Call of the Clodmoor
It's been a month since I last dived. Now the smashed Clodmoor beckons from the silt.
Anyway. e-bay luck brings savings on a dive computer, but pay-back comes at the dive club: "you need to buy a reel", and, "we don't have the cheaper one".
The ritual robing of rubber softens the shock of spending sixty, eighty and then ninety pounds on little bits of kit. This is real, however; this means diving and never mind the money
Rigid Inflatable Boat buzzes off under the mighty bastion of the Dieppe ferry. "Seven minutes" shouts the skipper. Then again, a few furlongs on into the onrushing waves, "Seven minutes!". He laughs.
After much slapping of waves we do a handbrake turn and the shot-line goes over; the first team follows; then Jim and I go under. Under!!
No grey gloom was ever so welcoming. Hand over hand down the shot-line, against the current, we angle down into piled-up atmospheres of pressure.
Our grey bubble of vision extends three meters. It rolls down the line until at 24m we see a shelf of rock and team 1 returning along their reel.
"That way" thumbs T, and he mimes the instruction to tie off against the shot-line first. The current is as strong as a strong swimmer pulling at your ankles.
We're now consuming our bottom time (in the dive computer's lingo). Down here it feels like the sandy floor of a cave. I hear the wind outside, a vigorous storm. This is the concerted bashing of the sea skin by whipped-up waves high above.
Ragged schools of bib brave the strong pull of the current. One or two say hello and then resume their posts facing into surging water, waiting for food. On that note, I never knew until now that 'piscivorous' was a word.
The sand-bank we find ourselves gliding over is the flattened hull of the Clodmoor. A few finstrokes North, with Jim reeling us out, and I check my air: crikey - 80 bar!
I ask my buddy for his air reading, and in Jim's words "...if there'd been a film crew down there, they would have recorded the longest double take in screen history." We have to head back, both surprised at our air greed.
As I turn I spot a man-sized lump along the hull. Next time we'll try and see the giant screw standing six metres proud of the seabed.
A slow ascent up the line. Vyper says STOP at 4.8m, and Jim holds out a hand to anchor me. 3 minutes of safety stop bubble by, and soon we're back on the boat, staring at the sunset and heading back to Newhaven.
And that was the wreck of the Clodmoor, sunk in 1917 by some German youths in a U-boat.
Anyway. e-bay luck brings savings on a dive computer, but pay-back comes at the dive club: "you need to buy a reel", and, "we don't have the cheaper one".
The ritual robing of rubber softens the shock of spending sixty, eighty and then ninety pounds on little bits of kit. This is real, however; this means diving and never mind the money
Rigid Inflatable Boat buzzes off under the mighty bastion of the Dieppe ferry. "Seven minutes" shouts the skipper. Then again, a few furlongs on into the onrushing waves, "Seven minutes!". He laughs.
After much slapping of waves we do a handbrake turn and the shot-line goes over; the first team follows; then Jim and I go under. Under!!
No grey gloom was ever so welcoming. Hand over hand down the shot-line, against the current, we angle down into piled-up atmospheres of pressure.
Our grey bubble of vision extends three meters. It rolls down the line until at 24m we see a shelf of rock and team 1 returning along their reel.
"That way" thumbs T, and he mimes the instruction to tie off against the shot-line first. The current is as strong as a strong swimmer pulling at your ankles.
We're now consuming our bottom time (in the dive computer's lingo). Down here it feels like the sandy floor of a cave. I hear the wind outside, a vigorous storm. This is the concerted bashing of the sea skin by whipped-up waves high above.
Ragged schools of bib brave the strong pull of the current. One or two say hello and then resume their posts facing into surging water, waiting for food. On that note, I never knew until now that 'piscivorous' was a word.
The sand-bank we find ourselves gliding over is the flattened hull of the Clodmoor. A few finstrokes North, with Jim reeling us out, and I check my air: crikey - 80 bar!
I ask my buddy for his air reading, and in Jim's words "...if there'd been a film crew down there, they would have recorded the longest double take in screen history." We have to head back, both surprised at our air greed.
As I turn I spot a man-sized lump along the hull. Next time we'll try and see the giant screw standing six metres proud of the seabed.
A slow ascent up the line. Vyper says STOP at 4.8m, and Jim holds out a hand to anchor me. 3 minutes of safety stop bubble by, and soon we're back on the boat, staring at the sunset and heading back to Newhaven.
And that was the wreck of the Clodmoor, sunk in 1917 by some German youths in a U-boat.
posted by El Rev at
7:12 pm
|
0 comments
