Dotty - 28.11.11

NUF said !!!

2 great Dives with Pete Clark. 1st dive to the tunnel, nice steady decsent before going through the tunnel. Slow ascent with time spent looking at the many attractions in this awesome dive site surfacing on 37 minutes. Great dive, well chilled out. Thoroughly enjoyed - Cheers Pete.

2nd dive to the tunnel. Along the road to 30 mtrs. followed this back along the scree slope back to the last houses and van. Back up the slope to exit point - another 38 minuted dive which was totally chilled out. Awesome day, we had Dotty all to our selves.

Dotty - Simply the Best, Better Than All The Rest...

Like Smudgemeister said,,,,,,,, If Carlsberg did dive sites.................

Wish I could make it on the 4th !!!

Roll on 30 December !!!!

How deep is the tunnel - sounds interesting

Geoff, the first tunnel we did was slightly deeper than 40 metres !!

The second one was at about 22 - 23m.

Both are awsome dives.


If you are going to Dotty this weekend ask Smudge if he would mind showing you around. Dotty really is the best inland dive site the UK has to offer and the Smudgemeister has an excellent knowledge of the site and best areas to go. Enjoy..

Thanks for the info

Need to have a bit more redundancy than my pony to venture that deep.

Will get there eventually - from what I've heard, will need a donkey as well as my pony to get the kit to the waters edge without causing myself an injury

Sounds like a good day Rob, hopefully will join you on the 30th.

Training to 65m at Chepstow this weekend in preparation

Geoff you're right, Cardiac Hill is a beast to walk back up with a full rig and stages strapped to your back. Best done in two trips. The 40m ledge is a reasonably straight forward dive for those with experience of deeper diving. There is a bouyed shot line leading straight to it so a descent down the line saves time and gets you to 40m relatively quickly. The return trip up the line also gves you a reference and trapeze at 5-6m to fizz off before surfacing. This can be dived with a single cylinder and pony as a redundant air source as the NDL at that depth is only 9 minutes you shouldn't really run out of air if your consumption is good. I find the key is to relax on the descent and control your breathing rate.

Everyone I have spoken to about Dotty all have the same opinion about it being the best inland dive site. The diving on offer ranges from 3m - 6m - 9m over a ridge to a road at approx 23m where there is loads to explore with cars, vans, a boat, blasting shelters and a tunnel, you could get a transit van through, leading to another part of the quarry.

The visibility at this time of year is awsome. I reckon on the far side of the 23m tunnel the vis was a good 15m on Monday surface temperature was about 10C with 4C at depth. Although the surface temp is sure to drop over the coming months so best to stay within NDL as long compulsory stops could get uncomfortable.

Doc, lucky you doing your Trimix. That has to be the way forward to further explore Dotty. New Zealand is going to interfere with my dive plans again early next year as I fly back out to Christchurch on 5 Jan for 14 weeks. At least I'll see two summers this year instead of two winters like this year !!!

I can't wait for 30 December now..