4 Felldivers started the season with a shallow St Abbs Dive just outside of the harbour with our trusted skipper Paul on Pathfinder, to have our Tune up dive and test our kit for the rest of the season, and boy are we glad we did.

All four of us showed up and each of us had 4 different dives, even though we all dived the same dives.

Diver 1 – Dave Makepeace, club Diving Officer.

Dave took this rare of rarest opportunities and got a lift to the dive site. This is even rarer than seeing an octopus in the sea. Dave started today’s dive while watching the boat come into the harbour by saying s**t I’ve forgotten my hat and gloves. Dave realised this while it was blowing a gale on the edge of the harbour. So based on this you can tell at the end of April, the sea was not going to be warm.

Luckily for Dave, the rest of the dive team had enough spares amongst them to rent him some kit (negotiations on price was settled in the pub after the dive – can of Coca Cola).

So this was the start of Dave’s dives today. Dave ended the dive carrying out a controlled buoyant lift (but more of that to follow later).

Diver 2 – Bryan Holman, Sports diver and Dive organiser extraordinaire.

Bryan showed up and then was volunteered to be Dave’s driver for the day. Now I know what you are all thinking, Bryan has had all his days bad luck over with already with that short straw, but no, his bad luck kept coming.

Bryan kitted up and put his kit on the boat. When turning his air back on, whilst on the boat and yep air leak. Several attempts were made on the boat to repair this, but the right sized O ring was not present to fix his regs. Luckily for Bryan spare regs were at hand so his first dive went ahead.

At the break between dives Bryan took his regs to the filling station and and a white knight was present, who went by the name of Paul. He had O rings of every size. We could have fixed an oil rig with all the kit he had. To say he saved Bryan’s day, is an understatement.

Diver 3 – Graham Wigham, Sports Diver and newbie Twinset diver.

Today was G’s first ocean dive using a twinset and of course everything did not go to plan.

Getting the kit to fit snugly was a challenge, waste belt would not tighten and thus the weights in the pockets were handling low like a kangaroos testicles.

Using Poseidon regs for the first time was also something to get used to. Using the primary reg was delivering small flecks if water on every breath, the diaphragm had gone. During the first dive changing to the Octopus remedied the situation, for today, but a trip to Cormeton is required to get my second stage looked at (hmm pricey, we hope not). The second Dive was a lot better, a few belt adjustments fixed the trim and breathing through the octopus was a dream.

Diver 4 – Ocean Diver, captain persistent.

After a Capers Dive a few weeks ago and a cold water (oh so cold water) freeflow, the regs were checked over and deemed good to go. Oh how wrong we were.

The first dive itself was fine no issues (just like Capers). However 5 mins into the second dive (deja vu) and pop, freeflow of the primary reg. luckily enough Dave M was on hand to complete a controlled buoyant lift to the surface. Alls well that ends well, but again another expensive fix.

So as you can see each of us had a howley of a days diving.

Now for the actual diving feedback. First dive was lacking any type of viz, per the photo below.

The second Dive viz was just as bad and with 2 divers surfacing within 5 mins of the dive, the other 2 called it a day, as there was no point in diving. Between the 4 of us there was a total of 2 fish seen and 2 lobsters and 2 crabs. Considering the lack of viz, this was a benefit to see even those sea creatures. I am sure there was a unicorn dolphin just around the corner, but we just couldn’t see it.

So to sum up – today’s brief was to have a tune up dive. Based on this we call today a successful dive. Everyone got to test their kit, find the faults and now can get them fixed in time for the season to start proper. We all got home safe and well and even though we had issues we all had fun (of course we would, we are all mint!).