Carrigart; 22nd to 23rd August 2009.
Ok…. so I said in my previous post with the YouTube link of our dives in Donegal that I would get to this trip report up within a day or two… unfortunately a bad head cold and a chest infection put paid to that optimism. So… eventually I got the time to get down to business… here follows the delayed recall of the First4Scuba club dive trip to Carrigart, Co. Donegal and the RMS Laurentic as well as some other very nice scenic dives.
Friday evening the 21st of August 2009 I left work and headed straight for the shores of Donegal having packed the car with my twinsets and deco bottles etc. that morning. GPS gave me a 5 hour drive time and after 4 hours I rolled into the Mevagh Dive centre B&B car park at 11pm that evening. I put my “beat the sat nav” miracle down to an error on the navigational device rather than breaking any rules of the road… ahem! I immediately bump into fellow First4Scuba diver P.J, we catch up for a few minutes, then hit the hay… it was a long drive!
Alarm clock set for 8am.
Beep Beep Beep… 8am… Ch*i$t! Saturday morning the 22nd had begun!
We roll up and out after a healthy serving of scrambled eggs and toast and meet up with the rest of our dive team. This weekend saw a small line up of divers, but while we did not have the usual quantity there was certainly good quality… Myself, P.J. (sea monkey) Doran, Damien (flash) Joyce and Chris (shooter) Jones all met up at 9am at the dive centre and immediately begin to ask the question “are we diving the Laurentic?”
A simple question but it took almost 30 minutes before we received a clear and unambiguous answer to it… the skipper turned up in his Lamborghini tractor (yes I was shocked too… Lamborghini tractor!) to hitch up the “Mevagh 1” dive boat and bring it down to the quay. He jovially announced as he hopped out of the tractor cabin “aye boys were on the Laurentic alright!” Happy Days!
We proceed down to the quay side just outside of the village of Carrigart and begin to get our gear together and down to the waters edge. Unfortunately as I was in a twinset my set-up did take a little longer to assemble – I could not put it together earlier as I needed to know which twinset I was going to use… my Trimix 21/35 or my Eanx 32%. Clearly if we were going for the Laurentic with max depth 40m I would only be using the Trimix. So running a little behind the rest of the team I finally get myself on board the “Mevagh 1” and we head out to sea. It was a fairly bumpy ride as there was a good bit of swell. I personally love this (although it can be hard on the spine and spleen!)… there were however a few very green faces on the way out to the resting place of the White Star liner the RMS Laurentic. On board the dive boat there was a second group of divers joining us on this dive and amongst them I met a fellow tech diver “Decky” who was also using a twinset with Trimix and deco cylinders for the dive. We discussed the possibility of meeting on the shot line on the wreck and extending our dive, the main reason for this was that we were both diving with single tank divers and rather than finish the dive on the single limit we could join up and gain the maximum advantage of our twinsets and deco gases and run a 30 to 35 minute dive. We decided to see how things unfolded and if we did happen to meet up on the dive we could review it… I think that although the ‘desire’ was there to have an extended dive, we were both still a little unsure of leaving our single tank divers even if it was on the bottom of the shot line!
After 45 minutes of diving discussions and many spine compressing wave formations we pull up alongside the buoy of the Laurentic. Our dive team went in first and we all began to descend the shot line. P.J. was my buddy with the two cameramen Damien and Chris buddied together. P.J. went down the shot like a bat out of hell, I was a little slower as my left ear was being a little difficult with my equalisation requests… eventually it got back in line and we ended up as a group hovering over the wreck right above one of its 4inch gun. The scale of this wreck is simply huge. It is broken up quite a bit, but still in relatively large ‘chunks’… not small tiny bits and bobs like the HMS Drake or the Lennox and other such ‘wreckage’ sites around the coast. We stayed within visual contact and roamed a medium distance from the shot line… there was loads to see and the size of the artefacts and features were fantastic. I enjoyed this dive immensely (the Trimix kept my head nice and clear) and we maxed out at around 38 meters. P.J. found a fair supply of fishing tackle within the groves and portholes of the wreckage. While Chris and Damien took some great shots, Damien Joyce kindly sent me a few he had taken of me on the Laurentic and I have attached them within this report… thanks Damien! On the downside there was a strong “swell” effect running across the wreckage, I remember clearly seeing a knotted cluster of rope on the gunwale “blowing” vigorously in it. I think this caused the cameramen a little frustration as it stirred a lot of particulates and also frustrated them in getting good stable “set up” positions for their shots.
As I was the only diver on trimix and the rest of the dive team diving on air with no deco gas; our runtime was limited to roughly 12 minutes. The 12 minutes passed very quickly and it was not long before Chris and Damien began to ascend the shot line with P.J. and I in close pursuit. I was carrying a 7ltr 100% O2 deco bottle which I used at the 6m stop just to help the off gassing… I could have stayed down longer, but as I never solo dive I was happy to come up the shot line with my dive buddy. At the 15meter stop Decky went past us with his dive team. We both knew that our plan to meet on the shot line was a non runner and he proceeded with his descent while I continued with our ascent. Deco / safety stops went flawlessly and we all gathered back on board the dive boat. With everyone safely back on board we turned around and set course for the quay side to allow the single tank divers switch over their cylinders for a second dive. The trip back in was even ‘rougher’ than the trip out and unfortunately one poor diver in the other team was “heaving the chuck wagon” for most of the trip back off of the stern starboard side of the Mevagh 1… not pleasant for the poor chap.
