Unfortunately with the untimely devise of The Deepstop at the weekend, I am going to need to rebuild my blog again from backups and internet archives, so please bear with me whilst I do so.

Pages and articles will come back up slowly and surely as I find them but I think some of the early stuff may not be retriveable.

Thanks to Andy of Deepstop though for getting us back up and running….

Safe Diving and internet surfing…

Mark

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This dive was within a marine reserve project set up by David of Tenerife Divers to encourage marine life growth around the bay of El Puertito. A consequence of encouraging marine growth on the rocks is it provides food to other marine species, including a pair of green turtles. (Although perhaps some divers feeding them has also contributed) Our second dive of the day was to be a gentle bimble along the rocks making up the reserve and hope that one of the turtles comes along to say hi. We were not disappointed. I was first in and down the anchor line to the seabed at 6m. I secured the anchor on the rocks, took a mental note of the surroundings so we could find our way back and waited for Lisa and Rachel to meet me.

We then proceeded to make our way along where the rocky outcrop gave way to volcanic sand. Keeping a close eye on the blue water to the left of me we headed further along. About 5 minutes into the dive, we had our first turtle encounter. Ahead of me to my left a small Green turtle, about half a meter in size approached, I signalled Lisa who was behind me and to my right. She immediately shot of after it, this was her first encounter with a turtle in 14 years of diving and she was going to make sure she got a good view of it.

We made our way to the point of the bay and still had over 150bar left in our tanks. My SAC on this dive turned out to be around 10 l/min which I was very pleased with. but then there was absolutely no stress on this one. Our plan was when we reached the point we were going to turn the dive but just as we were about to, I peered out into the blue and saw the larger of the turtles heading straight back towards me. I steadied the camera and waited for him to come right up to my mask before I snapped the shot. It was fantastic. Again he stayed around and played with us and also with the other divers who had turned up from another dive boat. After those few more minutes we turned the dive and headed back. As we passed over the hideaway of the octopus we had seen earlier, we noticed he was a bit further out, so setting myself for the picture I positioned myself near the hole, when all of a sudden the turtle turned up again and nudged right in between us, to be greeted by being inked by the octopus. I managed to get a picture of the turtle covered in the octopus ink. It really was quite something to witness.

About 10 minutes before we reached the anchor line we were visited for the last time by the turtle who swam around us again and then glided off into the blue. It was a truly amazing 70 minutes in the water.

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Diving with the rays video
This video was taken on Saturday 20th October. We were diving with Island Divers, Tenerife. About 10 minutes into our dive we were joined by these two atlantic rays who circled us as though they were looking for something or someone in particular. When they found Graham, you can see what happened.

Absolutely amazing creatures. Truly one of my most memorable dives.

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It’s only taken 14 years but Lisa has finally had the opportunity to dive with turtles. She has been in the water before when they are around, 3 years ago when we were diving in Oman, her Dad who was on the neighbouring boat to us saw five on a dive whilst we dived with yet more lionfish. However last week in Tenerife she finally got her chance. Diving with Island Divers, we visited the El Puertito Marine Reserve, set up by a dive centre owner to encourage marine growth. The two resident green turtles had been previously rescued and after recuperation released into the area around the reserve. Finding themselves in save territory they have settled in and are regularly found on the reserve. After just a few minutes into our dive I spotted the smaller of the two off in the blue, eager to see, Lisa followed gently behind, slightly spooking the turtle with her exhaust bubbles when she took out her reg for a picture. Learning from that episode we carried on with the dive, a few minutes later I heard a squeal from behind me, as the larger of the two turtles appeared and nearly bowled Lisa over, this really was a close encounter.

Diving in Puertito Tenerife

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When booking a diving trip whether in the UK or abroad, it is as much about the people you dive with as the dive sites you visit. This is easy to sort out when one is booking as part of a group on a liveaboard or major dive trip but is somewhat more daunting when travelling on your own and to a lesser extent as a buddy pair or couple. After taking advice from other divers who had visited the islands before and going particularly on the recommendation of friends with whom I have dived regularly, we booked a couple of days diving with Island Divers in Tenerife. We chose Tenerife as it seemed to fulfill our criteria for decent diving in the sun with some good beaches and close enough to do a long weekend away .

