My Trip to Portland - July 2007

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To make sure that Dindin and I were dived up ready for next weekend's Dezzy's Weymouth trip, I organised a weekend's diving with Dive Dorset. Rodney and Olly joined us, but everybody else was diving in the Scillies (we weren't invited).

Friday 6th July

I popped out of the office at about 15:30, to collect the hire car. Fortunately, Gimmer was leaving early, so gave me a lift. As I was driving back to the office, I realise that having a lift from Gimmer had meant that I hadn't bought an emergency Scotch Egg. This was rather worrying! I got back to the office to find that my boss had locked up, and left early, assuming that I'd finished for the day, and wouldn't know that he'd left early!

Anyway, I finished a few things off, and loaded up the car with the cardboard boxes that we had to get rid of. I couldn't bring myself to throw them in the bin, so was going to take them to be recycled at the tip when I got back on Sunday. I popped into Slough Scuba on the way home to get my twin-set and pony cylinder filled. I didn't need my pony cylinder at the weekend, but knew I'd need it sometime to inflate an airbed. There was somebody there buying a new BCD, and a new dry-suit. While Gary was dealing with this bloke, and filling my cylinders, I went to the supermarket next door, to buy an emergency Scotch Egg.

Back at home, I put all my dive kit outside the front door, moved all the cardboard boxes into the hallway, and then loaded all my dive kit into the car. After quickly checking my e-mail, and doing the washing-up, I headed off to Reading to collect Rodney. I had printed off a map from Google Maps, but didn't need it in the end, because I remembered the way from last weekend. It didn't take long to load up Rodney's dive kit (unfortunately, I didn't get introduced to his totty housemates).

We made pretty good time to Weymouth, despite not having a map. When we weren't far away, we got to a roundabout. I was 99% sure that we should turn right, but Rodney saw a sign that said to turn left. He said that he was happy to go with my instinct, but I decided to follow the road sign. We soon began to regret the decision, being slowed down by a white van. I soon saw the road was clear ahead, so overtook the van. As I was overtaking, I saw it said "Police" along the side of it. Oooops!

We came into Weymouth along the road that leads from Swanage, and Kimmerbridge. It's a slow road, but there wasn't much traffic. We eventually arrived at about 21:45. Olly and Dindin immediately came out of the pub, and told us to hurry up and get some food. We put money in the car park machines, and then started discussing where to go. The hotel bar served food until 22:30, but looked a bit skanky. I was convinced that we'd make it to Chesil Cove to check whether the pub there does food, have a quick pint if it didn't, and still make it back to the hotel by 22:30. Having had 7 pints at lunchtime, Dindin had a blackcurrant and soda! The pub had stopped doing food, and we made it back to the hotel by 22:25.

The food was cheap, but it did the job. We knocked back two more pints (Dindin was back on the Stella), before calling it a night. I can remember having a jimmy in the toilets, while standing next to a bloke in shorts and sandals. I really wanted to splash him!

When Dindin and Olly had checked into the room, Dindin had pushed forward, and claimed the double bed. Olly then slowly walked in, and claimed the single bed. It wasn't until then that Dindin realised that claiming the double bed was a bad idea, because it meant sleeping with me! Thanks to Rodney for volunteering to kip on the floor. The Breakwater Hotel didn't start doing breakfast until 07:15, which didn't really fit in well with leaving the harbour at 07:45. Rodney assured us that the Aquasplash cafe opened at 06:30, so I wasn't worried. He did admit that this is based on the fact that it opened at 06:30 when we stayed at Aquasplash two years ago!

Saturday 7th July

Despite protests from Rodney and Olly, Dindin set his alarm for 05:45. It was going to be a long day, but, as usual, it started off with the kettle being switched on. Continuing his training for Scapa, we got Olly to make the tea. I saw him put a whole thing of UHT milk into one cup, so I asked him to only put a tiny bit in mine. He obliged, and mine looked good. The others decided that the teas tasted a bit skanky, and decided that the milk must be off. With very little milk in it, mine didn't taste too bad, so I drank it.

Leaving Rodney putting his contact lenses in, we headed off to have breakfast at Aquasplash. There was a sign saying "Cafe Open", but the sign had been there at midnight. There was no sign of life, so we just started sorting out our dive kit, and keeping an eye open for the tea guvna to arrive. We'd got all our kit on the boat by the time that he arrived. Amusingly, he arrived without a key, so had to ask around until he found somebody who was staying at the hotel to let him in! We had time for tea and toast (Olly and Rodney ruined it with Marmite), before it was time to leave. As we were drinking our tea, there was some nice totty getting changed. I was hoping that she'd be on our boat, and I wasn't disappointed.