After a 2 hour surface interval we agreed (between both dive teams) to try the drift dive the skipper had proposed as a second dive. When I say both dive teams it was just Decky who joined us… the rest of his group had to head off. So it was down to us 5 brave souls to face the horror of a laid back easy drift dive in a max depth of 20 meters. The skipper dropped us in and myself and P.J. buddied up once more. The current was awesome and the drift dive was thrilling. I sent up my Halcyon CC 1m smb as soon as we got down and we quite literally “flew” along the seabed. I probably only kicked around 10 times in a full 50 minute dive. Chris, Damien and Decky were slightly in front of us and we were all ripping along nicely when suddenly my smb put on the breaks… I gave P.J. the signal to carry on with the other 3 lads as I was going to go up my line to see what was going on… he “ok/ed” and went on. I was throwing some choice expletives into my regulator at this stage as it felt as if my line was snagged in a lobster pot buoy or something that was not yielding… it quite simply “stopped”. I began to ascend slowly and look back up my line… I began to notice a large dark shadow above me intersecting my line… as I got closer I was surprised to see a huge lump of kelp. It almost looked like the size of a household Christmas tree and it was well wrapped up in my line. I was still trying to figure out why is had ‘halted’ my progress rather than acted as a ‘sail’ and accelerated it, but then as I got closer I noticed that the current was much milder near the surface… I must have been in a lower faster current while this kelp tree was in a much slower moving zone in the water column… thus giving the ‘breaking’ effect. Despite my scientific fascination I began to untangle the kelp from my line. I was not in any hurry to cut it. With the line tensioned up and my spool tied down with a double ender I began to swim around the tree to ‘unwind’ the line. Luckily in a matter of a minute I was clear of it and I swam off to the side and began to get back to the drift dive. Unfortunately now I was alone, but my smb was up and the max depth was around 12 meters so I settled back into the dive and began to let the current whip me along once more. I am not a solo diver and would not advocate it… but in this circumstance I felt that I could continue as I had a twinset on my back with 120 bar of 21/35 and I was diving from an 11L stage bottle with 32% Eanx. I felt the dive was safe and I had plenty of redundancy if required so I opted to continue. I did not start the dive solo… circumstances had changed… but giving the situation I felt it was within reasonable limits to proceed with the dive solo. After 45 minutes I began to surface and upon breaking the surface I was amazed to see I had drifted quite a surprising distance… the skipper said (if I recall correctly) “hey boy you did get far didn't you!” when I got back on the boat. The rest of the boys were aboard and smiling broadly… we all agreed that that was a cool dive!
Unfortunately this brought day one’s diving to a close and after getting back to shore, returning to the dive centre we all agreed to meet up later at around 8pm that evening. Myself and P.J. washed down our gear, got a serious attack of the munchies and even went for a short snooze after welcome hot showers! 8 pm and we rolled up to the “singing pub” which is a great little establishment somewhere on the outskirts of Carrigart on the road to somewhere else… it is owned by Chris’s parents in law. P.J. and I partake of their finest fish dishes and after a lovely meal we meet up with Chris and Damien for some evening diving chat at the bar. 11:30pm it was lights out back at the Mevagh B&B and the sweet boon of sleep descended on us with high hopes for a return trip in the morning to the Laurentic.
Alarm clock set for 8am.
Beep Beep Beep… 8am… Jesus Ch*i$t on a stick! Sunday morning the 23nd had begun!
Despite the comfort of a warm plate of scrambled eggs and toast the wind did not seem like it was going to “settle” down. This time we kind of knew before waiting for the Lamborghini tractor that we were not going to be returning to the Laurentic today. I setup my 32% twinset and this time around I am one of the first divers onboard the dive boat and ready to go without delay.
The skipper was in good form as we set off for some nice laid back scenic dives. Today it was just our dive team plus one other diver… John who was from the UK and just visiting the North for a holiday. Nice guy and a good recreational diver who buddied up with myself and P.J.
Both the morning and afternoon dives were good… good life and great fun. I have to say I normally don't get hugely excited about fish and wall dives in Ireland, but today the diving was great. It was around 3:30pm when we all went our separate ways and headed for home.
I think its fair to say that we all enjoyed the weekend in Carrigart with the Mevagh Dive centre and I personally look forward to our return visit next year… there sure is a lot of the Laurentic left to be seen :)
Thanks to my dive buddy P.J. and Chris and Damien for providing fun and entertainment during our Donegal adventure.
In my previous post I have already uploaded a YouTube video of the dives in Donegal… but here it is again:
Next dive trip commences on 18th September to Scotland and the scuttled German WWI High Seas Fleet resting on the seabed in Scapa Flow. For further information.
