diving.
Two logbooks, lost somewhere between house moves and travelling light. What follows is rebuilt from memory rather than the paper it should have come from — the certifications, places and the rhythm of the diving are mine; the detail on each site is researched, so it's right even where my memory isn't.
Open Water to Instructor in under two and a half years.
In the order they were earned.
Every weekend, twice a day, for a year.
Trained with Scuba Schools International in 2000, then certified PADI Open Water with Rob at Dive Charters on 3 May 2001 — and didn't really stop again until October 2002.
I was working at Eurobet at the time, with money to spend and weekends genuinely free — a combination that doesn't come round twice. Two dives every Saturday, two every Sunday, for the best part of a year, plus a night dive on the Seven Sisters every other Thursday. For a couple of months in the autumn of 2001, Sunday mornings became a drift dive around Europa Point instead of the usual pair.
From holiday diving to instructor in ten months.
Puffin Dive Centre, Oban. Dry Suit, Enriched Air and PADI Divemaster in one December week in 2002, then two dives a day through to August 2003 — and PADI Instructor that September.
Colder water, a dry suit, and some of the best wreck diving in Europe on the doorstep: the Sound of Mull, the Firth of Lorn and the Sound of Luing most days, and in the summer, longer runs out to Coll, Caliach Point and as far as Skerryvore.
Captain, and five dives a day.
Joined the liveaboard MV Caribbean Explorer II on 2 October 2003 as Captain, and ran the Saba, St Eustatius and St Kitts route for the next twelve months — five dives a day, Monday to Friday.
An eighteen-guest liveaboard working out of St Maarten — formerly Peter Hughes' Sea Dancer, refitted in 2002 with a bigger dive deck. The week ran Saba first, then Statia, then St Kitts and Nevis: four dives in daylight and a dusk or night dive to finish.
“The CEX II captain, Pete Bassell, 30, didn't look old enough to own a driver's license. A likeable Brit, he told us 'there are enough life jackets for each of you to have three.'”
“…an octopus, found by Captain Pete on the sand, pulsated flashing colors before swimming off.”
Saba 9 sites
St Eustatius 11 sites
St Kitts & Nevis 7 sites
Club diving, and the one I won't forget.
Solway Firth BSAC, November 2004 to April 2006 — an Advanced Diver in the club, and its Expedition Officer through 2005 and 2006. One weekend a month on the Isle of Man, and a Wednesday evening every three weeks at Wast Water.
The club week in Port St Mary gave me the dive I remember above all the others. On the SS Liverpool my buddy was taken ill at our first decompression stop, and I recovered him from 31 metres in what became an epic bounce dive; we both went to the Isle of Man decompression chamber, and we both made full recoveries. The two days that followed were the gentlest diving I have ever done: with the most amazing “Doc”, never more than 5 metres deep, down for over three hours at a time, hunting nudibranchs and photographing macro life. Back on the mainland, Wast Water meant two dives an evening — a deep dive first, teaching club members to 55 metres of fresh water, then a night dive along the shore at 6 metres.
Isle of Man 13 sites
Wast Water, Lake District 1 sites
Scapa Flow, on a rebreather.
The second week of August 2005, on a technical liveaboard in Orkney: the scuttled German High Seas Fleet, dived on my Megalodon closed-circuit rebreather.
2005 was the year I really got to grips with technical diving — TDI Master Gas Blender in February, then, in one April weekend, ITDA Trimix Diver, Rebreather Diver on the Megalodon, and Master Gas Blender Instructor and Instructor Trainer. Scapa Flow that August was where it came together: a week on the fleet that scuttled itself on 21 June 1919, three König-class battleships and four cruisers lying between 12 and 45 metres, each one a scheduled monument you can look at but never touch.
The log, rebuilt.
Every dive from May 2001 to April 2006, numbered and dated, rebuilt from the pattern I dived — weekends in Gibraltar, twice a day in Oban, five a day on the boat, then club weekends on the Isle of Man, Wednesday evenings at Wast Water and a week on a rebreather in Scapa Flow. The dates and the rhythm are mine; which site fell on which day is a best fit to that pattern, so read any single row as representative rather than exact.
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