jane

I really began to wonder if I was ever to reach my destination this summer as I stared horrified at the broken tent pole poking through the fabric of my tent. Screaming with fury was not an option on this occasion as few other campers seemed to be up yet. I also knew this would mean yet another delay as I would have to pick up a new tent in Inverness. Sometimes I really think that someone ‘up there’ has it in for me. Managing to find a large retailer on the outskirts of Inverness I prayed they would have one of the tents that I prefer, so when I walked in and saw a picture of a Terra Nova Laser on the their display I was elated!

I had had one of these super lightweight tents before, in fact not only had it stood up to some pretty rough weather on the Outer Hebrides but I had slept in it for six months whilst travelling in Australia. So although an expensive purchase it is one that is worth every single penny. Whilst I was busy deciding which credit card was going to suffer this purchase I grabbed a passing shop assistant, pointing to the display whilst gabbling away about the merits of this particular tent. He soon returned and much to my dismay informed me they had run out! I then had the tough job of trying to select another from a collection of makes that I had never heard of……..no vango, no north face no anything that was familiar. Now whilst I am normally quite happy to discuss the merits of various makes and models of tents this was not one of those occasions. Unfortunately the shop assistant was a young man who also did a lot of camping and as business was slow that morning he was soon rolling out and erecting a variety of tents for me to look at and pondering over the virtues of each. For a variety of reasons I finally decided on this particular retailers own brand of tent and hastily paid for it practically running out of the shop glad to be on the move again.

I then rapidly became convinced that every delivery vehicle in the north of Scotland was also on the same route, it seemed as fast as I overtook them……which wasn’t that fast at all…..I would immediately be behind another or else behind one of those maddeningly conscientious drivers who adheres to every speed limit and slows down ages in advance of the limit changing. Time was steadily ticking away a lot faster than I was clocking up the miles to Gills Bay but eventually I could actually see the ferry, and while I expected it to sail at any moment I sped on for the last hundred yards practically screeching to a halt by the booking office next to another driver who was also hoping to get on.

Anxiously we waited until we were finally told there was room. I then realized with alarm that we had to reverse onto the ferry whilst being observed by an audience of male crew. Normally reversing into spaces is not something I usually choose to do unless really neccessary. Being female I have to confess I don’t find it easy and it certainly not an accomplishment I could boast. Therefore having to reverse down a ramp onto the ferry and then maneuver and park whilst being watched, filled me with horror. However, as is so often the case it actually was not quite as bad as I had envisaged and while I only stalled the car once, at least I had managed to park it straight!

Finally we arrived in St Maragarets as I had decided to take the Pentland Ferry rather than Northlink. This outfit is the Easijet answer to crossing the Pentland Firth – a no frills boat that is much cheaper but get you from A to B, which is all I was interested in. Arriving at last on Orkney soil I made the short journey to Stromness where upon it started to rain and continued to do so whilst I worked out how to put up the new tent which seems huge as it actually sleeps two. I usually have and prefer small little tents but this one seemed the best option out of the stock that they had. And so begins my summer sojourn and escape from the ‘unsunny’ south.

Portsmouth is a great venue for diving as there is so much to do if you get blown out and given the awful weather that the south has been experiencing this year it was more a question of when rather than if!

Arriving late on Thursday to find the diving for Friday had been canned I decided to finish my tour of the Historic Dockyard. I had visited the Mary Rose back in January but had run out of time.

A Primary school visit was when I last seen HMS Victory, so I was viewing it through very different eyes.

Being so clean and shiny with everything beautifully painted it is hard to imagine just how awful conditions would have really been below deck particularly during a battle. I really cant imagine the ‘well ard’ youths of today lasting five minutes!

I find it fascinating when you find out the origins of a word or a name and in this case it was ‘knots’……. as in nautical speed. The line on a reel was knotted every 47ft 3in. One seaman held the reel, another heaved the log over the ships stern and a third watched a 28second time glass. As the log line ran out the knots were counted against the time glass the number of knots counted related to the ships speed in knots. One knot = one nautical mile per hour.

