Weymouth 11th & 12th December 2004
We decided to book a December trip with Ian Taylor aboard Skin Deep. We didn’t manage to fill the boat however and the 8 of us signed up were myself, Louise Cronin, Darren Cronin, Adrian Smith, Rich Meese, Paul Feakes, Danny Burchett and Jason Poynting. We were staying at The Bunker in Portland. The whole weekend cost £75 for 4 dives, 2 nights B&B, a packed lunch, and air while on board.
Some of us had a reasonable early night while some of the others attended a local karaoke pub where Jason entertained the locals.
Adrian managed to wake up most of us when he decided to demonstrate his ability to play the tube of a vacuum cleaner like a didgeridoo at 1:30 am.
Saturday
Excellent weather conditions considering that it was the middle of December. Blue skies, sun shining and flat seas. Added to this plenty of room on the boat as Adrian had turned up with a bad cough and so decided to go Xmas shopping instead, and Danny had been to the office Xmas party and didn’t arrive until later in the day.
Dive 1: M2, Max
depth 32.6 metres, Run time 48 minutes, Viz 4 metres
I dived with Rich and was quite sure that he would actually stay with me ad first of all there were no holes for him to disappear into, and secondly his torch wasn’t working. There was no need to look round and see if he was there as there was a constant reminder, as he was coughing all the way through the dive. This was the legacy of a contaminated trimix fill from a certain centre in the South East. He has had his tanks cleaned but there was still a bad taste from his regs.
Ian had put the shot right on the conning tower, so we went
from there to the bows, then on the way back to the stern went inside the
aircraft hanger although it is full of silt and you can’t get in too far. Then
from the stern we went back to the mid section before bagging off to do a modest
amount of deco. A nice dive with several congers, and a lot of anemones to see.
Dive 2: Pulpit Rock,
Max depth 15.9 metres, Run time 36 minutes, Viz 5 metres
This was the first time that I had ever done this
particular dive. For those that don’t know it then it is the rock at the end
of Portland Bill which looks very precariously balanced. This dive can only be
done within a very tight window as for most of the day a 5 knot current runs
through this area. I dropped in to a huge shoal of bass (I think) there must
have been several hundred of them swimming from left to right then back the
other way. Dropping slightly deeper there were small gullies to go through and
the whole area is teeming with marine life with some huge pollack and wrasse.
Another late night for some of the team. Jason managed to wake just about everyone when he got back at 1:40 am, after he made several attempts to batter down the door I finally got up to let him in. When I opened the door he was on his knees trying to open the box which container the key for the door. Maybe the wheels of the combination lock were too difficult as they had all 10 digits on each!!, maybe they should make these easier for IT people, and just have “ones and zeros” on the combination.
Sunday
Paul was not diving today as he had to fly out to the States later that day, Adrian had still not recovered, while Jason, Danny and Rich didn’t dive due to the over indulgence the previous night.
The weather was not as kind today, the blue sky and sun had
disappeared and an Easterly wind had come up which made the sea conditions
rather lumpy, although there was some cover once on the far side of The Bill.
Dive 3: UB74, Max
depth 36.9 metres, Run time 47 minutes, Viz 4 metres
We were originally planning to dive the Frogner, but when we got there we found another boat dropping divers in, so we moved on to the UB74.
The UB74 was sunk in 1918 by a depth charge dropped from Lorna, an armed yacht. The UB74 displaced 670 tonnes and was 182 feet long with a beam of 19 feet.
I went in by myself to tie in the shot, then headed towards
the bows. There has been salvage work done here and appears that the tubes have
been removed. There are several places along the hull where you can see inside.
Managed to see a couple of congers and a smallish lobster. I bagged off with
about 12 minutes of deco time on 75% showing, and by the time I reach the 6
metre stop the current had picked up quite considerably and had to hang on for
the last 8 minutes.
Dive 4: Bottle Bank,
Max depth 16.8 metres, Run time 38 minutes, Viz 5 metres
We didn’t have many option for the second dive. It was
the James Fennel or Portland Harbour. We opted for the Harbour at a site called
the bottle bank which is virtually a dumping ground for all sort of things that
have been thrown overboard. However the main reason for this dive was to get
some scallops.
All in all a very good weekend with better conditions that we would have expected for the middle of December. We have another “winter break” booked with Ian in March.