St. Martin's, The Scilly Isles - A Club Trip

by Derek Wright

Friday 20th June – Journey Down
Most of us decided to travel down a day early and stay over night in Penzance, rather than try and get from Newbury to Penzance for 10am on the Saturday. First to the coast were Dirk, Helen and Oscar, who put their mobile to good use by phoning Pops (stuck on the M5) to describe walking bare foot along the beach to him. Not sure this did the stress levels in the Frost Car much good. Pops and family did arrive in plenty of time to get to the pub for opening time checking into their pre-planned accommodation as opposed to the Wright family who were bumped out of town!

Last to arrive were Graham and Peggy. Although they arrived in Penzance on time, Peggy insisted (by prior arrangement) on plying his landlady with G&T, which he had brought with him. He even provided the lemon, though ice had to be begged from an adjacent B&B. The rest of the team got bored with waiting, so Graham and Peggy placed their dinner order by phone and arrived at the pub to be served within two minutes. A fun evening was had by all Frosties, Wadders’, Trevor, Graham, Peggy and Anthony wining and dining in the Admiral Benbow. Pops was very grateful to Graham for his support in returning to his accommodation (particularly the helping hand up the steps!). He was less happy about the interruption to his sleep when his wife and daughter rang him to let them into the accommodation! Meanwhile Anthony and Russell were introducing themselves to the younger maidens at Penzance’s premier night spot! The De Lara’s had a prior engagement somewhere near Plymouth.

Saturday 21st June – Journey Over
We all met up on the quay at 10am to load up the crate with all the gear before boarding the Scillonian III. Some headed to the Bar (and stayed there for the trip) others headed for the top deck to get a seat with a view and the chance to catch some rays. Excitement was building in some of the Scillies veterans and there were some big grins as we pulled into the Isles. It was a swift change when we got to St. Mary’s straight onto Voyager to do the final leg of the journey. Pops was Load Master and soon had the gear chained down the steps. He also had the forethought to dispatch his wife and daughter to get a pile of pasties for everyone, true Marshal material. (Plus he knew that mum would just get in the way-Russ)

We arrived on St Martin's and met up with Tim and Anna who we would be diving with for the week. At this point we were told that the one and only pub on the island was closed that night, as there was a party going on and the entire population of St Martin’s were going. We were invited to the beer and music later but not to the BBQ. So there was a mad scramble to the shop to get some dinner in. The music was good, a band doing Van Morrison covers very well, even those that didn’t get down to the party could hear the music perfectly well. All the islanders made us feel very welcome and it was an excellent start to the holiday.

Our accommodation was mixed: Six in the Dive Cottage, five in Rock Cottage, the Wrights in Connemara Chalet and Graham in Polreath B&B.

Sunday 22nd June – Warming Up & Getting Down
A leisurely start, unlike some trips. We met on the quay at 9:30 and put our gear together in slow time, leaving at 10:30. On the way round to the dive site Cathy saw a Sunfish, but didn’t realise that if she had shouted that at Tim, he would have gone back for another look, he has a thing about Sunfish.

The first dive this time was the same as our last dive when we came out to the Scillies last (July 2000), the South Gilstone off St Mary’s. About 200m east of the Gilstone is a 10m high wall, running N-S, giving a choice of depths from 15m to 40m. It was a good site to start on as it gave some of the less dived up people a chance to find their feet. The exposed faces of the rock were covered with jewel and plumous anemones all the way down (you will find that comment becomes a bit of a recurring theme in this report).

The second dive was on one of the Scilly Isles’ most famous wrecks, HMS Colossus. She floundered in the Scillies in 1798 carrying, amongst other things, a collection of Etruscan vases. Most of the vessel has broken up and rotted away but it is still worth sifting the sand between the kelp to find glass, copper pins and pottery shards, some of which are much older than the wreck. Pops and Russell found what appeared to be a rigging stay but in true “Respect our Wrecks” fashion left it on the sea-bed. Close by another large section of wreckage has been found, including a section of the stern carving. Unfortunately this has been designated an historic wreck, so we couldn’t dive it.

Back to St Martins at a reasonable time for ice-cream before scrubbing up and heading out to the Seven-Stones Pub for dinner. Tim reckons this is now the best place for food in the islands, from what we ate we would agree, the menu has expanded considerably since our last trip and the quality of the food was excellent, the beer wasn’t bad and Peggy displayed his expertise at Bar-billiards.