As I was completely responsible for sorting this holiday out for Lisa’s 30th I was nervous that I got it right. Choosing Sonia and Graham of Island Divers for our diving and accomodation was definitely the right choice. They create a relaxed and friendly atmosphere which can put anyone at ease. The banter is excellent and the dives superb. With Lisa’s track record of diving with turtles (or not as the case may be) getting the opportunity to dive with the friendliest of turtles set the tone for the week, the addition of the rays dive on the Monday made it even more special.

Island divers is family run by people who enthuse about diving, in fact Graham and Sonia are just about to have a break and go on holiday, guess what they’ll be up to, they’ll be diving, in Grease costumes………….

Thank you Sonia and Graham for a fabulous week, you add that extra bit that makes good diving into a memorable diving.

All the dive reports from the week will end up on here as I write them, for now, check out the video clips of the turtle and rays dives.

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Lying on her starboard side at 41m of the cool green Dover straits, the Henry B Plant is an impressive wreck, virtually intact with the exception of the midships section heading towards the stern, which was where she was hit by a torpedo in february 1945. Named after the railroad tycoon of the late 19th Century Henry Bradley Plant this US liberty class ship had only be launched on the 11th December 1944. Within 3 months she would be one of the final victims of the second world war. As soon as Paul sent me a message that he had booked Dave Batchelor and Neptune to dive the Henry B, I booked onto the trip, hoping for some of the great visibility that Paul had experienced on her before.

Immediately on entering the water, I knew that the visibility wasn’t going to be great, lots of green “snot” in the water, reducing the visibility in the first few metres to maybe two or three metres. Once below 20m though the vis cleared a little and there was enough ambient light around so that once on the wreck, one could tell when one was inside or out of the wreck. The shot was hooked neatly into the port side of the wreck adjacent to the wheelhouse. Upon reaching the bottom of the shot we both got ourselves neutrally buoyant, it took me a few moments, as I was still struggling to get enough air into my suit. Previously I had been used to suit inflate valve that allowed enough air in to float a battleship. The flow on this drysuit was somewhat reduced and it felt to me like I was pushing the inflate valve the whole way down. Once neutral in the water, Paul deployed his reel and tied off his first tie off, just next to the shot. The line promptly snapped!!!!. I unclipped my reel with the intention of passing to him but he was already in the process of sorting out his own, so I waited the minute or so it took. After gently pulling on the line to make sure it didn’t snap this time we headed off towards the stern. Our initial plan was to duck below the wheelhouse and try and enter it to come back through it and back to the shot before heading off to the stern, however the vis being what it was and the amount of divers and line already around the wheelhouse meant we abandoned that plan in favour of going straight to the stern. After finning along the port railing for a few minutes the railing started to bend in and we reached the section damaged by the attack that sunk her. We dropped a little deeper into the wreckage, our intention to make our way to the starboard side and then along the starboard to the stern. The lack of visibility and twisted metal meant we would have needed to go right to the seabed to be sure of the path to the stern past the wreckage area. We were already 15 minutes or so into our dive so we opted to turn and go to the bow section. We headed back to the shot along the deck plating, me removing the tie in’s whilst Paul reeled back in. Once back at the shot we carried straight on, I had a sneaky peak into the vast wheelhouse, leaving that for another dive and followed Paul along the vertical deck in front of the wheelhouse past a giant winch and on towards a pointy up thing, that looked remarkably like a gun, in fact it was a gun but neither of us was too sure and so didn’t want to make a fool of ourselves when it may have been just a pipe. Paul edged along the barrel and peered inside it, I made the sign of a pistol which I very much doubt he saw, as he then demonstrated the action of firing a rifle or machine gun. It was indeed one of the guns mounted on the deck just ahead of the wheelhouse, although not the larger bow gun that would have been a few more metres along the decks towards the bow. At this point with the air in my tanks at about 130 bar, we turned the dive and headed back to the shot, arriving back at the shot a lot quicker than we imagined we would. We probably had enough gas for a few more metres towards the bow, but with the fragility of our line in question it was the right decision to make. We then began our ascent, Paul switching to his deco gas at 18m whereas I switched at 12m. Once on the deco gas I unwrapped my MP3 player and jigged along the deco to Coldplay, Garbage and a bit of Debussy. The 15 minutes of deco flew by and we surfaced just after the hour mark.

