2000

On 2nd July I dived the English Channel (my dive 244) for the first time and although there was only a slight swell, I felt rather nauseous! Graeme “Spotty” Hastings, Chris Baker, Chris Durrell and I boarded Sundancer in Dover Harbour to dive the wreck of the Pomerania. This wreck was a big liner built in 1873, which collided in 1878 with the Moel Eilian, an iron-hulled barque of 1100 tons, off the coast between Folkestone and Dover. 48 passengers and crew were lost. Eleven days later and following a week of bad weather, Chris Baker and I were the only two divers aboard Sundancer for my dive 246. It was just a short trip from Dover Harbour to the wreck of the Traquair, a small British collier of 1067 tons which hit a mine in January 1916. I began to feel seasick again as I kitted up for the dive. So much for the stugeron, ginger capsules, herbal remedy and acupuncture pins! But in the water I felt better, particularly when Chris and I found two juvenile Dogfish.

2001

On 1st July  I dived (my dive 358) the wreck of the Monach from the Channel Divers R.I. B. At the time I belonged to two dive clubs, Seascape Scuba Dive Club of Ashford (which later became Ashford Dive Club) and Channel Divers of Hythe which had its own club house in Hythe as well as its own R.I. B. The 1122 ton Monarch was built in 1883 and 32 years struck a defence boom off Folkestone and sank quickly. Fellow Channel Divers members Stefan Heathfield, Steve Hill and I dived this wreck first while Warren Upton and Nathan Valentine waited on the R.I.B. to take their turn. On 27^th August I dived (my dive 406) the wreck of the Benvenue, once again from the Channel Divers R.I. B. but this time with Stefan Heathfield and Paul and Anita Coward. Our original plan to dive HMS Brazen, a World War II wreck, was abandoned in favour of an easier dive on the wreck of the Benvenue, an 1891 wreck lying just 9 metres of water, 300 metres off shore of Sandgate. This proved a mistake as the underwater visibility off Sandgate was only a metre at best, a third of a metre at worst. We thought our shot line had made contact with the wreck but were mistaken. An extensive search proved fruitless and all we saw were a few juvenile blennies and gobies and some small crabs.

2004

On 11th August I invited Chris Baker to join me on an Ashford Dive Club’s evening dive (my dive 895) along with Ashford Dive Club members such as Paul Hymers and Wendy Everett. Our dive boat on this occasion was Andy Nye’s Dover Harbour based Taurus Cat. Our intention was to dive the Preussen. The largest steel sailing ship of her time, she sank in 1910 off Crab Bay, Dover after colliding with a cross-channel steamer. However Chris and I could not find the wreck. Instead we found a lobster pot with two lobsters trapped inside. On 28th August Chris was again my guest aboard Taurus Cat for two Ashford Dive Club dives. Ashford Dive Club members aboard included Chris Powell, Libby Everett, Svenja Hickson and Rick Stewart. Our first dive (my dive 900) was on the wreck of Toward a 1218 ton British merchant steamer built in 1899 which sank northeast of Dover after hitting a mine in 1915 and our second dive was the wreck of a Second World War German submarine. Although The Admiralty believe that this submarine may be the UB-31, many other people believe it to UB-109 which sunk in the “Dover Barrage minefield” off Folkestone in 1918. Chris Baker and I were the last divers to leave Taurus Cat and our dive had hardly begun when Chris began coughing from what proved to be a “bad cylinder fill”. We should have aborted the dive but Chris was determined to have a look at the submarine. Following Andy Nye’s advice we finned in a south-westerly direction from the shot line to find some pipes and increasing numbers of bibs. Suddenly the dark shadow of the submarine loomed up in front of us. I was very excited - my first submarine wreck. Unfortunately the visibility was poor but it was a special dive for me. On 4th September (my dive 903) I joined Nick Gittings, Wade Nash and other members of Ashford Dive Club for a trip aboard Taurus Cat in search of the wreck of a Second World War Heinkel He111 aircraft believed to a couple of miles out from the Deal coast. We did not find it but we did come across a boat wreck whose identity is not known. My next English Channel dive (my dive D977) was on New Years Eve, my first English Channel dive with Shorncliffe Dive Centre of Folkestone. Ashford Dive Club buddies Chris Powell and Nick Gittings accompanied me with Chris as my dive buddy. Chris Webb, owner of Shorncliffe Dive Centre launched his R.I.B. Outrageous from Dover Harbour for the short trip east of Dover Harbour to Crab Bay to once again look for the wreck of the Preussen. And once again we failed to find it! In a strong current with poor visibility Chris Powell and I did a drift dive having to be alert to avoid entanglement with either the SMB reel or our buddy line. We saw one crab!

2005

My next dive was on 11th June (my dive 1057) and which was again on Taurus Cat. This time Taurus Cat set off from Dover Harbour towards Littlestone to dive the wreck of the Nunima, a 2,938 ton steamer which sank with a cargo of iron ore after a collision in 1918. Ashford Dive Club members aboard included Chris Powell, Dominic Bright, Richard Everett and Svenja Hickson. Do enough dives and I guess every diver must experiences one dive when things seem to go wrong. This was mine. I was not aware how quickly my Suunto Dive Computer battery would loose its power once the battery became low. I thought that my Suunto Dive Computer was good for at least other twenty or thirty dives. Certainly for one more dive. Wrong! My buddy, Chris Ransley-Warnes and I had not met before, not ideal when doing a 38 metre dive. And I had left my surface marker buoy at home and was therefore unduly reliant on my buddy. Chris and I began our dive. The shot line was near but not on the wreck. As we made our way down the line in poor visibility, my dive computer battery failed and upon reaching the seabed my camera became briefly entangled in the line. As I began to carefully untangle it, another diver joined us and I think Chris mistaking him for me in the poor visibility, separated from me and followed him. After a quick fruitless search for Chris I found The Nunima instead and slowly made my way up the side of the wreck. Fortunately Chris surfaced without mishap. Without any instrumentation to be able to accurately gauge my ascent, I used exhaled bubbles to ensure that I did not ascend too rapidly. I did a brief “stop” at an estimated depth of around 10/11 metres and a further “stop” at an estimated depth of 5 metres for about 3 minutes before slowly ascending to the surface. I was confident that my dive profile had been safe as my “bottom time” had been very brief. But even so it had been a deep dive and without a functioning dive computer, it was better to be safe than sorry. So as soon as I was back on board Taurus Cat I breathed a Nitrox mix of 50% from a fellow diver’s tank and then when it became available, oxygen. Subsequently I calculated that based on an estimate of my time and depths, there had been no need for a  mandatory decompression/safety stop. My next dive on 2nd July turned out to be my final dive on Taurus Cat as Andy Nye subsequently sold the vessel. My buddy, Tim Sheerman-Chase of Ashford Dive Club and I are both prone to seasickness and with a heavy swell on the day, poor Tim was sick several times and I felt nauseous. Fortunately we had a very interesting wreck to dive, the UB-55, a German submarine that had fouled mine cables in 1918. The resulting explosion sent the submarine stern first to the seabed and only five crew members survived. Six metres visibility on this dive ensured that Tim and I had a clear view of UB-55’s conning tower, a spectacular sight for my final Taurus Cat dive.