The Watermanship Lake is part of a wider military training area at Lydd Ranges in Kent and is used to hone the skills of troops who have served in theatres ranging from Northern Ireland to Iraq. Together with Graeme “Spotty” Hastings and Dee Smith, I dived this very shallow lake in May 2007, my dive 1434.

The three of us were required to attend a Lydd Ranges pre-dive briefing 48 hours before the dive. The weather was superb and the lake looked really inviting.

A second briefing immediately prior to the dive was also necessary by which time the weather was cold and miserable. I had purchased some koi carp “floating food sticks” to enable me to get close to the 150-plus carp that are resident to this lake. However the visibility underwater was appalling and I did not see a single carp. As underwater photography was impossible, the three of us simply finned around part of the lake while Dee practised her underwater navigation. To relieve the tedium, Spotty and I sneakily made her task more challenging by stirring up mud from the lake bed.