Tireless slipped her mooring at 08:40 Zulu and began a surface transit towards the UK’s South Coast Exercise Areas. Once past the Plymouth Breakwater, it became evident that this trip was not going to be one of the smoothest passages on record! The boat dived at 11:20 Zulu, approximately 18 nautical miles south of Plymouth Breakwater in 75m of water. During the dive, the finmounted cameras, looking upwards towards the top of the search periscope, captured dolphins swimming around the mast wells as we descended to around 50 meters. During the time spent underwater, a number of exercises and explanatory talks were given by various crewmembers. These included a simulated Spearfish attack team demonstration, periscope depth navigation activities, listening to dolphins and some very distant trawler activities in the sonar room. At 23:55, Tireless surfaced some 16 nautical miles south of the Breakwater. The original schedule was for Tireless to return to Plymouth Sound, discharge its initial group of “riders” and take a new group onboard. Unfortunately, as the boat approached the southern extremity of Plymouth Sound, local weather reports were not favourable and, as the previous morning’s approach to Delta Buoy had, from a safety perspective, been marginal at best, Tireless’ CO took the decision to abort the transfer and return to the Northernmost boundary of the UK South Coast Exercise Areas, there to conduct a westerly and easterly sailing pattern for the best part of 18 hours. In total, the trip lasted some 34 hours, during which we were submerged for approximately 12 hours and the remainder was spent on the surface, often in “shutdown” conditions, “loitering” in severe gales and extreme sea state conditions and waiting for a window of opportunity to return safely to Plymouth Sound. During slightly calmer conditions (although not that much calmer!), there was an opportunity to spend time on the bridge. Climbing up through the submarine’s fin, stopping about halfway with two members of the sub’s crew in a tiny chamber, to close the hatch into the control room and open the hatch to the bridge was quite an effort for someone of my build! Nevertheless, there is something rather awesome – and very difficult to put into words – about standing on the windswept bridge of a rolling submarine, surrounded by high seas and a backdrop of dark storm clouds. We finally arrived at the Breakwater around 18:00 on 02 December.