The High Alpujarras - a dive-free break
For the first time in several years, Caroline and I took a week away that involved no diving. It was designed as a cheap get-away week, and the location was chosen without any more research than the pictures looked nice, and it was near airports that were serviced by budget airlines.
Accommodation in the form of a cortijo (farmhouse) was found on the internet, and after an exchange of e-mails with an amenable Dutchman called bruno, we were booked for a week at Cortijo La Suetre, near Pitres in the High Alpujarras. This is an area in the Andalucia region of Spain, on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada and to the east of Granada. Flights were booked to Granada with Ryanair, for the princely sum of £60 each return, and with the cortijo at £500 for the week, and car-hire at approximatetly £150, four of us had a week’s holiday for £250 each.
What we didn’t know was what a good choice we had made in location. the region is simply beautiful, with views over gorges and valleys, rocky riverbeds and high plains. Almonds, walnuts, sweet chestmuts and fig trees punctuate the endless olive groves and tiny white villages cling vertiginously to the side of impossibly steep hillsides.
Along the valley from Pitres is the highest town in Spain - Trevelez (1476m) - famous for its air-cured hams, or jamones. It seems almost every shop in the centre has leg upon leg of ham hanging from walls and ceilings, each with a little drip-cup attached to the bottom. The smell is subtle, but pretty unpleasant, however I am assured that the finished product was delicious - as a veggie I didn’t get to try it personally!
Each town and village in the area has a market one day a week, and you could fill a week going from market to market. we settled with visiting those in Orgive, a lower town, and the one in Pitres. Orgiva’s was a mix of the expected vegetables, spices, pulses and fruit, with the more modern clothing, shoes and bags. Orgiva itself has a large, international “hippy” presence, and some of the best stalls were run by such smallholders, promising fresh and organic produce.
A drive up to the edge of the Sierra Nevada National Park gave us a drop in temperature of about 5 degrees and panaramic views of the region. From here you can hike to the summit of Mulhacen - Spains highest mountain. That is something that will be saved for another day, but now the idea is in my head…
My favourite memories will be sat on the terrace, watching the hills change depth and colour as the sun set along the gorge beneath us. Listening to the crickets, large and small, and waiting for the thick blanket of stars to fill the dark, dark sky - no light pollution here.
Then there was watching the large blue-winged bees, buzzing their clumsy way about, or chasing crickets in the orchard witht he two stray kittens who needed to learn how to hunt. Or just lazing, relaxing, reading and thinking of nothing….
Not bad for a non-diving holiday!
Dive Eclipse - Castletown, Portland, Dorset
When Dive Eclipse moved from Selsey to Weymouth the boat changed too. Out went Eclipse, a fast RIB with ladders, benches and a hard wheelhouse, and in came what was Top Gun, of Breakwater Dive Centre. Given the competition amongst hardboats, and the generally high quality of boat in the Weymouth area, this was probably a good move.
What didn’t change was the skipper. Dave Applin runs Eclipse and as a diver himself knows what divers want. You always get a good safety briefing and a thorough dive site briefing when Dave is at the helm. You can also be sure that the shot is in the wreck and is staying there. One of his tenents is that you have paid to get on the wreck and he will put you on it. That means that the shot is always hard into wreckage, and if there is a current and you need to haul on the shot there is no fear that you will get to the bottom to find a bouncing shot and seabed.
Top Gun itself is fast, with benches for 12 and a diver lift. The benches themselves are noce and deep, but the layout is a little odd, although this doesn’t detract from the usage. Coffee or instant soup are provided post dive.
As with all of the boats out of Breakwater a logging sysem is used, with a max expected duration given and you are expected to stick to this. You also give a description of you gear so that you can be identified and you are logged into and out of the water. This little extra safety feature enhances the confidence you feel in the operation.
I don’t know what next year (2007) will bring in terms of boats or location for Eclipse, but I will be there to try it out, whatever it is!
