lungs and then repeated the laborious process of breathing out and into my ABLJ mouthpiece - giving it a bit more buoyancy. (In the following years this laborious process, something of an art form at the time, was ended when a direct feed whip for air was introduced which ran from the 1st stage straight into the ABLJ. Then, at the touch of a button, air could be bled directly into the ABLJ without having to remove your regulator from your mouth.)
After repeating this process a couple of times, I felt myself lift slightly as I breathed in, and sink slightly as I breathed out. I had achieved neutral buoyancy and it was time to head off on the dive.
Colin had a wrist mounted dive compass and had taken a bearing for our route from the shore. Whilst sorting out my buoyancy I had ignored my underwater bearings and not having acquired a compass as yet, had no idea of which way to go. Colin checked his compass, got our course and gestured for me to follow. We were off.
We swam over to the spur of rocks, which had assumed a totally new perspective. Now there was a wall of rock that ran all the way from the seabed up to the surface. It was an underwater cliff face and I was at once mesmerised by everything that could be found on this cliff face. In the nooks and crannies, crabs and squat lobsters hid. Large fronds of kelp drifted up from their fixings on rocky outcrops. Anemones and sponges competed for space. Large starfish lay on the bottom and fish drifted in and out of my vision. I was completely spellbound and followed Colin as we moved along the seabed beside the wall out into deeper water.
As we moved deeper I could sense my surroundings getting a bit darker and could feel the cold of the water more. I realised that even at this shallow depth, the weight of water above me was compressing my wet suit causing it to lose some of its thermal protection. Every now and then as I went deeper I felt a pressure increase in my ears and had to remember to pinch my nose with my fingers and ‘pop’ my ears, as you do on a plane, to equalise the pressure and relieve the pain.
Once we had swum out for about 20 minutes, Colin paused and took a new bearing on his compass at right angles to our previous path. We then headed off in that direction for 5 minutes before he reset his compass to take us on a return bearing back to the shore.
I arrived back in shallow water after some 45 minutes inwater and having got to a depth of about 15 metres. I had thoroughly enjoyed my first shore dive and the world of sea diving had been opened up to me.
The following week it was time for another first, my first boat dive. As with my first sea dive I simply had no idea what to expect when I eventually would roll off the side of a dive boat.
We arrived at Portsoy harbour and launched a battered old grey Zodiac inflatable. I watched, as if a spectator, as the old hands readied the boat for sea. Everyone except me seemed to know what had to be done. It was like a ritualistic occult practice. No one seemed to be giving any orders – they all just seemed to know somehow what to do, as if following some secret code unknown to me.
There were 6 divers diving off the boat that day and all the divers’ tanks, weight belts, fins and other gear had to be loaded in the boat as it was tied up alongside the pier. The engine, an old Johnston 35 hp was on tilt, its propeller out of the water.
Once all the kit was in, all of us jumped aboard and the engine was taken off tilt and the propeller and shaft was lowered down into the water. A few pumps of the fuel bulb and several pulls on the ‘pull’ start and the engine roared into life in a cloud of blue smoke.
The painter, the bow mooring line, was untied and the Zodiac moved ahead. We motored towards the harbour entrance and as we did, a gnawing apprehension start to work on me subliminally. I had no idea whether I should be scared - I didn’t know what there was to be scared off - but apprehension there definitely was. I suppose it was really just a fear of the unknown that was getting to me. I was about to go offshore and dive into deep water - where there was no prospect of swimming back to shore if things went wrong.
The old hands chatted loudly above the roar of the outboard engine and there was a lot of manly banter. These guys didn’t seem apprehensive at all - but I couldn’t help thinking that this was a dangerous place to be going. It was one thing to do a dive from the shore – it was something totally different to head out into far deeper water offshore.
We surged out of the harbour and throttled up. The boat pushed at its bow wave, driving a mass of water before it - we were heavy in the water with all these divers and their kit and the cox got us to clamber forward over the gear bags towards the bow.
The Zodiac got up to about 9 knots, pushing at its bow wave. Then, it seemed to conquer it - and rode up and over its bow wave. We were on the plane, and immediately our speed leapt up by 10 knots, to between 15-20 knots. The cox then got us to return to our seats on the Zodiac’s side tubes (called sponsons) near the stern and throttled back as far as possible. He skillfully kept the Zodiac up on the plane, conserving fuel – maximum speed for minimum fuel.
We roared along, bouncing from wave to wave, battered by wind and spray. With each impact onto a wave I was bounced upwards by the sponson I was sitting on, holding on for grim life with both hands to the lifelines along the top of the sponson. At the same time I tried to wedge and secure my feet under heavy pieces of dive gear on the floor.
We headed out until we got into deeper water about ½ -1 mile offshore. The boat didn’t have an echo sounder - they had not become popular and cheap in those days, as they are now so we didn’t know what depth of water was beneath us.
After a short journey of 10-15 minutes out, the cox throttled back on the outboard tiller. We slowed and then the Zodiac dropped off the plane and wallowed to a halt before the pursuing wake caught up with us. The cox had the anchor ready and threw it over the side. We made an educated guess as to the depth we were in from the amount of anchor rope we had paid out.
Once the anchor had snagged on something on the seabed the wind blew us round so that we were head into the wind and waves. We now started getting kitted up and I soon noticed that the slow wallowing action of the stationary boat started to affect some of the divers – even the hard looking guys in beards. One was sick over the side and one or two others started going a bit greenish/grey. I felt quite fine and, as if in some coming of age ritual, it made me feel as though perhaps I had the bottle for this after all.
My ABLJ went on, then my weight belt, then my air tank and harness, fins, and mask. I was soon ready and sitting all kitted up on the side tube of the Zodiac.
I was to be diving with Colin Rivers again - who had taken me on my first ever sea dive the previous week. We sat opposite each other and went through the standard buddy checks on each other’s gear.
“Are you ready?” he enquired staring straight at me.
“Yes” I said hesitantly. I was on the brink of diving into deep water, and the gnawing apprehension I had felt at the harbour, which I had momentarily forgotten about as people got sea sick, came flooding back.
“OK – let’s get going” he said. Slapping his regulator in his mouth and holding it and his facemask in place with one hand, he deftly rolled backwards off one side of the boat. I copied him and did my first back roll off a dive boat – splashing backwards into the water.
As my weighted mass hit the water, it erupted in a confusion of bubbles and white froth. Almost immediately the white foam of bubbles from my entry disappeared and I thrashed my legs and arms around to get myself upright from my upside down entry position.
I looked downwards and was surprised that I could not see the seabed below. I could see nothing below but empty
