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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