Dive trip report from previous weekend by Andy C
As it was my first RIB trip of the year, my priority was just to get my fins wet a bit and enjoy being back on and in the water.
Frank, having earned his stripes last week, was dive managing on his own for the first time, and clearly eager to impress. The plan for the day was to go around the Bill and dive the Gertrude and the James Fennell. I love these dives, as they are sheltered in a little rocky cove that offers gentle, scenic dives with a pleasant surface interval. (When the wind is in the right direction)
First dive was the Gertrude, a well-distributed wreck in a boulder field. Reg and I were treating this as a shakedown dive, getting back to the sea, and we were rewarded with great visibility, making this a fun and easy dive, up until the safety stop, where underestimations in the lead department were revealed.
After a surface interval which lacked only sunshine, we got back into the water to dive the James Fennell, the wreck next door to the Gertrude. Blessed by the same visibility we had another lovely, pleasant dive, marred only by further lead deficits.
On Sunday, we planned to be in Weymouth Bay all day without returning to the marina. First dive of the day was on the British Inventor, a wreck about 6 miles off Portland, with a well-deserved reputation for attracting a lot of life. Unfortunately, due to the recent weather, the east side of the Bill was suffering far worse visibility than we found the day before.
As we got to the bottom we found the visibility was around a metre or two. However, we did find a fair amount of life even in the murk, seeing lobsters, congers, a lot of wrasse and pouting, but not unfortunately all of our buddies, as we lost Reg and had to abort the dive about 15 minutes in.
After a pleasant surface interval in Lulworth Cove, being lapped by kayakers, we went to Lulworth Banks for a drift. As we got to the bottom, the light from the surface diminished to nearly nothing, leaving us in the dark. Visibility was a metre or two, and the tide was racing. If you've ever done a fast drift dive in poor visibility before, you know how exhilarating it can be. Lulworth Banks has wide sandy patches surrounded by rocky ridges and valleys, so this made for a very fun and occasionally chaotic drift dive, scraping the bottom with our bellies then swooping up and down over the rocks. Amazingly, we managed to stay together for the whole dive, keeping line abreast of each other.
Many thanks to Frank who did an amazing job dive managing, and we had a relaxing and fun weekend with some great diving, and to Fariborz for coxing!
