Derek’s Dive Domain

OK, as the other two groups that dived Plymouth this weekend have already filed their trip reports, then I suppose I had better file mine too
Friday afternoon saw me driving to Milton Keynes to meet up with Chas49 in order to carshare down to Plymouth. Kit safely stored in his tardis of a Nissan, we get to work on the long journey. After getting stuck on the M5, then in Bristol, in Bristol and in Bristol yet again, we finally roll into Plymouth at 9.30pm after about a 6 and a half hour journey.

We were camping at the Riverside camp site which quite a few YDers will know, and its a nice site. We pitched our tents and were then joined by Spacehopper for a social tin or two around the tents.

The following morning, and we have to be down at Aquanauts for a little after 9am in order to get “checked in” and get ready for a 10AM ropes off.

After fettling kit and stowing it all on the boat, I realise with only a few minutes to go that my pony is only half full, so I popped up to the shop and they kindly sorted it on the spot, which was rather helpful, and I’m back on the boat ready to go. Everyone has arrived on time, and we cast off pretty much on the time, there are nine of us on the boat, one having had to call off through illness. We are diving from Trojan Warrior, which doesn’t have a lift, but the side ladder, the same as there is on Pamela Anne. It is having a lift made at the moment which should be installed in about a months time, so it should be a decent boat when thats done. We head out to the first dive site, the Scylla and as usual it gets a bit lumpy as we head out of the sound and around to Whitsand bay. Anyway, we kit up and plop over the side with a backward roll, and off we go.

For this dive, I am making up a three with Chas49 and Spacehopper, as that solves the problem of the ninth diver, and we have dived as a three before. We spend most of the dive at about 18 metres, not dropping below the second deck on the Scylla, and enjoying looking at the life on the railings and the deck. I had a swim through the gangways on the side of the boat, and enjoyed that, as its something different. The Scylla is definitely beginning to show signs of life now, she is quite festooned with colourful stuff, and there were quite a few Ballon Wrasse in the area as well. We went down the port side of the ship from the shot, around the stern, and then up and over the ship, ending up at the bridge windows, before returning to the shot and back up. A nice dive to start the weekend, and I really enjoyed seeing the Scylla again two years on from my last visit, the change is immense.

Back on the boat and we have a leisurely surface interval with lots of banter, and unfortunately about half the divers feeding the fish, and not with their sandwiches! After the break, we have moved over to the James Eagan Layne for the second dive, and its time to “shift our backsides, we’ve got ten minutes to get in the water” Hello Duggie

Anyway, we kit up in a lot over said ten minutes, and get in the water. This time its just me and Spacehopper, as Chas49 has decided he has had enough for the day, due to being ill, and not feeling right generally. So myself and Spacehopper descend down the shot and down the wall of the ship to the bottom, which today is in about 22 metres. I always enjoy looking back up at the hull of the ship there, and just around the side, as I find it quite a “haunting” image, just looming above you, and it really makes you realise just how special diving is, and just how serious you need to be really as well! Anyway, after having a look at the Pink Sea Ferns on the fallen panels (I knew that Seasearch course would come in useful) we head along what I think is the port side of the ship, having a look at the debris and wildlife along the sea bed there, until we come to the opening in the hull which invites you inside. In we go, and the vis is absolutely stunning, you would see the whole of that hold and more besides, with the uprights sitting at the end of the hold like some sort of ghostly guard of honour.

After a little look around the hold, we went through the uprights and into the next hold, where there was a group of divers doing a wreck line laying course. So we just had a little look around there before moving on, so as not to get in their way. I decided to head on out of the other side of the wreck, but not knowing the layout that well didn’t actually know eactly where I was heading, although with the vis and the general state of the wreck, pretty much any way is out from that area. (However, I did have a bit of a WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING moment, when I realised how easy I was suckered into believing how easy it was down there, and it was a really useful wakeup call for taking the same route in and out of anything in future.) Having had this thought I decided to be a bit more sensible, so we followed the wreck line laying lines back to their origin, and the edge of the ship, and exited out through the mangled side wall there. From here we headed back up the other side of the ship back towards the shot, but decided to send a blob up and do an ascent from about two thirds of the way down the ship, which was nice and simple.

What an absolutely fantastic dive though, I saw so much of the JEL that I hadn’t seen before, and the JEL is really “my” wreck, if you see what I mean. Back on the boat and everyone seemed to enjoy their dives, and we headed back into port before anyone else could be ill

After a few of us had had a quick pint and some potato wedges in the bar next door to Aquanauts, we headed back to the campsite where there were five of us staying, and had a quiet night in with fish and chips and some beer.

