Portland - 25th October 2008
Present: Alex, Calum, Craig, Ellie, Kara, Laura, Luke, Lyn, Mike, Oli, Will, Christopher.
Eleven divers, including six who had never dived with the club before, met up at stores at 8am on Saturday morning. With the boats having been prepared the night before there wasn't too much to do and when the DO finally turned up with the van it was quickly loaded and we were on our way.
We arrived in Portland two hours later, got the boats on the water and headed out towards the Countess of Erne. A quick motor across the harbour brought us to a likely looking shotline, but the GPS insisted the wreck was over two miles south of our position. With some uncertainty as to what would be found we sent our divers down. Fortunately the wreck was there and our divers returned with beaming smiles and reports of better than average vis and huge schools of fish.
After a slightly more leisurely lunch than the DO's timetable allowed we were off again towards the Landing Craft and Bombardon Unit. This time the GPS behaved itself and there was no doubt where we were. With little daylight remaining the dives couldn't be long, but one pair still managed to find the line joining the two wrecks and explore both of them before surfacing. The increasing wind made for a bumpy and wet ride home, but that wasn't enough to dent our spirits.
Back on shore all that remained was to pack up the van and set off back towards home. Our (mostly) uneventful return to Bristol heralded an exciting milestone for the DO, who has now brought an equal number of vans safely back from club trips to the number of vans he has crashed or otherwise written off (although he still maintains last year's PK van shouldn't count because Kate crashed it first).
Many thanks to Will who drove around Bristol picking people up Saturday morning, those who lent suits to our new members and to Calum who tolerated the delights of Christopher's MP3 player in the van. (Craig would like to point out that Pink Floyd, The Doors, The Smiths The Stone Roses and REM are a perfectly acceptable choice of Music that you wouldn't have found in any other vehicle.)
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