Location: Cromhall Quarry

8th of July 2007 to 8th of July 2007

Cromhall Quarry – Sunday 8th July 2007

An Instructor’s View…….

I knew it was going to be a hectic day’s diving when I spoke to Keith on the Saturday, late afternoon, and he explained that he still had to draw up the dive plan for 10 potential trainees under 3 instructors, and he was going to try and do it at the party he was leaving for imminently?! (In the end he did it 12.30 that night when he got back – spare a thought for the organiser when it runs effortlessly on the day!)

It’s fair to say the summer of 2007 has not necessarily delivered the kind of diving weather and conditions we’d hoped for, but this day did us proud. I was first in the queue at the gates and as a newcomer to Cromhall, I got my first view of the quarry in glorious sunshine.

Keith got us assembled just past the entrance ‘cabins’ for the safety and dive plan brief. Not content with trying to squeeze 2 dives in for most of the trainees, he also planned to use the pontoon as well as the normal shallow entry point to maximise the logistical nightmare. The brief was comprehensive as always, including the fact he’d brought apple pies for us all to keep those energy levels up!

First off, I was taking the two Mike’s in (Stone and Kret). We entered off the pontoon and quickly dropped down into nice clear waters to start our exploratory dive which would take us to the shallow end where we could finish with some exercises before surfacing. Being an instructor, you want to appear knowledgeable and adept at dive leading (even though I’d declared I was a ‘Cromhall Virgin’), so it was with some embarrassment that after 30 minutes of perusing endless sand, weed and crested newts, I signalled ‘Up’ and we surfaced at the diametrically opposite side of the quarry to our planned destination! If it was any consolation, all the other groups had exactly the same problem and we ended up surface swimming in convoy to the container buoys. (Keith has since blamed the apparent misdirection on (a) a dodgy batch of compasses or (b) the ‘Cromhall Triangle’ – a poor cousin of the Bermuda one).

After all the excitement, a sandwich and a cuppa, I was taking Ken on his second open water dive (cunningly called ‘OO2’ by BSAC). Ken was in a new semi-dry and wasn’t sure of how much weight he was going to need, so we had fun initially throwing lead around in the shallow end before venturing into the depths. Once we cleared the kicked up silt (mostly of our making), we had a lovely potter around the container which provides the 6m platform, before heading back to the shallows for a few exercises. Back on dry land, Ken explained how he’d really enjoyed the dive, which was really pleasing (Instructors never tire of hearing that their trainees enjoy their diving!)

Time to grab another sandwich and cup of tea while planning the final dive. Unbelieveably it was now already after 3.00 in the afternoon – where does the time go? Irvine was set to do his fifth Open Water training dive (again, those clever BSAC guys had come up with the name ‘005’), which involved the scenario where he was simulating leading the dive. Unfortunately by the time we’d kitted up, gone through the brief and buddy checks and were in the water ready to descend, it was precisely 3.57 and the cover boat had just come over to tell us we had to be out by 4.00! We went down for a hasty 10 minute dive but it was not conducive to a successful training session, so we agreed that we’d need to run through it another time.

My first impressions of Cromhall were all really positive – easy to get to, really relaxed atmosphere with very few divers (I have spent a lot of time training in Stoney Cove, where 500 divers a day use the place at weekends!!!) and great viz. What more could we want –oh yes, lots of sunshine (should have taken Keith up on the offer of suncream as I went home with a very ‘weathered’ face that day). Look forward to many happy hours there in the future…

Now….what did happen to those apple pies….???

Steve Williamson

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