Poole June 14th & 15th 2003

We were booked onto Beowulf, skippered by Pete Gough. This trip was originally arranged by Neil Weller but then Huw Porter took the reins when pressure of work caused Neil to drop out. 

The full party consisted of: Huw Porter, Chris Bell, Steve Jones, Rich Meese, Sheila Bannister, Diane Carter, Ken Tomlinson, Brod Mason, Marcus Lambert, Keiran Barry, Adrian Smith & Lars. 

Due to being in North Wales during the week I had a 6 hour trip to Poole, but despite the best efforts of everyone being on the road at the same time as me in an effort to slow me down I did finally get there before 8pm. Poole is not the easiest place to book in a party of divers, and we were split over 3 different B&Bs in Wimborne Road. 

We all got to the quayside by the Exchange House on the Saturday morning and in keeping with most UKRS trips managed to cover every spare inch of deck space with our equipment, which ranged from singles, twins and 3 types of rebreather (Inspiration, Kiss and Draeger). From here buddy ??? pairs were arranged and the weekend had begun. 

Prior to the dive we were shown Adrian’s home made video housing, which managed to keep his camera dry through the whole weekend, the only thing missing were external controls, so definitely a “point and shoot” 

Dive 1: Betsy Anna, Run Time 68 minutes, Depth 24.7, Viz 4 metres,

This wreck was originally thought to be the Dagmar until a local diver proved otherwise. She sunk in 1926 having ripped her hull on Prowle Point. Found the prop shaft and even I can navigate along that so actually managed to see quite a lot of the wreck. On the wreck itself there were lots of fish, in many areas the shoals of bib virtually obscured the wreck itself. Other than this saw several lobsters, and 3 congers. Also saw a strange animal which answers to the name of “Meese” trying to batter his way into holes which were obviously smaller than his body. Then with about 15 minutes deco to do I decided it was time to go up.

Here we have the first entrant for the kit destruction award. Chris had flooded his Suunto Vyper on the basis that if he equalised the pressures inside and out, that it would not give him as much deco to do. 

Dive 2: Mile Markers Drift, Run Time 45 minutes, Depth 13.1 metres Viz 5 metres

It was a drift dive, what more can I say? 

Dive 3: Borgny, Run time 37 minutes, Depth 32 metres, Viz 4 metres

This wreck was sunk in 1918 by a German submarine. She was a Norwegian steam driven ship of 1,149 tonnes, 228 feet long and with abeam of 36 feet. The wreck  has lots of entry points and there is plenty to explore especially at the upturned stern where the prop is still in situ and draped in fishing nets, which I managed to get caught in for a short while.

Prior to this dive I put in my own entry for kit destruction by getting the handle of my McMahon reel caught in the seat where I was kitting up and then breaking it in 2 as I stood up. 

In between our 2 dives Diane, who had missed the previous dives, and Ken had a dive on the wreck of a fishing boat. Apparently quite a good dive, however they might not have been quite so comfortable if they had seen how busy the skipper was on the surface constantly re positioning our boat to keep to keep other vessels away. yet another example of people ignoring a "divers down" flag

Dive 4: Drift, Run time 46 minutes, Viz 6 metres

Another drift, even more boring than the first, nothing more to add, except that the skipper said that we had performed the biggest starburst that he had ever seen with Chris and myself the furthest apart, more than one mile apparently!! 

Thanks to Neil, and subsequently to Huw for organising the trip. For some pics see web sites of Huw Porter and Chris Bell