Ever keen to explore new and exciting dive locations, Maldives organised a trip to the Submarine Escape Training Tower at Gosport. The tower is owned, maintained and run by the Royal Navy, but they allow the likes of you and me to use it at weekends whilst the Navy boys have a weekend off. On arrival, we were met with the sight of a huge tower reaching up some 10 storeys to the top. We unloaded our gear and moved in. Before we were allowed to go up, we had to have a brief from 'Spike' on what to do in case of fire - jump in the water I would have thought, but no, make for the exits it seems.

After the brief briefing, we all started to move our gear up to the tenth floor, which was made considerably easier by the lift! I cannot imagine how long it would have taken using the stairs. At the top, we had a second briefing by Mark, the Horsea Island representative and the DM for the morning. The SETT is a 30m deep, 5m wide cylinder filled with body temperature chlorinated water. Visibility is, of course, 30m right to the bottom. Mark tried to point out the various features located in each of the corners of the circular tank - maybe he has done too much diving? The dive plan was to dive in pairs with each pair having 15 minutes bottom time and an unlimited return time (air permitting). As each pair started their ascent, so the next pair would begin descending, overlapping somewhere between 25m and 15m.

When our turn came around, John, who was already narked, decided to jump in and proceeded to cause a wave that soaked most of the surrounding area - he was gently reminded that jumping in was not a good idea! So we set off for the bottom, watching the 5m markers go by - this was an ideal opportunity to check the accuracy of the computers. Mine was pretty close, which I found out later meant that it was fresh-water calibrated as opposed to sea-water.

Once at the bottom, we played with our toy-torpedo that Pat had kindly loaned us - luckily, because there is nothing else to do down there! Now I know how goldfish must feel, swimming round in circles. One slight source of entertainment is that you can look through a porthole and into the offices on the ground level - wow! Soon enough it was time to ascend, which, of course, must be done at the appropriate rate. On the way up, we were able to take a look at the blisters, which are standing areas for the instructors to use.

They are pumped with fresh air (though not today) so that they can enter, take a breath of air, then return to the tank to continue supervising the trainees, rather than having to return to the surface, or use compressed air, which would time-limit them too much. Eventually we reached the surface and exited. As I packed my gear away, I wondered if I would do it again, and concluded that, whilst it had been fun, it is probably one of those things that you do just once for the experience.

Before we all left, we had the opportunity of watching the SETT video, which gives a taste of the real purpose of the tank and the somewhat dangerous life of a sub-mariner. No thanks, I'll stick to the desk-job.