Weymouth 4th & 5th Sept 2004

Somehow we had managed to get Weymouth trips on 2 consecutive weeks. This one was organised by Rich Meese, and apart from him, included, Steve Jones, Jason Poynting, Louise Cronin, Chris Bell, Digs Somogyi, Rob Hampton, Pete Steggle, Al Allan, Frank Bruce and Zak Shirlock. 

Once again we were booked onto Woody’s new boat, still with teething troubles, but at least the lift wouldn’t break down again!!!Some of the problems that Woody has had are:

• The winch motor has burnt out twice.
• The previous day 45 gallons of diesel had leaked into the bilges.
• The wrong size props had been supplied.

We were split over a couple of B&Bs, myself and several others were booked into the Redcliff who seem to have this quaint notion that it is OK to charge £28 per night for accommodation that is not en suite, in fact there is only one bathroom for everyone to share.

We had already had one drop out when Craig had to cancel, but we almost had 2 more when Rob and Digs phoned to say they had been delayed, fortunately they arrived minutes before our 12 noon “ropes off”. 

Saturday

Dive One: Salsette, Max depth 44.5 metres, Run time 64 minutes

The Salsette was 440 feet long, a beam of 53 feet and weighed in at 5,842 tons. She was traveling from London to Bombay in 1917 when torpedoed by UB-40. She sank very quickly in about 28 minutes

I was diving with Rich and Jason as we had elected to do the dive on trimix. They used relatively rich mixes, while I had the piss taken out of me for choosing the (cheaper) 24/12 mix. We had planned to get inside the wreck, but as soon as we started to descend the viz was bad, on the wreck itself it was probably just over 2 metres, so penetration was not on. We made our way to the bows where Rich found a lobster and waved it in our faces, before throwing it at Jason and me. I don’t know what our faces looked like but the lobster didn’t look too happy. From here we made our way from the bows and sometime later Jason and I realised that we were inside the wreck. We carried on for a while then came out at the first convenient exit. At this point we became separated and after a few more minutes I bagged off after just over 30 minutes bottom time.

It is customary in these trip reports to mention any faux pas (cock ups) that anyone makes. Frank and Zak had apparently been planning a 2 hour dive, however when I got back to the surface after just over an hour Frank was already on the boat. Apparently he had missed the wreck completely. Of course we were all too diplomatic to mention this again!!! 

Dive 2: Gertrude, Max depth 17.7 metres, Run time 38 minutes

This wreck is close to the site of the James Fennel, and was sunk when it ran aground in fog in 1894.

Only Chris, Lou and myself went back in for this second dive. It is well spread out with some big lumps of metal, including the prop shaft and a boiler.

This gave us quite a late finish as we got out of the water at 6:10pm. From here we got back to the mooring and got our cylinders to the shop by approx 7:15. Then we went back to the B&B for a quick shower, back to pick up the cylinders, then get to the pub by 9pm. 

Sunday

Frank and Zak decided not to dive today so there were only 9 of us on the boat.

Dive 1: Pomeranian, Max depth 37.2 metres, Run time 58 minutes

Another flat calm day saw us once again going round The Bill to the Pomeranian. She was  a large ship, weighing in at 4,241 tons. She was traveling from London to Newfoundland in 1918 when she was torpedoed by UB-77.

The viz was a little better than the previous day, probably about 4 metres. Another large wreck with lots of poor cod. I did find a conger in one pipe which I pointed out to Rich, he then poked his head right inside for a closer look. Most of this dive was accompanied by the sound of Rich coughing, he had a contaminated air fill which was in his back gas and deco gas.

On getting back to the surface we had a feeling of deja vous, people were being hauled aboard the boat. It was immediately obvious that the lift had broken again. This time the winch was unable to hoist and so the platform was tied in place and so we had to completely de-kit in the water, prior to climbing on board.

Woody is now getting totally pissed off with the situation with the new boat, and is in fact threatening to pack it all in. Hopefully everything will improve and it won’t come to this.