Diving on the Nab Tower 26th July 2011

Diving on the Nab Tower is an excellent dive that can be done at all states of the tide and is a typical Solent dive. It has it all, with the life, lobsters, fish of numerous species plus the gloom/darkness.

I feel that this is an excellent dive for a wreck/20 metre experience for a novice diver. To explain this rather strong statement I have to explain the wreck. The magic is the underwater structure, which can be seen from the picture below taken during the building of the Nab Tower.

 

Underwater the Nab Tower is described as a wedding cake structure each step about 5 metres. So you can structure your dive anyway you wish, with the depth that you wish.  Diving with a ‘novice’ diver, ie one that has neither dived at the 20 metre depth or with little Solent experience, I have set out a very simple dive plan beforehand.

We are dropped off by the boat in the lee of the Nab Tower and surface swim to the Tower. We then descend to the first tier if ok proceed straight down to the second tier and so on until we get to the bottom, or fourth tier if you wish, at ~20 Metres.

The most important point of this dive plan is in the explanation beforehand that we only proceed if the ‘novice’ diver is happy and it is carefully reinforced the first rule of diving, that one does not do anything if you are not happy or confident with.

Equally the dive plan can be set out which tier is the bottom of the dive. The lead diver can equally stop and return to a higher tier during the dive if they feel that the novice diver is ‘under stress’.

We can then proceed around the selected tier until the tide stops you and return around the base then ascend up a tier. Each tier can be explored in turn and they are all different with their different types of life.

So finally one gets to the last 5~7 metre tier so the safely stop is the last tier, admittedly not the best tier but a lot better that hanging on a line in the gloom for three minutes.

I do not normally post my dive computer underwater profile but I feel that this time it explains the dive in the best way.

This dive was a threesome dive with my regular dive buddy Dan plus my daughter’s partner Josh. Josh comes from that ‘clear water diving land’ of New Zealand and is an Advance Diver and this was to be his first dive out of New Zealand!

I was glad that his holiday schedule over here allowed his dive to be the Nab Tower.

This dive on the Nab was rather unusual in as much as it was at a slack tide but I did not take that on board at the time during the dive. So we could have gone all the way around the Tower but we didn’t.

As you can see during the video the two diving styles are very different with Josh’s 1~2 metre dive style off the bottom verses Dan’s ‘on the bottom’ technique, common amongst ‘Solent Divers’.

This is definitely one of the most relaxing dives one can have in the Solent, one just has to watch out for the tide wall when the tide is running otherwise one could get swept away.

The Nab Tower is also the place where one can pick up lobsters and, as can be seen in the video, Julian is the diver who can always locate and catch a lobster on his dives! It was big enough that he sent the lobster up using his lift bag!!

 A really nice dive.

To view the video on the Youtube website click the link:

Nab Tower 26th July 2011

Evening drift dive on the Bembridge ledges 29th June 2011

Drift dives have become rather good over the last couple years. The main reason for this has been that I use drift dive as an opportunity to catch food the number of scallops seems to be increasing on the Bembridge ledges. The trick is to get to the right depth. Therefore I must assume the skipper must get rather fed up with Dan and I as we keep moving with the tide but making our way away from the Isle of Wight into deeper water to see the life!

As the way it is with all my drift dives the best bit is at the end of the dive when I am near the end of dive time (air-wise). As it was with this dive when near the end of this dive we came across a scallop bed!

Also a great sunset at the end of the dive!

or to watch the video on the your tube site click the link:

 Bembridge ledges drift dive

Diving the S.S. Shirala 25th April 2011

A really nice day with an easy pick up from the East Beach off Selsey by Simon Bradburn in his boat Stormforce 2.

I tried to film my backward role into the water, well I did really but it never really comes off on video, plus the descent down to the wreck. Rather mucky but due to the clear sunny sky was relatively good viz.

As I was sorting out my kit and starting my video Dan, my buddy, was obsesses with something. That turned out to be a rather large lobster! How does he do that!!

