Trip Report - Portland for everyone!

See the Portland For Everyone Photo Gallery!

The idea of the Portland trip was to get some of our newly qualified sports divers into the sea to show them how fantastic UK sea diving can be. I started off thinking that a group of 12 was the obvious number to take and hunting around I found that Breakwater diving did shuttle runs out of Portland to the shallow wrecks in the area. Then I realised that they had several boats and that I could give even more people the chance to go diving and that I might as well take 24 people.

I then set about looking for accommodation and found the youth hostel was available. It turned out we could have the whole place for the weekend and as it had 28 beds I thought I might as well find another boat and increase the numbers once more.

I have begun with this because I feel like I need to justify why I decided to organise something that could have potentially been so horribly complicated! As it turned out it was a piece of cake!

Due to Ed Tuplin having to drop out at the last minute it was 19.00 on Friday evening and the trip still wasn't full. We were driving the kit van past Bristol when we decided that we should give Kirsty a ring and see if she fancied coming along. To our surprise she did, so we arranged for Ed Child to make an additional detour and he picked her up an hour later - now that's what I call spontaneity.

As people finally arrived at the youth hostel we dished out beds, had some fish and chips and then finally all convened in the pub where we briefed for the following day.

Day 1

We were boat diving on day 1 and as there were so many of us we had to dive in groups. My group drew the short straw of the 7am first dive and we went out to dive the James Fennel. It was a really nice dive, an easy pootle round wreckage and plenty of life. Exactly what I'd hope we'd get. The boat was great too, although I do feel a little concerned that those people doing their first UK boat dives will expect lifts on every boat they dive from.

By the time we arrived back at shore group 2 had headed out to dive the Countess and the third group were getting ready to go out with Fathom and Blue. (I shall ignore the incident with the car boot...) We had a nice break for lunch and then the various groups did their second dives, some on the Dredger, some a drift on Lulworth banks and some others did the Countess. I certainly had a good dive despite the mouthpiece coming off my reg. Alice managed to rip her neck seal while kitting up so she got two trips on the boat in the afternoon; the first time to marshal and the second to actually get a dive.

Once all the cylinders were in the shop for filling we went for a refreshing beverage while we waited for the last divers of the day to return. This seemed to take a while so I walked back to the youth hostel to put the potatoes in the oven and promised to come back for the van later.

Having showered and concocted several vats of chilli - I'd promised Ed chilli after his disappointment on the mop-up weekend - I picked the van up and told all the reprobates in the pub to be back in 30 minutes or their dinner would be in the dog.... Luckily they made it back in time.

We then headed out to spend the evening in the skittle alley of the nearby pub. As the evening wore on the bar staff got increasing drunk and increasingly scary, so finally we headed home for a nutritious supper of chilli and jaffa cakes.

Day 2

The next day was shore diving from Chesil beach and I had an easy day as Janet was organising things as part of her dive leader. Everything went smoothly although a lift up the beach would have been nice. I had a couple of very nice dives especially the first one when I saw my first ever cuttle fish and he played with Kirsty and I for ages. Team Extreme excelled themselves with the longest surface swim of the day!

Dave and Ed then spent the rest of the morning ferrying tanks to the dive shop. I should really thank them for their help with this, but as it was really just an excuse to go to the café for breakfast I don't think I will.

Due to the efficient organisation everyone had two dives done by lunchtime so we loaded all the kit back into the van - not an easy task when there's a big wall between us and the van - and headed off on the long journey back up north.

I had a great weekend and I hope everyone else did too. I'd like to think that we've opened some people's eyes to the wonder of UK diving and also reminded other people that just because a dive is at less than 20m it doesn't mean you aren't going to enjoy it!

I have to say thank you to everyone that helped with running things while we were there because there is no way I could have done it on my own. Special thanks go to Chopper, Paul, Kirk, Helen, Dave, Beast and Janet. Also thanks to everyone for doing what you were asked when you were asked, it made things run far more smoothly than I ever could have hoped.

Anyway, I'll be up for a few more pootles in Portland, so maybe we should do the same thing again next year. Now how many boats are there in total running out of the Portland...?