Plongées Favorites

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  2013-09-12 Royaume-Uni St Abbs
  Glanmire

  So happy we decided to head back to try this wreck again. What a treat awaited us on the seabed. Was still pretty dark at depth but the visibility was good with a torch and such a wonderful array of marine life coated this wreck. Came down the shot line very slowly with Katie as her ears were playing up. Shot line came down on the engine block that was festooned with dead mens fingers and anemones. Combined with the dahlia anemones that cover much of St Abbs head, there were actually a load of plumose anemones on the wreck. Underneath plates of wreckage lots of inquisitive ling were hanging about, aggressive looking pouty pollack (of which one scared the socks off Katie), small and large cod, tonnes of lobsters, edible crabs and velvet swimmers too. Swimming along I was dead set on seeing the prop so headed off sternwards. Was a lovely propeller when we found it although Katie took an extraordinarily long period of time to understand what it was. Took a few videos which have come out okay but was still very dark. Followed the prop shaft back along the keel side of wreck until we reached the engine block again. The boiler had a massive hole in the side but I couldn't tempt Katie to look in to it. Up towards the bow and was amazed to see the deck railings exposed on the seabed. The bow was coated in life as per the rest of the wreck. Katie found a fairly new looking mug around here somewhere that I stashed in my pocket! Spotted Liz and Tom around the bow making the most of their borrowed torches. At this point we had to send up a DSMB (which I managed to get a bit tangled at first) and head up for our deco stops.

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  2014-05-04 Royaume-Uni Swanage
  Kyarra

  What an awesome dive. A real bonus at the end of the weekend. Visibility was much better than yesterday and we had lots of fun poking around in all the holes as well as being able to make out discernible structure on the wreck. Dropped on the bow as before but made our way sternwards spotting the winches, boiler and derricks. I spent a little while trying to free a lovely looking green bottle from under a section of plating.... in the process disturbing a large-ish lobster from underneath me who looked particularly disgruntled by the situation. Alas the bottle did not pop out of the silt but shortly afterwards Nessa spotted a Worcestershire Sauce bottle lying on the seabed.... what a find! Overall with the viz being lovely and such a nice array of congers, bib, lobster and crab to watch we ended up maxing out our bottom time (34 mins) and having over 15 mins of deco- ooops. Lovely dive.

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  2014-06-22 Royaume-Uni Swanage
  Avanti

  What a great dive. The viz was much better than yesterday on the high water slack. Diving with Michelle which meant we could have a decent bottom time. Down onto the wreck was much easier than yesterday as shorter line and less current. Must have been about 10m foreward of the boilers. Moved around a fair while until we reached the boilers. looked like the starboard boiler was half submerged and under a large section of plating. Behind the boilers the engine block was exposed and the large crank was out on show. Michelle pointed out a conger inside. ... Had a look and then swam away but she called me back as the eel had a fishing hook caught in its mouth. She was holding the line so I whipped out my shears and cut it free. .... good to test access and use of the shears at 40m! Moved aft a bit further following bits that looked very much like the prop shaft. A curious large cuckoo wrasse came to investigate as we moved a way down towards the steering quadrant. Stuck underneath was a brand new CQR Anchor (with stickers still attached! ) and shiny chain..... Would have been nice to have lifted that if I'd had my lifting bag with me! Think the skipper will be back for it tomorrow though. Nice 27 mins bottom time followed by a couple of deep stops and 10 mins of deco on 80%. Back on the surface we meet up with the other 6 of our divers as the skipper was struggling with shotline. So we formed something of a flotilla with our flags and blobs.... He was very impressed with how well drilled we were. Cracking dive and amazing to have been out of the water by 8:30 into beautiful sunshine.

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  2013-09-05 Royaume-Uni Farne Islands
  Abessenia

  Lovely visibility on this dive in the morning. Into the water with tonnes of seals, Nessa and Michelle. Bit of surface drift so had to duck dive a bit to get under. Found bits of wreckage pretty easily.... there was tonnes about underwater. Took lots of video... was trying to get lots of the wreckage but the seals kept getting in the way :-) Had a really fun time with a little seal who loved kissing the camera, blowing raspberries at me but had an itchy foot (see video for evidence). Also Michelle and I had some fun high-fiving a massive seal which must have been twice the size of me! Also had a funny moment watching a lobster marching his way home with a fish in his grasp; looked like a decent supper for a lobster of his size. In fact there were tonnes of lobsters around on this dive. Overall a cracking dive and probably the best fun with seals so far. Am amazed at how lucky we have been at the level of interaction we have had with them and how many have been in the water at any point.