Trip Report 

Wraysbury Lake - 13 Nov 05 
By Ben Furlong

After a relatively uneventful start to the day Pablo, Jamie and I left a surprisingly quiet M25 and turned onto the road headed for Wraysbury. Jamie had positioned himself in the front of the car adamant that he knew the way after his one previous experience getting there from an opposite direction. Anyway after Jamie’s bold statement that the entrance was on the right and that the lake to our right was obviously Wraysbury his face fell a little when Pablo drove past it. However Jamie now assumed simply (as he does all things, simply!) that we must be on the wrong side of the lake. His fell further when he spotted the entrance on the left of the road nowhere near the aforementioned lake. To say the least Pablo and I struggled to contain our merriment, IN YOUR FACE JAMIE!!!

Everyone soon turned up after we did at about 8.45, except Stu who ended up getting lost in Wraysbury for half an hour. After the obligatory bacon and sausage sarnie and a quick peruse around the site we all got down to preparing kit and dive plans. Interestingly the only map of the lake was a scraggy bit of paper with most of the labels worn off. However, as we were to soon find bearings and the map were pretty useless anyway. Also much to a few peoples horror, the toilet facilities turned out to be portaloos, I never dared enter the changing rooms myself so anyone interested had better ask Pablo, Jim or Jodie.

The first dive consisted of all the buddy pairs diving together. Stu and I were the first ones in. As we descended everything seemed fine. It was slightly silty but nothing to bad. As we followed the bearing to the bus things got worse. We managed to find the bus which was relatively interesting although it was covered in DO NOT ENTER signs. From the bus we took the second bearing and missed the target having to turn around and head back for the bus, instead we hit upon a large container and random assortment of metal chunks, form which we found the bus again. After leaving the bus for a second time the silt by now had been seriously disturbed and the vis was almost intolerable. After swimming toward our next target attempting to avoid the silt channels left by other divers we decided to head back.

On the surface we were glad to hear that everyone else had an equally blind dive, although Doug had managed to find everything in the lake without a compass or looking at the map (evil mutterings!!). To cheer everyone up though we all played in the water like schoolgirls!!

The second dive was equally exciting and Stu and I managed to uncover the milk float and the dive boat, which I found with my head whilst I was looking at my compass. Quite wisely Jim and Jodie decided to simply play on the side and Jim began taking numerous amusing photos of people not looking. Doug then leaped into be Jamie’s casualty for sports diver rescue and played a very convincing unconscious person. Thankfully for Doug, Jodie was not on hand to administer O2 in her own unique way, ay Jodie ;-). 

After the hard days diving we all began to pack up and get ready to head home, but obviously not before a special show from myself!!

Congratulations to Jamie for passing his SO1 and organising the trip (although mercifully he didn’t give everyone directions, left and right are to very different directions Jamie!). And of course many thanks to Luke and Karim for looking after the kiddies.