Search & Recovery - 22/04/2014

After Sunday's dive I discovered that I had lost a weight pouch. I don't know if it happened in the water or at some other point. Today I asked Fast Ed and Sergeant Chris if they'd help me look for it. They are very obliging. So, we headed to St Catherine's after work and despite the poor traffic we arrived and kitted up before 8pm - still daylight.

There were other divers onsite - Paul 'The Kingmaker' King and Martin Kerr. The Kingmaker is well known to me - I have on occasions played badminton with him - Martin Kerr however, is a shadowy figure. No-ones quite sure what he does. All we know is that he's some kind of Gandalf of the IT World and mad, keen rebreather diver. By way of contrast, The Kingmaker, is not a rebreather diver, although he has been described as "a well used scrubber". (A little rebreather humour for you there!)

Myself, Fast Ed & Sergeant Chris entered the water as a three and retraced my underwater steps from Sunday heading down to around 25m. Life was plentiful, but I never saw the stars of Sunday's dive, but as you'll see below I took a few pictures. However, I never found my pouch.

Back on the surface, we had a brief chat with The Kingmaker and Gandalf IT before they headed off and we rekitted for a 2nd dive. This time, it was to be a night dive. Fast Ed led us down to the reef (21m) where we again began the conger hunt. We didn't find it, but we did find the big scorpion fish and cushion star - though my camera had packed in by this point. The sea scorpion was enjoying the small shrimp that our torchlight was attracting.

Add in some dogfish - technically making it a shark dive - and we all had a great time. The only down side is my still missing pouch and the late night trip home.

I later heard that The Kingmaker broke his own personal record for Scottish dive longevity - 81 minutes. Gandalf IT only had 10 minutes of scrubber time left, but I'm sure the Kingmaker will happily add to that next week. 

Rock Cook

Spiny Star

Goldsinny

Sea Scorpion