More HMS Victory pics

The second ship I had look round was HMS Warrior built about 60years later in 1860 and what a difference in technology in such a short space of time.

Rescued from being used as a floating workshop to an oil jetty at Milford Haven with the restoration being the most costly and complex project ever attempted, she is certainly very impressive and a credit to all those concerned. However, although she has been beautifully restored and painted the conditions at that time would have been pretty grim. The engine room was very impressive…even to my girlie eyes…  its hard to imagine what it really would have been like to spend several hours a day shovelling coal and ash in temperatures that would often reach 43 degress centigrade. Don’t somehow think the HSE would be too impressed!

More HMS Warrior pics

Having got the thumbs up for Saturdays diving we all turned up at the Marina bright and early. We were diving out of Haslar Marina, Gosport. The Highland Brigade was quite a nice dive and I even managed to find the depth charges in the rack at the stern. The skipper had thought we were only doing one dive so the rest of the afternoon I spent at the Submarine Museum I have yet to dive a sub but found the tour round the inside of this one interesting. Although it is fairly old and out of date compared with the high tech subs we have now it still gave you a fascinating insight into what it was like to serve on one….I came to the conclusion that I would not have made a good submariner….especially when he explained how you would have to escape should the occasion arise. 

Sunday dawned sunny and fine and we managed two dives one of which was on the Prince Leopold. Visability was pretty shite on all the dives and the photos were rubbish. I had been hoping to just use the WA lense with ambient light and get some black and white wreck shots. However with visability around 4-5m at best it was not to be. Also quite an expensive weekend with my LP hose going and my lovely DSMB getting chopped up by the boats prop! We came to the conclusion that I had probably let my blob go  whilst the boat was more or less overhead picking up another diver. I started reeling up and felt a tug and immediately loosened my hold on the reel in case I was going to get dragged. Lots of loose line then started appearing and getting tangled around my kit and finally the cut end floated down past my nose and I realised what had probably happened. Unfortunatly it was one of those with the twist and blow bottles so an expensive loss.

Monday we all duly trooped down to the marina hoping that we might get another dive in. Several other divers had driven down for the day to fill empty spaces on the boat, but after motoring out to sea for about hour conditions were such that trying to get back on the boat would have been very dangerous so we decided to call it a day and all head for home.

So a total of three dives out of a possible eight, verdict - very disappointing dive wise but I had managed to do a few other things instead.

Walking into the hot humid atmosphere, with floor to ceiling plants I knew instantly that I was going to enjoy this. The myriad of shapes and textures combined with just about every shade of green known to man meant that I was in photography heaven. 

 Plants both on land and underwater have provided me with some of my favourite photographs and the rainforest environment produces some of the weirdest and fascinating plant specimens I have yet encountered on my travels like this amazing pitcher plant. 

I was looking after my nephew and niece for the weekend who live near Newbury. Whilst my niece at 17 needs no looking after…..in fact she tends to look after me on these occasions….. I needed something to entertain my eight year old nephew on one of the days. I had been trying to find something that would appeal to us both and had never visited this place but for some years had seen the signs for it every time I drove along the A4. Fortunately the idea appealed…probably caught him at a good moment! Although only a small set up it was well organised.  In addition to a huge variety of flora from various rainforests around the world they had a few animals as well, some juvenile crocodiles, terrapins and turtles, a few snakes, pygmy marmosets and some delightful tiny black monkeys from Madagascar. While I generally hate to see any animal caged purely for the entertainment of humans some of these animals appeared to be connected to various projects about endangered animals, which begins to go someway to justify their confinement. There were also several types of free ranging birds and butterflies who  had the monopoly on some fantastic blooms.

