Pawel’s Blog

Yesterday, I got wet in the sea again. After few unsuccessful attempts in March, we have finally found a skipper who didn’t mind going out when everyone else called a day again due to the weather.

Adrian warned me that it was going to be 4-5 knots this weekend, so although prepared, I wasn’t very optimistic on Friday evening.

It was Saturday morning and the dive was still on. We left Bow in good spirits at around 7.00am. The mood has quickly changed as the skipper called to say it was blowing westerly and over 5 knots already. Quick decision and were back on the road to see in person how it looks like.

Down in Newhaven Marina it wasn’t too bad and we have decided to get on the boat and give it a try.  We met with Ray Leriche, a very good skipper of The Mistress. No fancy features such as power lifts or compressor, but really patient and capable man. He made my day and got me wet!

We dived Clan McMillan, an armed merchantman of 4525 tons and 380ft length which was built in 1901 by McMillans of Dumbarton. On 23rd March 1917 she left London for Glasgow.  At 1am on 24th March a torpedo from UB-39 hit her in the starboard side amidships, the explosion bursting through the forward engine room bulkhead and the upper deck.

The downside of the today’s weather conditions was the visibility and current. A bunch of divers on Brighton Diver have aborted their dive just before we went it. Luckily we didn’t cancel our dive and it was worth the hassle. Plenty of life, I have promised myself that I will take a bag with me on the next dive and catch one of those lobsters or crabs.

I’m quite used to the fact that diving in the UK is unpredictable, but it still pisses me off to be blown out for the 10th (yes, 10th!) time in the row due to bad weather! I’m not going to mention horrible Easter when I was hoping to get some sea dives. I have had quite few dives booked in around South East Cost in March and not a single one of them was on.

Anyone else share my pain?

I have just come back from Brighton. This is the first time I have been diving with Channel Diver and I must admit that Steve has got greats skills and a lovely boat.

What can I say? Great visibility and great weather for this time of year. Some incredible spider crabs all over the wreck. Fairly deep with the maximum depth of around 35m according to my computer. Virtually no current.

On the down side, I have ripped one of my dry gloves again (sic!) and got pretty wet and cold. It’s a bit rough at the moment, but diving in the winter is so exciting and rewarding.

We were diving Blanefield SS, 3.411 ton steamer which was sunk on the 1st may 1906 on route from Junin to Dover when in collision with the vessel Kate Thomas. 36 died. More here.

Around 7 o’clock this evening firefighters reported a death of a male diver from Warsaw, Poland while scuba diving in Hancza. Hancza is a lake in Sudovia, Podlachian Voivodeship and it is the depest lake in Poland with the maximum depth of 108.5 m. It is a popular destination for technical divers. The cause of death is still unknown. The diver and his buddy were diving at 50 meters before getting into difficulties at 20 meters, but only one of them have managed to ascent shortly before he was taken to the hospital. More here (in Polish).