Newhaven August 2008 shopping & scuba trip!!  

 As a club our diving requirements are pretty basic, a boat, a skipper and willing divers.Well in the instance of this weekend 2 out of three ain’t bad. Out of 12 divers who made the pilgrimage from the centre of the country to the outland known as ‘Newhaven Scuba centre’ only 4 were willing to force the ‘normally imperturbable Richard’ into skippering the club RIB out into the gentle force 5 that blew steadily from the South West.The remainder of the party electing to ‘go shopping in Brighton’. (Mostly males I hasten to add!!)  

Once the four of us had loaded the boat we headed out to the harbour entrance, amongst regular requests from the ‘normally imperturbable Richard’ of “are you sure you want to go boys?” and “I’m not sure how good the viz will be”. We naturally assured the ‘normally imperturbable Richard’ by repeatedly singing such well loved classics as “rolling along on the crest of the wave”, “two littleboys”, “Hernando’s hideaway” and “trail of the lonesome pine”, until we arrived at the dive site (City of Brisbane). All the while the ‘normally imperturbable Richard’ was noticed at regular intervals shaking his head while repeating almost under his breath, “Fackin’ idiots”. (Obviously a Sussex term of admiration!).

Once the wreck was shotted (right by the boilers we discovered) we kitted up and ‘went for it!’ At the bottom the wreck was perfect 5-8 mtrs viz loads of fish AND we managed to clear the wreck of a very dangerous looking lobster and an equally ferocious looking crab, these were loaded onto the RIB accompanied by more head shaking from the ‘normally imperturbable Richard’ in spite of our assurances of the well being of future divers now being safe from the clutches of these dangerous creatures. 

The trip back to port was uneventful, other than a repeat of the repertoire on the way out but with the addition of the theme from Hawaii five-o, as we were now riding the rollers like a surfboard. The ‘normally imperturbable Richard’ again repeated his repertoire while shaking his head. 

After we had beached for an hour to fill bottles and show off our care for the well being of the local divers, we attempted to con, sorry tempt the ‘normally imperturbable Richard’ to take us back out. He made up some excuse about “deteriorating conditions” and a “worsening front” he even got one of his chums to put out a coastguard gale warning on the transistor radio on the boat. We graciously accepted the compromise and proceeded to get totally arseholed in the nearest hostelry. 

The following day the weather had worsened. The ‘normally imperturbable Richard’ escorted us to the harbour wall where some of his co-horts were observed throwing large buckets of water over the wall from the south west; at this we were reluctantly Coventry bound.