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With a limited window of opportunity to dive HMS Hampshire, spending a full day diving in the Flow with a group of such experienced divers, some of whom were technical diving instructor trainers and examiners, may have appeared unnecessary. But we felt that a group of divers is not necessarily a team – and the safe and efficient running of the expedition would be reliant on everyone aboard knowing their roles and responsibilities, the safety procedures and emergency protocols. The only way of truly confirming the operational viability of any procedure is to run through it in practice in the form of a real-time dress rehearsal. By the end of the day, everyone agreed that it was only at that point that we were collectively prepared and ready to turn west into the open Atlantic and safely start the expedition proper.

With the shakedown dives now safely behind us, we met again that night and I ran over what I knew about the ship from a historical perspective and what I knew about the wreck from my own knowledge gained from diving it a number of times 15–20 years previously, before it was closed off to divers.