Less U-Who than U-No - the Revenge of the U90 jinx
Once upon a time, a long time ago (well, March actually) there was an intrepid band of YD-ers who wanted to dive U90. U90 is a First World War U-boat that sank under tow at the end of the war, just off the southern tip of the Isle of Wight.Sadly, nature conspired against us and the intrepid band were, what is technically known as, “blown-out”. Undeterred a hard core rebooked to try again and were joined by a rag-tag group of assorted hangers-on . Today was the day.
Only one thing could stand in their way…and that thing was a certain Mr Matt Binnie.
You have to understand that Matt is somewhat of a jinx when it comes to diving subs. The first one, U1195, went fine, but since then luck and circumstance have conspired against him and over what must be five or six attempts to dive another sub he has had no success. Worryingly most of those attempts have been at the U90. The clincher was that he was coming with us.
Anyway, today dawned clear and with only a light breeze, so weather wasn’t going to stop us - hoorah. Then we saw the sea fog off Portsmouth. Still no issue, it was ok to dive. Double hoorah!
Then we found out the head on the boat was broken. It worked yesterday, but my bladder doesn’t do time travel, so this was an issue. The wise and less shy took the opportunity to relieve themselves al fresco before boarding. I just suffered.
Upon boarding we met Steve (1) from The Dive Connection who we booked through, and Steve (2), the skipper of Wightdiver. These are two different people. Steve (1) seemed keen to convince us to dive UB81, which is close to U90, instead, but given Matt’s poor luck with U90 I felt I couldn’t change the plans now. What a fool!
We got to the marks that the two Steves had for U90 and it was then revealed that they hadn’t found the wreck in this boat and so didn’t have a precise “lock” on it and the early start was so we could trawl up and down to try and fix the position. So we trawled. And we trawled some more. And some more. Not a dicky bird on the echosounder. After about 1/2 hour failure was declared and we raced off to the site of the UB81 which they did have in the system.
Trace found, shot was dropped and the call of “you’ve got at least 15 mins until slack” changed to “get in now!”. Twelve divers frantically kitted up and went in two at a time. As we got in as the fifth pair, with Matt and Darren close behind, it looked promising. The viz was far better than we had expected at 7-8m and fairly light. The bad news was that it became apparent as we dropped that the current was still running. As we got even closer to the bottom in 30m we could feel the shot moving, and once at the shot we could see the speed at which it was moving.
On the sea floor it was going like a train. Caroline and I began to follow the scour left by the shot by getting right down on the floor and part kicking, part pulling along with our hands. The scour gradually disappeared, but we kept heading directly into the current in the hope that with the reasonable viz we might get a sighting of a sub!
It was not to be and after 10 minutes of hard work into the current we gave up and turned. I lead us slightly across current for a bit, admiring the little life that there was on the seabed, which mainly consisted of dahlia anenomes, whilst still hoping for a tell-tale shadow at the edges of the viz - after all, maybe we had swum right past it!
After another few minutes we admitted defeat and I put up my blob. Following the theme of the day this was about 1 minute too early as we then found the shot line, as it still bumped its merry way along the bottom. Not letting the opportunity of having a big buoy to help us be found in the fog we started up the shot. At about 12m we could see Matt and Darren above us doing a safety stop, so we knew they had been unlucky too. As we got to 6m slack arrived. Back on the boat the full story came out.
The first group of four in reckoned that they had about a 30-50m swim up-current to the wreck and they only just made it. Tricky and Trickytoo were a gnat’s whisper away from giving up after a good 10 minute battle against the tide whn they spotted it. Everyone after them missed it entirely and estimates - using a pipe on the seafloor that we all found at some point as a a datum - were that the last pairs in were about 100m off the wreck at point of dropping in!
So - couple of lessons. Make sure that the shot is locked into the wreck somehow before sending a whole boat down and also know whether the tide is coming or going! From the thought that we had missed it, to slack actually arriving was 3/4 hour…..oops.
Anyway, time for a surface interval whilst we motor to the NAB tower for a second dive and full advantage was taken of the on-tap, free tea and coffee. This meant I had to use the non-flushing head. Here I discovered another small flaw with it. It sits about 8″ high - you have your knees round your earholes using it!
NAB tower was supposed to be part of some WW1 anit-sub protection. As we really didn’t need reminding of subs it was nicer to see it in it’s most recent way-point version. Above the water is a metal tower, but below the water is a wedding-cake arrangement of 5m deep and wide concrete ledges down to around 20m. The size of it means that there is a lee to get into at all states of tide and we tucked in close for a explore. We were promised lots of crabs, lobbies and fish, but most were having a spring break elsewhere. Either that or hiding about 2m away. The viz would allow this. The vertical surfaces were covered in dead mens fingers and there was lots of evidence of nudibrach activity in the form of egg spirals, but we failed to spot an actual nudi.
The most notable inhabitants were the dozens of tompots, all sizes and colours. There were a couple of large ballan wrasse and some goldsinny hiding in cavelets. After just over half an hour I was getting uncomfortable in the surge and feeling a whole lot less intrepid than at the start of the day, we surfaced.
As we got on the boat the fog lifted.
When we got back to Portsmouth it was glorious. I think that sums up our luck!
Thanks to Dive Connection and Wightdiver who are clearly intent on provinding a friendly and comprehensive service. I think that we have been unlucky in catching the start of the season with a new boat and I am sure things will improve. The attitude is certainly there and despite everything I had a great day out - it always beats sitting in the office
