This week I have a rant and a story.
The rant goes something like this. I know from my time in Israel that news reports about an incident can vary widely depending on which political bias it is reported from, and accuracy can be somewhat fluid. With a good dollop of cynicism and knowledge of what’s actually going on in various incidents, I know that the variety and fluidity of the news is by no means confined to Israel. However, my eyes have been well and truly opened by the misreporting of a tiny little incident involving two cetaceans off Folkestone harbour. If a little local story like this, fascinating for those of us who were there, but probably quite dull to read about, can be so badly twisted to create sensationalist news, what hope for the ‘big’ stuff?
Which brings me to the story. Some of you know the first part, some may know the middle part, and one or two know the ending, so for completion’s sake, here’s the all of it.
Saturday morning started badly for us, with the dive of the day called off due to force 4 winds. I have an obligation to work one Saturday a month, so I decided to do that instead which seemed much better than working Sunday or part of the Bank Holiday weekend. But, with a heavy dollop of PMT, enthusiasm wasn’t really anywhere in the vicinity of my house. Went shopping out of town on the way into work, failed to find a parking space at work, came home and had a cup of coffee whilst contemplating walking in. Started walking in, boss man phoned, went over this and that while sat on a bench by the river, which was nice. He told me not to bother with the Saturday obligation this month as I’d done more than the requisite hours anyway, which was even nicer. Started ambling towards home when phone rang again.
After 5 months of patiently waiting, I got my first call from the BDMLR. Excitement!
Apparently there was a dolphin caught in nets off Folkestone beach near the Leas Cliffe Hall. Poor thing. Exciting though!
Sprinted home. Jumped in car. Jumped back out, retrieved rescue kit from house. Jumped back in car. Pulled off driveway. Jumped back out leaving car in middle of road. Switched off tumbler dryer, closed windows and locked front door. Took very deep breath. Jumped back in car and took off for Folkestone. Did I mention the excitement?
Got down to Folkestone and parked and found where all the fuss was, locating our Coordinator who was observing with a member of the Coastguard. By the Leas, the long beach starts breaking into smaller bays, and it was in one such bay and the point between it and then next bay that things were happening.
There are nets fifty metres out from the beach or thereabouts, and there was nothing caught in them. With quite a few people watching, in the bay itself, there was a bottlenose dolphin. This dolphin has been popularly named Dave and had been mooching the Folkestone coastline since May (previously he was a resident of the Sussex coastline). Today, Dave was happily strutting his stuff, looking for swimmers to play with and from time to time scaring small children and Dave devotees by surfacing with bunches of kelp around his dorsal. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Dave.
However, reports were mixed as to whether there were one or two animals, so we had to keep Dave under observation and look for the possible second animals. There was no sign of the second from the beach, so two other Marine Mammal Medics as well as myself were bundled into the Coastguard SUV and taken around to the sandy beach the other side of Folkestone Harbour where the RNLI RIB was waiting for us to jump in.
With motorbike style seating and foot hooks, plus one hundred and fifty horses on the back, riding those force four waves was totally excellent fun!
The three RNLI guys were really great, leaving us ladies in charge. Dave was still happily playing in the bay, while we scoured the area for the possible second animal. A second after Dave surfaced in the bay, we spotted another dorsal surfacing off the point. The second dorsal was darker and blunter, and with a lump that was probably kelp, but we weren’t close enough to identify it and it didn’t surface again. Leaving Dave to the beach bound observers, we anchored off the point, switched off the engine and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Time passed.
We waited.
We got one of the RNLI guys to hang over the side and squeak the rubber bottom of the boat it works with Spinner Dolphins!
We waited some more.
And waited.
Dave continued to frolick in the bay.
And waited.
Time passed.
Fish suddenly flew and we got a view of part of a dark head, which could have been anything from seal through dolphin through porpoise chasing them.
Whatever was down there, assuming it was the same animal, which we were unable to confirm, was travelling and feeding and therefore not in distress at this point.
So we waited some more.
And waited.
And waited.
Time passed.
