| mid channel divers
I now of at least three occasions when this has happened and was involved in one of them,
we were told that we were not allowed to dive the tss part of the lanes, we told them that we were not breaking any laws by diving them and would carry on doing so, they told us we will prosecute if you dive the lanes, ok then we ant gonna tell you when we dive them,
" Thats up to you but we will be looking out for you"
Even BSAC say thats its not against the law to dive the lanes
I have it on good authority that the problems are not coming from Dover coast guard or cross channel ferry masters, But from large cargo vessel pilots that get on board at falmouth and travel up the channel to one of the big ports (rotterdam) and then catch a free ride back on another ship to falmouth,
small boats cant be seen on the radar not even when running, the pilots radio in and ask why is there a small boat front of them and they told one moment please i will find out, they then ask a ferry master if they can see a small boat, the ferry master says yes its a dive boat with an A flag up, righto i will let the pilot know,
the pilot says dive boat in the shipping lane !
C G says, well sir this is Dover you know there`s only 19 miles and allsorts goes on here, bet you dont get people swimming the channel down your way.
in my opinion its not the dive boats that need to change what they do and how they do it, its the pilots what need to change there attitude about divers,
provided you dont anchor in and you dont inpeed a ship and you have an A flag up, you are perfectly within your right to dive the lanes,
best fishes  |