(by Arnold Talats)
Friday the 27th of April and when the clock read 11.30 I left work with a big grin and headed home with a spring in my step!You cannot beat leaving work early to spend the weekend diving with your mates in rubber suits from the dive club.A quick change of clothes and I grab a hurried sandwich before Malcolm turns up at 12.00 in his brand new six seater Honda FRV. He looks as happy as me and we proceed to get my dive gear out the garage. The car looks very big until we start to fill it with the dive gear; after we fill the boot area we then fill the entire rear floor area and finally the rear seats to shoulder level! Good job we did not arrange to take anyone else with us without a roof rack.
The skies are overcast but being the eternal optimist I have my sunglasses and sun block ready. My optimism proved correct and by the time we were halfway there the sun came out and the clouds beat a hasty retreat. We followed our usual route of Milton Keynes, Buckingham, Bicester and then the A34 south to the end of the M3 and M27 and on to Weymouth. I had managed to get my three 12 litre cylinders filled with Nitrox30 the weekend before but this was when Malcolm was in Spain visiting his in-laws so we headed straight for Old Harbour Divers and dropped off his cylinders to be filled with Nitrox30 and to be collected the following morning.
Paul Carpenter and Emma Bousted had already made it to Osmington Mills Caravan Site before us and picked the keys to the multiple luxury accommodation units. We had booked three six-berth caravans for twelve of us so we would not be too cramped. Eight of us had once stayed in six-berth caravan a while back and it had proved to be very interesting with all of us trying to share the limited bathroom facilities without any personal accidents or fights occurring. We moved out stuff into the caravan and took the opportunity for a shower and a shave before we headed off for a beer. The mobile telephone signal in Weymouth can be very patchy and in Osmington Mills virtually non-existent so we had arranged with the other members of our party arriving later that if they could not locate us in the caravan next to Malcolm’s car, then a very good place to start to looking for us would be The Smugglers pub just down the road.
When we had walked down the road to the car park above the pub I knew from experience that this was possibly the only location for a useable phone signal.You had to work for it though, and this meant a number of people moving around holding phones in front of them looking at the displays and faithfully imitating a landing party from Star Trek studying tri-corders for any signs of life! A signal duly was found and phone calls were made to say we had got there safely and would ring again the following evening.
Down the steps to the
pub and we settle down to wait for the other Warriors to arrive. Luckily for us
the pub has a plentiful supply of alcoholic drinks and good food to help us
while away the time. After a few lagers and a goats cheese salad (delicious!)
the other Warriors started to arrive, stories were swapped and journey details
recounted and we set off quite relaxed at about 11.00 to the caravans.
Unfortunately my memory on the size of a single bed in a twin bedded room proved
correct. I am about six feet one in my socks and the bed is about the width of a
radiator shelf and about four inches too short for me. Being one of the weekend
organisers I complained strongly to myself.
Next morning the rooks in the trees above us made sure that we did not oversleep but we did have a pleasant relaxed breakfast in the lounge comprising of HobNob biscuits and cups of tea. The plan for Saturdays diving calls for a relaxed start with ropes off at 10.00am. We head to the harbour and get there about 9.00, after unloading the kit Malcolm heads off to get his cylinders. Kit is assembled and secured and I nip around the corner to the Spar shop for the obligatory bottle of water and something to eat for lunch on the boat. Phil the skipper arrives and is as cheerful and welcoming as ever, he puts on the kettle and makes us all a cuppa and then gives us a comprehensive safety briefing as there some faces among us he does not recognise. Then its time to start the new smokeless engines and ropes off and away, I must admit at this point that I do get quite a bit of a buzz leaving harbour with everyone on the quayside looking at you and their young children vigorously waving to you from their pushchairs. Having two young girls of my own I always wave back to the children and they really seem enjoy this interaction with someone on a boat.
