Freesteel

I like taking my camera everywhere to record scenes, such as the CUCC club stand at the Hidden Earth cavers conference. (We don’t win the prize for presentation.) Usually there’s just a couple of posters of the latest Austria survey, if that. It’s a handy place to hang around while missing the talks.

This was two weekends ago.

Last weekend I tried to take the Saturday off and go to Wales for a dive in the Menai Straits. But 50 miles out the car’s front brakes were squealing. The tires were very hot and somewhat deflated. I think the brakes were slightly stuck on. We limped home late in the night. Anyway, I had to be in Liverpool for an impromptu scraperwiki hack day. Such is work.

On Monday I got an invite for a quickie kayak paddle on the Mersey. My camera was in a drybag wedged to the top of the bike pannier with my wetsuit. The whole bag fell off somewhere as I was cycling from Rock Ferry train station to the actual Rock Ferry (in the Wirral) and I never noticed.

Pretty dumb.

Now I’ve got yet another stupid underwater box for a camera I don’t have.

Still. It could have been worse. I could have drowned. And the car still works, assuming the garage can fix it today.

The week of hard boat diving in the sound of Mull with the club carried off very well, though we shall not speak of the incident with the octopus.

Unusually, the dogsbody assistant on the boat was far more senior than the skipper. His name was Alan and he had run a dive charter business in the area for many years until he retired. For some reason, he chose our week to spend some time out at sea. This was fantastic as he knew all sorts of dives which the skipper didn’t know about, and was trusted. Because of him we double-dipped the Falls of Lora.

Alan had strong opinions about what places were good, and what was over-rated (eg don’t bother with the Summer Isles, they’re a waste of time, the diving’s no good there) — which was amazing because he had never once himself been underwater. Everything he knew came from dropping his paying divers in different parts of the ocean and listening to what they had to say when they came up. He gave completely accurate dive briefings.

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The camera flooded with a tablespoon of water today. Bum! I felt like such a spoilt child getting this camera last week that it serves me right. I wanted some cheap and cheerful one, but the shop was out of stock, so I tried to buy the expensive one. But something was wrong with my head that day that I’d forgot my PIN numbers to both debit cards and had to cycle home to fetch cash from Becka. Then I got the camera package home and there was no camera in the box! I went round the shop the next morning and he didn’t believe me because I had been so erratic, so I bought another camera at cost price for the week. And now it’s fecked. Tits!

Well, a lot of more serious things could have gone wrong this week (like my air supply) but didn’t. I nearly lost my regulator on one dive when Becka mistook my hose for a stem of kelp with which to pull herself along and I had to pry her fingers off it.

Everyone is going home tomorrow, but we’re staying up a couple of days extra to kayak dive in Loch Sunart and another place to the north of that, having been tipped off a few good sites. Only problem is we’ve not got a GPS, except for the one on my android phone. Hmm. Am I going to look forward to breaking that on this week as well? We’ll see.

I’m on hardboat diving holiday in the Sound of Mull.

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On Friday 22 April we got out to the Lleyn Peninsula for some kayak diving at short notice.

According to my pre-blog website, we first went there with our new dive kayaks 8 years ago! They’re still going strong, and I love them to bits.

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This was either Saturday or Sunday 12 or 13 March, taking a brief break from all the coding going on during the month while Becka was away.

It’s probably about two kms from my house in another world, having paddled from Rock Ferry on the Wirral side of the Mersey to a point on the Liverpool side at high tide. The river is not as boring as it seems from above. It is very active with the winds and the tidal currents. Many more kayakers would be out there if they only knew this fact.

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Someone in the university expressed an interest in kayak diving, and claimed that he went canoeing on the Mersey 4 times a week. I don’t believe you, I said. How about tomorrow morning?

So yesterday I caught the train to Rock Ferry, cycled to the water, and met him on the slip. I followed him out at high tide in one of those traditional wobbly plastic kayaks that likes to turn in circles. When it starts turning, you can paddle five times on the same side, and then it still insists on reversing. I was slow and far behind.

We got as far as the entrance of the Manchester Ship Canal, and then looked back to see the gas ship MV Magdalena bearing down on us.

I potter more than paddle, so my friend got cold waiting for me, having worn the right amount of clothes for a speedy race round the bay. It’s obvious that at mid-tide the Mersey gets rather exciting. Maybe some other time on my own unsinkable boat.

Camera clips have finally been edited and uploaded. Quite relaxing. The rest here is for my own records.

Friday 2 April 2010 – Drive down Liverpool to Land’s End, arrive at caravans at 11pm. Weather looks horrid.

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We did kayak dived the Runnel Stone the day before yesterday during the LUSAC easter trip (to take advantage of the boat cover). Who cares about an election when you have a chance to do that?

A write-up of the week, which began with very grumpy weather, and then suddenly brightened up to scorchingly fine conditions will probably follow soon. In the meantime, here are some pics.

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So much to do, no time to do it. Meantime here is a nice relaxing kayak diving video taken earlier in the month. Anyone in the UK care to join us one day? Next trip is Land’s End, Cornwall. We might try to kayak dive the Runnel Stone.