I am recently back from the Isle of Man diving with Clidive and Isle of Man Diving Charters, skipper Mike and his hardboat with diver lift, who also provided the accommodation. We traveled from London City Airport with BA – it is drivable via the ferry terminal in Liverpool, but the ferry runs at odd hours. However this meant I couldn’t bring my twinset or the heavy backplate I usually use for singles. There were 5 of us, so we dived as a 2 and a 3, which according to BSAC meant at least one of us would surely have died, but actually it was fine and there were no incidents (which was good as we hadn’t brought the right forms to fill in if there had been!) Another group of 5 was booked on but didn’t show up, so there was plenty of space on the boat.
We did 8 dives over 4 days, returning to port between dives:
| Dive | Description | Max/Avg depth (m) | Runtime (min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Drinking Dragon (reef named for shape of rock formations above) / The Burroo | 21/14 | 54 |
| 2 | Clan McMaster (wreck)/Calf Sound(fast drift) | 23/13 | 45 |
| 3 | Citrine (wreck) | 15/13 | 54 |
| 4 | Thracian (wreck) | 33/23 | 29 |
| 5 | Seal Cove, lots of friendly seals! | 6/4 | 60 |
| 6 | Drinking Dragon | 23/16 | 44 |
| 7 | Sugarloaf Cave (cavern dive, with air above at all times). Wish I’d brought my camera. | 15/9 | 65 |
| 8 | Creggy Jeggy (reef) | 19/9 | 54 |
| Total runtime | 405 |
Equipment-wise, I used GUE single-tank configuration with my 28lb Light Monkey wing and 2.2Kg STA, plus 7.2Kg (made of 2lb and 4lb weights) on a belt, BZ200 undersuit, was well weighted as far as I could tell (which probably means I could have lost a kilo or two), and fairly comfortable in water of 14℃ apart from on the last dive when I started to feel the cold. I wore a 3mm hood and altho’ I brought my drygloves I didn’t wear them. Any colder and I’d want a BZ400 under my Argonaut. SAC overall was 17-18ℓ/min which is back to normal for me. I used a single 12ℓ tank, the others used 15ℓs, but my gas was never the constraining factor in the dive, either time e.g. 50 mins or NDL.
Some great diving, good viz (10-15m), good skipper and boat, certainly stands up to Channel diving. I will certainly be back to that part of the world, tho’ perhaps Pembrokeshire is next rather than going straight back. The only problem was the lack of availability of Nitrox, we only used it for the dive on the Thracian, at £10/fill from Discover Diving. Compare that to £5.85 member’s price at Vobster or £5 at Underwater Explorers! Speaking of Vobster, I have been a bit of a quarrior recently, doing about one weekend a month on skills’n’drills (and thrills and spills!) and of course Tekcamp, so it was good to get out and do some real diving for a change. Next trip planned is Egypt in October with Red Sea Explorers, I can’t wait!
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