Owen Wallis + Izzy + Nina - Report taken from MDD-Chat

Hi All,

The first in a series of Thursday night club dives took place on the Hood last week. We dived off Top Gun with Budgie as skipper. Seems this year’s must have gadget is a camera. Three members came armed to snap and much of the pre-dive banter revolved around macro lenses, camera housing and the advantages of digital over film. I hadn’t a clue what they were going on about but nodded knowingly nevertheless.

We dived in three teams with myself buddying up with Nina and Izzy. The viz was a respectful 5 or so metres which considering the infamous plankton bloom is supposed to be full on around now wasn’t too bad. Maybe the lack of sun in the last few weeks has had an effect. My role in the team was soon apparent. Izzy, proud owner of one of the afore mentioned cameras soon took up his role as director of photography and was duty bound to snap every crab, fish and critter in sight along with many that hoped to be out of sight. Nina, his glamorous lighting assistant, followed behind illuminating the scene. I bought up the rear patiently practicing my buoyancy whilst my chums took their snaps.

However this slow pace was a minor point as we planned to penetrate the wreck, something I’d wanted to do since first diving the Hood a few years back but had yet do had the opportunity to do so. Diving with the Scuba Centre’s top instructors has its advantages! Access into the wreck was fairly easy through large holes where some plates have broken free however this is only advisable with the right equipment and training. As the ship is upside-down old wreckage seems to hang from the ceiling and has overtime collapsed.  We made our way through the wreck towards an opening on the harbour side of the ship and back into open-water. We spent most of our dive taking photos and exploring on this side of the wreckage before retracing our route back to the more often dived southern side. All too soon the 45 minutes we planned to dive had passed and it was time to surface. Top Gun’s hydraulic lift is always appreciated at this point in a dive.

 Izzy has posted some of his and Nina’s photos on the DiveDorset web site http://www.divedorset.com/hood

Post dive drinks were in order so a group of us headed down to The Cove on Chesil Beach. There was much agreement that this should become a crucial part of a club night! Hope to see you on board,

Owen.