BedSAC Trip to Weymouth
You've Been Tango'd!

by Arnold Talats


My trip began on the preceding Tuesday night with a pack of kit-hungry divers descending like locusts on the Equipment Hold. Ten minutes later and it looked like we had been burgled.

Moving on to Friday, I finished work at midday and Malcolm arrives to pick me up at about 12.30. We start to load up his VW Passat with my equipment and sleeping bag and Malcolm suddenly remembers at this point that he has no sleeping bag or linen for himself, we stage a raid on the airing cupboard but the only spare linen we can find is my three year old daughter’s spare Giraffe and lion print bed sheets. They’ll do nicely! They also got a lot of praise from the other divers in the caravan…….

It will never cease to amaze me how only two divers can completely fill the boot and back seat area with kit and I still need to put bags in the front with me. 12.45 and we’re off to Weymouth; we follow our tried and trusted route of the A34 just outside of Bicester and follow it to the southern end of the M3 and then along the A31. The traffic flows nicely and we arrive at Osmington Mills at about 4.15.

A cold Grolsch is pushed into my hand and we settle back to hear about Clive and Helen's diving experiences during the week. In my bedroom I unpack as much as space will permit (I unroll my sleeping bag) and discover my bed is the standard caravan size single, the same dimensions as a narrow radiator shelf. After partaking of the triple ‘S’ special (shampoo, shower and a shave) I persuade Malcolm down to the Smugglers pub for a lager or two and something to eat. The rest of the weekend team arrive during the course of that evening and after plenty of dive talk we call it a night.

Malcolm and I take it in turns to get dressed next morning as we  don’t have enough room for both of us to attempt it at the same time or one of us will end up with a black eye. With eight divers sharing a caravan designed for six, personal timing for the bathroom is paramount. After coffee and biscuits (thanks Helen) we are off to the Weymouth quayside. We meet Dave, Paul, Kevin and Chris who stayed on the boat overnight.

Everyone lends a hand to loading the kit onto the boat and we start to assemble our gear on deck in the morning sunshine. One lippy pensioner on the quayside asks Clive to bring back a lobster for his wife, to which Clive replies “Why does she need a lobster when she has crabs already?” He wasn’t amused but she was laughing about it and after a few verbal exchanges the final score was as follows - Diving Officer 5 - lippy pensioner nil (He should have known better at his age) We make it out to sea without running down any of the dinghies, which seem to be the equivalent of sea going mopeds with adolescents only partially in control.

After a pleasant trip in the sunshine eastwards along the coast we reach Worbarrow bay and we make final preparations for the dive the Black Hawk. Malcolm and I are the third pair to enter the water and make our way to the shot line. As we start our descent down the line I come across another diver with the line caught under and behind his twin set, a quick sharp descends quickly out of sight. We follow at a slower pace and reach the sea floor at sixteen metres with the wreck in large pieces in front of us. Visibility is a very respectable five to seven metres and we come across many large wrasse jealously guarding a piece of the wreck. Peering underneath the larger sections of the hull reveal large shoals of bib and one solitary spider crab in the dark.

The wreck is very broken up and I find it very difficult to make out exactly which part we are exploring but it's good fun anyway.Within one large piece of winch mechanism I can make out the side of a very large conger eel, hopefully Malcolm won’t upset it too soon.

We ascend to just above the mechanism and looking down we can see the head looking at us, it must be 250mm in diameter with an eye the size of an egg! We move away before it gets too interested in us and start our ascent under a delayed SMB with a precautionary safety stop at 6 meters for a couple of minutes. Phil picks us up with the tail lift and we head into the calm of Lulworth Cove for lunch, a cylinder change and a bit of a surface interval.

The weather seems to be taking a bit of a turn for the worse so we fully kit up in the cove and sail out ready to go on command. Kevin, keen as ever, makes the entire journey to the Lulworth Banks fully kitted up and ready to jump standing on the tail lift holding onto the side rails!

SMBs inflated and ready, we are off the back descending 23 metres to the seabed. The current is gentle but moves us steadily over the banks. There are not too many scallops to be seen and I’m worried that maybe "Dave Goody bag Bridges" is ahead of us vacuuming them all up. I pass right over a huge edible crab that is the same size as a small coffee table, I try to pick it up one handed as I have the SMB in the other but it’s either too heavy or got too good a grip on the rock below it. Malcolm goes back for a go himself but gives up and rejoins me. Final score – Crab 2 Divers nil. I see a lot of Ross coral which looks likes a large flower head with thick hard redish orange open ‘petals’, they range in size from a small egg to a cabbage head. Small invertebrates and fish use the ‘petals’ for cover if you look into it from above, also be very careful as the ‘petals’ break off very easily (whoops!)

Back to the surface after a 48minute dive including the safety stop and Phil is handing out the hot drinks as we head back to Weymouth harbour. Looking at Dave Bridges I can see by his bulging goody bag that he was definitely ahead of us on the drift dive, I resist the temptation to phone the Scallop Protection League.