X-Dream - Weymouth, Dorset
X-Dream, skippered by Paul Pike, is a typical south coast dive boat. It is a 38′ Evolution, with a diver lift to the rear, and benches each side. the benches are a cut above the rest, with a rear gap to stop unbooted twins sliding - but do be aware that if you dive an inverted rig a little block of wood may be needed to stop your valve cage catching.
Paul is a very quite, reserved, but extremely competent and helpful skipper. He also serves the best soups in Britain - perfect for the cold, windy SI’s. I would thoroughly recommend the mulligatawny.
The Evolutions do rock a bit, but they seem to make up for it with speed and X-Dream is no exception. A fast, if bumpy ride out to site is better than wallowing out for ages, for those of us with a dispotion to the mal-de-mer.
Loading is a bit of a pain - you need to park on the road by the Old Harbour, dump your kit and then move the car to the car park by the council offices. then transport your gear down the ramp and onto the pontoon on which X-Dream is berthed. It can take a bit of juggling to unlaod at the end of a weekend as 6 cars try ot get one of the few loading spots. It does mean that X-Dream is secure behind the locked harbour gates at night, however. Paul can also drop you right by Old Harbour Divers for a gas fill, if he needs fuel from the pontoon there. If he does stop off, be ready to get your cylinders off prpnto as he can only pause long enough to fill up. Buy an ice-cream from the dive shop whilst you are there too - they are great.
Cornish Pussy - St Keverne, Cornwall
Cornish Pussy is a new catamaran (launched 2006) run by Gary Fox of Dive Action. It runs around the Lizard, on the south coast of Cornwall, and has been designed from scratch as a dive vessel.
I booked it for a weekend’s diving for myself and a group of friends in August 2006. At that point it was still bedding in, but it was already showing it was a great dive platform. The benches are stainless tubing arranged either side of a cetnral spine with room elow for boxes or bags, and have a small gap down the back to ensure that bootless twinsets don’t slide forwards. there is enough room for 12 twinsetted divers, and spare seats that jut under the canopy for “dry” seating. At the moment there is only a short hard canopy, which covers some dry storage and camera shelving, and the tea & coffee making facility - hot water always on tap for a brew, lovely! Gary has plans to add soft cover to increase the dry area, or shade, for the varying climes of Cornwall.
The transom has two door cur into it. One leads onto the diver lift, which drops to a good depth below the waterline, and the other is free onto a small platform. This arrangement means buddy pairs can enter the water togehter - one from each door, and stops the unlucky second always having the longer swim for the shot, or risking landing on the first.
As a cat the rear deck space is plentiful, and the boat appeared to be nicely stable. As we dived in the calm waters in the lee of the Lizard it is difficult to tell how this translates in higher seas. We also didin’t get the opportunity to see how fast she went, but given that Gary is thinking of taking her on long weekend jaunts next season, I suspect she does have some “oomph”!
Gary is a great skipper. He dives the waters that he drops you in on and knows exactly what you will expect to see. Wrecks are his thing, but he will talk squidgy stuff with you if you demand it! His bluff Yorkshire style could offend the sensitive flowers, but don’t mistake it for rudeness - he is a gentleman….even if he wouldn’t admit it!
Plans for the future include onboard compressors - possibly even nitrox and trimix!
Diveless Dover Disaster
The weather was looking shocking, the ropes-off time had been changed to silly o’clock and the word from Andy the Coastie was the viz would be terrible due to cable-laying in the area…so why did we get up and traipse down to Dover on Saturday? I wish we hadn’t…
The car is packed the night before and we leave the house at 03:15 for the 2 1/2 hour dirve to Dover. When we reach the harbour it is still dark, but there is a stiff breeze…so much for Paul’s comment the previous night that forecast 5mph winds could mean it was “Harry Flatters”.
There are a couple of folk milling about and we meet up with Debs and Gareth. No sin of Paul, or the skipper. The sky starts to lighten slightly and Paul appears weaing shorts and flip-flops…there is optimism on a cold September morning! Our numbers start to increase and Dave turns up and unlocks Neptune so we can start to load.
