Wreck diving in the South West.

British diving is often challenging, when good it can be sublime, when bad it can be atrocious.

I am forever an optimist though & only very rarely do I have an atrocious dive and I always try to find  the good experiences on every dive I do.

Booking a trip on the south coast in May and you know (or should) that the chances of a plankton bloom affecting the diving are very high. Looking on social media tells interesting tales; sites just 10’s of miles apart can report very differently, this last weekend reports of 20 metre viz down to “I can’t see the gauges on my wrist” viz all along the coast from Brighton to the Lizard.

I was mixed gas wreck diving off Plymouth based, South West Diving’s TopGun. Trip organiser Steve Mortimer sought advice from many divers in the South Devon & Cornwall area in the days before. The Persier east of Plymouth Sound was terrible but things seemed to be improving down towards Falmouth. We would be heading West.

SS Afric – White Star Line

Saturday dive would be the SS Afric, one of Titanic’s predecessors, a White Star Liner. SS Afric was built at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff’s yard and launched in 1899(Titanic would be launched 12 years later). Afric was a Jubilee Class liner, 11948 tons, 550ft long with a beam of 63ft. She had 5 boilers powering two 4 cylinder quadruple expansion engines that in turn drove 2 propellors, giving her a top speed of 14kts. She could carry 320 passengers and 100,000 refrigerated meat carcasses. Her maiden voyage was between Liverpool & New York but she had been built for and sailed between Liverpool, Cape Town and Sydney for the rest of her career.

On 12th February 1917 she was on her way to Cape Town having called in at Devonport when UC66 commanded by Herbert Pustkuchen fired a torpedo that hit her midships. This sealed her fate and she sunk approximately 12 miles SW of the Eddystone lighthouse. 22 were lost(sailors working in the engine/boiler room where the torpedo hit) 145 survivors were rescued.

Dive, dive, dive….

The weekend had very good neap tides so although we had to wait for slack water we had plenty of it and there was no rush. Surface conditions despite some wind & a fairly big swell, looked good, you could see the shotline for several metres as it disappeared into the depths. 1st pair had gone in & sent up a confirmatory marker buoy, we were on the wreck.

Diver lighting up the bow of the SS Afric

Top of the bow of the SS Afric

Once in the water the visibility looked surprisingly good and stayed that way until about 30m when I hit the dreaded plankton layer, thick green strands & blobs, this lasted for another 15 – 20 metres. Once through this layer, I moved into much clearer water albeit in pitch darkness. It was like a night dive, only  torches to light up the ships structure.

Starboard anchor of the SS Afric

Viz was probably about 5m & I was able to get a few shots with my camera. I made my way to the bow, always good to get an iconic wide angle bow shot, the darkness prevented that but I was able to get other divers in shot to help set the scene.

Diver illuminating the bow of the SS Afric

Maximum depth on the dive was 78.9m and my dive time was approximately 30 minutes on the wreck followed by a further 90 minutes of decompression. I was able to while away deco by taking shots of buddy Tim Watkins and also rather too many selfies.

Tim Watkins on deco

Not another selfie!

Sunday dawned calm & sunny, much better above water conditions. We were heading for a wreck slightly inshore of the Afric, another big wreck, the SS Silver Laurel.

Built by Joseph Thompson & Sons in Sunderland in 1939, the 6142 ton Silver Laurel was travelling from Falmouth to Hull carrying a mixed cargo when she was torpedoed by U486 on 18th December 1944. Her 68 crew were all saved. She now lies west of the Eddystone lighthouse in 70m

Dive, dive, dive….

Below the surface, water was like gin, but once again the plankton started at about 30m, unfortunately this time it went right down to the wreck. Black as night, 1/2m viz at 70m, any sane person would just turn around. I had that in my mind but felt I should have a quick look around first and I am really glad I did.

I had no idea as to my whereabouts on the wreck. I moved onto an area with a good population of sea fans, what was astonishing though was the numbers of dogfish lying apparently inert on the wreck.

Scrum of dogfish

One on top of another and unconcerned by my presence, I spent some time photographing them. Buddy Steve Green lighting the scene, the wider view really does show the appalling viz.

Dogfish!

Dogfish on the SS Silver Laurel, along with thick plankton.

When I felt I had enough shots it was time to bag off the wreck, Steve & I spent deco time in the very clear shallow water taking some more images so that I could show off the best & worst of uk viz in one dive.

Diver Steve Green on his stops, viz in the shallows was stunning

Conclusions:

Dive safely but don’t necessarily give up on your dive, it may not be the best experience but just think of the skills you use and are able to hone, you will be a better diver for it so that when those rare perfect UK dive days come around you can really make the most of them.

What looks like a poor dive may spring a surprise, or at the very least give you something to talk about over a couple of beers. If you always want to wait for perfect conditions in the UK you may end up missing a lot of diving.

For me, I had an excellent weekend; diving a big liner is always special and I had a treat in having an unexpected critter dive that just happened to be on a wreck lying in 70m.

Diver approaching dive boat “TopGun” at the end of the dive

What did OThree do? Kept me warm & dry and my new extreme 7mm hood is brill!

TopGun is run by Gary Kelham, South West Diving – http://www.southwestdiving.co.uk