Even in the conditions we experienced on Wednesday, the Henry B is an impressive wreck with so much to see and explore. I look forward to the opportunity to do it again.

Our second dive of the dive was the M.V. Teeswood, just 3 miles outside of the harbour. Having not had great visibility out at the Henry B, the expectations for the Teeswood were not high. Our expectations were realised on entering the water. As we descended the snot build up thickened and the ambient light virtually disappeared at 10m. At 32m to the seabed, the shot was resting at about 29m somewhere on the wreck near the wheelhouse possibly!! Having struggled again to get enough air into my suit to counter the suit squeeze I was a bit behind Paul as he reached the shot and deployed his reel to start reeling off. When I eventually got myself neutrally buoyant I had lost sight of him just below the shot. I dropped down a few feet and spotted a green line tied onto the shot and heading off down the wreck and around the section of the wreck we were on. I started to follow it listening intently to the loud banging that was going on a few metres to my right where Jay was getting a lesson in how to remove portholes. After a couple of tie offs I still hadn’t caught up with Paul and I concluded I wasn’t on his line, so I turned and went back to the shot. As I reached the shot I saw another green line, which I instantly recognised as Paul’s as it had a frayed end from the end that broke that morning on the Henry B. I immediately began to follow it and within a metre or two spotted Paul’s torch light emerging from the gloom. After a quick OK check we headed off again, this time over the top of the wheelhouse where Jay and Dave were still hammering away. After 10 or 15 minutes going around 3 sides of a square, we decided to turn and reel back as I only had 40 bar left in my twins and would need to get back to 12m on the shot to change to my deco gas. As we reeled in we rounded two corners and made our way on the final straight back to the shot, when instead of us moving towards the end of the line the end of line moved to us. It had snapped again but this time we were out of sight of the shot. In
Dover the rule is always return to the shot, as the area is very very busy with shipping. Indeed the Speedferries catamaran passed over us whilst we were ascending creating a huge disturbance in the water.
So being what we knew were only a few feet from the shot without being able to get to the shot was a real problem. This was going to cause us a headache when we got to the surface as the current would have taken us quite some distance from the wreck and possibly into the routes of the surface shipping. We had no choice though than to send up our SMBs. I sorted mine out and sent it up first without incident. As Paul was doing his, the SMB jumped off the holder making it very difficult to send up. In the end he rolled it back up as after leaving the wreck and drifting a few metres my fins snagged on the shot and we were able to ascend the shot. We knew we had been close but couldn’t take the risk of going off to find it especially as by the time we were on the shot I had 25 bar left in my twinset. I then ascended fairly briskly to 15m where I began deploying my stage reg ready to switch at 12m. Paul at this point took the reel and SMB from me and continued reeling in. In the switchover though the line got caught within the reel mechanism so that when he handed it back it was twisted and would not reel in any further. For the next few minutes of deco I battled with the line to untwist it and free it from the mechanism, finally freeing it at 6m, but now with an extra 10m of line splayed out in the current. Due to the current though the line was taut and I was able to reel it in a few metres so that when we hit the surface the SMB had only drifted around the boat and could be picked up. All in all the Teeswood had been a very eventful dive, lost buddy, suit buoyancy problems, broken line, jammed reel, failed SMB deployments and even it turned out filament entanglement. Paul had even been caught up in a bit of fishing filament line at the bottom of the shot as he was deploying his reel which is why I had lost sight of him as he descended to sort it out. The sort of dive that gives you good experience, oh and by the way, we saw a few dead men’s fingers on the wreck.

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I have been a member of Sunfish Charters yahoo group for well over a year but have not had the opportunity till now to dive with Mike and his brightly coloured rib. The plan was initially to do the Bretagne and Orestone Ledges but the wreck was changed with our consultation a few days before the weekend when an extra 8 divers booked on giving us the full compliment for the boat, so with a ropes off time of 9.15am we were set.

