Lakeside Dive

"We get up to 10m Vis this time of year" The dive shop assistant told us. Peering over the side into the water it looked more like 6".

Ernie and myself turned up at Lakeside Dive centre to explore their lake on probably the coldest morning of the year so far. Equipped with our drysuits and camera we were going in whatever.

Once kitted up we gently worked our way along the lakeside wall trying not to slip on the ice and flopped back into the mirror calm lake. Ernie suddenly realised that perhaps he hadn't put his weight belt on and started to climb out and then realised he had mmmmm .

Once in we descended to the lake bottom and our first fears about the vis were proved right very dark and very murky we could just about see each other.

We swam around for about 30 mins not really seeing a lot with the exception of a few crayfish which was basically the highlight and occasionally bumping into things such as training platforms. It sort of reminded me of the old Ardingly reservoir training dive days.

I had tajen the video camera but all I managed to film was a greeny brown mess with nothing at all identifiable, so I wont be posting a vid clip but at least the camera didnt leak

Was it worth it? Yes any dive to me is worth the troublen even if it is cold and dark, especially when we still have at least 4-5 months to go before we can enjoy the good conditions at sea again.

With all the inland sites available there is no reason why we cant dive all year round> I feel a weekend trip to Vobster coming on.

ps. we finished the dive about 1.30 Ernie was still be dragged around the Lakeside shopping centre at 5pm. Go for it Sheila!!

Dive stats
Dive time 29 min
Depth 5.7m
Water Temp 7.c
Air Temp 2.c
Vis Max nil- to a very dark and murky 1m
Ernies credit card £ Thousands