As we leave the harbour the rising sun behind the lighthouse is a beautiful sight and I almost start to think it was worth getting up for that alone. we then hit the rough seas that apparently are always worse withing a mile of the harbour. The boat bounces and spray rushes over the deck. We all shelter in the wheelhouse or just outsise. After about 20 minutes of battling against the waves the call is made to abandon out offshore target of the liberty ship Henry B Plant and go for a site closer in, the El de Bayo.
On site the sea is still fairly rough and it takes the crew several attempts to get the grapple to lock in. the usual practise for this boat is to anchor into the wreck, but today that isn’t practical as the wind and waves keep pulling the vessel off, so a shot buoy is left and Neptune floats clear. It isn’t quite slack so we don’t kit up immediately, and when we do go I take it slowly, aware of the movement of the boat.
Caroline and I have bench spots on the opposite side to the side door that you leap off from and so once kitted, in twin 12’s, and a 7l ali deco bootle, side slung, we gingerly stand and cautiously make our way to the stern of the boat, holding onto the side rails. I get to the gap between the bench and the transom first and as I cannot progress further due to a pair entering the water ahead of us, I hold n with one hand on the censtre spine of the benches, and one on the transom rail.
Brian, the crew member tells me they will let these two in and then turn around for another run to get Caroline and I in. I acknowledge him and adjust my postion slightly, to better bear the weight of the tanks against the movement of the boat. the buddy pair ahead get in and then….
..the boat moved suddenly and unexpectedly. I don’t know if it was getting into gear or an odd wave, but somehow, in trying to maintain my balance all my weight goes onto my left leg, my foot is rooted to the spot in my jetfins and my knee sort of twists and bends at the same time. I hear a crack, or a popping sound - although I am unsure whether it really was a “hear” or a “feel” - and my kne gives way in pain. I fall backwards, me and 50kg of kit landing, I think, on the mask clean bucket which cushions my fall nicely.
As Brian rushes to help I try and tell him that something has gone in my knee and soon there are hands all around getting me out of my kit. As I stand I think maybe i will be okay and I am keen to rekit and get in - that is what we have come all this way for! Then my knee gives way again. Still, maybe, if I fin gently…and the boat does have a lift….
Finally, tales of injuries precipitating DCI brings me to my senses…along with the knee starting to hurt. I sit down. Dejected. the final pair is now in the water and we have 80 minutes to wait until the planned runtimes are up.
I am helped out of my drysuit and sit in the wheelhouse supporting my knee and sulking. It is starting to hurt alot more now. As divers start to come up they firstly say what a great dive they have and then start saying it more quietly when they hear we didn’t get in.
The journey back to harbour was horrendous. There was no way of supporting my knee and each crash off the top of a wave jolted it and sent a shock of pain up my leg. Getting intot he calm water of the harbour was a real relief. We then had to work out how to get me up the steps. It was decided the best method was to avoid the steps and Dave dropped us off at his berth which was next to a ramp. With the arm of Matt on one side and a handrail on the other I inched up - this was after declining a push in a wire mesh kit trolley!
Everyone then kindly helps Caroline bring our kit off the boat and back to the car - divers are a wonderful bunch! Massive thanks to all… Having learnt my lesson last year after another diving accident we decided to dirve all the way home to our local A&E so that any ongoing treatment would not require inter-hospital communication - not a strongpoint of the NHS in our previous experience.
I hopped into A&E at Stoke Mandeville and after 4 hours, a nurse practioner, an A&E registrar, and a orthopaedic registrar and consultant there was agreement that I had ruptured my anterior cruciate ligament. I was sent home on crutches with an appointment in 10 days to reasses once the pain had died down. This could be bad news. the anterior cruciate ligament is in the actual knee joint itself, pulling together the tibia and femur, and apparently provides most of the stability for the knee joint.
It is now a few days later, and having had the leg up and resting it is feeling ok, although I can bear weight on it I can’t walk on it properly and it feels a little “odd”, but there is very little pain. I am very hopeful that the initial diagnosis was wrong and I have just strained something. That would be excellent as a ruptured ACL sounds like it would kill my hopes of walking the Inca Trail next year on our trip to the Galapagos. I shall find out for sure, I guess, in a few days when I return, but my fingers are well and truly crossed.