One of my early diving memories dates back just over 20 years ago. I was living in Aldershot at the time and my dive buddies and I would often finish work early on Friday and head to Portland for a shore dive off Chesil Beach.
This particular Friday looked promising as the weather was bright and the forecast for the weekend was of more sunshine albeit still a little chilly. My buddies at the time, I'm going to call them Del and Carey - because that was their names, had planned dives for Saturday and Sunday whereas I had other commitments in Weymouth so wouldn't be able to dive the weekend. Nonetheless, the plan was to head to Chesil Beach and get a dive in before the light went.
The journey down was uneventful and the traffic was light as it was still a little too cold to tempt the tourists down. We'd discussed our plan on the Thursday night. Pulling up at the gates at the end of Brandy Row we changed into our undersuits and offloaded our kit before parking the cars and returning. Anyone who's dived Chesil will know how tiring it can be lugging your kit down the beach, and it can be five times more tiring lugging it back up. I love the diving there but those pebbles!
We convened at the water's edge to regain our breath, composure and wait for a suitable point to enter around slack. "It's looking a bit murky" I said. "I'm sure it'll be fine, we've had good weather all week" came Del's response. "Wuss" Carey called as he checked over his kit following the "gentle amble" across the pebbles.
Diving as a three presents it's own challenges and we'd practiced positioning and signals in the pool so felt ready for our first open water trio dive. The time to enter came and we completed the 3 way buddy check before gracefully entering the sea. Anyone that's dived Chesil knows there's virtually no chance of ever entering "gracefully"!
Once out about 30m or so and with sufficient depth below us we started our descent. "It's a bit murky" I thought. Torches went on. "Hmm that's a lot of backscatter" I thought. We reached the bottom at around 6m and I looked to Del - all ok. Looked to Carey - where's Carey? I could just about make out his torch which in those days was a retina burning Kowalski. Nowadays the torches are capable of performing LASIK procedures! This wasn't going to be a great dive. Visibility was half a metre in places and we were going to have to keep tight in order to stay together.
There was still some current albeit gentle and so we were carried on it with only requiring a few kicks to maintain course. Boulders would appear out of the gloom that we would have to navigate around. The second or third boulder we got to must have missed Del's signal. I went one way, Carey and Del went the other. Once, twice, thrice round the boulder, "where did they go"? I stopped, peered into the gloom for a telltale sign of light-sabre or underwater sun in distance from the Kowalski - nothing. I tried to get my bearing to return to the side of the boulder that we'd all been together on but couldn't work it out. With no visibility and no sign of torches there was only one thing to do and that was to start my ascent. I was at around 8m. I didn't have to ascend too far before the visibility lifted but only to around 1-2m max.
At around 6m I could make a dark shape coming towards me. At the edge of visibility it turned and my torch picked out a line of grey and lighter grey (I swear it looked white) but it was so quick I couldn't properly register it. GULP. "You don't get Great White Sharks in Portland" I thought, "Porbeagles, sometimes, not Whites". I was wracking my brain to try and remember whether Porbeagles attacked humans all the while the Jaws theme was playing out in my head. The shape turned, heading towards me. DOUBLE GULP....."oh &@:$!" I thought.
The shape headed towards me. Anyone that dives knows things underwater look 25% bigger and closer. I estimated that this thing was around 4 foot in diameter. "Oh well, likelihood is that it won't like the taste of me" I thought. "That's little consolation when it's taken an arm, leg or some other part of me as an Hors D'oeuvre" another part of my consciousness argued. "Punch it on the nose" my subconscious screamed. A lot goes through your mind in a split second, sometimes your entire life I've read.
The shape continued towards me, I'm going to say slowly but I know this was my adrenalin slowing everything down. It probably came towards me at a pace of around 10mph - retrospect is a wonderful thing!
As it emerged out of the gloom into the range of visibility a part of me wanted to close my eyes but I couldn't. "Hang on" I thought, "That fin isn't right, neither is the nose, pectoral fins are definitely not right". A tiny voice at the back of my head said "You plonker!, It's a dolphin". I breathed a sigh of relief and continued my ascent, all the while the dolphin would circle me, swim off in one direction, return and circle again. I reached the surface and did a 360 degree check to see if I could see any bubbles. About 5m away there were some so I headed over. With my face in the water I could see the heads for Del and Carey at about 2-3m. Del looked up and signaled OK which I returned, and I was trying to remember the sign for dolphin. I settled for two, an inappropriate salute followed by my hand held vertically against my forward simulating a fin. Fortunately Del understood, signaled OK and nodded.
All back on the surface, the dolphin circled us as we swam back to shore. In the shallows it headed off towards some kids who'd started swimming in the water. The three of us exited, de-kitted and then returned to the water to experience joy of Randy the Dolphin. He was a magnificent creature and we were unaware that he'd been busy making national and international news.
A part of me thinks that when he circled me and swam off, he was trying to reunite me with my buddies. They were in the general direction that he kept swimming off in. We spent the best part of 2-3 hours in the water with the dolphin swimming around us. Even with the poor visibility you could sometimes catch a glimpse of him swimming underneath you. There were several marks on the top of his head which I later read were as a result of him hitting props as he followed boats out of St. Malo. The prop wash seemed to attract him and he'd often get too close and hit it leading to some fairly significant scarring.
I later read stories of a dolphin that tried to beach himself on Weymouth beach, I don't know if that was Randy (Georges as he was called in France) or another dolphin. The scarring I saw, the fact that he was alone and the story around the dolphin that tried to beach saddens me when I think about it but nature can be cruel. When I get sad thinking about that I remember this dive and the hours after just watching him and I smile. After we went our separate ways I went back with my partner and her daughter and we sat on Chesil watching Randy with two kids that were still in the water with him. I've got a picture on my bedroom wall of the sun sinking on the horizon and the silhouette of two kids and the dolphin. It's not going to win any photography awards but it always cheers me up when I look at it.
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