Stoney Dash

Just in case you were stuck indoors or at work on Wednesday I would like to confirm that it was a perfect summers day and I had the good fortune of having arranged a day off for a mad dash to Stoney.

Mad for me because I had underestimated how much longer the journey would be going via Colchester. I understand it was mad for Amanda, James and Katie who managed to set alight to Amanda's car on the return journey. This was due to a cigarette being blown from an open window, where it was being smoked by James, under the front seats. The intrepid team have now learnt that Orange Squash can also be used as an extinguisher.

Up at Stoney the weather could simply not have been better and that meant it was ideal for both rescue and photography. Being midweek it also meant that Stoney was blissfully quiet. I don't manage to do midweek diving enough as it is often difficult to find a buddy willing to go. Having an excuse of a course to run works for me.

Katie benefited from one on one instruction through her rescue while still having plenty of people to work with in her team. It did put the pressure on her as she had no where to hide on any of the scenarios.

Everything went really well apart from the exuberant thespian efforts of Amanda during the panicked diver on the surface routine. It seemed that she was playing to the audience in the pub and at least one person ran to the dockside shouting instructions to "inflate your BCD". Quieter next time please.

Practising the missing diver searches in the pool paid massive dividends when it came to finding Kelly and James near the Blockhouse. Kelly had been off practising his photography and fortunately found the resident Pike along the back wall before Katie came along and executed a perfect lift.

I have to say despite relatively poor visibility this was an incredibly relaxing day topped of with a few beers overlooking the quarry and seeing Stoney at it's very best in the warm evening twilight.