Our big white chief came out with the Chief Medic armed with snorkels. They grid searched the area but found nothing. No evidence of netting, no animal in distress, just a few startled fish.
The decision was made to call it a day. The second animal seemed to be travelling and feeding, and therefore it was not in distress, and trying to catch the thing would have put it in distress.
So with Dave laughing at us, we went back to shore, said goodbye to the RNLI guys and said hello to the police.
The police were there because of fears of too much press turning up. Some press are really good and do as they’re told, behaving themselves. Others do not, forgetting that we’re dealing with wild animals and actually trying to help them, not creating a story specially to go on the front page of the tabloids. I didn’t see any press, but quite frankly, I wasn’t looking.
While we were debriefing with the Coordinator, he told us that the first news reports were out. Apparently Radio Cumbria(?!) had announced that two dolphins caught in nets off Folkestone died today. I’m sure Dave would have had an opinion on that.
Went home and Chris took me out for a lovely Chinese that evening. We went back to Folkestone on Sunday to see Dave, and he was happily mooching off the point.
Now here’s the middle of the story, things that were pointed out to me by some of my friends. (I don’t think what Mark actually said is printable. As for Peter, I think he’s still laughing hysterically.)
BBC version
Sunday Mirrors version
BYM News (Spain)
Monday I took a try diver out for a pootle around the swimming pool in Chatham, which was fun.
Wednesday we went for a night dive at Leybourne lake and I saw a freshwater eel. Perch are also willing to talk with you at night. Probably requesting this diver to go away and let it sleep, but hey, I don’t speak Perch-ese.
Which brings me to Thursday and the conclusion of my little story.
I got called out again. Reports of a cetacean beached at Folkestone, this time at the harbour wall end. Reports again were mixed, from one animal to three I think, with warnings of large crowds of people gathered, and press on their way.
We all had our hearts in our throats hoping it wasn’t Dave.
In total there were eight of us. One Coordinator, six medics and the owner of the fishing store that had been one of those reporting it. No crowds or press this time. It was quite possibly the second animal we’d spotted; and turned out to be a little harbour porpoise, just 1.3 metres long. There was only one animal and it was very dead. We wrapped it up and loaded it to go for autopsy; there was no obvious sign of net damage and no obvious cause of death.
Dave in the meantime was happily performing for somersaults for his audience back up the beach.
An early night was called for, along with much finger and toe crossing for a good diving weekend!
Friday 25 August 2006
Tuesday 8 August 2006
Stuff and nonsense
Last Sunday week we had a dive organised, and once again the night shift, henceforth known collectively as Melowen decided to move the dive to a 5.30am meet at Dover Marina Sunday morning. With part of the collective failing to turn up because of being on the razz the night before, we ended up with three divers who would have preferred to sleep in a bit, and one of the collective.
We went out to The Anglia, the first hospital ship to have sunk due to the mines planted by U-Boats in the 2WW (Chris’ll correct me if I got that wrong!). It was a nice day except for the wind, which was a bit blowy and gave us 2-3 foot waves, but The Anglia is on gravel sea bed, so we went down to have a look. At 30 metres the wreck was in beautifully calm water with up to 6meters visibility. Chris and I pootled away from the shot line (that runs from the wreck up to the surface), me having put some air in my jacket (BCD) to achieve neutral buoyancy. Quite quickly I noticed I was sinking. So I put some more in and was neutral again. But not for very long. Slightly concerned, I filled up my jacket with air until I could feel it pressing against my ribs, and holding onto a piece of the wreck felt the pressure leave along with all the air. Again.
So, signalling Chris that I wanted to return to the surface we headed back to the shot line. Chris finning lightly and gracefully as I trudged heavily, walking along the seabed. Knowing I was carrying too much lead weight in any case, and too heavy to get off the bottom without a lot of hard work, (not to mention unlikely to have held the decompression stop at 6 metres) but having the advantage of integrated weights that could be split into four separate sets, I took one set off and dumped them near the shot line. Now off balance I took its counterpart set out, intending to hold it in hand to maintain balance and control.
