Wreck Diving Out Of Plymouth, Devon
July 2004

by Steve Jones

This trip was arranged by Nigel Hewitt and the others on the trip were: Adrian Hewitt, Adrian Smith, Steve Jones, Jason Poynting, Ian McLean, Tracey McLean, Adam Walker, Sharon Walker, Ken Tomlinson, Daniel Taylor & Maria Kjellen. We were split up over 3 different B&Bs so didn't get the usual opportunity to all get together after each day's diving, although we did our best, as usual.

Knowing what the traffic was going to be like on the M5 I took a half day and travelled down early, just as well as some of the group took up to 7 hours to get there.

On each day slack water was going to be quite late so getting up early was never going to be a problem. So everyone arrived on time at the Mountbatten Centre to meet our skipper, Alan, and to load our gear onto Seeker. As will be seen from the viz figures we did very well this weekend, I think Alan had sacrificed a Plymouth virgin to arrange this. He said the sacrifice didn't take long, his problem was finding her. None left now though.

Saturday: Dive 1: Maine, Max Depth 34.1 metres, Run time, 60 minutes, Viz 10 metres
The Maine was a British cargo ship 3,616 tons and 375ft in length. Originally called the Sierra Blanca but renamed in 1913 by her new owners. She was sunk when she was torpedoed by UC-17.
This a great wreck, sitting upright on the bottom. It is covered in anemones and dead men's fingers. Plenty to keep you occupied with the various bits of machinery etc. Certainly worth doing some deco to have a good tour of this wreck. We managed to find a couple of nice sized lobsters off to the side and a conger hiding in some pipes. Over the stern there is a large circular device, at first it was thought to be part of the steering device, but it is possible that it is part of a gun placement.
First entrant for the kit damage award goes to AJ who managed to rip both his neck seal and his cuff seal after this dive. He did manage to hire another suit in time for the following day, but it was a tad too large!!!!!

Dive 2: Scylla, Max Depth 25.3 metres, Run time 52 minutes, Viz 12 metres
This is the new wreck, or should that be reef? that has been sunk close to the James Egan Layne. As expected it was a very busy dive site with constant RIB shuttles running out to it. It is quite a nice dive and very easy to penetrate with lots of holes cut into the hull. As it has only recently been sunk it will be interesting to see how it develops over the coming years.
Another entrant for the kit damage award goes to Nigel when the exhaust became detached from the manifold and fell off his car and he had to be towed back to the B&B by the AA. 
Take a hint Nigel, it's time to get a new one.

Sunday: Dive 1: Oregon, Max Depth 34.5 metres, Run time 51 minutes, Viz 10 metres
Slack for this dive was not until 2pm. We arrived in plenty of time and were in no particular hurry. We were soon to be entertained by a boat out of Salcombe called Woodpecker, which put a shot onto the wreck (which the skipper described as a reference line) then started putting divers into the water. This 1 hour 45 minutes before slack!!! Oh how we laughed as the first pair went hurtling past the shot and were finning very hard for a couple of minutes to get back to it. The next pair managed to get to the shot, but must have pulled it off the wreck, as all 4 surfaced some minutes later. After this they cancelled their plans for this dive. Apparently they were going to do this dive, then dash off to do the Maine on slack at 2pm. So assuming the last divers had come out of the water just after 1pm, they would then have less than an hour surface interval before the next 30 metre dive.
The Oregon sank in 1890 after hitting a reef. She did not sink immediately but sank while on tow into Plymouth. She was a 195 foot long sailing ship weighing in at 810 tons.
The wreck is quite flat although there are quite a few holes to poke around in. I managed to see about 5 congers and several dog fish, plus the usual assortment of wrasse and bib. The wreck also has its fair share of sea fans, and quite a few scallops which lie off to the side.

Dive 2: Persier, Max Depth 31.1 metres, Run Time 43 minutes, Viz 10 metres
The Persier, originally called the War Buffalo was a 5,382 ton Belgian steamer. She sank in 1945 after being torpedoed by UB-1017 . A relatively flat wreck with a couple of swim throughs which had some very large bib in them. As with a lot of other wrecks in this area there are a lot of cotton spinners and sea fans in evidence.
As this was the second 30 metre dive of the day, and having done some deco on the first we didn't plan a particularly long dive on this one and only did about 8 minutes of deco. However there was still applause when Adrian and I both surfaced together for the only time this weekend. Best UKRS entrant for kit damage must go to Alan the skipper. As we were coming back onto the pontoon at Mountbatten, the control coupling for the port engine became detached and he could not disengage it. Despite putting the starboard engine into reverse he couldn't stop the boat and we crashed into a couple of RIBs, lifting one up on top of the other, before they fell back. But at least they stopped us.

Monday: Dive 1: Eddistone, Max depth 45.1 metres, Run time 70 minutes, Viz 5 metres
The ride out to the dive site was not as calm as on the previous 2 days and we had a couple of twin sets and Ken's rebreather come free of their bindings, and crash to the deck.
Special mention here for Jason who entered the kit damage competition as his was one of the sets to fall and damage one of the knobs and valve spindle. It should also be mentions that it was not actually his twin set, but one that he borrowed from Keith Sabine.
Breaking with normal UKRS procedure we actually chose to dive a reef. We dropped in at 12 metres, close to a drop off to 18 metres. there was quite a brisk current running and it was a case of simply going with the flow. I soon lost contact with Adrian and then got caught in an even stronger current, I did some rock hugging for a while to see if he would get back to be, but all to no avail so I carried on. The sea bed was a constant slope downwards, and rocks covered with jewel anemones, sponges etc. At just over 40 metres the terrain changed and was less rocky and more sandy. I managed to see a red gurnard sitting on the bottom at about 42 metres. As I was now starting to rack up quite a bit of deco (I was on 24%) I started to ascend once I had got to 45 metres.

Dive 2: James Egan Layne
No details on this dive as for only the second time ever I elected not to dive. Having had quite a long and relatively deep first dive I would have wanted at least another 45 minutes, to one hour surface interval. So weighing all this up decided to give it a miss and think about the journey home. Given that it was a bank holiday the return journey only took me 3 hours, which is only 20 minutes longer than normal.

Steve Jones

www.clearviz.co.uk

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