iamyourgasman
Member
Well, not as fancy location as the recent threads 
but here it is a quick report on our trip to the Ursa on the 28th June. We wanted to do two days diving on Thurs-Fri and booked on Rob King's boat the Blue Turtle out of Lyme Regis.
It looked like my bad luck carried on from the previous weeks when I was blown out on Thursdays as the Friday was a no-go from Monday, but we were informed that Thursday is on!
As we had an early meet we set off from Cardiff at 6:00 and arrived to the harbour at 8:00 with a pit-stop thrown in. I paired up with another new buddy (lost count of them this year...) on a twinset but as he drove we had time to mull over dive plans and what-ifs .
On the boat there were two Megs, two JJs three twinsets and my rEvo.
We were pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of wind and waves on the way out. After about an hour and a bit steaming we have arrived and Rob expertly shotted the wreck. The 2 JJ divers were in first as they had the longest planned runtime, whilst the others only planned ~60 min RT.
On the wreck, which was very dark we had about 7-8m vis and we managed to cover it from the pointy and to the blunt end . The wreck lies in 47-48m of water, upright, fairly intact apart from the stern which was hit by the torpedo. There is still some of the superstructure visible and as the decking has rotten away you can peek inside the holds from above. Many small fish, soft corals and small crustaceans blocked the view. We didn't go inside but it certainly is on the cards next time! after about 35 mins we shot our bags and did our deco, which went on 10 minutes longer than we expected, due to numptiness on both my and my buddies side: forgot to switch the setpoint on my back up OSTC from 0.7 which gave me slightly longer deco stops and he couldn't work out the gaswitch on his suunto, so he followed the backup tables. 72 minutes GF30/75, max depth 47m. This caused a bit of anxiety on Rob's part who duly followed our SMBs as he thought we might got a problem, leaving the others coming up the shot waiting for the pick-up. Piss was rightly taken once everyone was safely aboard...Nice lunch, teas and coffees later on the second dive we collected some scallops 42 min GF30/75 max depth 27m and we were very pleased to be closed to shore as the wind and the sea has picked up as predicted. We were back in the port in no time, fortunately the waves were not rolling the boat too much, so no weakness was shown...The journey home was uneventful and quick, so all in all a very nice day out and fresh scallops for dinner! Hope to finally dive the Salsette this coming Thursday, please keep everything crossed for reasonable weather!
but here it is a quick report on our trip to the Ursa on the 28th June. We wanted to do two days diving on Thurs-Fri and booked on Rob King's boat the Blue Turtle out of Lyme Regis.It looked like my bad luck carried on from the previous weeks when I was blown out on Thursdays as the Friday was a no-go from Monday, but we were informed that Thursday is on!
As we had an early meet we set off from Cardiff at 6:00 and arrived to the harbour at 8:00 with a pit-stop thrown in. I paired up with another new buddy (lost count of them this year...) on a twinset but as he drove we had time to mull over dive plans and what-ifs .
On the boat there were two Megs, two JJs three twinsets and my rEvo.
We were pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of wind and waves on the way out. After about an hour and a bit steaming we have arrived and Rob expertly shotted the wreck. The 2 JJ divers were in first as they had the longest planned runtime, whilst the others only planned ~60 min RT.
On the wreck, which was very dark we had about 7-8m vis and we managed to cover it from the pointy and to the blunt end . The wreck lies in 47-48m of water, upright, fairly intact apart from the stern which was hit by the torpedo. There is still some of the superstructure visible and as the decking has rotten away you can peek inside the holds from above. Many small fish, soft corals and small crustaceans blocked the view. We didn't go inside but it certainly is on the cards next time! after about 35 mins we shot our bags and did our deco, which went on 10 minutes longer than we expected, due to numptiness on both my and my buddies side: forgot to switch the setpoint on my back up OSTC from 0.7 which gave me slightly longer deco stops and he couldn't work out the gaswitch on his suunto, so he followed the backup tables. 72 minutes GF30/75, max depth 47m. This caused a bit of anxiety on Rob's part who duly followed our SMBs as he thought we might got a problem, leaving the others coming up the shot waiting for the pick-up. Piss was rightly taken once everyone was safely aboard...Nice lunch, teas and coffees later on the second dive we collected some scallops 42 min GF30/75 max depth 27m and we were very pleased to be closed to shore as the wind and the sea has picked up as predicted. We were back in the port in no time, fortunately the waves were not rolling the boat too much, so no weakness was shown...The journey home was uneventful and quick, so all in all a very nice day out and fresh scallops for dinner! Hope to finally dive the Salsette this coming Thursday, please keep everything crossed for reasonable weather!
