|
|
|
|
|
|
Littlehampton - 19 - 20 June 2010 - by Sean
A couple of weekends ago a party of us headed down to Littlehampton for the weekend. While some of us enjoyed the finer comforts of table service and crisp bed linen at The Nelson Hotel, the rest of us huddled in Tom’s tent as the rain hammered down outside.
Now we may not have had a karaoke machine but we did have Rudy ,‘King of the Braai’, who rustled up some meaty delicacies - all washed down with a few beers.
Next morning, we met bright and early at the harbour and it wasn’t too long before we were loading our kit onto the good ship ‘Michelle Mary’.
All safely stowed, Ivan our skipper, headed South for our first dive... and kept going... and kept going. With France just visible on the horizon (OK – but it WAS a long way out!), we tucked into our briefing and paired up.
By this time the swell was picking up and we rocked around for what seemed an eternity waiting for the tide to behave.
Now I’ve clearly spent too much time on the land, and unaware there were certain oral products designed to keep your breakfast in place (and that Trish is our local dealer) I spent the first dive chumming from the boat. By all accounts this was very successful and fish-spotters amongst us recorded record numbers!
The next casualty was Clare, who having made it to the top of the line with Steve, decided that this wasn’t much fun and headed back to the boat.
By this time Steve was getting low on buddy options, fortunately the next buddy group to go in was a 3 of Trish, Tom and Lynn. Dividing the group, Trish and Tom popped off the back leaving Steve and Lyn to buddy up.
With the back of the boat heaving (I know how it felt!) up and down with swell, Steve stepped off first and finned over to the shot line. Next went Lyn – nice clean entry – nice free flow! Despite frantic attempts to stop it, she lost a 3rd of her tank. Oops!
So in the end, half of us sat out the first dive while the other half enjoyed pretty good viz at 20 metres and lots fish on the Ore Carrier.
Fortunately the second dive went without incident and most of us got wet.
Ivan steered us back towards the shore and dropped us off over the wreck of the Frode. It was a brilliant drift dive at 9 metres with masses of critters, including conger, dog fish and rays!
That night we met for dinner in The Nelson Hotel and reflected on a good day’s diving. Unbeknown to us there was a 40th birthday party going on at the same time, which could only mean one thing... more karaoke! Err... is that the time?
Sadly, while Robbie Williams’ Angels was being murdered at great volume, Ivan our skipper was taken ill and rushed to hospital.
Consequently, Sunday’s trip was cancelled. Ringing the local dive shops, in a last minute attempt to find a shore dive, we learned we had just missed the tide.
Agreeing we’d all had a good weekend we decided to call it a day and headed off for a fry-up at the cafe before going our separate ways.
