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Diving

Dives

I've had 32 1-star dives so far:

Dive number	Date	Site	Location	Area	Country	Wreck	Freshwater	Depth (m)	Bottom time (min)	Total time (min)	Divers	Quality	Summary	Equipment
14	29 Jun 1980	Chester II	Off Fidra	Forth	Scotland			24	18	18	Iain Hosking, John Crichton		Dived with John Crichton from boat with SMB to try to find wreck. Reached bottom & followed line of dragging anchor. Vis terrible, maybe 6ft. Weren't getting anywhere, & air low (50 ats) so came up, tangling SMB round anchor line in process. Not a successful dive.	Steel 60, own dv, ABLJ 4, ~24lbs weight (buoyant on surface)
30	23 Nov 1980	Largs		Clyde	Scotland			2	25	25	Iain Hosking, Eric Franz, Mike Malone		Boring, but funny.	ABLJ 1, steel 69
40	15 Apr 1981	Ostend		Mull	Scotland			7	10	10	Iain Hosking, Malcolm Gauld		Malcolm's rope search - unsuccessful. Vis low, about 3m. Bottom - shells! Cold.	Steel 69, ABLJ 2
89	12 Apr 1982	Salen Pier	Salen	Mull	Scotland			5	10	10	Iain Hosking, Ewan Rowell, Susan Playfair		Just a plowter round the pier to look for leaks in Susan's and Ewan's dry suits. Two leaks in Ewan's - none in Susan's. Flipping cold without gloves. Hardly a dive.	own
97	15 Apr 1982	Salen Pier	Salen	Mull	Scotland			7	10	10	Iain Hosking, Susan Playfair		Decompression dive. Boring.	own
103	21 May 1982	Seacliffs	North Berwick	Forth	Scotland			5	5	5	Iain Hosking, Ceri Reid, Eric Franz		In water after 9pm so dark and very low vis, 2-3m. Dive abruptly cut short by realisation of massive leak in cuff.	own
128	28 Nov 1982	St Abbs	South side of the Firth of Forth	Forth	Scotland			15	20	20	Iain Hosking, Grace Franz, Julian Fuchs		Dived with Grace (because Eric's suit sprang a leak) and Julian Fuchs. Vis very poor, strong swell and current. Not ideal. Swam out to Cathedral underwater. Saw nothing. Swam back against current.	own
129	13 Feb 1983	St Abbs	South side of the Firth of Forth	Forth	Scotland			12	20	20	Iain Hosking, Grace Franz		Bloody awful. Vis less than 1 metre. Freezing cold, sea life all gone south for the winter, suit leaked.	own
130	10 Apr 1983	Pettico Wick	South side of the Forth, west of St Abbs	Forth	Scotland			14	20	20	Iain Hosking, Derek Borthwick, Derry Paul		Dived with Derry to test dry suits. Found 2 leaks in left leg. Water greeny-yellow and full of bird shit. Vis 2m. Cold, and conditions marginal.	own
131	12 Jun 1983	Bass Rock		Forth	Scotland			20	10	12	Iain Hosking, Eric Franz		Fairly strong westerly, maybe force 4. Also strong current in same direction. Dived off north side of the Bass. Had to crawl into the current by hanging on to the rocks. Not much fun so came up. Saw a seal.	Doc's dry suit, demand valve and boots, Jenny's woolly bear [!], Grace's gloves. I remembered everything else.
133	19 Jun 1983	St Abbs Head	South side of the Firth of Forth	Forth	Scotland			35	7	7	Iain Hosking, Eric Franz		Abortive search for the 'Glanmire'. Beautiful day: flat calm and blazing sunshine. No excuses.	own
159	6 Nov 1983	Wallachia	The Gantocks	Clyde	Scotland			30	20	22	Iain Hosking, Eric Franz		Hell. Force 5, wet (on surface), dark, deep, silty, current. Dived on ebb tide (missed slack). Lost line on first attempt. At the second attempt spent half the dive undoing the grapple, then drifted over the jars. Only 20 ats by this time so surfaced rapidly. Soaking wet. PS. Seasick too.	own
181	9 May 1984	Dunbar	South side of the Firth of Forth	Forth	Scotland			6	4	10	Iain Hosking, Marcus Hunter		Second dive to take down one of the pupils. Happy enough snorkelling out (16lbs) but couldn't clear ears underwater. Too rough to cure the problem.	own
208	22 Nov 1984	Seacliffs	North Berwick	Forth	Scotland			3	20	20	Iain Hosking, Ross Butler		Conditions worse than expected. Zero vis, current and waves. Gave up after 3rd attempt and retired to harbour. Nearly as bad as Largs beach!	own
209	25 Nov 1984	Wemyss Bay		Clyde	Scotland			36	8	8	Iain Hosking, Adrian Roddam		The less said about this the better.	own
213	17 Mar 1985	Creran Bridge		Oban	Scotland			5	10	10	Iain Hosking, Adrian Roddam		As good as the last dive with Adrian. Vis 6 feet; yellow pea soup. Reasonable current. Sinuses disgraced themselves. Adrian and I decided to separate again.	own
244	18 Aug 1985	Kintyre	Wemyss Bay	Clyde	Scotland			44	7	10	Iain Hosking, Geoff Hide		Actually only 'Very near the Kintyre'. Very overcast day with plenty of rain. Dived at 10 to 3, 40 minutes after HW Girvan. Surface layer very peaty to 5m - below this surprisingly clear. Pity there was no wreck - the grapple had pulled out. Surfaced to try again later.	own
245	18 Aug 1985	Kintyre	Wemyss Bay	Clyde	Scotland			36	10	12	Iain Hosking, Geoff Hide		Grappled again, found the wreck and others dived it. Geoff and I had time only to fold up the grapple and take it off the wreck before surfacing to do stops. Oh well.	own