The gang of four who are sleeping on board tonight leave to get a shower before they shut for the day so the rest of us slip into cylinder slave mode. We move all twenty-eight empties onto the quay, load them into two cars and drive very slowly to Old Harbour Divers for the fills. We have to leave them overnight as eleven of the fills are Nitrox and must be analyzed and signed for the next morning.

Back to Osmington Mills and the logistical challenge of eight divers sharing one bathroom. We hear the bad news that The Smugglers is too busy to feed us that night so we head into Osmington village to the Sun Ray pub. We are gobsmacked to be told that all the staff was being trained that night and no food is available at all, I’m glad the landlord is not organizing our diving. All back into the cars and we head towards Weymouth, the next Pub we come across is the Spice Ship. A quick word behind the bar and we all pile in for good food and debrief on the days diving.

Next morning and the weather is looking a little bit iffy, but being Bedsac divers we head for the harbour anyway. First stop is to pick up the refilled air cylinders with the Nitrox cylinders requiring a signature after each is analyzed for oxygen content in front of me. Back into cylinder slave mode and back on to Tango. The gang of four had already got our kit out of the hold, many thanks gentlemen. We kit up in the harbour as it’s a lot safer and easier to when the boat isn’t moving around. The plan is to dive the British Inventor so we head east out of the harbour into a southeasterly wind, Phil reckons it is force 6 blowing to force 7. We endure the roller coaster ride for about twenty minutes when we hold a unanimous vote and decide to go to plan 2, this is to dive inside the breakwater in Portland Harbour. I must say that I was very impressed that there was no yakking or green faces at all, true divers. As we rounded the eastern entrance to Portland harbour the weather was as different as chalk and cheese, smooth still water with the wind dropping to a gentle breeze.

We went in as the third pair and descended the shot line 10 metres to the Countess of Earne. Visibility was initially quite good at five metres or so but the silt was being kicked up over the deck area. We dropped over the port side and swam towards the bow checking out the milky white sea squirts on the rusting side plates. Once the bow was reached we could see divers approaching us along the starboard side with billowing clouds of silt behind them, I took the decision to ascend back to deck level and explore there instead. I approached the entrance to the first hold with the intention of descending into it but as I hovered within the entrance visibility was dropping to nothing around me. I slowly finned on and checked for Malcolm once I had some deck under me on the other side of the hatchway but Malcolm was nowhere to be seen! I slowly circled the area that I lost contact with Malcolm for a short time, I found Clive and a couple of other divers but no sign whatever of Malcolm. I aborted the dive and started for the surface. Believe me it is very lonely to ascend on your own still looking all around for your missing buddy, but as I reached 5 meters or so I heard the tail lift on Tango going up.

I surfaced 5 metres astern of Tango and saw Malcolm taking a seat on the centre section. To say I was happy and relieved was a major understatement! Phil swung about and picked me up, I was a little unsettled by losing contact with Malcolm and decided not to resume the dive. We had an immediate debrief on what had happened, what we did, what we didn’t do and we could have done and what we would do next time we were separated. Another hot coffee from Phil and we assist the other divers back as and when they appear. A shallow 23-minute dive with a lot of adrenalin pumping at the end of the dive! Phil anchors well away from the Countess in the harbour and Dave Bridges never one to miss a chance gets out his fishing rod but is not so lucky at fishing.

After about 90 minutes we start to kit up again as Phil ties Tango to the buoy on the landing craft. We follow Pim and Pascale down the line to 15 metres depth and explore the starboard side of the craft peering into holes to see the Tompot blennies looking back at you with a smile on their faces. Visibility is good at about five to seven metres but a bit gloomy next to the breakwater. At the rear starboard corner of the craft is a short length of rope with thirty or so eggs attached to it as a hanging cluster. They eggs are as slim as a finger, milky white and about eight inches long with a rounded teat like end and firm, if I didn’t know better it could be where condoms come from!

We leave the landing craft with the breakwater on our left and visibility drops to arm's length when Malcolm finds a thin blue polypropylene rope stretching into the distance. I give it a couple of good tugs to make sure the other end is attached firmly to something and we swim cautiously into the murk. A very large structure is at the end of the rope but I cannot make out if it is a wreck or the Bombardon unit and after a short mooch (technical term) about we return to the rope and head back to the landing craft. We pass Clive and two other divers coming the other way with ‘OK’ signals exchanged enthusiastically between us.

The visibility is now Blue Lagoon bad and the torch is no use at all so I am swimming with one hand on the rope just keeping sight of Malcolm on my shoulder and the other arm stretched out in front of me. I feel the landing craft before I see it and feeling slightly chilled retrace our way back to the shot line, a steady ascent with a safety stop ends the dive at 27 minutes.

We motor back to Weymouth packing our kit as we go. I manage to grab a parking space next to the boat as we go into kit slave mode emptying Tango of our kit. We are in no rush to refill our cylinders so we say thanks to Phil and goodbye and safe trip to everyone and we make it home before 6 that evening. I’m too tired to wash the kit though, I’ll tackle that on Monday evening.

 Great company!, great diving!, great fun!, great weekend!

BedSAC


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