Plymouth …… finally
The annual Plymouth bank holiday dive was planned and ready to go in 2020, no go, rebooked to 2021 no go, rebooked for 2022 …. Go!!!
Finally, we had managed to get the trip on, we still lost a couple of people due to covid and ended up with 17 people travelling to dive.
A short 6 hour drive and we arrived at the Mountbatten Water Sports centre, unpacked and went to the bar to meet up with and wait for the other divers to arrive.
Saturday morning and the sun was up a light breeze and two boats to be loaded. We decided on a gentle start to the weekend with two ‘easy’ dives as some of the group had not completed a sea dive for a while.
The choice was the James Eagan layne and the Scylla, two of the classic dives out of Plymouth. The two boats separated out and alternated dive sites. Sadly, due to the annual algal bloom, visibility was not as good as it could be, but we still had a decent 3 – 4 meters. It meant we had enough to get a view, but we had to look closely to find smaller marine life.
The Scylla (a purposely sunk Royal Navy frigate) was full of life and provided an enjoyable first dive. We complete a full circuit at sea level and then worked our way upwards, via the differing decks, to the bridge where we ascended on the shot line to a contented boat and a brew.
The afternoon brought the James Eagan Layne. This is a fabulous dive site, full of historical interest and full of life. The JEL is a liberty ship that was sunk in WWII with a full cargo. Much of the cargo was removed and some parts of the ship, but it remains an interesting historical dive. We headed round the outside to start with following the hull and peering under the wave damaged plating. It was full of lobsters, crabs and the odd conger eel. At one stage we found two eels trying hard to out stare each other as we made our way back through the centre of the wreck trying to identify the remains of the cargo in her holds. The JEL never fails to impress and after 45 minutes we surfaced with smiles on our faces.
Later the night the 17 of us made our way to the Boringdon Arms for a meal. A relaxed affair with prebooked meals (except Ray and his specials!), followed by a few beers in the Mountbatten bar.
An early start on the Sunday as we had the twelve mile trip to Hand Deeps and the Eddystone Lighthouse. These are spectacular not only as a dive sites but also as locations. Hand Deeps is in the middle of nowhere with the Eddystone lighthouse visible in the distance. It is a pinnacle rising up from the seabed at 55m to 9m below the surface. We headed down the line to the kelp covered top of the pinnacle and descended straight down a gulley over the edge of the pinnacle to 30m. From there we began a slow zig zag ascent back to the summit. Besides the usual marine life, the outstanding beauty of Hand Deeps are the walls covered by thousands of jewel anemones and dotted with nudibranchs. The purples, oranges, white and yellow daisy like anemones make for a stunning back drop to the dive.
Once everyone was back on the boat we steamed over to the Eddystone lighthouse for the second dive of the day. The lighthouse stands on a patch of rocks of which a most are below the sea. We dived a pinnacle that descends to about 28 meters. This gave us an opportunity to skirt the base of the pinnacle investigating the nooks and crannies in the rocks. There was a huge amount of life in evidence and large edible and spider crabs sat glaring at us. The usual large wrasse made their presence known and many smaller fish were using the rocks as a sanctuary.
A Plymouth tradition was maintained with a visit to the local bar for a post dive beer and chat with the important addition of cheesy chips.
The evening was the curry night. The night before, when dropping the order off, the waitress looked rather worried about the large order. Lasky’s delivered a superb meal for all of us (20 minutes late but can be forgiven) and the staff at the Mountbatten centre ensured we had plates, cutlery, and a staffed bar.
The last day rolled around and a few people dropped out, leaking suits, tired, needed to head home early but the majority headed out eager for a final day’s diving.
Today promised to be good and the first dive, The Persier, didn’t let us down. Lying at 30 meters it was the deepest of the weekend. We descended the shot line and arrived at the three massive boilers and then, turning right to follow the drive shaft of the propellor. After five minutes we decided to head away from the main diver group and worked our way in the opposite direction to the collapsing bow. This proved to be a good choice as the fish had also decided upon the same course of action. We encountered a large school of bibb, wrasse, sea bass and pollack hovering over the wreckage of the bow. With visibility of 10 meters, it made for a great spectacle. We headed back to look over the boilers and return to the surface via the shot line.
The final dive of the weekend was a small wall/reef called Fairy Land. Interesting topography and hundreds of spiny starfish jammed into the cracks. A good scenic dive to finish a really interesting set of dives.
On our return to the marina we packed up, and headed off, but not before booking for next year.
