YO-HANCHA
A ray of sunshine
Yo-Han Cha is finally back in the water and feeling all the better for it , as he relishes the ‘ novelty of normality ’
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sign of how desperate I was to get back to diving was my booking up diving of some sort or another in the first three available weekends we were free to do so . I ’ m not going to lie , the conditions on the first dive out of Weymouth on Tango could have been better . When I say it was one metre viz , I ’ m rounding up !
But the main thing was that we were back scuba diving . My buddy had a great time scalloping , while I tried and failed to take photos . But we were diving and it felt great . All the stresses of life were forgotten , while the current gave us a whistle-stop tour of Lulworth Banks . Visibility aside , it was a beautiful day for it ; the sun was out , there was hardly any wind and Sue Mitchell had brought her most excellent homemade sausage rolls and flapjacks .
I was back diving out of Weymouth on Tango again a couple of weeks later , but this time , rather excitingly , it was for a whole weekend . The visibility , which had been improving , dropped again – but it was just about good enough to see my first spotted ray . My camera had decided to refuse to turn on during that dive ( it just needed its battery taking out and putting back in again , but that ’ s difficult to do during a dive ) but I managed to get a photo of one the next day . There were no sausage rolls that weekend , as I was diving with a different club . But the sun was back out and I enjoyed getting to meet members of my new club in real life rather than just virtually [ Yo-Han has moved again , this time to the Bristol area ].
I decided to stay at home in Bristol after Saturday ’ s diving , so I feel like I ’ ve not had the complete diving weekend experience yet , but I ’ ve loved what I ’ ve been able to get from diving so far . Meeting old friends and making new ones ; feeling the stresses of life lift from my shoulders while I sink below the waves , and the challenge of taking photos underwater – what more could I ask for ? I ’ m going to pre-empt the editor by saying ‘ good viz ’, but , honestly , the lack of it didn ’ t take the shine off going back to doing what I love .
I even found myself relishing doing the tedious menial stuff around diving , such as washing down my dive kit , tasks normally carried out with a reluctant sigh . Photographers might find this blasphemous but I find processing photographs particularly dull and normally put it off continually for ‘ another day ’ but I ’ ve even loved doing that .
That and the tiring long drives home after a dive trip , the stiff muscles on Monday when the alarm goes off far too early for work , the sunburn from forgetting to apply sun cream continually and having to lug my cylinders about to get them refilled . It might just be the novelty of normality , but it ’ s all been amazing and I ’ ve loved every minute of it . �
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