Run by Sara Hasan and Mark Beatie-Edwards the course was designed by the British Sub-Aqua Club in conjunction with the NAS to help give an introduction to wrecks to sports divers and expand the knowledge of those who have been diving for a while.
Saturday morning gave us a chance to learn some of the theory on what, as divers, we should be looking for on the sea bed. Some of the information was familiar such as boiler identification while other bits were new like what different hull plating fixing methods could mean for wreck identification and orientation (rivets and welds).
Sara also took the opportunity to give us the benefit of her wreck and cave diving experience in a discussion on diving equipment and techniques.
Then it was down the road to meet up with the boat, Sabre from the Scimitar diving fleet, for our first dive to acquaint ourselves with the chosen wreck and try and identify features from the mornings lessons.
After a quick bite to eat it was back in the classroom to review, compare and contrast the recollections and records of the ten students and see if we'd correctly identified the constituent parts.
This was also the moment to demonstrate our drawing skills (or lack of them).
Two more sessions on locating diveable wrecks and on kit configuration rounded out the first days lectures.
Those of us staying in and around Portland made good use of the local watering hole, the Cove House Inn, for a something to eat accompanied with some surreal conversations on Ken and Barbie dolls, eye sucking vegetables and the relative merits of Jellybabies against Jellyatrics! I leave it to you to decide what Mark was doing with his drink...
Next morning it was straight back into it with a dry practice on surveying techniques and then a quick workshop on laying distance lines. Sara gave us the benefit of her 'enthusiasm' and 'expertise' on marine life.
Our second dive followed with each buddy pair tasked to survey a specific portion of the targeted ship. Several dropped slates, a broken tape measure and a leaky drysuit later we'd all successfully managed to obtain the data needed to try drawing up a scale representation of our area of investigation after lunch.
Before pulling out the scale rules and set squares, there was a brief introduction to wreck laws and their impact. Although covered in the NAS introduction course it was a useful refresher for me.
Once the technical drawing was completed and our results compared (some having had more success than others) the day was done.
Overall a great course for new divers or divers just getting into wreck diving and a useful was of formalising and expanding the knowledge of even the most experienced divers on the course.
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