31 May 2008 - Malin Head Expedition

BSAC Malin Head Mixed Gas Expedition May 2008

 

A great Trip well planned by Shane Wasik , which came together after meeting the BSAC Expedition Officer on a Dive last November. We managed to get a BEGS Grant for £1000 to subsidise this trip and it was originally intended to be a FCD Exam, but that fell through due to lack of Examiners. We actually struggled to fill this Trip, as people were either off on other Trips, or not Dived up enough, so we managed to get two Irish Mixed Gas Divers to fill spaces on two of the days.

 

The Divers were:-

 

Shane Wasik DO of Heriot Watt, Ross Coventry of Heriot Watt, Stevie and Warren from SQSAC, Paul Haynes BSAC Technical Advisor, and Jeremy Cameron from Deeside SAC.

Brendan and Stewart from Ireland

 

4 Inspiration Rebreathers, 2 AP Visions, 1 Stealth Rebreather and one on Open Circuit.

 

We Dived all the Target Wrecks which was superb and we had flat calm seas and lots of sun, even 30m of plankton bloom didnt damage the Vis at depth, or cut the light, but the plankton did bring some welcome visitors, Basking Sharks and Minke Wales.

 

Basking Shark off Malin Head

(Shane nearly sh*t himself when it swam towards him

 

 

Thursday 29th May RMS Laurentic 44m

 

Friday 30th May RMS Justicia 74m

 

Saturday SS Empire Heritage  70m

 

Sunday 01 June HMS Audacious 64m

 

More when I get some of Shane and Ross's Pictures,

This was serious Diving which worked well on Rebreathers our average runtime were about 90mins, (for a 20-25min bottom time) and i managed all 4 Dives on only 300 litres of Oxygen and about 340 litres of Trimix and 4 Scrubber fills.

Shane who was the only one on Open Circuit used 4 Twinsets ( 2x12L's) of Trimix and 8 x 7L's of Nitrox..a lot of Gas which we spent hours pumping with a booster pump.

 

to put this into context  I started of with two 3litre cylinders full of gas and after 4 deep dives ended up with them still half full...compared to Shanes massive gas costs....Closed CCT is the only way to go these days for Mixed Gas Expeditions.

 

I hope to post more details later...

 

Waiting to Dive the Justicia

(managed my Deepest Dive on the Justicia at 74m - bit of a shock as I thought i was only at 70m,but on checking my vr3 it was 74m. Can only have been when i was recovering the shot from a hole, I must have ended up a bit deeper...!)