Unable to communicate my problem and solution to Chris, he thought he was suffering from Nitrogen Narcosis as from his point of view I was de-kitting for no apparent reason and started rescue procedures. With some wild gesticulation and a spectacular, if inadvertent shot-put style toss of the second lot of weights, I got the point over that I wasn’t narked. Fortunately Chris had presence of mind to pick up the second lot while I pootled to the shot line, and accompanied me up. When my buoyancy started to go positive, I took the weights from Chris and happily sat at 6 meters decompressing for three minutes before ascending to the surface where I gave the weights back to Chris and bobbed on the surface whilst the RIB came and picked us up.
While the other two divers went down, Chris and I handled the boat as the waves increased to three feet. Or rather, Chris handled the boat whilst I leaned over the side and kept a very close eye of the buoy at the top of the shot line. And I do mean a very, very close. The kind of close eye that involves ones breakfast returning to assist. Really, really not my day. The other divers retrieved my abandoned weight pouch, and back ashore we discovered that a valve had simply come loose; easily repaired.
At work, house moving lady who was on holiday advised that actually holiday involved tummy tuck op and she was now signed off for another couple of weeks –sigh-
Had hair done on Thursday. Should have taken a little over an hour and a half. Three and a half hours later… Ugh! Not even that good a a job. At least it was discounted and cheap.
Friday went to Chris’ cousin’s wedding. A two and a half hour journey for which we allowed three and a half hours. Four and a half hours, three accidents (other people), four sets of roadworks, two milk floats and an entire fleet of tourists doing 15 miles an hour later, we skidded sideways into the hotel car park and fell into the wedding service about thirty seconds before the bride arrived.
Lovely service, nice and short, bride and bridesmaids looked gorgeous, followed by champagne. Speeches followed by photo ops followed by food, then cutting cake, disco thingy, random tossing of bouquet from handy Romeo and Juliet balcony, and then it took us two and a hours on the nose to get back home. But then again, I was driving on the way back… :o)
Having rolled into bed at midnight we were up bright eyed and blurry tailed at 0700 Saturday morning to go and set up an exhibition at Chatham Library to promote our Dive Club. The heaving throngs we spent all day fielding consisted of one mentally disabled gentleman and one aqua-phobe who liked the videos and one elderly lady who thought BBC2 ought to do more programs like our video. On the positive side, the librarians were interested and we conned, er, invited them to come try dive. Other people are manning the exhibition for the rest of the week. We got home about 7pm.
Sunday at 7.30 saw us wide asleep and knackered, crawling down to Dover Marina for 0830 in order to get the RIB (henceforth known as Medsac) operational and take her around to St Margaret’s Bay for 0930, ready for the 10.00 dive BBQ. I took the car around to St Margs while Chris and Kev took Medsac around. The first of the divers rocked up around 10.30 and came in a steady flood from there. However, with 12 divers, we needed two RIBs and had arranged for the collective Melowen RIB to come around too. Of which there was no sign. With slack water (the only hour we can dive) at 1pm, we needed to be off the beach at 12. At 12 all the divers decided that they weren’t going to be left behind and piled lots kit plus themselves onto Medsac. At 6 meters long, Medsac is only built for 6 divers with kit. At 12.15 Melowen came sliding into the beach. Rafting up we transferred all the large personnel over to Melowen.
Due to visibility, we ended up back at The Anglia. Melowen by this time was showing signs of intermittently losing power. Had great dive, took pretty pictures which looked a lot better at 30 metres than on the surface, and headed back to St Margs with even loading this time. Medsac wanted very much to play with Norfolk Line ferry, racing to get in front of it.
However Melowen was left behind, stopping and wallowing, so Medsac had to go back for her. But by the time we reached her, Melowen was back underway again. This happened several times. We attempted to radio a couple of times, but Melowen didn’t seem to know what he radio was for. On eventually returning to St Marg’s, it transpired that Melowen’s radio wasn’t switched on, and that at least one of the stops had less to do with engine failure and more to do with a spot of fishing. Please note that we don’t use Melowen; Medsac is club’s boat and Medsac isn’t daft or dangerous.
