Derek’s Dive Domain

Well the weekend finally arrived and I met up with Sue and Frankie to travel down to Plymouth. We made pretty good time down the motorways considering we had a caravan in tow, and made it to the campsite by late afternoon/early evening, and pitched the tent and got settled in. I’m diving Plymouth in the sea for the first time in 10 years, and if all goes well I will be doing a dive 12 years in the waiting, and finally diving the James Eagan Lane, which is a wreck I have always wanted to do ever since I learnt to dive at Fort Bovisand back in 1994.

We are a group of 12 for the weekend, and have fully booked the Maid Maggie II, Glen Lindsay’s boat, and in addition, we are meeting up with Paul, Kirstie and Gareth from YD who are doing some shore diving.

After a meal and a couple of welcoming pints its back to the campsite to get a good nights sleep before the weekend really begins. After a decent night, Frankie knocks up one of his special breakfasts in the caravan, and then we chuck all the gear into the car and head off down to the boat. We stow everything on board, but Glen says it isn’t looking good. Everyone arrives, and we decide to head on out and see what it is like out at the breakwater, and then make a call from there. When we arrive at the breakwater, it is clear that nothing is going outside today as its looking pretty rough out there, so we decide to join the masses of divers diving around the relative shelter of the round fort building itself. If I said it was like the recent advert on television, where there are divers everywhere, landing on top of each other as they get in from boats etc, it would not be an understatement. This is obviously the only diveable site in the area this morning. We get in and try and make the best of it, but we are getting buffeted around in only a couple of metres of viz, and there really isn’t anything to see in the spot we are in, so after 14 minutes, we decide to head upwards. We actually surface after 22 minutes, as we did a bit of faffing about in the meantime, and give up on the dive. Not a good start to the weekend, but I guess it has actually worked in my favour in a way as it has gotten me back into salt water, and allowed me to do some semblence of a weight check without causing problems and delays for other divers.
Dive 1 of the weekend (82) 11.9 metres max, total dive time 22 minutes

So, once everyone is back on the boat, we have a chat and decide to give up on the days diving, so we return to port, and set about stocking up on stuff for the BBQ. No sooner do we arrive back at the campsite but the heavens open, so we spend the rest of the day kicking around the caravan, but we have the BBQ anyway with Frank cooking under a large umbrella. I think the rest of the campsite wondered what on earth was going on!

The following morning dawns quite a bit better weatherwise than Saturday had, so after another Frankie special, we head back to the boat, and it appears that its all systems go to try and get out to the two dives that we should have done on the Saturday. We head out into the Sound and all is looking better, so we continue on to the first dive site, the Scylla. Its getting pretty lurchy on the boat and several people are feeling rough, from what people were saying, it was only just diveable, but I don’t know better, only having ever done a handful of boat dives on flat seas 10 years ago, so I kit up ready to drop in. At the last moment my buddy for the dive decides he isn’t going to go in as he just feels too rough, so I am “emergency” paired up with another guy called Colin whose buddy has also decided not to go in. We just have enough time to look each others kit over, before being told to jump at the bouy, so we have to do the dive plan whilst hanging on to the bouy in the water. Not recommended kiddies! We decide the best plan of action based on the fact we’ve never met and hardly spoken so don’t know each other at all, is to head down to the deck of the Scylla at about 18 metres, and basically stick to the open deck areas and look the wreck over that way, keeping the dive nice and simple. So we head down the shot and onto the wreck. The Scylla was a very interesting wreck, I didn’t really know what to expect as she hasn’t been down there that long, but there is plenty of growth starting to take hold, we covered most of the outer deck area on the dive. I wasn’t comfortable, not knowing my buddy so I spent a large chunk of the dive keeping a very close eye on him so I knew exactly what he was doing etc, so I missed some of the good bits of the dive, but it was still very enjoyable. We used the same shotline to both descend and ascend as it made it easier. Safety stops are much easier when you have a shot line to play with!

Back on the boat and a lovely hot drink from the skipper later, and its time to head into the calmer water for lunch.

Dive 2 of the weekend (83) : 20.9 metres max, total dive time 31 minutes.

After lunch and a natter, we head back to the same area to do the dive which promises to be the special one for me of the weekend, the James Eagan Lane. Again there are ill divers all over the boat, fortunately I’m coping OK with it, which was a pleasant surprise to myself, but again I have no buddy for the dive. I am buddied up this time with a lady called Jill, and we have plenty of time to have a quick chat about what we want to do on the dive before getting into the water. We get in and drop down the shot to where it is tied off on the wreck rail at 6 metres, where we go down the still upright part of the hull down to the seabed at 19 metres. We decide to head on up what I think was the port side of the ship (although with a choice of two I am bound to be wrong!) and we get a fantastic view of the ship sitting upright on the seabed, with parts of the hull open to look inside, where we see some of the cargo of some form of wagon type wheels all still neatly lined up inside the hold, before we get to the part of the ship that has burst apart. We have a little scurry around the debris on the sand before continuing on along the side of the wreck. I’m in awe of the wreck, not because of it being spectacular, although it is a very nice wreck dive, but more because I am aware the whole dive that I am achieving an ambition that I never thought I would get to do, as two years ago, I was unable to dive, and also there were rumours that the JEL was going to be too dangerous to dive and may be “closed” to the public. It was an absolutely wonderful feeling being down there and knowing what I was achieving. At this point the viz takes a definite turn for the worse, and being as I do not know the layout of the ship, we decide to head back the way we came, back into the better viz to find the shot. We briefly considered heading over the wreck to cross to the other side, but not knowing the layout, and not knowing whether there is any overhead environment, I decide not to do this, and we do head back the same route as we came, before heading back up the hull and picking up the shot ready for safety stop and surfacing. The safety stop was good as we were able to look over the intact part of the hull where is it tied off and see quite a bit of stuff as the viz was good in this area, before surfacing and being picked up by the boat.

Dive 3 of the weekend (84) 19.8 metres max, total dive time 30 mins.

An absolutely brilliant weekends diving, and social fun, I met a whole load of people for the first time, and I look forward to attending another one of Sue and Frankie’s trips in the future. Thanks very much to them for organising it!