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After a successful appeal to the club, we thought we'd managed to scrape together a decent complement of 6 divers for the trip. However, we were whittled by wind, work and Weymouth's lack of budget accommodation, to just two divers and a coxswain. Undeterred and buoyed by Frank's infectious enthusiasm, we decided to make a weekend of it.
With such a small complement clearly nicknames were in order, so "Fun Time Frankie", "Adventure Andy" (working nickname, alternatives encouraged), and Michael "10 Pin" Bollen set to sea to round the bill and dive in Hallelujah Bay.
Our first dive was on the James Fennel - while I had dived this wreck a few times, it was always in middling visibility, so I had never seen her in her full glory. We were blessed with outstanding visibility of around 15 metres, exposing the massive remains of the hull, engines, and boilers to us. We spend some time exploring the wonderfully preserved triple expansion steam engine, with its rods, linkages, and crankshaft, peeking into the enormous boiler, and swimming though the many holes in her hull. It was a stunning UK dive.
For our second dive, we stayed in the bay and dived the Gertrude which lies close by. Our excellent vis persisted, so we had a great dive on this stunning wreck. Halfway through the dive, Frank excitedly called me over to show me a cuttlefish, just sitting and chilling above the wreck. We cautiously approached, and to our surprise she didn't back off, and was quite content to sit there watching us as we watched her. We stayed there, at about a metres and a half's distance, watching each other for three or four minutes, while she casually fluttered her skirts. It was an outstanding dive experience with this normally very nervous animal that will stay with us forever. Clearly overwhelmed, Frank thought he'd demonstrate his good mood with a dance routine at the safety stop. I have to say that I've never seen a rendition of "big fish, little fish, cardboard box" anywhere near as good as with real fish.
Day two was considered tenuous from the outset. The winds were at 18 knots gusting to 26 or so, with swells of over a metre and a half, so our carefully-crafted dive plan of heading Lulworth direction and diving what we could was abandoned before we could nose the boat out of the harbour - simply leaving the marina was a slow and wet affair. However with a north-easterly the harbour was diveable with the breakwater providing a handy windbreak, so we headed out to the Countess. Our luck with visibility held, and we had very good vis (for the harbour) of about 8m - plenty enough to do some light penetration and swim throughs of the holds. When visible the Countess is a fun wreck, with plenty to explore. For the second dive we headed to the Landing Craft and had a short but highly enjoyable dive with similarly good vis.
Overall it was a fantastic weekend of diving, with the finest visibility I've encountered in Portland, exposing much more of wrecks which I have dived many times but until now not fully appreciated. Thanks very much to Frank for organising, and Michael for driving!