266	16 Nov 1985	Rosehearty	Somewhere north of Aberdeen	Scottish East Coast	Scotland			18	35	35	Iain Hosking, Ewan Rowell		Ewan's idea. Rumours of a Cox and Danks destroyer remain unproven. Life: one sea scorpion. Vis: up to expectations. Rain, current and dark complete the formula. Hard to believe we did it. Others: Ewan, Paddy [who brought his Rolls Royce], Robin Harding, Mitch and Trevor.	own (+13 patches)
279	19 Apr 1986	Belnahua		Oban	Scotland			58	4	7	Iain Hosking, Mark Inall		Not the HF. Both echosounders packed in, weather bad, and worsening, cold, set. Crossed fingers, dropped the shot, went down the line, narked, shook hands, came up, drank, ate, drank, drank.	own, Rollo's twin 55s
304	20 Sep 1986	Beagle	North of Great Cumbrae	Clyde	Scotland			34	21	23	Iain Hosking, Gordon Fyfe		First Class practical. Down grapple line, no wreck, so dived again down existing buoy. Carried out survey of monofilament and debris.	Rowi suit, 24lbs
314	21 Dec 1986	Wallachia	The Gantocks	Clyde	Scotland			30	20	32	Iain Hosking, Mark Inall		The less said about this the better. Perfect conditions made irrelevant by the fact that Kirkintilloch got there first. Graham had a jar, but all Mark and I did was break one and lose the lifting bag (duly returned by Joe Murray). Aaargh!	Club 78
344	3 May 1987	River Tweed	English side	North-east England	England			3	15	15	Iain Hosking, John Clarke		Why, why, why? Went diving 'cos I couldn't think of anything else to do. Down to Eyemouth to fill bottles - the gully was like a frothy milkshake. Met Dave Nance [from Orca] who suggested the Tweed. Asked if I had a camera. Hah! We saw lots of mussels, two flatfish, a dead fish, a hot water bottle and a spade. Oh, and a prawn.
404	13 Jan 1990	Not the Yambacoona	Terrigal	Sydney	Australia			25	15	17	Iain Hosking, Cathy Humphries		8am start so drove up to Terrigal the night before and camped. Up with the lark and on the beach shortly after 7am. Already hot. Much hotter inside the drysuit. Descended along the anchor line to find Bruce Smith executing a circular search for the wreck. He didn't find it, so after milling around for a while we came up.
437	18 Dec 1990	The Pinnacles, Forster		Forster	Australia			40	27	27	Iain Hosking, Cathy Humphries		Very unfortunate dive. No echo sounder on Rory's boat so we depended on transits - except it was too hazy. Very hot day - sunburnt. Water clear at the surface but absolutely pea-soup at depth. Didn't stray more than 20ft from the anchor yet lost it. Spent the whole dive playing with Cathy's BC, then were faced with a long snorkel back to the boat. Sea rough. Big swell.	Wetsuit, BC, 20lbs lead (began the dive with 28lbs - big mistake).
442	21 Dec 1990	Satara	Seal Rocks	Forster	Australia			45	19	19	Iain Hosking, Cathy Humphries		All psyched up (and kitted up) for a dive on the 'Satara' but Ari couldn't find it! Anticipation turned to disappointment, frustration, then exasperation, and we voted to dive on the approximate transits. We found a dogfish. Others found a lump of coal.
452	4 May 1991	Not the Foggy Shark Cave	Terrigal	Sydney	Australia			36	16	16	Iain Hosking, Martin Zolfel		Out on the BWAC boat. Terrible dive. Seasick, missed the site, current - it had the lot. Beautiful day - 1001 better ways to spend it.	Cathy's 88, unreliable shot belt (random detach feature), Arctic.
481	12 Jun 1994	Middle Ground	Out from Port Hacking	Sydney	Australia			32	20	25	Iain Hosking, Martin Zolfel		Strong winds all week, so very rough seas and poor vis. Circled the anchor line and came up, dropping the weight belt on the way. Weight belt recovered by Richard and buddy. Thanks guys.
500	13 Dec 1998	Hole in the Wall	Avalon	Sydney	Australia			18	40	50	Iain Hosking, Andrew Kennedy		Another year+ layoff. Very choppy, so seasick. Mask leaked. Suit leaked. Viz OK. 3 cuttlefish, large groper and a good swim-through.	Another soggy suit dive. Legs and feet dry till end - back and sleeves soaked. Underweight? Try an extra weight belt next time.
506	23 Apr 2000	Barge, Forster	off Forster	Forster	Australia			30	20	26	Iain Hosking, Andrew Kennedy		Too rough for The Pinnacles so we did this barge. Descended optimistically through oceanic blue water but hit the bottom in about 2m vis. Crept along to the barge and swam twice round it, the second circuit being just as interesting as the first. Highlight was a moray about the size of a pencil which I tempted out with its reflection in the torch.	own Dived from the Fisherman's Wharf boat
538	10 Apr 2011	North Bondi		Sydney	Australia			6	14	14	Iain Hosking, Cameron Hosking		By this time the forecast rain had set in, but not to be discouraged, we entered the water anyway, only to find Cameron had seriously blocked sinuses and couldn't descend, even slowly. Changed in the rain and returned the tanks to Coogee, and managed to navigate back via Moore Park, where a Bulldogs vs St George game had just finished. More gridlock. What a day.	Dryish suit. New TUSA Element II dive computer, 21 lbs, hired 88 cu ft tank (own out of test). Borrowed Deborah's fins.
541	5 Oct 2013	Latitude Rock		Forster	Australia			14	14	14	Iain Hosking		Most of the time spent sitting on the bottom waiting for the others	Dry suit, I think