The Pirates of Penzance (Seagulls)

Penzance is a bloody long way from anywhere, especially Malvern, but over the weekend of 25-27th June, a team from Malvern, a team from Lancaster (fer crissakes!) & a team from London made the trip down. This is their report.

Friday 25th June saw Jason and John set off to Penzance, a long journey including a stop at Dive 90 for some new fins. After performing some minor heroics (first aid and finding a dog!) at the scene of high speed, crazy Impreza driver, barrel rolling, car trashing, blood loss causing crash, we continued on our way to the YHA and then onto the pub for a couple of Guinness and a nice meal.

Mike, Monkey & Dave also drove down from Malvern, arriving about 7:30. Luckily for them, there were no crazy drivers or flying dogs, so they arrived calm, but tired after the drive. Blagged their way into the Youth Hostel as Mike & Daves' membership had long since elapsed.

Saturday 26th.

Got up at 6:00, went to the harbour, looked at the sea. 'Don't be silly boys, you 'aint going nowhere'.

Felt sick. Went back to bed! 10:30, went to look at the sea again. Spoke to the skipper, mutual decision not to dive as it was well rough. Went to Land's end (it was misty), then went to St Ives (sun was out, sea flat calm somehow). Had a Cornish pasty and then an ice cream. John was mugged by a seagul for his ice-cream. The result was John ending up with a nice split lip, and a seagull being drop kicked off the promenade wall onto the beach, much to the horror of the assembled OAP's sat on the near by benches. Dave collapsed a lung because he was laughing so much.

Mike, Dunc & Monkey decided to get their dry suits on & do a bit of freediving in the water at St Ives but failed to take account of the air that would be trapped in the suits, resulting in a record depth attained of 4-5m. No threat to Tanya yet then!

We went for a curry and a few beers at night.

Got up at 6:45, weather looking better. went to the harbour, still looking good. Go Go Go. Skipper ran over his own mooring line with the boat, hence 20min delay - boo! We loaded the boat and set sail by 9:15. Sea looked OK. 15 mins later, sea was getting rough, there were a few worried faces, but no chunder action yet. About 9:45. Jason was first to fall foul of the dreaded dive boat induced chunk blowing. Closely followed by John, then Dave, then Duncan, then Chris, then Pat then Mike, Not funny. John, Chris, Jason and Monkey sat out the first dive which was quite good.

The wreck, the Jose de Aranburu was in water with 8m of visibility & many parts of the wreck could be identified. It was at a depth of about 35m, Mike & Dave doing a 35minute deco dive. Dave was on a Helium mix, Mike on air, so the ascent rate & stops was the most conservative of the two. Mikes computer was happy with the Helium mix profile anyway, so on reaching the end of a 7 minute stop at 6m, all was clear.

The sea sickness continued with more multiple chunders. John gave up the will to live and just curled into a ball on the floor of the boat. We moved to the second dive site. More chundering. Only 4 people braved the 2nd dive, Monkey was visited by the chunder demon 1 min into the dive and had to abandon it for the safety of the boat. Mike, being made of sterner stuff waited for Pat & Andy & dived with them to 26m. sadly, the skipper had missed the wreck, but a nice dive on some reef made up for it. So only 3 made the last dive. We headed back to land and kissed the ground. Drove a long way home, arriving back at about 10pm, tired, sore, de-hydrated and beaten. Slept 10hrs solid and woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a car :o

Jason, John & Dave can't wait for the 12hr boat journey to St Kilda in 3 weeks time :oO

John's vomit predictor would have given a probability of over 90%, so the model still holds true.

Stugeron & other sea sickness tablets are rubbish!