Chesil Cove
by Graham Bowers

They say it's an ill wind that does no good and my trainee's poorly nose gave me the opportunity to use my weekend diving pass to go diving not at Wasdale but at Chesil Cove. I must say it was a real treat that allowed me to fulfill an ambition I'd had for at least a whole year, maybe two. For the uninitiated and that included me, Chesil Cove is at the South-Eastern end of Chesil Beach, Near Portland Bill. For those as sad as me more information about the geology of the beach may be found at this Link. (Where we flopped in is shown in the RHS picture at the top of this page).

We cleared Nuneaton by 5.30 on Saturday morning and got to Weymouth by 8.30 and I was pleasantly surprised how accessible the South coast is, if you pick your travelling time. After feeding our faces with a cooked breakfast (large size for one of our number, but he's a growing lad) we met up with with the others in the car park of the Aqua Hotel in Castletown and then shot along to the dive site. Car parking at Chiswell is a bit problematic but the worst that can happen is having to mule the dive gear down to the beach a couple of hundred yards or so in two trips. Actually, the best plan is to dump the heavy gear plus a minder at the closest point to the sea.

The diving. First observations were that the sea looked clear and was pretty flat, waves of six inches or so. The water was 8 deg C and viz around 7 or 8 metres so not bad at all. No discernable water motion so we set off on 270° and at around 6 metres the barren pebbles gave way to, err, not so barren pebbles. Sand patches appeared at around 12 metres. The life appeared fairly sparse which considering the sea temperature and time of year was not particularly surprising - until I was surprised to find a dogfish, then another, then another - in fact around half a dozen or so. I found a pipefish and Rob found another. Other fish seen were Ballan Wrasse and some little bottom dwellers that could have been juvenile dragonets, or something completely different that looked like juvenile dragonets to me. (Hard to tell without my glasses). I was a bit underdressed and got chilly so signalled to Rob who navigated us back to the EXACT SAME PEBBLE we went in by. Honest, a navigational miracle!

The getting out. Not an epic, but clambering up he steep pebbles took a fair bit of energy and only went to prove that your buddy is still your buddy even though you are out of the water.

The second and subsequent dives took place in darker liquid, indoors and was led by Karen. In the pub!

Sunday. Barry paired up with Rob, who did his "same pebble" trick again. I reckon he used string. Jan and I paired up and at Barry's suggestion went out to 12 metres and then headed South, parallel with the beach. That brought us into an area with larger boulders that harboured more lovely kelp and the life it supports but I forget the names of. We saw less fish life - unlike Barry and Rob who saw loads, but we did find a whopping lobster and some smaller crustaceons, dogfish, wrasse and a small pollocky looking thing. Jan has an arty thing about rusty metal and as luck would have it, we found some.

In summary, I found Chesil Cove to be an accessible and worthwhile South Coast diving site.I look forward to exploring the Cove and the wrecks (well broken wrecks about 100 metres from the shore) of Chesil Beach in the summer when more life arrives.

Marlin SAC
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