I find that I do need to remind some lax members of our party of Weekend Warriors to strike an appropriate manly diver pose as we leave harbour under very close observation from the quaysides. As we leave the shelter of the harbour the swell increases, but to a very manageable force three to four with the wind from the east. Even those in the Warrior party with a fondness for yakking are looking relaxed and comfortable under a clear sky with the sun in their faces. Just an hour after leaving harbour we are above the Lulworth Banks and ready to go on a drift dive. I am buddied up with Clive (Megaladon Rebreather) Bowen and we are one of the first pairs in when Phil blow his whistle.
If you dive with a rebreather diver you will be asked to perform a bubble check on their rebreather at six metres, this entails swimming around them and checking there are no bubbles coming from the rebreather. If it is bubbling at all you must surface immediately and resolve the leak. All is well with the rebreather and we begin the descent to the seabed about 20 metres below us. The visibility is a very respectable five to ten metres and the light level is good enough not to need torches and the water temperature is 10°centigrade.We adjust our buoyancy to neutral and the drift begins at a gentle walking speed. Clive spots a cuttlefish straight away and as I pass over a large lobster it raises its claws towards me, I wonder if my three finger gloves make me look like a large crustacean invading his territory. We see a couple of dogfish and give the tails a playful tweak to wake them up.
Large scallops are
everywhere you look but there are no juveniles jumping up at you from the
seabed, it might be too early in the season for little ones. I pass over Boring
sponges, and Elephants hide sponges as well as the pretty orange Ross coral with
small invertebrates hiding within its ‘petals’. There are many Hermit crabs
to be seen but they are the biggest crabs I see on this drift dive, starfish are
there as well as the occasional Corkwing Wrasse and Rock cook. All too soon out
time is up and we leave the seabed at about 40 minutes and surface at 45 minutes
as per the Skippers instructions. Phil picks us up within a minute or two and a
minute or so later we are back on board courtesy of the wonderful effortless
electric tail lift. After we de-kit we have an excited debrief about what we saw
together and what the other person missed when they were looking the wrong way.
Phil then sets a course for Kimmeridge bay for lunch and a surface interval. On
the way we pass over the wreck of the Black Hawk bow and Phil takes the
opportunity to shot the wreck for the afternoons dive. After
dropping anchor in Kimmeridge bay we find the sea is even calmer with the land
sheltering us from a gentle easterly breeze and the sun is warming us nicely, we
enjoy another cuppa and have a relaxed lunch in the sunshine. I change one
nearly empty cylinder on my twin set for a full one to use on the second dive
and the other one with a 100 bar is a reserve, just in case. There are some
divers in the water who have made a shore entry; Phil explains the location of
the distant car park over the very high steep hill. Just what you need after a
lengthy dive!
We then motor off to the Blackhawk bow and discover a RIB has made use of the shot line and has some divers down. Clive and I ready ourselves and on the sound of the whistle, we giant stride in and we swim to the shot line buoy, exchange down signals and descend to six metres to bubble check the rebreather. All is well and we head for the seabed, which is at a depth of 15 metres. The visibility has reduced a bit since the first dive but this due to other divers kicking it up and us diving at very near slack water. We start to explore the wreck, which is well broken up, you can recognise some components like winches and hatches but mostly it seems to be large plates with marine life around and under them. There are some huge sea bass, which are a metre or more long and if you look you can see Pollack which look like they have flanks of polished chrome.
