In the UK, spring - and with it the diving season - has finally crept in.
So, after a year of warm-water-wimpery ;-) the time has come to get down to
some *real* diving again. <bwg! OK!  I'd love to live with a coral bowl of
gin clear fish soup on my doorstep, but I don't!>

So, myself, Mike, an old buddy from AOW training in the English Channel 18
months ago, and Jim, a buddy from the Red Sea who had never dived in UK
conditions before, booked ourselves a drysuit course in Wittering on the
South Coast.

Friday, week before last, da boss at the company I was contracting for
offered me a permanent j*b, starting Monday by flying to Boston... damn,
they had me cornered, I couldn't put off the c*reer thing any longer! <g>.
So, this Friday morning, I climbed off the Red-Eye back in London, did a day
in the office, went to bed and got up with my bodyclock screaming "It's the
middle of the night!  *What* are you doing!" to go diving!

Strong winds and rain in the English Channel made diving at sea completely
unfeasible, though a few hypothermic surfers were insane enough to be
catching some waves. Plan B - close to Wittering is the Naval training
facility of Horsea Island, with an artificial lake open part of the time to
civilian divers.  After a morning of forms, videos, briefing and kit
selection, Our instructor Tony; Mike, Jim and myself dressed up in
Trilaminate suits and a motley selection of wooly bears, skiing thermals and
other sundry insulation under a grey sky.

The brackish, 8-9 degree water was sizzlingly cold through hoods and gloves
as we jumped in, and even by the time we'd settled to a hover over a metal
deck at five metres, was starting to chill through our suits.  Visiblity was
three to four metres, and my buddies were dark green monsters turning tricks
in the gloom during the exercises.  I was a bit apprehensive about the
feet-first ascent, but even starting from five metres I'd controlled it by a
couple of metres before the surface.

Slipping over the edge of the platform, the silt bed at six metres was
covered in scribbles of seaweed, textures of green and grey and brown.  Tiny
Compass Jellyfish pulsed gently in the water, Sand Gobies scurried about the
bottom, and a Mud-Coloured Mud Crab (scientific name) put up a brave show of
force.  I sank my hand up to the wrist in the soft silt, and any incautous
fin kicks raised vast Cumulonimbus clouds of zero visibility.

Dive 1 - 6.4 metres, 31 minutes.  Dive 2 - 6.6 metres, 26 minutes.  Two
surprisingly enjoyable dives despite the cold, and I hold a Drysuit
C-card... :-)  The UK diving season starts here. :-)

Cheers,
Huw
--
http://www.huwporter.com
"A wise diver will refrain from written descriptions of his experiences"
- William Beebe