Two Days, Two Very Different Dives
All week the forecast for Bank Holiday weekend in Cornwall has been dire, dire and yet more…dire. It changed every couple of hours but never really veered away from wind and rain from Thursday through til Monday. The only upside I could see was that I didn’t have to drive for 5 hours to sit in the rain and get blown out!
On this note I was expecting the usual Friday night dive to be cancelled, but Friday stayed bright and warm all day, and come end of play at work I was rushing home to throw the kit in the car and drive down to Falmouth. The trip usually takes about 1/2 hour, but the expected extra tourist traffic lead me to take a few back-roads and 40 mins later we were at the yacht club, in glorious sunshine loading the kit onto Cousin Jack.
It was to be a mid-tide dive so a fast-ish drift in the Channel was chosen and Caroline & I dropped in second for a free descent. Usally on this dive you get dropped on the slope on the edge of the channel at about 15m. We hit the bottom at more like 27m with a fairly hefty current sweeping down the slope and trying very hard to push us deeper. We were diving our usual 32% and didn’t want to go deeper, so some sub-aqua ferry-gliding ensued and we ascended up the slope a few metres and finned in to stay at depth until the slope turned and we found ooursleves taken along the countour rather than down.
The seabed in this area is a mix of coarse sand, mud and maerl, with some rocky feature, including a miniature wall that you hit between about 22-27m. There is always lots of life around here, with crab, corkwing wrasse, cocksinny and lots of smaller life occupying the weed and crevices. A large dogfish was curled at the bottom - we have seen one here a few times and I wonder if it is always the same one? Soon the current took us beyond the end and we used the opportunity to lose a few more metres and ascend up the slope to 15m. Here the seabed gathers a coat of weedy patches and the natural light in the 6-7m viz means you can see alot. We drifted over a lovely thornback ray - another regular sighting here - and he doesn’t move unitl we are right upon him. They have such beautiful markings and when I see them I always thing they look slightly incongruous amongst the rest of the UK life. They somehow seem too regal to be sat on a muddy bottom in 13 degree water.
A bit further and an old bowl, now half submerged in the silt, is a love arbour for two mating edible crabs - the male on the bottom was enormous and was lucky that Colin found him in a clinch or he would have been tea, I have no doubt!
The spot of the night was two HUGE sea-lemons sat next to their extravagant egg-spirals. Caroline always manages to see them before the gills retract but I always seem to be too late :grr:
Finally, after 50 minutes on the bottom we ascended. It was still bright blue skies and the channel was filled with sailboats - there are alot of races that go on from Falmouth and Mylor on Friday nights, apparently. Picked up swiftly, up on the lift and a cup of hot tea was in our hands before our fins were off. Flapjack from one of the other divers rounded it off a treat - and not a navy ship in sight 
So…in contrast! Dive two. Still abysmal weather forecast, but last night it actually arrived. I lay in bed hearing wind battering rain agaisnt the window - and an dreaded easterly at that - and thought Mark’s plan of taking the RIB out today wasn’t going to come off. However a 2pm meet at Mylor was the call, and just after 1pm we left home in mizzle. 3 miles down the road at Truro we had our first glimpse of blue sky and by the time we got to Mylor it was bright and warm.
I chatted to a lady from Ilfracombe who had been out in her club rib this morning and she said although there was a swell outside the point it was alright. Passing that info on to Mark and Sharky and after discussion with the other 2 on the boat we decided to try for the Manacles. A lumpy ride over had me sat on the deck of the Rib for comfort, rather than lose an arm holding on at the front . We kept a fruitless eye out for baskers as we crossed the bay and arrived at the Manacles to find the current ripping. A quick call was made to head for the good old Volnay instead.
On the Volnay and a couple of club RIBS - maybe from the midlands? - were there. They had a small diver separation issue to deal with so asked us to keep clear until they were sorted, which we did. One then came over to tell us it was about 1/2m viz down there. We did ask what it had been like before they had got in
The second boat upped the estimate to 1m viz, so with such positive news we couldn’t possibly turn it down, and promptly kitted up and jumped in.
I hit the wreckage with my knees.
In my defence it was a bit like that Father Ted scene “Big cows, close, small cows, far away”. I had seen something in the seconds before hitting the wreck, but I thought I had seen a sandy/weedy seabed a few metres off, and not a rusty plate of metal a few inches off. Oops.
Signalling C to stick close we mimbled off. That was pretty much the stroy of the dive. The viz was in most places about 2m, light, but milky, and so there was alot of looking at things at the end of your nose. Butterfly blennys, dragonets, velvet swimmers, bib, pollack and the ubiquitous ballan wrasse.
Before the dive we were talking about brass shells that can sometimes be found, and as we went for a short detour (on purpose, honest) off the wreck, I found a couple of encrusted lumps that I am sure were shells. I bashed one a bit for a while trying to get the encrustation off to see if I was right, but it was very hard, and nothing happened so I quickly got bored and dropped it. I’m not the best spidger 
Back to prodding squidgy things and I found the most gorgeous, lacy white nudibranch which made Caroline conduct an underwater dance of excitement. We are easliy pleased.
Checking time and the 45 mins bottom time mark had been reached so we started the ascent. This was when C remembered that leaving off your umbilical means adding another weight. Probably better to have recalled this back at home, but hey! I cought her fins and we settled back into the ascent, with her looking slightly more shrink-wrapped than normal.
We surfaced to blue skies - moderate waves and the prospect of a less than elegant entry intot he RIB. Luckily there were big strong men on hand and a hoick under the armpits did the trick. Feeling seasick as I dekitted I sear at Rib diving again. Not that this will stop me, of course, but I love to hate it!
Back to Mylor, flying now with the swell on our backs, and a quick unload, dekit and off for a cone of Roskilly’s from hatch servery down the road.
Yum.
randomly spotted the title of your blog on a post in YD and clicked on it.
Nice write-up
Keep them coming.
(If I managed enough diving, I might blog too)