The visibility was dropping fast now and Steve Allen with Paul Wogan alongside swim past us peering into the murk. When you dive with a rebreather diver in low visibility you can lose them very quickly, there is no diminishing bubble noise to tell if you are separating! We decide to head over a large angled plate where the water looked a lot clearer, dropping down the other side we came across the anchor chain and we followed it away from the wreck. Clive spotted something a couple metres away from the chain and after signalling he swam over to it, I was following when I saw the outline of a large Blonde ray in the sand in front of me. I stayed with the ray and shouted into the mouthpiece of my regulator and Clive came over for a look at the ray. We participated in a bit of ray stroking until it got bored and with a couple of flaps of its ‘wings’ it swam effortlessly away from us
A little further up the anchor chain I came across a first for me, it initially appeared to be a long tapering spine nearly a metre long with light coloured bands and stripes along it’s reddish brown length. When I looked closer and picked it up carefully it turned out to be a slow moving worm, I have since found out that it is called a Football Jersey worm! We returned it to the seabed and carried on following the anchor chain. I recall reading in the ‘Dive Dorset’ book that the ships 3 tonne anchor is found at the end of the chain, we found nothing of the sort when we got to the end. We started to swim over a silty seabed away from the chain and came across some slender sea pens, which look like someone has been sticking individual thin feathers into the silt. Bristle worms were fully open for inspection and there were other things that looked like leafless bonsai trees in the soft bottom about 100mm high. I believe these are Sea cucumbers with the body buried and the tentacles looking like small branches filtering the current and passing any food to the mouth in the centre of the branches base. We see two rock cook’s in full fluorescent breeding colours looking quite out of place in the subdued colours of the seabed. The time has flown by again and we leave seabed at 41 minutes and surface as per the Skippers instructions at 45 minutes total time. Back on board we are chattering to each other about what we had seen like over excited schoolchildren.
Tango then headed
for Weymouth harbour in the afternoon sunshine, I found it hard to believe how
good the weather was for us. On entering the harbour I demonstrated the correct
manly pose for returning divers but there were not many takers on the boat. When
we tied up at the quayside we all helped stowing the wet kit that was staying
onboard below Tango’s cabin and formed a cylinder bitch chain to get the empty
cylinders off the boat. Time Hunt and Paul Wogan’s Honda CRV’s (cylinder
refill vehicles) were used to ferry the empties around to old Harbour Divers.
With some air, some Nitrox and Clive’s pure O² fill for his rebreather we
needed to go back at about 7.00 that evening to collect them. Back at the
caravan it was rush hour in the bathroom for a while but we then headed back to
Weymouth for the cylinders and then back to the caravans for a well earned
bottle of beer (or two)
We all grouped up about 8.00 and walked down to The Smugglers where a table had been reserved for us. We repeated the Star Trek landing party impression from the night before and with all telephone communications completed headed into the pub. The pub was rather busy and the bar service was nearly as slow as an air fill at Stoney on a Saturday afternoon. However we eventually got our drinks and settled at our long table and began recounting the day’s events and having a really great evening together. Malcolm organised the large food order all to ensure we that all ate together. My food was top notch again (roast vegetable tart with béarnaise sauce, new potatoes and salad) and was prepared very quickly once ordered. After a few more lagers and lots of laughs we headed back to the caravan park shortly after ten as we had a bit of an early start the next day!
Six o’clock and we rise with remarkably clear heads to start the day with more HobNob biscuits and tea. The lounge door opens and I think for a moment that we are being raided by the Police anti-terrorist unit, but then I realise that it is Allan Goulbourne wearing a black baseball cap, black diving under suit and black boots. I was almost ready to adopt the search position against the lounge wall! A couple more HobNobs and we head for the boat, as we drive along the seafront we see people coming out of a pub at 6.45am! I feel that they might not be going diving that morning judging by their walk. We get to boat and get all the cylinders onboard with another chain of divers. Phil arrives shortly after and gets the kettle on, good man!
After discussions the previous evening in the pub I decide to change the first dive to something slightly less exposed, and after a short discussion with Phil I decide the British Inventor is our best choice given winds and tides. We secure the assembled kit and get the days goodies from the Spar shop and head out of the harbour. There are not many spectators and no waving children at 7.30am on a Sunday morning but I still get a good buzz leaving Weymouth harbour. The wind is slightly stronger than Saturday and I think the sea could be described as a force 4 occasionally 5, however all of the Weekend Warriors seem to be coping very well with the swell. After about 45 minutes we arrive at the site and Phil shots the wreck.
