Ok, its here, the new year has begun and it’s time for the first Doing It of 2007 ! With it still being winter time, it was defiantly going to be an Inland Dive Site, and thanks to popular demand The Rez "aka The Underground Reservoir" was chosen. The Rez, in Longsdon, is such a unique site, and one that simply has to be in your Log Book somewhere, that demand for this Doing It diving trip was massive.

 
With a huge group of 28 Doing It’ers jamming the phone lines to all three Scuba + Outdoor Pursuits Centres, to get booked on to visit this great inland dive dite, we actually managed to fill it. So a big thanks to The Rez management, who did actually gave in to us in the end and close the entire day off just for us, (he he he), the power of numbers.  

So at around 8am on a cold but sunny morning the group started to arrive, with a "So Where do we dive ?" look on most of the faces. After about the 27^th time of explaining that “Its Over There – Pointing in the general direction of a large grassy Knoll (Quick Duck – Oh sorry JFK about 40 years too late !), the message seemed to click. This was of course The Rez, aka The Underground Reservoir, so yes it must be “underground” !

Around 8.30am everyone had arrived and it was off to the Cafe for a site briefing by Martin,  the owner of The Rez. We all filled in the relevant paper work then Martin walked us around the site showing us the entry point by the Old Pump House and the exit point at the Service Entry. It was about now that most folks started to realise that Dave wasn’t mad and that the area we would dive in was 40 meters by 20 meters in diameter, with a maximum depth of 2.8 meters, and is in a state of permanent darkness. To further add to the confusion it has 3 baffled walls and around 50 pillars that we would have to navigate around – Wow great just like a big wet adventure playground.  

So with the brief over, it was on with the diving. We split the group into 2 smaller groups, to make sure we all had plenty of space to explore, and once everyone was kitted up each diver descended the ladder to the entry point. Within seconds they were disappearing into the tunnel, that leads into the main chamber and then they were under (literally !) and away. 

As we all made our way around this labyrinth of walls and columns, it was almost impossible to know how deep, and where exactly in this underground maze you were. We all headed around, making our way between the intermittent beams of “Darth Vader” style light shafts, from our fellow Doing It’ers torches. This really was a really strange and exciting sensation, one defiantly to be repeated.  

Then just as soon as we had disappeared into the darkness, we all started to re-emerge back fro the exit point. If the torches were bright whilst we were down there, our smiles were brighter whilst we were on the way out. There was a complete agreement that the environment would be a excellent introduction to night diving and line laying, and was a superb experience.  

We all of course headed back into the darkness a little later in the day, to get our second fix of the “nocturnal” dive experience, before moving off to the cafe to have a cup of tea, and the customary Bacon Sandwich !