Deco stop

This morning we headed north from Ballycastle to Rathlin Island. Rathlin Wall is legendary in diving circles. A sheer drop of 200m to the seabed, and a wall covered in colourful anemones. We settled for 45m - we being me and 2 rebreather divers.

The vis wasn't brilliant and diving in a three is never the best, but it was a pleasant dive all the same. I checked my stage cylinder, just as we hit 45m, to find an o-ring had blown and the gas was escaping. I started to ascend accompanied by B & J, who looked very smug on their rebreathers. After a lot of faff, I ascended on my own, leaving them to enjoy the rest of their dive. This is my 7m stop, I was watching out for swimming seabirds, but none came by.

This afternoon we headed west to the wreck of the mine-layer "William Manell". I remember this as a fantastic dive on our last trip, but this time we hit a massive plankton bloom. The number of cells in the water cut out all the light on the wreck - making it more like diving the Clyde :(