Monday 23rd June – ‘The King’ (Grant’s Favourite)
With the warm up day over we now progressed to one of the classic sites in the Scillies, the King Cadwallon. This wrecked steamer lies in a gully on the eastern slope of, the Hard Lewis Rocks (which it hit). The bow is broken up near the surface while the stern lies in 40m and is in a reasonable state. The stern section is exposed to the current and so has plenty of life on it. On this dive there is no need for a DSMB or mid water Deco stop, at any point you just turn to port and come up the Hard Lewis rocks to the surface.

The second dive was out in the Western Rocks, this was a pinnacle at Black Rocks near Rosevean. The top of the pinnacle was in 18m and the seabed was alegedly in 40m, nobody when down that far to find out. The only ‘problem’ with this site was that at the pinnacle wasn’t very big. So you would swim past a particular pair of divers and then a few minutes later you would swim past them again! This gave Wadders plenty of opportunities to display his aquatic skills and sense of humour!

Back to the Seven-Stones in the evening for more excellent cooking, good beer and bar billiards.

Tuesday 24th June – The Wall
Back out to the Western Rocks again for the first dive. You can tell the weather was being very kind to us, managing to get out here several days on the trot. You don’t get a lot more exposed in the UK than the Western Rocks of the Scillies, there is nothing between them and America other than the Atlantic Ocean. The site was Trenemene Wall, a drop off from the surface to 71m and it is shear from 6m to 45m. The rock is covered in different anemones, in numerous colours, and as you free fall down the wall you can see the life change. But even to 50m there was no bare rock on the wall. Cathy was so engrossed in her photography she didn’t notice Pops and Johno in an indelicate embrace! Some of the divers also saw a seal travelling at speed in about 15 metres near a gully. All the divers had been briefed to come up on one side of the rock, as the life was better and that was where the boat would be waiting. Dirk and Helen came up the right side until Dirk found a gully to swim through at 6m, this ‘had a fun surge’ or ‘was a washing machine’ depending on who you talk to. And they then had to swim back round to the boat.

For the second dive we returned to Rosevean, this time to Black Rock. Tim went in and laid a trail line out for us through the kelp. This took in an old admiralty pattern anchor and three cannons. After looking at those we had been given a compass bearing that would take us into an area where the seals might be. The seals weren’t in a playful mood but did come and check out most of the pairs. Russ and Ant found a fair few that would come and check them out, but they were very timid indeed.

A change of venue for dinner, we all went to the Polreath B&B for an excellent three-course dinner. This was the first night we had all made it out (even Oscar), and with some excellent diving under our belt it made for a good atmosphere. Dirk managed to find an 18 year-old McCallan, which rounded his evening off nicely. The downside was that Carol managed to drink the house dry of decent white wine so had to resort to slipping back to Rock Cottage for a top-up!

Wednesday 25th June – Wrecks old and new
With low spring tides restricting access to the quay at St Martins, the starts were getting earlier. We dived the Italia at 9 o’clock (that’s in the water!). This was another wreck on a reef. The bow lies in 42m, the anchor can be seen just off that, the stern is in 20m. One of the notable features of this wreck is the drive shaft, a good stretch of the shaft and tunnel are intact, starting at the engine block and going back towards the stern where it ends in a flange as the stern breaks up. Lying beside this is a spare propeller. Again there is no need for a DSMB, you can just come up the reef that the Italia foundered on.

This was followed by another rummage dive, this time on the site of the Douro. This ship sank in 1843 on the way from Liverpool to West Africa, she was carrying trade goods to be used in the slave trade. The site is littered with brass manillas, which were traded for slaves. Again there is nothing left of the vessel itself but waft the sand away in a gully and you soon start to turn up a pile of broken manillas, and every so often there is an intact one.

Unfortunately due to Pop’s over indulging in dairy products the night before he missed this day's diving, of which he was more than a tad upset about, as both these dives were ones that he desperately wanted to do, especially having not done the Douro before.

Peggy’s appetite started to get the better of him by this stage of the week so his MRE rations started to appear as intra dive refreshments for those who needed extra sustenance.

Wednesday night is Ladies Gig racing night. So we had take-away pizza from St Martins Bakery and then headed out to support the girls, including Anna (and Tim who was coxing). They raced into St. Mary’s, so that gave us the chance to join them for a drink in the Mermaid. We then towed them back to St. Martins, witnessing a stunning sunset over Tresco on the way back. After this we went to The Stones for a few more drinks, and MORE billiards before stumbling home.

Russ, Anthony & Peggy got a lift in the back of a Toyota Pick Up, which got a bit more crowded as the driver proceeded to pick up what seemed like half the people walking back that late. Nevertheless Russell took it upon himself to show just how athletic he was (or not) by swinging himself over the side of the truck once back at the dive flat. In doing so sprained his wrist and ended up in a lot of pain, but with no sympathy from his olds (quite right too) meaning he missed out on the last two days diving.