However, I couldn’t understand why a toucan was caged (unless it was to spare any loss of fingers to the unwary child). I tend to find that the more creatures I get to see in the wild the less happy I am about caged birds and animals unless there is a very good reason for it. I just don’t think that any cage or pen despite every good intention can replicate the size and type of freedom that animals have living in the wild.    

Arriving just before one of the frequent showers that were to plague us most of the weekend, I hastily put up my tent before the heavens opened again……… this was the annual YD visit to Porthkerris. 

Friday saw all the early arrivals for this years gig managing to get in a couple of dives off the RIB which ran back and forth off the beach and out to the manacles four times during the course of the day.

Although I have done a fair few dives in the area over the last couple of years Vase Rock was a first. Never have I seen so many or such a varied collection of jewel anemones in such a small area. The rocks were smothered with clumps of colours that seemed almost fluorescent in places they were so incredibly bright.  

Saturday dawned rather wet and dismal and despite a night of very heavy rain it was actually a neighbouring camper who kept waking me up with the thundering snores that emanated from his tent.
We were diving from Celtic Cat for the rest of the weekend and due to the popularity of this gig she was taking out a boat full to do two dives in the morning and then another boat full in the afternoon. Although Cornwall, like the rest of the country, had been plagued with bad weather for several weeks the visibility was not as poor as I had feared it might be and we had another good couple of dives first of all on the Caroni Rivers and another on Vase Rock.  This sea cucumber appeared to be grazing on these jewel anenomes but I have yet to find out whether they do or not.

Another barbeque was on the cards for that evening, which included the haul of scallops from the previous days dive that had been hung over the side of the boat to keep them fresh. Having done the ‘hunter’ bit some of the guys wanted to build a fire on the beach and went off to now do the ‘gathering’ bit returning with an amazing array of burnable stuff including what seemed like half a tree! 

   
And finally resorting to the usual way so many men have of expressing themselves after a beer or two or three

Sunday arrived with a steady drizzle of rain putting the more faint hearted off who decided to call it a day and hit the road for home. This did of course mean there was a bit more space on the boat and we had a couple of excellent dives on the City of Ghent and the Citrene. Whilst we only glimpsed the sun briefly on our return back to porthkerris it had still been a great weekend in terms of diving and catching up with people.   

More pics
Porthkerris
         

I had been looking forward to this weekend for some time as it was to be my first boat diving weekend of the year, unfortunately due to the fog half of the dives had to be canned!
Despite the poor forecast for the weekend we started the weekend on Friday with high hopes and a lovely dive on Blue Caps where the carpets of brittle starts lay like a mantle completely covering the seabed.

The fog then descended and despite the skipper motoring about in the hope that it would either lift or be less dense elsewhere we eventually decided to call it a day and headed back to shore. Saturday we gathered again at the harbour bright and early only to confirm what we had guessed when we had looked at the day. Thick fog lay everywhere again. Meeting up again later in the morning in the hopes that it might have dispersed we decided to ditch the days diving as it showed no signs of abating. A group of us then went off to Alnwick castle to visit the gardens. Quite strange as it was brilliant sunshine there even though it was only a short distance away. Superb gardens with very impressive fountains and a remarkable poison garden containing loads of poisonous plants. Quite informative and rather shocking to think that I, like many others, have naively grown plants that are quite poisonous in the past.

Our last day on the Sunday proved to be very good with a pleasant first dive on North Knifestone where there appeared to be the remains of several wrecks. This was then followed by the second dive on Knox Reef. For me this dive alone was probably worth the six-hour drive up to the Farnes. Whilst a few people saw no seals on their dive at all I was extremely lucky and had a playful seal not only trying to nibble my fins but also really wanting to play. He kept disappearing and then would return grabbing mouthfuls of kelp, shaking his head from side to side like a dog playing with a toy. Plummeting deep down into the forest of kelp he would then pop back up looking at me with those huge puppy dog eyes. Its experiences such as these that convince you all the sacrifices you make in order to dive are worthwhile.

more pics The Farnes

A good, if gentle, start to my diving year this month.

