Plan the dive – dive the plan. Unfortunately, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. The enemy, in this case being roadworks covering most of Norfolk.

Despite this 3 members of Lowestoft Sub Aqua Club and an honoured guest travelled to Gildenburgh for the first UK official club dive of the year.

I was a dull cold and drizzly day with the occasional rain shower. The water was 5 degrees with a better than average visibility of 4 metres. But the 4 of us managed to stay underwater for a dive time of 22 minutes. First open water dive for Julie in her drysuit, so we did some drysuit orientation skills followed by a visit to the bus. Did I mention it was cold?

• Divers: Simon, Alex, Julie and Claire
• Max Depth: 14.1 metres
• Dive Time: 22 minutes
• Water temperature: 5 degrees C
• Viz: 4-5 metres
• Dive details: We were the only 4 divers on site joined briefly by an open water swimmer. After some drysuit skills we all went to the double decker bus before returning via the platforms. We saw a couple of crayfish but no perch or pike.

Report from Julie

This was a 4-person dive ( 2 buddy pairs together) in a diver training facility environment. Julie was trying her new drysuit for the first time in open water, Alex was trying to see if his drysuit still fit and getting back into practice after an 8-month dive break, Claire was doing an experience dive and Simon was instructing. All four divers were doing the cold water dive (below 10°) for LSAC Challenge 2022.

The dive was plagued by minor niggles from the outset, with equipment and drysuit issues, dive computer and torch issues, plus it was very cold, so we were later than planned getting into the water.

We finally entered the water by stride in and dived to the 3m platform to acclimatise to the cold water. Julie then did drysuit training, achieving neutral buoyancy and then practising somersaults to move air pockets in her suit.

We then dived down to the bus and Julie & Simon swam through the top of the bus to the other side. We then dived down to the bus entrance and Julie & Simon swam in and up the stairs to the top deck. We exited the bus and met Claire & Alex back at the top.

We had a dive around a bit more to make sure that we dived for at least 22 minutes (Challenge 2022). Claire saw a crayfish but there wasn’t as many fish to be seen as usual, probably due to the cold.

We then slowly surfaced and exited the water. Our hands were numb.

Claire and Alex were not keen on a second dive due to the cold and Julie failed to warm up sufficiently at the surface, so Simon called it a day and no 2^nd dive took place.

J Green