Penzance July 26th & 27th 2003

Jason had organised this trip and booked us aboard Site Seeker skippered by Gordon Jones, and also arranged the accommodation at Trevarrack Cottage in Rosudgeon, near to Penzance. The trip was posted as leaving from Porthleven, but each day we went out of Penzance. This involves carrying the gear down some quite steep steps to the boat some 6 or 7 metres below. 

There were originally 10 of us booked onto the trip but unfortunately Digs, Rob and Mike dropped out and that left Jason Poynting, Steve Jones, Louise Thompson, Nigel Hewitt, Danny Burchett, Janine de Longe and Kevin de Longe as the remaining 7 divers. 

I decided to leave home later than usual to avoid the jam on the M5. This meant that I had a good run down to Cornwall and got there in three and a half hours. Nigel being the last to arrive after a 7 hour journey from Brighton. 

So Saturday morning saw the usual UKRS attempt to cover ever possible inch of deck space with dive gear. This we finally managed with the help of the crew, but by the time we were finished we were all soaked, as it has been pouring down for several hours. Fortunately the wind had not blown up and the sea conditions were as near perfect as we could have hoped for. 

Dive 1: Heidrun, Max depth 34.5 metres, Viz 10-12 metres, Run time 63 minutes

Many dive books list this wreck as the Ibis, however it is more likely to be the Heidrun. She was a 972 tonnes, 215 ft Norwegiam Steamer built in 1871. The ship sank in 1915 while carrying coal from Swansea to Rouen when she ran into a severe storm, all people on board died. 

Prior to the dive Nigel had been having problems with his Inspiration and was getting varying readings off his oxygen cells. As he was unable to correct this he was unable to dive at all today. He did however manage to drive to the AP Valves factory to find out that they don’t open on Saturday afternoons. Danny was also a first day casualty, in fact didn’t dive at all during the weekend. This due to Emma feeling seasick on the first day, and also to a night spent in the bathroom ruling himself out himself on the second day. (Graphic details tastefully avoided to protect those of a sensitive disposition. This doesn’t include Danny of course who still managed to eat a full fried breakfast. However we knew he was ill, mainly because he didn’t eat Nigel’s breakfast as well.) 

So only 5 of us ventured forth into the flat calm waters on the first dive, (another UKRS first maybe??) Janine and Kevin were on their first UKRS trip, and I tagged on behind Lou and Jason. (I had been warned to be on best behaviour this weekend and not to lose buddies within 30 seconds of leaving the shot line)

A feature of this weekend was the excellent viz, so much so that we were able to come off the shot line at least 15 metres from the bottom.

A nice wreck to explore with a considerable amount of life. In common with each of the dives that we did there was a huge number of cotton spinners. There was one reasonable size conger by the prop shaft, unfortunately Jason, carrying his camera, missed this photo opportunity. We left the bottom just after 30 minutes and as I was only on 23% back gas I had run up 28 minutes of stops by the time I reached the first stop depth. Fortunately I was also carrying 80% deco gas and my Vytec computer re calculated my time to 16 minutes of stops.

Dive 2: Low Lee Ledges, Max depth 20.4 metres, Viz 5 metres, Run time 60 minutes

The same 5 divers on this dive and I dropped in with Jason and Lou again. On this occasion I was slightly less well behaved and stayed with them for about a minute before wandering off to explore. This reef is regularly used by the local BSAC club and has a series of ropes running around the reef. On the reef is also the wreck of the Primrose, and several cannon, apparently of 17^th century Dutch origin. 

Dive 3: Hellopes, Max depth 35.7 metres, Viz 10 metres, Run time 55 minutes

The Hellopes was a 2,774 ton steamship, built in 1899 and sank in 1911 during a storm while carrying coal to Falmouth. The wreck is in 2 parts with both the bows and the stern still standing very proud of the seabed, albeit twisted to the side. 

I was diving with Nigel on this dive as he had managed to get 3 cells to give similar readings on the Inspiration. Before going in we agreed the separation drill, i.e. search for your buddy for no more than 45 minutes then surface and put the kettle on for a nice cuppa.

We only explored the one section of the wreck, and there is plenty to look at for one dive. There are quite a few holes to poke around in and lots of fish life, some large bib and I saw one enormous pollack, which was about a metre in length.

We left the bottom as planned with about 27 minutes of deco showing on my Vyper. However after a gas switch to 80% I managed to reduce this to 15 minutes. Nigel still had to clear his Aladdin which was set for his bottom mix of 30% so a few extra minutes were needed for that.

The plan was that I would bag off and Nigel would use me as a reference while doing a free ascent. However due to a few problems at the stop depth Nigel had to deploy his own DSMB. The same one that many people on UKRS are now using, myself included, with its own inflator bottle. However as Nigel found it does help if you have filled the bottle first.

Dive 4: Sharrock Reef, Max depth 25.9 metres, Viz 10 metres, Run time 47 minutes

Final dive of the weekend and Nigel had pulled out because of a freeflow on his Auto Air so I was back with Jason and Lou. This time I managed to stay with them for 3 or 4 minutes before stopping to look at something and couldn’t be bothered to catch up with them again. This was a very nice reef with lots of wrasse, various sponges, dead mens fingers, ross coral etc. I even managed to spot a colourful sea slug. 

That rounded up what was an excellent weekend with a good boat and some great dives with very flat sea conditions. Definitely a trip to repeat next year, possibly extending it to a 3 day weekend, given the long journey that most people had. All that remained was to join the M5 car park for the long journey home. However to my surprise I didn’t have any holdups on the A30 or the M5 and got home (225 miles) in 3 hours 15 minutes. 

For another view on the weekend and some pics see Nigel’s report