New Years Day is normally a day when half the country finds it's self laid up in bed nursing a crackin' hang over, however here at Excalibur we do things a little different.

As a dive club that dives all year round it would of been rude not to have taken the opportunity of a day off work to go for a little splash.

With two inches of snow on the ground, five of our hardy band prepared their kit with eager anticipation (or is it trepidation) of what awaits us in the chilly waters of the lake. The one thing we had to keep us warm (at least in though) was the prospect of hot sausage and bacon butties, and a mig of tea, or even a mug of hot choclate with marshmallows. Our carefully selected support team (!) where ready with bbq and cooker to work their magic admist the snow covered car park.

So with the laugther of the site management still ringing in our ears, we kitted up for the mornings bimble. Dave, Paul and Chris where to dive as a three man ice breaking team, and Mathew had the dubious pleasure of both his first drysuit drive and his first cold water dive with me.

After Pete had wrestled Matts fins into submission, we performed our buddy check and headed for the water.

Taking the gentle steps entry, and with fins on... it was time for me to stand back and ask Mathew to dunk his head into the ice cold water. Seems cruel, but better to get his face wet here deliberatley than in the middle of our bimble.

Moving around to the front of the platform to started our decent, with his wife and children watching has he sunk in to the 2 degree water. Once settled we started off on our fun filled dive. At around 4 metres my computer decieded it would be a real good giggle to tell me my depth was 0 meters, so I elected to take us back to the surface to reset the computer, and took the oportunity to move us across to one of the bigger buoys. With the computer reset we decended down the shot line, and then followed one of the marker lines out towards the caravan. After a couple of minutes, a cloud of bubbles appeared around Mathew and he headed for the surface. His first stage was an complete ice ball, and both 2nd stages where freeflowing. Pumping his suit and jacket with air, I then shut down his cylinder and passed him my octo as we started to make our way on the surface back to the entry. Mathew, eager to get back to the bacon butties made a break for it and headed for the jetty like a scalded seal. 

I arrived back at the jetty at a much more leisurely pace, to find him been fitted with Chris's kit. Discretion been the better part of valor, I deceided to let Chris borrow my kit for this dive... the smell of sausage and bacon was too much for me.

As we gorged ourselves on the feast, Chris and Mathew ventured in to Ellertons cold and gloomy depths thus ensuring that Mathew must now hold the record for the longest time in the water on our New Years Day dives. 1 hour and 45 minutes, it's making me cold just thinking about it.

Thanks to Chris for arranging it, and thanks to Tracy, Ruth and Pete for cooking, thanks to Andy for taking 605 pictures  (Check out the gallery for some of them) to ensure everything was covered, and a special thanks to Jason for ensuring the little duckies where fed. 

Happy New Year to everyone. I am looking forward to some crackin' dive trips with your all this year.