> *Phew*
>
> I go away for a long weekend to improve my Scuba qualifications and it all goes off!
>
> I recently qualified through PADI as a basic open water scuba diver and went away for a few days to do the advanced course.
>
> I went to a place in England called Stoney Cove. I would post a link, but they don't have a website! It's a former quarry that's been flooded and filled with various wrecks to explore. There's a old Sea-king style helicopter, a bus, a cessna light airplane and a tugboat for starters. I crawled all over the wrecks and thoroughly enjoyed myself even if it was a bit cold. I was very glad of my dry-suit.

Wow, there seem to be a lot of scuba divers hanging around this forum now. I've heard how flooded quarries are popular dive sites in the UK, and I think I've heard of Stoney Cove (I used to read a lot of overseas dive magazines in a previous job). What's the visibility like in a quarry?

I did my open water course at Goat Island Marine Reserve, a little bit north of Auckland. It was infuriating. I'd been there snorkelling several times, and the water had been lovely and clear, with big fish all over the place. I was looking forward to doing the dive course there and seeing more of the area. Nah. Our dive course picked the *wrong* day to go. The water was choppy enough to make me queasy, and when we got to the bottom, the visibility was about zero. It was like diving in soup. Plus there was a *strong* current ripping through, so we had to do our buoyancy tests, mask clears etc while clinging frantically to seaweed so we didn't disappear into the distance the instant we let go.

I knew how cool diving *could* be, since I worked for a diving magazine, but I often wonder how many people on the course ever continued after that first experience of it.