Sunday 1st August
Hot, dry, clear, no wind
M2: 10:30, 32m, 30min, 4m vis, Sean, from Maverick
James Fennel: 14:30, 15m, 55min, 6m vis, Sean, from Maverick

A couple of nice dives but not without incident. We arrived in plenty of time to have a leisurely chat in Underwater Explorers, where I picked up a hire torch while mine is being repaired and Sean got his cylinder and weights. We grabbed our 32% fills and I gave Sean a Nitrox 101 to allay his fears about diving such an exotic gas. By 10:30 it was, of course, panic stations and we rushed to Maverick for your 45min steam out to the M2. We stayed unsuited most of the ways as summer had arrived and it was very warm.

There were 10 divers making 5 teams of two. We were 4th in from the third boat to get to the M2 so had a little wait. It was pleasantly uncrowded on the wreck, and apart from a couple of divers who looked to have drifted off of the shot (probably let go on the way down) we saw no one else, so it was as if we had the wreck to ourselves. Once we found it.

Vis was poor and the shot was not right on the wreck, but Graham the skipper had said we need only swim East, so I tied my reel off to the shot in 32m and we headed east to find the hull after no more than 10 fin kicks. About face, untie the reel, back to the wreck and on with the dive. By this time - we had done a slow descent - we had got to nearly 10minutes so we made our way up to the railings on the top of the hull in about 28m. No drama in that as this is the best depth on the wreck. We headed towards the sern, pering in what holes we could find. There was a good size lobster, a very good sized congor and more tompots than you could poke a stick at. We did not go too far as I was aware that Sean was chomping on his air a bit so we headed back to the conning tower and spent the main part of the dive circling that. The fixed life is fantastic, the fish life prolific and it was very nice. At around 28mins I got the SMB out and shot it from the wreck. I towed it around a bit and then at 100bar in Sean's single 15ltr we started to ascend.

At about 11m we found ourselves back on a shot line - it turned out to be ours - and apart from it being a pain trying to keep the reel from the shot we had an eneventful ascent to the surface. Maverick was some way from us when we surfaced, and we found out that 4 out of 10 divers had not found te wreck. Lessons to be learnt are do not lose the shot until you get where you need to be on it, and listen to the dive brief. The shot was very close to the wreck. Yes it was dark and the vis was only 4m, but it was by no means a tough tas finding the sub.