Wednesday morning was cold, dark and wet. Ideal conditions for diving at Stoney.
We approached the entrance at 9.15 to be faced with queues of traffic on both sides of the road. This was not looking promising. We didn’t relish walking from the top car park. Several ‘phone calls passed between those of us in the queues. Daren was near the front, Ian, behind us decided not to wait any longer. As it happened, just after Ian left, the queues disappeared and we were directed to the bottom car park. We were a motley bunch of 6 decrepit divers and spectators with various stages of colds, infections (Kevin) and bad backs (Jim) between us, however, we were in good humour and it’s always interesting to watch the goings on at Stoney, particularly of those disorganised groups that wear snorkels.

Garry, Daren and Joe did the first dive, not knowing whether they’d make it past 6 metres due to sinus and ear problems however they did the well trodden route of road, wall, Stanegarth etc. Garry recovered a penny which will go towards his next entry fee but dropped it between some stones. As he ripped the stones away to retrieve it he disturbed 2 cray fish which swam off in different directions. They were the only fish life spotted during the day. 7 degrees must be too cold for fish, they were snuggled away somewhere in the warm. Joe left after one dive saying he had shopping to do for his missus. Daren put on a warmer undersuit, Garry put on some new gloves because his dry gloves leaked and they went in for their second dip.

Since both of them were using cold water regs there were no free flows from them although there were plenty going off around us. Après dive we retired to Nemo’s where, worryingly, Ray the barman knew what we wanted before we asked him and complained that our food order was always the same. New Year’s resolution, order chips with the pasty.