Thursday 26th June – Seals
On the first dive we split up, half of us dived a wreck at the bottom of Flat Ledges. This is a old wooden wreck, the shape of the vessel can be seen from the deck pins which are all sticking out of the sand. Also to be seen was a ship’s wheel, some winch gear, mast fittings and an anchor. This is in 50m so after 10mins or so on the wreck we then worked our way up the reef (which is a very good site in its own right) to 3m where we had chance to do any deco stops on the top of Flat Ledge. Those with poor navigation admired jellyfish in mid water for half an hour. Those that didn’t fancy the deep wreck did the reef, which was nearly as beautiful as the Trenemene wall.

Second dive was a seal dive in the Eastern Isles, here the seals are more playful than those out west. A fun time was had by all, and that is just the seals. One sleepy seal let Graham & Dirk come up and stroke him, though you got a filthy look when your noisy bubbles disturbed his nap. Another seal snogged Johno, right in front of his wife too. And a Wadders Seal was seen chewing Cathy’s fins; he later said that he was just getting into the swing of things. This was possibly the shallowest dive of the week, some pairs reaching a maximum depth of 2.5m! Unfortunately Ant (who has a seal fetish) seemed to be doomed to only see them passing at a distance which was a big disappointment to him.

We were back at the quay by lunchtime so most of us took the opportunity to explore the island a bit in the afternoon. The north of St Martins is made up of a string of golden sanded beaches with hardly a soul on them. The exception to this was that Carol (on an afternoon off from Oscar-sitting) had her first UK dive experience when she and Pops did a shore dive to the NW of the harbour at higher town. Unlike the rest of the NSAC woofties she did this in a wetsuit and thoroughly enjoyed it!

Back to the Seven Stones for the last time, a fair few of us had the special of Green Thai Curried Monkfish, except Oscar (aged one) who had his first ever Turbot.

Friday 27th June – Last Dive & Birthday Girl
Once again we were on the last day and wondering how that came around so quickly. This was a special day as it was Lyndsey’s twenty-first Birthday.

As a first dive we did High Ridge in the Eastern Isles. This is a pinnacle dive with a difference. Lying down the side of the wall are several large anchor chains. At the base of the pinnacle there are several items of wreckage from an old sailing ship including a winch, large amounts of chain and a set of fife wheels (part of a bilge pump). Back up on the pinnacle there is a cannon and what could be a broken anchor.

The second dive was on the sailing vessel Minnehaha, wrecked on Peninnis Point. The main anchor is in a gully, lent upside-down against the wall of the gully. There was lots of chain and iron spars. Coupled with that the area is a pretty dive with wide sandy gullies cutting through the kelp. And to top it all a seal came in to hunt in the gullies. At the end of the dive we were very worried about Active as he was shivering so much that he had problems drinking his tea, this was something to do with Peggy wanting the longest dive-time of the week (74 minutes) and Active wearing a thin wetsuit.

On the way back to the St Martins for the last time we stopped by the wreck of the Cita, where we gave Lyndsey twenty-one bumps and then threw her over the side. Then to make up for it when she got back on the boat Peggy produced two bottles of fizz (the real stuff).

Dinner was a BBQ party at the Wright Chalet. Tim and his wife Viviane joined us and we all had an excellent time. Dirk did all the prep, Johno did all the cooking and Carol made the jelly, which she then fed to everyone at 11 o’clock. We had another few bottles of fizz and a birthday cake courtesy of St Martin’s bakery.


All through the week Auntie Carol, Auntie Sue and Oscar had a wild time walking the length and breadth of the island, making sandcastles and playing in the sea. This was only possible because the weather was brilliant from start to finish.


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Saturday 28th June – Homeward Bound
Time to make our way back to the Mainland in slow time. We crossed over to St Mary’s in the morning and then had until mid afternoon to kill in Hugh Town. Some of us made our pilgrimage to St Mary’s museum to see the Cannon from the Association and to Gibsons to buy picture postcards of sinking ships. We all met up in the Mermaid again for a leisurely lunch before boarding the Scillonian for the journey back to Penzance. Some of the group headed straight home but the Frosties and Wadders were made of stronger stuff and enjoyed a curry night in Penzance, which was excellent. They then set off for home on Sunday.

Another good week on St Martins, thanks to everyone that came along and a very big thank you to Carol for looking after Oscar for the week. About this time next year Pops and Dirk will be propping up a bar somewhere and Pop’s will say, ‘I miss not going to the Scillies this year, how about sorting something out for next year?’ only next time it is his turn to run it. Probably true – Pops!

Newbury Sub Aqua Club

Photographs taken by Cathy, Helen and Peggy.

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