Mike moors Sunfish in Brixham Marina and so we got their early with the car and the kit to get a decent parking space near to the lifeboat station with a short walk with a trolley to the marina and onto Mike’s berth. Lisa and I then wandered back to Mum & Dad’s place to drop off the dog that we had taken for a walk, have a small breakfast and then headed back down to the marina to meet up with the others. We arrived as everyone else was loaded up so even though we were the closest in distance we were the last on the boat – oops sorry.

I was a little nervous about taking my twinset onto the rib as twinset diving from a rib is not the easiest of things to do, give me a hardboat and a lift any day. However this is by far the best rib I have dived on with a twinset. Mike has made the best of the situation by carefully placed lines and hooks to dekit with in the water and then get oneself on board whilst one’s kit is pulled on. I was impressed with the way that worked. Also with the amount of space available once in the rib. I was the only one on a twinset with everyone else on 12s or 15s, some with ponies. Sunfish’s cylinder rack is deep enough to take a twinset side on and so could probably handle 5 sets of twins each side, it would be a squeeze though. Ponies were laid down on the deck behind the rack, with goody bags or small kit bags.

With all the kit and people on board Mike gave us a thoroughly and friendly safety briefing including a breakdown of what he expected the sea conditions to be like. A bit lumpy was his predication, he was indeed correct. Our chosen destination was Gefion, Divernet Wreck Tour 83 however a mile or two out Mike slowed the 250hp engine of sunfish and asked us all if we wanted to carry on. We would have to face another 45 minutes of being bounced around with no guarantee that when we got there we would be able to get back on the rib, if the swell was too great. The decision was to abort the Gefion and head from Bull Rock, a pinnacle less than a mile out, dropping to 45m. Mike swung Sunfish about and we headed south across the bay and out past Berry Head, the swell continuing to rise. On reaching the site, Mike wisely called it as not an option, he felt he could not safely get us back into the rib after the dive with the current conditions. Personally I had dived in worse, but that was from a hardboat with a lift. This was a completely different situation. I was happy to bow to Mike’s judgement, and he offered us two choices, a donation to the fuel costs already used, or back to the bay and find a site there to dive, such as the pipes. Lisa and I were already in Brixham so for us it was no hardship if we didn’t actually get a dive, however others had travelled from Swindon so the choice was lets go diving. So turning the rib about again we raced north again past Berry Head and across Torbay to the cliff face between Torquay and Babbacombe to dive what is know as the pipes. Here a wooden cargo ship carrying Pipes had hit the cliffs and been broken up, all that remains is the metal pipes it was carrying hence the name.

Reaching the site, somewhat calmer than out of the bay we kitted up and dropped in, being only 8m at an absolute maximum, (i think I only managed 6.7m) the ambient light was sufficient to see all and the torch wasn’t needed. Lisa and I dropped in and I sent up the SMB to mark our position and also give the jet ski riders something to slalom around if they showed up (thankfully they didn’t). We then proceeded along the base of the cliff through the arch at a depth of about 3m and out into slightly deeper water to where the pipes were lying. With a decent amount of bib and wrasse around and the occasional crab it was an OK dive. Unfortunately our forays into the cravasses and caves along the cliff base where short lived as the ones we found narrowed to a close within a few metres.

Being a nice shallow dive it gave me a good chance to try out my underwater mp3 player that I have had for over a year but was being looked after by one of my buddies!!! It worked extremely well and Lisa and I boogied along to Razorlight, Snow Patrol and others as we came to the end of our dive. 55 minutes, max depth 6.7m, glad I took my twinset!

Something I wasn’t aware of when diving with Sunfish is that during the surface interval Mike takes the Rib back into Paignton Harbour where divers jump off and take their tanks for a fill at Harbour Dive Centre. Having left Lisa’s second cylinder in the car we were going to get a fill, but seeing as though her first dive she still had 160bar left, there was no point. I still had over 200bar in my twin 12s.

