Eight Acre Lake

Last weekend was an chance to get in the water again, the first time since may bank holiday and the trip to Eyemouth. I could of gone to Scotland for the weekend but decided that as I was on early's on the Friday before and the Monday after that I would be too tried to get out of bed for work. Instead I opted for a puddle dive. I put a post on the DiveLife forum but got on reply until a regular puddle diving buddy gave me a bell asking where I was think of going. Over the next day we decided to give Eight Acre Lake a bash. It would be 4 years since we last dived there and it had changed hands in that time and reports from the dive forums was that the viz was better than before. With the car loaded it was a matter of a trip down the M62 to North Cave. Eight Acre is the result of quarrying for sand and clay and has a maximum depth 14 metres.
The only item that is under the water from the last visit is a pipe that sits in 4 metres of water. The new owners have added a lynx helicopter and two boats plus some training platforms. The viz on the surface was crystal clear but over by the helicopter in 12 metres you could only see about 1 metre. The good thing about this site is that as its only small the water temp had risen with the hot weather that we have had and on the surface it was 16 degrees C dropping to 13 at the bottom.
Registration forms filled in and photos taken for the membership cards it was time to get the kit together and head for the water. I had put my kit together the night before as i had been changing some hoses and needed to check they were OK. With my drysuit on and twinset on my back Andy (My buddy) and I set off for one of the jetty entries and a giant st raid into the water. Once in the wet stuff we dropped down and headed over to one of the boats. Andy had left the map and bearing chart in the car but on arriving at the first boat I found one half covered in the silt so grabbed it and stuffed it in my drysuit pocket. This was going to be very helpful later on. We then made our way to the second wreck and from there used the bearing chart to find the way to the helicopter. After a look around the helicopter we headed to the the pipe but forgot it was in the shallow water and on hitting the wall from 10 to 3 metres. After swimming along the wall for a couple of minutes we headed up to the 3 metre shelf and swam back in the direction we had come from and found the pipe. After taking a swim through it we headed back to the exit point and out of the water.
It was now time for a spot of lunch and a drink before a second dive. Once we were ready to head back in we just decided to use the gravel entrance in front of the car and walk into the water. We headed back over to the pipe and from there took a compass bearing of 180 degrees or due south. This should of took us to the helicopter but things don't always go to plan and missed it completely and instead stumbled across one of the wrecks. The navigation then went from bad to worst as instead of finding our way out were we wanted to head for we hit the training area on the other side of the quarry and then back to were we started.
All in all in was a good days diving and it was a good try out of my kit ready for the trip to North Wales next weekend.