We ready ourselves and we drop in on the whistle, yes you guessed it, a bubble check at 6 metres and we head down the shot to the sea bed at 20 metres. Clive has a bit of a job persuading his torch to work but it fires up in the end. The visibility is between 5 and 10 metres and there is a slight current running. The wreck appears to be composed mainly of fairly flattened plates with not much standing up, Clive and I start to explore and soon come across a tubular section of mast. Clive beckons me over to an open end and when I shine my torch in there is a monster conger looking back at me! I decide it is wisest for me to back off but I keep my eyes on him as I retreat. The plates run out and Clive swims a large square search pattern, after three left turns we suddenly come across the bulk of the wreck rising 4 metres or so! This wreckage is in a deep scour and the crabs are everywhere you look. Velvet swimming crabs. Edible crabs and Spider crabs and even a lobster. The fish shoals are swimming on the edge of visibility and have a ghost like quality slowly fading in and out of sight.
We find an abandoned
shot with a long length of loose line so I wind the loose line around it to make
it safe, fishing rod weights and hooks are evident in many places and I do my
best to avoid any monofilament fishing line. Again the clock is against us and
we have to leave bottom at 41 minutes and surface at bang on 45 minutes with
silly grins on our faces. Back on board we head for Durdle Door and anchor just
in front of it. The sun is still shining a bright as ever and it looks as if
someone has switched off the swell, the sea is starting to look like a very
large inland dive site!
Our final dive of the weekend is a very gentle inshore drift near Durdle Door in about 10 to 14 metres depth. We are all dropped off a couple of hundred metres east of Durdle Door close to the shore so a tidal weak current will carry us west towards it. Yes, another bubble check was duly carried out and under instructions to send up the SMB’s after ten minutes we started to mooch (gentle exploratory dive) There were some large single boulders here and there with some life evident but Clive was being called to the deeper water. We headed directly out to sea and swam over a sandy featureless bottom for quite a while, we could see ridges in the sand about 150mm high and as these generally run parallel to the shore we had a good idea that we were heading away from land. The SMB was sent up at ten minutes and we found out later from Tim and Malcolm that everyone else decided to follow the shoreline but it appeared that Clive and I had decided to head south for France!
We came across a wide rock ridge in our path about 2 metres high that was parallel to the shore and after swimming over it we found ourselves in a sheltered gully about 2 metres deep and 2 to 3 metres wide that ran east to west as far as we could see. In places the gully widened out to form rock gardens with shoals small translucent fry milling around, Snakelock anemones were abundant as were Spider crabs and wrasse. The were lots of pieces of dark grey rock about with holes bored right through them, the texture was soft and very crumbly and I wonder if this is chalk that has been discoloured underwater. I find a Snakelock anemone lying on its side on the gravel seabed and picked it up, it proceeds to attach its ‘foot’ to the end of my finger and it was a delicate task to remove it without damage to itself. A home on a rocky outcrop in a gentle current was found for it and we continued exploring the rock gardens and rock ledges. I came across another Blonde ray resting on the bottom and after admiring the markings on its wings and gently stroking them it swam away from us to land on the sand a few metres away
Visibility was variable and at one worrying point I lost sight of Clive for a few moments but he reappeared and I relaxed again. Time was getting on and as we prepared to leave the seabed I found yet another Blonde ray underneath us, I signalled we needed to ascend and left the ray without disturbing its snooze. We surfaced at 45 minutes and after getting on the boat we had another one of those excited ‘this is what diving is all about’ debriefs. The dive gear was taken apart and with a cuppa and a big grin we sailed back to Weymouth harbour.
Once we were at Tango’s mooring, the car drivers were despatched to bring the cars to the quayside and the rest of us onboard formed a chain to get all the dive gear onto the quayside.
Within a few minutes the boat was unloaded and cars were loaded as they appeared, pleasantries were exchanged, hands shook, cheeks kissed, thanks exchanged and we headed home very tired but very refreshed if that makes some sense.
So where do I sign up for the next Club Weekend Warriors outing?