Ahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa: big scream as I run thru the school gates and down the hill. Free at last. A week off. Divers gone and no more arriving. Time to recharge batteries and do squat diddly for a week. Yipeeeeeeeeeee.
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Adios.
No team photo cos someone was in the shower “doin’ her hair”.
You can feel the disappointment from RH: enough to make a grown man cry.
The week’s video may be delayed by a slight technical hitch…
..still, he will be able to use the hat again.
Beautiful day today with just a touch of Autumn chill in the air. The geese have started to arrive too.
I don’t care what anyone says, it’s not natural to go for a pee with your suit on.
Every generation has found shelter in Scapa Flow so it is just as vibrant now as it ever was.
“How long skip?”
Put it this way… I will be at the site before you are ready to diver.
See that.. no quotation marks. I didn’t say it: it was just a thought that never came out.
“20 mins”
That’s customer service for you.
“Cup of tea bob…?”
“Oh, that would be lovely”
Then half an hour later you have to go and chase that brew down.
More work needed on the manufacturing and delivery infrastructure, I think.
Well it may be tame for EM but this is the view from my boat and I love her (my boat, that is) so there.
Well it was a good week for me: I wanted to work thru a lot of stuff about what a blog etc is about and I found the perfect springboard for that so I am a bit more at peace with writing stuff now.
We all have our demons but I think they had been put aside for a small while by the end of the week.
The bacon butties were nice but I hope the chef washed his hands between times.
So I’ve just told you a story about a guys who’s glasses I smeared with vaseline every time he went diving.
You then give me your specs while you jump off the boat.
You don’t need to be psykic to guess whats coming next..
Doh.
Off to the Sands Hotel in Burray for the night, last night.
Went for a wander along the Churchill Barrier before leek and tattie soup, lentil roast with chips and a small salad, coleslaw on the side and an addition order of extra chips. G had J’s salad and an extra roll while the others had pud but I didn’t.
I’m not just the best in the mornings. I try hard to put a brave face on but iit doesn’t really work: at heart, I am not really fit to speak untill a few cups of tea have hit the bottom of my gullet and the fog of sleep has lifted from my cranium.
I can diguise this to a degree: punters have questions, even first thing in the morning so over the years I hope the defense mechanism/coping strategy cuts in so that I do not offend anyone. I do not want to be rude: I just can’t be arsed to speak for the first half hour or so of the day.
I was up early today to pump cylinders. I had tiptoed around the deck so as not to wake them up. Caught in the act, one asked for a 32pc. Another just air tops. Fair dues, these things are important but I didn’t want to discuss them.
So when for the second morning in a row, JW sticks her head out the window and shouts ” TEA BOB!!” I know there is a rare star on the boat. She must know me troo well. Thats the only thing worth saying at that point. She’s the best.
The humble blob is an often neglected and overlooked piece of kit but one that has, none the less, revolutionised diving practice. They are there (a) to stop you being lost, (b) to stop you being minced in a screw and (c) as a point of reference on ascent.
The simple orange self closing Buddy SMB is by far the best and no longer has room for improvement: it is as good as you get and can happily rest on it’s laurels knowing that it is now the pinicle of the evolutionary design process. People, however, still like to customise them and these personal addtions tell you a lot about the diver below.
It does not take a wide leap of imagination to guess who this blob belongs to..
This, on the other hand, is a classic case of mixed messaging and should be avoided..
Now, normally I don’t mind a camera or two. I can handle folk taking a piccy or two. I am happy to be in people’s Kodak moment. But this week there is an undercurrent… those pictures are going onto the internet! Stealth, caution and cunning are required. A fck up would be fatal and speeding down the fast lane of the imformation super highway before the egg on the face was dry.
However, if it was me taking the picture..
It’s good to go home content in the knowledge that the troops are at peace with the world.
“You guys haven’t got an internet connection on the boat, have you?”
“You can’t read what I blog about you then….”
“eh? Not untill you get home?”
“Oh well…”
Went out for a drink with the troops last night but they had buggered off to Kirkwall so managed to get v tipsy without them (it seemed rude not to having put party duds on and smelling of talc etc.)
This morning the new troops bundled into my hangover and onto the boat. I know a lot about them and what they have done from their blogs and other writings on the web but this is the first time I have met them in the flesh (not that they were naked, you understand)
Obviously they were bursting with questions as to my secret tips and workings and how to get their amateur ramblings up to the professional standards observed here at Haltonocean so may run a workshop and “how to” later in the week. To be frank, from the cluttered and disorganised wibble that came from their minds the first conversation, I will have my work cut out.
….next time you see a line of elephants, trunks holding tails like Colonel Hathi leading the troops, make sure there is one at the front with an empty trunk and that the last tail is swinging free. Whats my point? Bloggers, blogging bloggers going round in circles: must avoid that scenario this week.
Run out of space on the server (again) so awaiting a kind person to allocate me more room so I can blog stuff for last week.
Yes, I know I am chancing my arm but only got a few more weeks to go so shouldn’t need that much more room….
Two Kestrels circled the boat on the trip from the Astronomer to Wick while we were still a long way out to sea: one caught a smaller brid on the wing and the roof of the wheelhouse looked like a pillow fight as feathers rained down for a while.
Their balance in the rigging looked positively amateur in comparison to the lazy ease demonstrated by seabirds. They got the hang of it in the end though.
Dived the Remuera, a 11,445grt steamship sunk by a german plane attack on 26 August 1940.
She now lies 6 miles NE of Fraserburgh in 67m water.
Bundled troops out of van and onto boat, down to Longhope, fed them and then set off for Wick ready for a dive first thing sunday morning.
Tides massive so touched 15.4kts in the firth.