Sunday morning dawned nice and bright, and the weather seemed very nice and set for the day, which indeed it turned out to be. After breaking camp, and getting down to Aquanauts, we found there was only going to be six of us on the boat for the second day, as Lou and Caroline had been forced to bail out due to Lou’s suit flooding badly the day before, and Hebails had decided he couldn’t cope with the strokes any more and had gone off to join the real divers or something

So after some rejigging of the buddy pairs, this left Lee and Elaine (Airpusher and buddy), Chas49 and Spacehopper, and myself and W Wilberforce (Spunkmire as was). I buddied Will on his rebreather as I had the best SAC rate out of the three of us and Gareth and Charles use about the same rate, so it made sense.

The first dive today was on the Persier, and by the sounds of it we are the onlytrip who actually made it out there, as I know the others were canned for various reasons. We had a much flatter very unevenful journey out there, skippered today by Chris the trainee skipper and I think its Bob, who used to skipper the dive boat Storm.

In we go, and its straight down the shot (kindly provided by Glenn Lindsey’s Maid Maggie boat), and having heard that the wreck is in 30 metres, I was stunned to see a wall of metal at 18 metres. I didn’t realise there was so much on the Persier. What an absolutely lovely dive that was. We descended onto where the boilers are, which is where the shot was, and slowly made our way down to the stern of the ship, having a good look at everything on the way. The torches were almost unnecessary on this dive, certainly my trusty old UKD8R was! We went around the rudder/counterweight at the stern of the ship, I’ve never seen anything like that before, and back up the other side of the ship.
Will saw what looked like a tunnel, which was (as I know now) the propeller shaft tunnel. He headed down and asked if I fancied heading through it, so I had a look and signalled OK, so through we went. Again, the vis on this dive was really stunning stuff, you really don’t get many dives in the UK like these, adn I really made the most of it. What a great dive to log my 200th. From here we went up and over the boilers and had a quick look on the other side on the more flattenned parts of the wreck, but due to air and mostly no-deco time constraints on my computer, we had to take out leave all too soon, and start to ascend up using Will’s blob.

I would have loved to stay longer, but I would have needed to rack up some unwanted deco doing that, so it was back to the sunshine and the boat, for a surface interval involving donuts and flapjack.

After this we started to head back towards the Mew Stone and towards the Glen StratAllan which was going to be our last dive of the weekend. Suddenly a buoy was chucked over the side, and a shout of “man overboard port side” was called, as Bob? threw a drill at Chris to see how he would respond. It was quite interesting to see how it all works from on the boat. Anyway excitement over, we head further in,and it is clearly getting a bit more lumpy, so after a quick discussion we decide to bin the Glen and head over to the other side of the Sound and do a drift dive at Penlee point.

Suitably rested, we drop in and down,before sending up the blob from the bottom, as you always do on drift dives, and we spent a pleasant half an hour drifting around there looking for critters. There were some more Ballon Wrasse, and a bit of a kelp park. For some reason I got a fit of the giggles and started humming “Tiptoe through the tulips” with the words changed in my head to “Tiptoe through the kelp park” Narked at 13 metres, perhaps ?

We saw a lovely specimen of plaice in the sand, it was a really large one, and several large Edible Crabs. After half an hour Will signalled he was a little cold, so we surfaced into much rougher water than we had left a little earlier. Also as we bounced up and down in the swell, we couldn’t see the boat, eventually spotting it absolutely miles away. I think somehow we had dropped in at the point where the flow goes either side of a headland, and we managed to drift one way whilst everyone else seemed to have managed to drift the other. Whilst we were waiting, Alan turned up in Pamela Anne to confirm that we were OK, and to let us know that the boat knew we were there and would be over as soon as he’d finished picking up another pair.
Crisis duly averted, the boat soon headed over and we clambered back on board for the final time this weekend. Once the final pair had been collected it was back into the Sound and back to port to empty the boat and stow all the gear away ready for the journey home. We set off from Plymouth just before 5pm and I finally made it home at 11.30.
It was a really good weekend, and it was great to see so many friends again, and of course as always with YD trips, to make some new ones.

The dive boat was fine and although the ladder is not fun, it was perfectly manageable, and reminds us how pampered we divers are these days! It was a shame we lost a few of our number along the way due to kit issues etc, but I hope everyone had a good weekend, there were certainly plenty of smiling faces amongst the three YD groups down there this weekend, but the diving really was superb.
No pictures from me, and as far as I know, no one on the boat took a camera down with them, so I don’t think there will be any forthcoming!

Here’s to the next Plymouth trip, I do like it down there, I just wish it was a little nearer…
Gee that was long, my fingers ache now….