After the crushing disappointment of the last minute cancellation of this trip last year, the weather gods atoned by giving us glorious diving conditions this time around. We were booked onto a three day package with In Deep, who are based at Mount Batten just across the water from the city centre with a small ferry shuttling back and forth.
Ken, Liz and Ian set off early and were there before others had even left London. They headed over to The Plymouth Gin Distillery, missed out on a tour, but settled for some afternoon G&Ts. Geoff and Elliot travelled down together while Begum arrived around midnight. Jason, who organised the trip both this year and last, came down with his first cold in over three years a few days before setting off, and to avoid the risk of passing it on he persuaded his wife to join him and they booked accommodation separate to the group.
The first day we dived two wrecks in close proximity to each other. First dive was on HMS Scylla, a Royal Navy Leander-class frigate, deliberately sunk off Whitsand Bay in 2004 to create an artificial reef. For the second dive we did the SS James Eagan Layne, a US Liberty cargo ship that was beached in Whitsand Bay after a failed attempt to tow her back to Plymouth to salvage her cargo after she was torpedoed off The Eddystone Rocks by a German U-boat in March 1945. That evening we met up with Jason and his wife at a Caribbean restaurant in town, he hadn’t been well enough to dive and looked devastated when we told him we had dived The JEL as he had been going on about this wreck for over a year. We placated him by promising to dive it again the next day.
On the second day and with Jason back in the fold we headed out to The Eddystone Lighthouse, around 12 miles SSW of Plymouth Sound. We dived the reef system known as Eddystone Rocks, a nice scenic dive where we encountered some challenging tidal current at times. As we took a relaxed journey back towards The JEL we spotted a small group of dolphins and headed towards them and spent ten minutes or so watching them going nowhere fast right next to us. Then a first dive on The JEL for Jason and a second for the rest of us, including Elliot who was very happy as his underwater camera battery had gone flat prior to his dive there yesterday. Really great visibility in the region of 10+ metres, and so many fish. In the evening we dined in a Japanese restaurant with Ken delivering a Nitrox lesson to a couple of sushi eating students.
The last day we dived The SS Persier, she was torpedoed in February 1945 after a very interesting life which is detailed on The SHIPS Project website. This was the deepest dive of the trip at around 30 metres, another big hulk of a ship, and with lots of sunlight penetrating the water you barely needed to turn your torch on other than to look in holes for conger eels. The last dive was on The Glen Strathallen, a very broken up wreck that was originally built as a steam trawler but was converted to a pleasure yacht, she was lent to The Royal Navy as an escort vessel for four years during WW2. She was deliberately sunk in 1970 to be used as a diver training site at a depth of around 15 metres, but was soon found to be obstructing the entrance to the port and was dispersed using explosives.
We were back ashore by around 1pm to allow for the drive back to London, wonderful weather and great diving making up for last year’s disappointment.
Bermondsey BSAC
