Icebreakers 2005
A very disappointing turn out. Where were you all?
There was a two to three meter sea running when I left Brighton so the warning that it was "a bit choppy" didn't phase me much.
Look! White fluffy bits at Stoney!
Callum's Chav suit always turns heads.
Frank's scooter was bigger than mine  <sulk>



On the Sunday I ran into some old friends from the Cambridge University Underwater Explorers Group.

This fine body of sensible academics were there to test their new group SMB. Notice the 'Christmas tree man' with all the cameras. The three 7L stages for each support diver were already carried down in the water by this point.
They needed an above water cameraman and, since I had my hands full of my camera, I offered Danny.
I last ran into John when he was doing a GUE course with Jarrod Jablonski so he is obviously a paid up member of the serious divers society, a pillar of the community, a gentleman and a scholar etc. We all know DIR divers don't have a sense of humour so it's obviously going to be a dull morning.
Meanwhile Steve and Adrian were taking Callum in with my inverted twins. They promised that if anything went wrong they'd cut the harness (cheap), inflate the wing and recover the cylinders for me.


Meanwhile our academics were getting somewhere with their SMB....


Actually the report that after three seconds purging a reg into this thing you didn't need to hold the button any more, just use that tank valve to shut it off is a significant warning for diving fresh water at this time of year. This beauty offers an estimated two and a half tons of lift but takes a lot of gas to fill it.

And finally our team arrived back.
Yes! They missed it all.
The pictures can be accessed by clicking the thumbnail but they tend to be 900K+ files
Pictures by Nigel Hewitt