Near the end of the dive and at the top of the wreck there was a very large shoal of fish, made up of all sorts, Bib, Pollock to name a few.

On the trip back to shore the water over a low reef appeared to be very calm and flat for no apparent reason, tide etc the truth be told.

The flat calm waters made for a very nice speedy trip back to the shore.

Click on the link to see the video on the youtube website:
Diving the S.S. Shirala 

Diving the Bomber and a Bembridge ledge drift 16th April 2011

This was the first dive of the year in the UK, ok not a good dive but as some of you divers can guess, it was good to get back in the water.

Sadly the viz on the Bomber was very poor so only close up shots of a bit of metal could be seen. Dan had a very long fight with a lobster and a very big lobster at that. Sadly it was a female with eggs so it had to go back in its hole. This lobster had lost one of it claws but still give Dan a real fight!

The second dive was a drift dive over the Bembridge ledges again rather murky and a bit shallow to start with. Dan and I moved over to the East, not much of a tide running, to get to deeper water. The deeper water was a bit clearer, not much, but the bottom was far more interesting. The rocks had some rather unusual if not weird shapes. That made for rather interesting diving techniques with the drift not to get jammed in them.

Interestingly at the deeper depths we finally found some current for the drift dive, which was good. Sadly we had to end the dive as we were getting to the hour limit, well a bit over it.

  
To view the video on the youtube website click the link:Diving the Bomber and a Bembridge 

The Far Mulberry Night Dive 12th December 2010

Now this is a dive I really enjoy, but to be honest I was not feeling my best and in some ways not having dived since September a lack of diving motivation. Don’t get me wrong I know I will enjoy the dive and feel great about it afterwards, which is my motivation when feeling less than keen on going out on a cold day for a dive!

I have previously dived at night on the far mulberry on two occasions and those have been fantastic. All the crabs and lobsters came out to play!

This time it was much later in the year so maybe a different night life to be seen.

The surface water was calm and still with an air temperature of 7°C according to my dive computer. I was diving with Adrian and Simon as a threesome, which can be a tricky combination. Simon was diving with a re-breather, with Adrian on Nitrox and me on air, what a group, but it was just a 10 metre dive.


Going down the shot line it was a bit of a shock to find an odd rectangular metal mesh object caught on the shot line. I have caught the object on the video and it is 3 by 2 feet in size and appears to be some sort of crushed lobster pot sort of thing. Worryingly this object had what appeared to be sharp spikes coming out of it and it was about a metre from the bottom.

With the normal practise of keeping eye contact with ones buddy during descent, difficult during a night dive, one would not be paying full attention to anything on the shot line below you.

I saw this object as did Adrian and we were both worried that Simon who, with his re-breather was be coming down slower than us, might get caught on it. So it was lit up with our torches, Adrian’s torch being the big beam.

The water was very clear with a viz of better than 8 metres and a temperature of 9°C and with my extra layers under my dry suit I was warmish.

Sadly I did not see any lobsters or edible crabs but the fish were around and the sea snails were out mating! Not quite my thing but interesting.

Another worrying object was under the ‘bow’ of the Far Mulberry, on the left of the ‘bow’ as one might look at it. It seemed to be a 6 by 4 foot version of the one caught at the bottom of the shot line. I enjoy this ‘sort of tunnel’ with the fish in the corner. This time we were drifting along and came face to face with the ‘tunnel’ blocked with this spiky object. No video taken as I was too busy turning round and signalling to my buddies that this was not the way to continue.
Not a lot of life but what was there was easy to see, mainly Pollock, and not moving much staying close enough to have a good look.

Apart from that an excellent dive, with Adrian and Simon always in perfect formation, well they are regular dive buddies, so minimal stress keeping together.

As with previous videos of a night dive it never comes across looking as good as it was during the dive.



Or click on the link to the website The Far Mulberry Night Dive