A test dive happened at Rochford Reservoir on Christmas Eve. The divers were testing for various things - water and silt depth, current, visibility, stray fishing line as well as finding the best points for us to place the sculpture parts. The main problem the divers will face in the final dive is that of locating the parts in an environment with low visibility and heavy silting (i.e. it will be difficult to see and find the sculpture parts again.) One of the divers put his arm in the silt - it measured up to his shoulder. We tested the weighting of the sculpture parts – which can’t be too heavy otherwise they won’t be found again. I’m thinking about using old horseshoes as weights (this ties in with the story of the local blacksmith storing his readymade shoes in the bottom of the stream that now feeds the reservoir.) The divers suggested making DIY buoys from old plastic bottles with paint inside - this seems to work well. Ultimately, although enjoyable, I think the experience of exploring the bottom of Rochford Reservoir was probably underwhelming; it was not as deep as envisaged and the visibility was poor.

I’ve never seen a dive before and it was fascinating to watch the group ‘kit-up’ and go through all the pre-dive procedural stuff. Dennis, an eccentric and very gregarious diver (he has a sign reading ‘Road Kill’ on his car) showed me how he used vaseline to help put his water tight wet-suit on. Dennis has volunteered to tutor my trial dive in the local swimming pool – poor guy doesn’t know what he is letting himself in for. Angela is the club video-maker and she took an underwater camera down with her. It is a normal digital video-camera in a metal housing, which looks like an old soviet-style movie camera. Apparently, this is the most water-tight solution for underwater video, with various chambers to keep the water out. I’ve yet to see the video, but I imagine it might look very murky and brown. I don’t mind this effect and like the idea that any video of the bottom of the reservoir will look more like a colour-field than something representational. Interestingly, the water at Rochford Reservoir is the same colour as the strips that run down the sides of this blog. When designing the blog we tried to give it a watery theme and tested lots of different blue colours, none of which seemed ‘right’. So, I settled for this sludge colour.
After the dive we went to a local pub for a yarn and a drink and then everyone left for their respective Christmases.
You can read Debbie’s account of this dive on the Dive Odyssea website.

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