After a slightly shorter surface interval than normal, Mike came and grabbed us asking to leave the harbour wall, as Sunfish was getting bashed against the wall, we all climbed back down onto the rib and headed out back into the bay to dive “The Ridge”. This could be mistaken for a seabed dive, and not being a fan of those I wasn’t over enthusatic about doing this. My mood was not helped by being very wet from a sticky suit inflate from the first dive which had stuck open letting in a fair amount of Torbay’s finest salty stuff in. No matter in we went, Lisa and I were the first in and our bouncing on the shot at the surface had dragged the shot a few metres from where Mike had dropped it, so I lifted it and moved it back further onto the ridge. After the dive this drew a fair amount of banter from the other divers who had only seen the billowing slit cloud from where it had been dragged!! Never mind eh. For a seabed dive though I was very surprised. Mike’s website lists this as an under-rated dive, and I would agree. We were confronted by a number of crabs, both edible and spider, dogfish up to about 1.5m, bib, scallops galore, (we were told we weren’t allowed to collect them) and even came across a decent sized lobster, lurking under the rocks, refusing to be tempted out.
So after 40 minutes or so of scouring the seabed looking under rocks, playing with the docile dog fish ( or catsharks as I believe they are called now) we surfaced and clambered elegantly back onto the rib.

It hadn’t been the days diving we had planned on, but it had none the less been a good day’s diving.

To sum up Sunfish Charters, would be to say that is the very best way of doing traditional rib diving. Mike is a very conscientous skipper, who has prepared Sunfish to be the best rib it can be. His mooring in Brixham marina, makes it very easy for loading and unloading and the rigging of ropes and handles on the rib, makes getting back in out of the water, (the hardest thing about diving a rib) as easy as it can be. This attention to detail is important. Mike, himself is very friendly and safety conscious, his willingness to call the diving at his own loss, is admirable. All this means I will definitely dive from Sunfish again, not sure if I will take the twins though, as they were a little overkill for diving two 8m dives!

Details about Sunfish. Taken from Sunfish-charters.com

“Sunfish was custom built for diving in 2005 and is a 7.8m Offshore RIB, powered by a 250hp 4 stroke engine. This combination will give us an incredibly strong, very stable, dry RIB with a top speed in excess of 40 knots. We are MCA Cat 3 coded to take 11 passengers, fully insured and will carry all appropriate navigation and safety equipment including oxygen, to make your trips with us as safe as possible.”

Mike Summersbee is the skipper and owner of Sunfish Charters, his website http://www.sunfish-charters.com/ has all the details about the dive sites he travels to with the rib. For spaces and dive schedule you can register for his yahoo group where spaces are advertised.

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Just got back from a week with the family camping in Cornwall. This is the first time I have been down to Cornwall in the last 3 years were I haven’t taken my dive kit along. Did however take the wetsuits, masks and fins for all the family. It would be wrong otherwise!!!

We had a thoroughly enjoyable week based out of the campsite Summer Valley near Truro, enjoying some of the numerous non-diving activities that one can get up too, body-boarding, chilling on the sandy beaches, cycling, visiting the sights and tourist spots, etc etc. A fuller account of our week away is on our family blog, but for this blog I would like to make mention of the surprise gem of a hours long snorkel I had on Swanpool beach in Falmouth.

After playing on the beach with the children for a while, I donned my mask and snorkel and headed off along the rocky edge of the bay out towards the headland. The sandy seabed gradually gave way to submerged rocks of the headland, the maximum depth I swam out was about 5m but the rocks and kelp beds reminded me of the shallower areas of the manacles and drawna reef just around the headland. As a result I encountered a fair amount of similar marine life, including large wrasse and a huge spider crab wrapped around the swaying kelp, hanging on for all he’s worth. I was very surprised to see such a large crab so shallow, but there was no way of dislodging him from his perch. All this within a few metres of the shoreline.

So even though no diving during the week, that hour or so of snorkelling in surprisingly good visibility considering it is a sandy beach and lots of people were in the water, did go some way to appeasing the need to go diving whilst in Cornwall. No need to fret about not diving though as we’ll be diving at the bank holiday weekend. This time from Brixham, we are going to try sunfish charters and try the Bretagne. Watch this space for the report.

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It was supposed to be a great days diving but most of July has been wiped out by the bad weather. ……….What has become the annual trip to Portsmouth for the YD Pompey Gig turned out to be a bit of a washout this year. Originally I was meant to be diving on the Friday 20th and Monday 23rd of this weekend extravaganza but had to pull out as I wasn’t certain I would be available. Due to a couple of last minute spaces on the Monday though I went out to do the Highland Brigade.

