I know the year is not quite over yet but due to a sore knee (old war wound) my diving finished back in September! But thanks to the good old NHS I will be back in the water by the middle of January.
Well where should I start? The season really got started for me in March I had booked Ian Taylor's boat Skin Deep for the first and last weekends for some weekend diving out of Weymouth. However things were not going to go to plan as at the last moment I decided to go out to Sharm to see an old friend Aaron Bruce for some personal development!! I booked for 2 weeks meaning I would miss the first weekend out of Weymouth but then I was asked to stay and do some work, teaching a couple of Inspiration courses meaning I would miss the 2nd week in Weymouth. My presence was not really missed and every one had a great time feeling their way around the M2.
Four weeks later I was back in Sharm delivering an Inspiration for one of Aaron's colleagues and to do some more teaching, an open circuit trimix course. This was the last time I would be in Egypt despite being invited several other times.
Well the weather back in Devon was improving day by day and the underwater visability was getting up to 10-15m so training conditions were perfect. Over the next few months we did several Inspiration courses and a number of Open Circuit courses of varying levels. As the days grew longer we managed to get out and do some of the medium range trimix wrecks out of Plymouth. Gems such as the Medina, Untiring and the Unicorn. But these wrecks were just the tip of the iceberg compared to the trip we had planned to Malin Head, Ireland. Here we had 3 of the top 10 wreck dives in the world with the Justicia, Empire Heritage and Audacious all of them spectacular in their own way.
However if I thought I was not going to be blown away by more spectacular wrecks then I was was wrong we had 2 more aces up our sleeve. In September I had a trip of my own planned to dive out of Plymouth but before that we had 2 days diving out of Newquay on the wreck of the Armenian a White Star Liner that lies in 95m. We only managed to get 1 dive on her due to the weather but that dive will stick in my mind for a long time. Moving over to the south coast and Plymouth we were quickly going to go from hero to zero with a dive on HMS Seabed on the Saturday and Sunday we were totally blown out! But there was still Monday when we were due to dive the Afric another White Star liner and yet another memory that will not be lost any time soon.
I would like to thank all of you who joined me in my adventures this year. I look forward to more of the same next year and making more new friends and dive buddies.
Have a great Christmas and a cracking New Year.
