Diving > Lake District > Wastwater

When kitting up Steven switched on his regulators to find one hissing slightly; off came the top and out came the Allen keys. Fixed but yet to be tested! We followed the path to the non-descript shoreline. The buoy has been anchored so that it cannot be seen from the shore. Once in the water we had great viz and the buoy could be seen 2m below the surface 20m away (I kid you not the viz was that good).

The water again was 8degC on the surface. My sinuses gave me no problems this time and we finned to the buoy. A line has been laid out to the site. It has even been thoughtfully belayed with buoys along its length to ensure the line is kept out of the silt.

The start of the line is in 6m. We followed the line as the ground fell away at a shallow angle. A couple of minutes and the line is still only at 18m. Here the silt gives way to a rocky outcrop and then the ground falls steeply.

I had a breather for a minute to make sure I was 100% ready for the dive we had planned. We planned to visit the gnome garden at 45m and continue to a maximum depth of 50m. In the pub the night before we got the tables and laptop out and spent 90 minutes planning (okay, arguing) the dive before the Speckled Hen kicked in and we started gibbering to the locals.

This was the dive plan:

50m for 10 minutes (air). I had no deco stage but Steven had a 3l with EAN50 (all that was available Friday morning!).

Stops (Pyle stop of 28m added to V-planner profile with conservatism set to +2)

• 28m for 1 min
• 24m for 1 min
• 21m for 1 min
• 18m for 2 min (Steven switches to EAN 50)
• 15m for 2 min
• 12m for 3 min
• 9m for 3 min
• 6m for 6 min
• 3m for 8 min

We went through our safety drills as the day before at 16m. Turning our torches on we dropped into the darkness. This was eight minutes into the dive.

We made a slow descent down the fixed line. It took us three minutes to get to the gnome garden at 45m. The police have been removing the gnomes as they feel they are enticing people too deep. Divers have lost buoyancy control, paid a visit to the Lancaster bomber at 76m and not returned.

After the gnome garden the fixed line ends abruptly in a splay of fibres. We continued and hit our target depth of 50m. We stayed long enough to do a quick narcosis check of each other, which Steven just passed with eyes like goldfish bowls. I felt no hit at all. We left the bottom after 15 minutes into the dive to keep to the dive plan. We would have had longer at the bottom depth if not for the long swim to the drop at 18m.

We ascended and noted that one gnome is wearing a caving helmet complete with umbilical torch and another has a dive slate.

The stops we completed as above. I found it easier to time the stops on my watch rather than my d-timer. My slate did not have a lanyard on it and was stowed for the first half of the dive. Not having any way to clip it off was a pain as I would have preferred both hands free for the ascent. Bad admin on my part.

Steven switched to EAN50 at 16m and cleared his remaining stops in a few minutes. The 3l stage is not enough to do the amount of stops at this depth and Steven was back on bottom mix before the end of the stops. Steven completed the stops according to my air profile for extra safety.

I started to feel cold on the 6m stop. I took out my 50% O2 accelerated tables to keep me occupied as we were there for six minutes and found that they only went to 45m. The 100% 02 tables go to 60m but they were in the car along with my Buhlmann tables. A lot of good they did me there. Bad admin.

We completed the 3m stop by finning and stretching our arms to keep warm. I managed to persuade Steven not to return to depth after he noticed that his computer read a maximum depth of 49.9m and not 50.0m as mine did.

We completed the stops and then had a gentle fin around the reeds. We exited the water after 63 minutes.