Medsac anchored up bow onto and just a little out from the rocks off the beach. Melowen, (not asking for permission or anything) tied onto Medsac although stern on to the rocks.
Hungry starving divers went and had very nice BBQ thank you very much. Fully stuffed and busting out of all that tight neoprene we went to check on the RIBs. Laughed a lot at the sight of Melowen see sawing from side to side firmly on the rocks while Medsac bobbed gently slightly beyond them.
Discovered on closer inspection that at some point Melowen had managed to land on top of Medsac, shearing away some of the storage frame and leaving her in the process of slowly sinking. We spectators had much amusement as we watched Melowen being persuaded to come off the rocks while Chris and Kev bailed out Medsac. Soon both boats were ready to travel. Upon starting engines, Medsac purred happily. Melowen did not.
Fortunately, Melowen had an auxiliary engine that gave a whole ten horsepower. That didn’t work either. Eventually the ten horses woke up and the RIBs headed towards Dover. I met them there, and we laughed about the whole day, vowing revenge involving the Melowen collective and a variety of sharp pointy objects.
After a long day at work on Monday, Chris and I went to the leisure centre in Chatham for 8pm in order to spend an entertaining two hours partaking in the BSAC Lifesaver exam. After drowning Judith and Graham, mostly by accident, but maybe a bit on purpose, at 10.45 last night, we were both informed that we passed. Go us.
Now very knackered and looking forward to a good nights sleep.
We went out to The Anglia, the first hospital ship to have sunk due to the mines planted by U-Boats in the 2WW (Chris’ll correct me if I got that wrong!). It was a nice day except for the wind, which was a bit blowy and gave us 2-3 foot waves, but The Anglia is on gravel sea bed, so we went down to have a look. At 30 metres the wreck was in beautifully calm water with up to 6meters visibility. Chris and I pootled away from the shot line (that runs from the wreck up to the surface), me having put some air in my jacket (BCD) to achieve neutral buoyancy. Quite quickly I noticed I was sinking. So I put some more in and was neutral again. But not for very long. Slightly concerned, I filled up my jacket with air until I could feel it pressing against my ribs, and holding onto a piece of the wreck felt the pressure leave along with all the air. Again.
So, signalling Chris that I wanted to return to the surface we headed back to the shot line. Chris finning lightly and gracefully as I trudged heavily, walking along the seabed. Knowing I was carrying too much lead weight in any case, and too heavy to get off the bottom without a lot of hard work, (not to mention unlikely to have held the decompression stop at 6 metres) but having the advantage of integrated weights that could be split into four separate sets, I took one set off and dumped them near the shot line. Now off balance I took its counterpart set out, intending to hold it in hand to maintain balance and control.
Unable to communicate my problem and solution to Chris, he thought he was suffering from Nitrogen Narcosis as from his point of view I was de-kitting for no apparent reason and started rescue procedures. With some wild gesticulation and a spectacular, if inadvertent shot-put style toss of the second lot of weights, I got the point over that I wasn’t narked. Fortunately Chris had presence of mind to pick up the second lot while I pootled to the shot line, and accompanied me up. When my buoyancy started to go positive, I took the weights from Chris and happily sat at 6 meters decompressing for three minutes before ascending to the surface where I gave the weights back to Chris and bobbed on the surface whilst the RIB came and picked us up.
While the other two divers went down, Chris and I handled the boat as the waves increased to three feet. Or rather, Chris handled the boat whilst I leaned over the side and kept a very close eye of the buoy at the top of the shot line. And I do mean a very, very close. The kind of close eye that involves ones breakfast returning to assist. Really, really not my day. The other divers retrieved my abandoned weight pouch, and back ashore we discovered that a valve had simply come loose; easily repaired.
At work, house moving lady who was on holiday advised that actually holiday involved tummy tuck op and she was now signed off for another couple of weeks –sigh-
Had hair done on Thursday. Should have taken a little over an hour and a half. Three and a half hours later… Ugh! Not even that good a a job. At least it was discounted and cheap.