Arriving at Gosport marina half an hour before the agreed meet time I slowly got my kit out from the car and into the trolleys to take down to the boat Trojan, now skippered by Lee. It was at this point that I realised I had left my torch switched on and drained the battery down, not a good start but I had a back up HID torch so I was going to be fine.

After meeting up with everyone else and completing some major on the fly blending for Steve after a bit of a mix up on the calculations we were off, with the warning from Lee, “it might be a bit choppy on the way out”…….

After an hour of bouncing up and down and ploughing through the waves, we paused a couple of miles out to assess the situation, it was very borderline as to whether or not it would be safe to get back on the boat. Perhaps with a lift and a bit of protection leeward of the waves it would have been possible, but Trojan was being kicked high at the stern and then crashing down. The sensible decision was taken, it was a little too borderline and erring on the side of safety we turned and headed back to the marina. So no dive today but the wreck will be there another day. To top things off I even managed to suffer the mal de mer on the way back, after we had past all the big swell.

Back to the marina, got in the car, phoned work to come back in so as to save a bit of leave, and the place is threatened by the River Thames. Perhaps the lesson to learn is don’t go trying to go diving when the rest of south is being threatened with flood warnings from the excessive weather!!!

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Dive 2 Mohegan and Raglans Reef. Depth 25m, Run time 35 minutes.

After the stunning visibility of the City of Ghent, the vis was maybe a little disappointing on the second dive of the day which was back on the Mohegan and Raglans Reef. Lisa decided to sit this one out as her suit had leaked again and although she was still nice and warm she didn’t want to chill going in on the second dive. So I was buddied with Tim Ingmire of digigreen.net fame and Mark Milburn . Both photographers, so I imagined that I would end up losing one of both of them, as they stopped to take pictures on what I knew was going to be a very colourful reef. I was half right, on reaching the sea bed after a free ascent over the Mohegan, Tim and I had lost Mark already, however Tim and I managed to stay together for the rest of the dive. We stayed for a few minutes over the Mohegan but were soon onto Raglans. As Tim had his camera with him, I took on the SMB duty, and duly deployed my bag as we drifted off the wreck. This time I stayed purposely to the left of the reef, so as to keep out of the kelp and on the more exposed element of the reef which would show off the jewel anemones as they filtered the passing current. After drifting over the exposed faces for 15 minutes or so, I was surprised that we hadn’t stopped more, I had only seen Tim set up once for a shot and had expected to see the strobes going off a little more, as the reef was in excellent colour and splendor. After a few minutes more it became apparent to me why Tim wasn’t taking any shots. I had stopped for him to catch me up, the vis was a good 8-10m so wasn’t difficult to see him, as he got closer I noticed his camera upturned and Tim holding it very steady. It was only then that I saw the dome port full of water. I am sure I gave out a little yelp, as I realised his camera setup was flooded. I signalled to abort the dive and ascend, to which he agreed and we ascended slowly back to the awaiting Celtic Cat.

And that was that, the last remaining task for us as a family was to pack up and head home. The rest of the group who were staying on for Sunday started the BBQ, by the time the tent was down and the car and trailer packed, it was well and truly underway. Although all of the scallops had gone!!!! So we bid farewell to everyone and headed off home. Four or so hours later a weary family pulled up at the house, well probably I was just weary, everyone else had slept the entire journey!

I love diving Porthkerris, especially when the sea conditions are as they were this past weekend. This season Mike Anselmo, skipper and owner of the Celtic Cat has invested (and a superb investment it is too) in a purpose built two diver lift which nestles in between the two water level dive platforms at the rear of the Catamaran. I really cannot over emphasize just how good this lift is. It comes deep in the water allowing exceptionally easy access and is smooth and jerkfree in it’s operation. Chatting with Mike on Saturday he explained how already this year, he has been able to go out in heavier swells than he would previously because of the ease of operation of this lift. I can see how.

In addition Mike has also fitted 3 kitting up benches, that make life so much easier on board particularly with twinsets and stages. This was previously a very good dive boat, mainly because of it’s skipper and the space on board. But since the introduction of the lift and the benches, it is now an excellent dive boat.

To book Celtic Cat, or any of the rib dives or camping and shore dives visit http://www.porthkerris.com/

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