Fri 7th May 2004
Portland, UK
Dredger (x2)
11 degrees, 3-4m vis
Training Dives - Advanced Bouyancy Control/Intro to twinset diving
Up a the crack of dawn for the 2.5 hour drive to Portland and Underwater Explorers where Izzy and Nina would be taking us through our ABCs (us being myself, Paul and Hugh.) The morning was taken up with some reasonably lightweight theory and equipment run throughs. Our classroom being the sun deck of the Aqua Hotel, which was very nice. Izzy is a disarmingly frank guy, honest about his preferences, not afgraid to share with us the sins of his past while showing us the right way forward. The morning session ended with harness sizing, putting the gear together and a chicken pie before heading off for a dive. The gear was straight DIR - twin 12ltr faber 232s and the weight was added with a v-weight and a light belt - more on that tomorrow and sunday.

We did two dives, both on the dredger which is a 7m dip just outside of the harbour. The dives themselves where uninspiring, the wreck being well broken up. But it was good to be in the water, even if I was feeling like a complete amateur while feeling for my valves and trying to get trim and bouyancy right. I probably was not as bad as I thought I was - I'm my own harshest criitic - but I felt out of sorts. Bouyancy was OK, trim not so, and finding valves was a nightmare which just stopped being a nightmare. Simple as that.

And that was it. Other things to note were that we had both Nina and Izzy in the water with the three of us, and we were diving from Top Gun, a hardboat with a lift. Very civilised.