Friday went to Chris’ cousin’s wedding. A two and a half hour journey for which we allowed three and a half hours. Four and a half hours, three accidents (other people), four sets of roadworks, two milk floats and an entire fleet of tourists doing 15 miles an hour later, we skidded sideways into the hotel car park and fell into the wedding service about thirty seconds before the bride arrived.
Lovely service, nice and short, bride and bridesmaids looked gorgeous, followed by champagne. Speeches followed by photo ops followed by food, then cutting cake, disco thingy, random tossing of bouquet from handy Romeo and Juliet balcony, and then it took us two and a hours on the nose to get back home. But then again, I was driving on the way back… :o)
Having rolled into bed at midnight we were up bright eyed and blurry tailed at 0700 Saturday morning to go and set up an exhibition at Chatham Library to promote our Dive Club. The heaving throngs we spent all day fielding consisted of one mentally disabled gentleman and one aqua-phobe who liked the videos and one elderly lady who thought BBC2 ought to do more programs like our video. On the positive side, the librarians were interested and we conned, er, invited them to come try dive. Other people are manning the exhibition for the rest of the week. We got home about 7pm.
Sunday at 7.30 saw us wide asleep and knackered, crawling down to Dover Marina for 0830 in order to get the RIB (henceforth known as Medsac) operational and take her around to St Margaret’s Bay for 0930, ready for the 10.00 dive BBQ. I took the car around to St Margs while Chris and Kev took Medsac around. The first of the divers rocked up around 10.30 and came in a steady flood from there. However, with 12 divers, we needed two RIBs and had arranged for the collective Melowen RIB to come around too. Of which there was no sign. With slack water (the only hour we can dive) at 1pm, we needed to be off the beach at 12. At 12 all the divers decided that they weren’t going to be left behind and piled lots kit plus themselves onto Medsac. At 6 meters long, Medsac is only built for 6 divers with kit. At 12.15 Melowen came sliding into the beach. Rafting up we transferred all the large personnel over to Melowen.
Due to visibility, we ended up back at The Anglia. Melowen by this time was showing signs of intermittently losing power. Had great dive, took pretty pictures which looked a lot better at 30 metres than on the surface, and headed back to St Margs with even loading this time. Medsac wanted very much to play with Norfolk Line ferry, racing to get in front of it.
However Melowen was left behind, stopping and wallowing, so Medsac had to go back for her. But by the time we reached her, Melowen was back underway again. This happened several times. We attempted to radio a couple of times, but Melowen didn’t seem to know what he radio was for. On eventually returning to St Marg’s, it transpired that Melowen’s radio wasn’t switched on, and that at least one of the stops had less to do with engine failure and more to do with a spot of fishing. Please note that we don’t use Melowen; Medsac is club’s boat and Medsac isn’t daft or dangerous.
Medsac anchored up bow onto and just a little out from the rocks off the beach. Melowen, (not asking for permission or anything) tied onto Medsac although stern on to the rocks.
Hungry starving divers went and had very nice BBQ thank you very much. Fully stuffed and busting out of all that tight neoprene we went to check on the RIBs. Laughed a lot at the sight of Melowen see sawing from side to side firmly on the rocks while Medsac bobbed gently slightly beyond them.
Discovered on closer inspection that at some point Melowen had managed to land on top of Medsac, shearing away some of the storage frame and leaving her in the process of slowly sinking. We spectators had much amusement as we watched Melowen being persuaded to come off the rocks while Chris and Kev bailed out Medsac. Soon both boats were ready to travel. Upon starting engines, Medsac purred happily. Melowen did not.
Fortunately, Melowen had an auxiliary engine that gave a whole ten horsepower. That didn’t work either. Eventually the ten horses woke up and the RIBs headed towards Dover. I met them there, and we laughed about the whole day, vowing revenge involving the Melowen collective and a variety of sharp pointy objects.
After a long day at work on Monday, Chris and I went to the leisure centre in Chatham for 8pm in order to spend an entertaining two hours partaking in the BSAC Lifesaver exam. After drowning Judith and Graham, mostly by accident, but maybe a bit on purpose, at 10.45 last night, we were both informed that we passed. Go us.
Now very knackered and looking forward to a good nights sleep.
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