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Location: Swanage, Dorset
Boat/Skipper: Smooth Hound, Divers Down
Divers: Phil (organiser), Mayte, Sally, Dale, Chris, Adrian, Ben, plus the non-Divers: Lee-Ann, Brian, Fiona, Sebastian and Alex

Given that Easter's planned trip to Plymouth was cancelled, a plan to dive Swanage a few weekends later was hatched, as some diving up would be required before Newquay, the next trip in the Dive Plan. The weekend before, it didn't look like such a good idea, as little diving took place on the Saturday and none on the Sunday. Still, with fingers crossed, the majority of the optimistic fools met up in the Swanage Coastal Park on Friday night.

Saturday 5 April. The weather was nice, with a reasonable northerly breeze, so we headed off to the Pier for opening time at 0800. To my amazement, we were in a queue of 10 or more cars when we arrived. After the folks who ran the Pier had done their safety checks, we parked and immediately ran for the Cafe for breakfast. After that, the inevitable early season pre-dive faff started, laced with gossip. Mayte, Sebastian and Alex set off for the railway and Corfe Castle, while the hardened divers of 380 set off on Smooth Hound for the Kyarra. Stories differ, as Ben and Adrian claim to have dived the wreck, but I insist that it wasn't there. Whatever, the lights went out at about 15m in a pretty strong current and Chris and I decided to bin the dive when we had got to 28m and couldn't see a thing. It was the first time I had ever used the backlight on the Inspiration in anger, it was so dark. Chris removed my doubts about his mastery of the isolator valve by rescuing a poor soul caught up in the shotline and we headed for home. http://www.divernet.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?id=1681&sc=1026&ac=d&an=1681:Wreck+Tour:+47,+The+Kyarra

Later that afternoon, we tried our luck on the Fleur. She is more sheltered and a lot shallower, so we were actually able to see something. However, that wasn't enough for us to make sure we stayed with the same buddy - I'm pretty sure I dived with everyone on the boat at some time during the short dive, after also misidentifying Ben's fin as some kind of marker for the shotline. However, I made it back to the line with Chris, which meant that honour was satisfied. http://www.divernet.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?id=5101&sc=7&ac=d

While we were dekitting, Mayte and the boys returned after a fun day at Corfe and on the Swanage Railway. Apparently, Alex had made a last ditch attempt to join us diving by falling into a large hole on the beach and soaking himself thoroughly. The day ended with a Chinese.

Sunday 6 April. The day dawned much as Saturday had done, with the exception of a fresher breeze. This time, we were right at the front of the queue for the Pier - clearly the locals knew something we didn't. While we were waiting to park, the weather went from a fairly mild wind and modest waves to about Force 4. By the time we made it into the Cafe for breakfast, it was easily Force 6, accompanied by sleet. During breakfast, as it degenerated further into Force 6 and snow, it became clear that we weren't going diving. Back at Diver's Down, the skipper left it to the divers to make the call, so Chris deployed his best lobbying techniques and persuaded everyone to bin the day. That then left us with the rest of the day to burn, so with the exception of Sally, who headed off to explore the New Forest, the rest of us went to the Weymouth Sea Life centre. A good time was had by all, though the entry charges dispelled the idea that diving to see fish is the expensive option!!

Thanks again to all the mad optimists who took the chance to snatch a weekend's sea diving out of the early season - we were 50% successful and everyone seemed to have a good time.