Two weekends shore diving at Babbacombe with different groups of people was fun and gave me the opportunity to test out my gear …… just as well as I found I had a leak in my camera housing! Also problems with my strobe that turned out to be a faulty sync cord. All was sorted out by Kevin at Aquaphot He was recommended by Cameras Underwater, his knowledge of strobes/housings/cameras is phenomenal, and I believe he is the only independent in the country who services and repairs underwater photographic equipment. He gives a very personal service with lots of extra help and advice on the way which is so much nicer than sending equipment off to the big manufacturers. Whilst on the phone he even took the time to talk me through testing my set up to try and isolate whether it was the strobe or the sync cord that was the problem.

A sunny weekend at Wraysbury with some students was also pleasant in contrast to the very wet and dull day at Chepstow NDAC doing a mapping project. Despite having to get transported down to the pontoons out of the inland sites I have dived (Wraysbury, Stoney and the NDAC) this is the one I like best.

Very strange to be down at Babbacombe again only a week after the clubs ‘dive in’. Meeting up with the DG guys on Saturday it turned out there were a few familiar YD faces as well.
Visibility had been dire the weekend before and was only slightly better this time. Despite not getting any decent pics again I had the opportunity to see and watch a number of cuttlefish this week. Most memorably a pair where the female was lovingly tending to her eggs which were attached to a plant that I happened to be hovering above. It took me a minute of two to realise what she was doing, as she bravely seemed to swim straight towards and underneath me. Then with her longer tentacles appeared to be patting and stroking her eggs that had been laid and attached to a spiky plant that looked like this.

crappy pics but the eggs are the black things

……I felt quite privileged to have seen this behaviour right under my nose. However, due to the continued deteriorating weather conditions (and crap viz) most of us decided to leave early on the Sunday.

Digigreen the site for temperate green water photography

Being my first dives of the year I was really looking forward to what has now become an annual meeting for the club at Babbacombe. Even finding that my strobe had decided to prolong its winter hibernation and was refusing to work did not dampen my enthusiasm after five months of being dry. Although Babbacombe is only shallow I like it because there is usually plenty to see if the viz is reasonable……. unfortunately for us this wasn’t to be one of those times! The only chance of seeing anything on this particular weekend was to stay at around 3-4m. Swimming out further and deeper to an effort to find better viz only resulted in being enveloped in clouds of plankton so thick I couldn’t see my computer and it was only with nose pressed to compass that I managed to find my way back in the right direction towards the shore. Any hope of getting cuttlefish photos rapidly disappeared as did most of the cuttlefish I saw. One look at me and they quickly vanished into the soupy murk. However we did manage to see some other things as well.

Whilst a crappy weekend in terms of viz it was a nice weekend with half of us camping and enjoying a great barbeque on Saturday evening.

Club Trip to Babbacombe

Most of this month was spent getting out kit, checking kit, lubricating kit, organising kit, sorting out kit, buying a few bits of new kit and getting ready for my first dives of the year…………..cant wait!

Yet another quiet month, although quite memorable as I had an article published in Diver magazine!
Over the last year I have written quite a lot for the website Travel-Dive but despite my sisters nagging have never quite made that last leap and sent something off to a diving magazine. However, following a ‘boot up the backside’ from someone else I managed to get up the courage to send some stuff off at the end of last year and finally have had an article printed in the April edition of Diver about Busselton Jetty one of my favourite dive sites while I was in Australia.
Its incredibly strange seeing your own work in print for the first time, words and phrases you are so familiar with and spent hours tweaking and photos of which you seem to know every last pixel. Expecting a page of text with a couple of photos I was gobsmacked when I finally managed to get hold of a copy and find a three page spread. Here is the link for the on-line version, but it just cant compare with the feeling of actually opening a shiny glossy magazine with that lovely new paper smell and finding your own work in there.

On line article in Diver Mag