With all our kit on the boat, off we went. We were going to dive the Buccaneer. To be honest, I can't remember much about the dive itself, but the skipper, Troy, was a bit of a lad. On the way back, the boys were starting to feel ill. I was the only one of us who felt OK. Back on dry land, none of the boys fancied doing the afternoon dive. It was going to be the M2, and I wasn't going to miss out on the M2, just because Olly had poisoned the others! I didn't really fancy diving it on my own, but didn't want to dive it with people I'd never met before, so I did dive it on my own. The only problem was I didn't have Dindin to kit me up. Fortunately, a bloke who I'd been chatting to on the way out there was very helpful.

Once kitted up, I walked towards the back of the boat, and promptly fell over. Top marks to Troy for hauling me to my feet! Perhaps a twin-set and two stages was a bit over the top for a 35m dive. Anyway, as normal, the M2 didn't disappoint, although it would have been better if Dindin had managed to dive the M2 this time. He seems to have an M2 allergy. Back on shore, the boys were feeling better, and were there to help me carry my kit back up to the car. Let's face it, the sooner I was showered and changed, the sooner we could get to the pub. Before going back to the hotel, I bought a cuppa for the bloke who kindly helped me kit up on the boat.

I'd never had a pint in the Ferrybridge Inn before, Troy had said he'd be in there, and Olly was happy to drive, so off we went. The Midland Bank cash machine was closer to the Ferrybridge Inn than I thought, so we could actually have walked. Anyway, I bought a pint for Troy, to thank him for hauling me to my feet, and we got out before the band started playing.

We went to the pub overlooking Chesil Cove for a bite to eat. The food is always pretty good, and there is always totty serving there. The food tasted even better when Dindin, Rodney, and I nicked half of Olly's starter while he was getting cutlery for us. Aren't we nice?

I fancied another pint, and the others fancied a cuppa, so we went off in search of somewhere to buy milk. The Texaco garage was closed, but I told Olly that if he turned left at the end of the road, and then followed the road around to the right, there would be an Esso garage on the left hand side. The others didn't believe me, but Olly followed my directions, and there is was, with an open Tesco Express. Job done. Stella, and milk! Back in the room, we exchanged pictures between phones (and the video of Claire, of course). I Bluejacked somebody in the next room, and asked them to make us tea. I'm sure that went down well!

Sunday 8th July

We weren't leaving until after midday, so had plenty of tea drinking time, including checking out DIR Training Girl. During breakfast, Olly admitted that he had wondered whether yesterday morning's milk should have been lumpy, or not! He got jip for that, don't you worry. Eventually, we had to stop drinking tea, and perving at the waitress, so that we could check out in time. Rodney followed my advice, and used the communal toilets, so that he didn't stink our room out. Unfortunately, my bowels moved a bit too quickly, and I had to use the room's toilet. The boys soon disappeared, and waited for me outside! Before locking the room, I spent ages looking for my cap, but couldn't find it. I gave up, only to see it on the balcony - top marks to the totty waitress.

As we were having lunch, I looked over towards the filling station, and was pleased to see some totty lubing herself up with sun cream. Oh how I love being an old perve! There was also some sexy totty with some nice blue sandle things. Anyway, it was time to get on the boat. We were diving the James Fennel. It wasn't a particularly exciting dive, but we had a giggle. There were some DIR boys on the boat (no DIR Training Girl, unfortunately). When we saw them underwater, I really wanted to untie their bottom line, but Dindin didn't understand what I was saying.

Olly and Rodders were last back on the boat, and Troy started speeding back to the harbour before Olly had even sat down. It took a while for us to tie his kit on while we were bouncing up and down. As you can imagine, we were less than impressed. Troy seems to like people complaining about him on the Yorkshire Divers forums - maybe we'll have to add to the complaints.

Dindin and I then went around to Old Harbour Divers to sort out our trimix fills for next weekend. We'd agreed that we could leave our sets there, and collect them on Friday. One of my valves was falling apart, so Nigel kindly offered to fix it during the week. While we were chatting, I got a text message from Rodney - "Stop eating ice cream and get a chop on!", it said. The cheek of it, although he did have a point - we were eating ice cream at the time.

The traffic out of Weymouth was really busy, so I decided to take a short-cut. Rodney didn't sound convinced, and we did go along some really narrow roads, but we got out onto the main road eventually. I have to admit that I did begin to doubt myself at times!

I didn't get back in time to take all the cardboard to the tip, so had to keep it in the living room instead.

Thanks for a top weekend.

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