Wreck Diving From Teignmouth, Devon
August 2004

by Steve Jones

This trip was organised by Jason Poynting and we were booked in with Teign Diving, using their boat Seaquest, a Lochin 33, skippered by Adam. The trip was limited to 10 people and they were Jason Poynting, Louise Cronin, Steve Jones, Gordon Henderson, Cliff Coggin, Chris Bell, Ian McLean, Tracy McLean, Adrian Smith and Pete Steggle. However Pete decided not to dive and just came along for the ride on Saturday. 

Saturday
A feature of this weekend was that the water looked very clear from the surface, but once you descended deeper than 8 or 9 metres you entered the murk and so although we had the best weekend’s weather of the year, the viz was some of the worst, typically 3 metres. 

Dive 1: Perrone, Max Depth 31.7 metres, Run time 60 minutes 
The Peronne was a French cable layer, sunk in 1917. The wreck is in several pieces. A gap exists between the bow section and the midsection and again between this and the stern section. There used to be a gun on the stern but this has now gone. 
There were a lot of bib and some very large Pollack on the wreck, and also 3 or 4 large lobsters. Because of the poor viz it was difficult to navigate to the various sections that were broken apart. 

Dive 2: Bretagne, Max Depth 27.7 metres, Run time 47 minutes
The Bretagne was a 1,439 ton steamer which could also hoist 2,000 square feet of sail. She was 232ft x 35ft and carrying 1,500 tons of coal when involved in a collision in 1918. One person was killed when they went down below just before the ship went down. The wreck currently sits upright and there are usually lots of fish to be seen. Quite a lot of angling goes on so care needs to be taken for monofilament line. 
Adam had put the shot right on the bows, so navigation was easy, even for me. I made my way along the port side then dropped over the stern to look at the large hole which was made during the collision. From there I went back along the starboard side then up onto the deck at the bows. There was a reasonable current running throughout and more so when hanging onto the shot line to do some stops. 

Most of my trip reports concentrate on the diving, however this time it is the Saturday evening that makes the headlines. We decided to go to a place called The Pickwick to eat. We were told that it would be 30 minutes before our meals could be served. We thought this was OK so sat in 2 groups. The first problem was actually getting them to serve some drinks. This took about 15 minutes with them being left on the bar waiting for the round to be completed then delivered to our table. 
A couple in our group had a starter and this finally arrived after about 50 minutes. Then after complaining about the delay the main courses were served after one and a half hours. During this period we again endured a 15 minute wait for drinks.
Then the problems really started. Louise said that her pasta dish was cold in the middle and so we called the waitress over. At this point Cliff pointed out that his was the same. The waitress took them away to nuke them in the microwave and as soon as she went into the kitchen there was a crash. Poor old Cliff’s food had been dropped and he had a further wait while they prepared a new meal. I had been enjoying my fish then as I got closer to the middle I noticed that this section was still raw, so again the waitress was called over, however I declined her offer to reheat it. By now we were totally hacked off and made sure that they knew about it, we were then given a substantial discount on the meal. 
The second group had a similar experience. Gordon (a vegetarian) had a prawn in his meal, and also a piece of string in his salad. Pete informed the waitress and she replied “string…? What do you mean string?” Pete replied “string…like you tie parcels with” I think she got the message. Pete’s own meal was also a disaster, he had ordered a medium rare steak and it was somewhat overcooked. He described it as “nuked” 
So the Pickwick will not be on our list of places to go back to. 

Sunday 
Dive 1: Lord Stewart, Max depth 36.9 metres, Run time 67 minutes.
The Lord Stewart was 248 foot long, 1445 ton armed merchantman. She was sunk by a torpedo from UB104 on 16 September. At the time of her sinking she was en route from Cherbourg to Barry.
A very pretty wreck with lots of colourful anemones, the holds are easily accessible but very silty, so there is not much point in going there. Dropping over the stern you can see the rudder and prop still in place and covered with anemones and dead men’s fingers. I came face to face with a conger when I looked into a pipe. Probably the fastest move that I had made all day. 

Dive 2: Galacia, Max depth 17.1 metres, Run time 51 minutes.
The Galicia was a 5922 ton British ship, built in 1901. On 12th May 1917 she was going from London to Valparaiso with a cargo of cloth and cement, plus some ammunition to be delivered to Jamaica. On the way she was hit by a mine laid by one of the German UC class submarines off Teignmouth. 
The wreck is very broken up and was more of a drift dive over the wreck site. After a while I got fed up and went off in search of scallops. Not taking them of course because at this time of year you are not allowed to take them from this area. 

In summary it was a good weekend, especially as we don’t routinely go to this area. The boat could have been better as there was no lift and the gunnels are very wide. 

Steve Jones

Clear Viz

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