...swimming all the way through the wreck and then back along the hull to get back to the stern and have a look at the rudder...the resident school of pollack were around as well which added a nice bit of life to the dive. Vis was a reasonable 3-5 meters, and everybody enjoyed themselves by all accounts.
We sped back in to switch cylinders around and grab a hasty lunch so we could get out to our next site, the landing craft and bombardon unit, in time. We just about managed a faff free turnover and had a nice rummage around the landing craft, which has its engine room exposed-nice and interesting! There is a line from the landing craft to a nearby 'bombardon unit'-these are 'experimental wave breaking units' from the WWII, and are also quite interesting but incredibly confusing! After a good, but slightly curtailed second dive we were on our way back in as the sun was starting to set behind Portland at 4pm. Breaking the boats down was also done double time, and we left Portland at about 5pm.
It had all gone pretty smoothly up until this point...and if you want to know what happens next Ill refer you to Ali's last presidents bulletin...with a chronological record of events by our very own Chris Mitchell.
Suffice to say the van broke down which was a big pain in the arse!
Up until that point it was a really great day...and thanks to the people who came along for making one!
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