Day 3 on board the MV Karin was going to follow a very similar pattern to the previous day.
Step 1. Dive a German High Seas Fleet Cruiser
Step 2. Eat
Step 3. Dive a a blockship
I was settling into the routine, the diving while deep and technical was actually pretty straight forward.The Coln passed without incident for myself and the Wylie Fox. It was impressive and to someone who isn't a 'wreck guy' was fairly recognisable. We had spent about 40 minutes below 30m before starting to come up doing around 20 minutes of deco. Simple.
However, it was the shallow Tabarka that through me for a spin and reminded me how things can change quickly. Diving as a four, we had waited for slack water. I had WF's advice ringing in my ears - just get to the wreck an meet me there.
So, I junmped in and got down. I was joined by the Landlady then the Barrman. We headed as a three towards the wreck where we met up with WF. We explored the inside, saw the boilers of the old steamer then headed towards the exit. The kelp was flat and the tide was running fast.
The skipper had mistimed the tide and so the dive plan needed to change. WF and I put up an SMB as did the others. We emerged on the leeward side of the tide at which point WF's SMB acted as a sail and swept her away with the surface current. It was almost magical, a bit like Mary Poppins. This left me in a bottom current going the opposite direction and effectively on my own. I watched the others struggle with their own SMBs before deciding to go it alone.*
I popped up my own SMB and enjoyed the instant feeling of being whisked away. It was fun. Some time later I surfaced. It had been quite a ride.
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| Coln Gun |
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| Nudi |
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| In the Tabarka |
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| In the Tabarka |
* I don't recommend solo diving, but myself and WF had agreed that as we both had redundancy the usual look around for a minute didn't apply. It's debatable if it's right or wrong, but we work on the presumption that we're solo diving anyway.
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