Babbacombe

[dlegros]

Please be gentle, this is my first ever YD trip report

Well, it was my first trip to Babbacombe (being landlocked, I'm used to my water not tasting funny )

Got down there on Friday evening and booked into the B&B - Exmouth View dropped off the bags and went for a walk down to the beach.

WTF?!?!?! What in the name of Jesus, Mary. Allah, Buddah is with the road down to the beach? 30% my left cheek! It's vertical!

Had a nice dinner at the Cary's Arms by the sea and got totally fleeced at the bar.

Saturday Morning, high tide due around 08:00, so drove down nice and early for a dive, straight in off the slipway and a nice little bimble round the Garden, saw wrasse galore and that was about it.

Wandered back to the B&B for brekkie and back down to the beach for a fill (£2.50 - breathing air, not O2 clean from the beachfront cafe) then further bimblage off the beach - lots of sand gobies.

Called into Divers Down and bought a couple of books - nice friendly shop, would happily go back there again

Due to non-diving wife, went off to Buckfast Abbey and picked up some monk-made beer, fudge and Chartreuse. Then back to Babbacombe for dinner at the Coach House Inn - reasonable prices, great food, but gets loud (depends on what you look for in a pub)

Plopped back in on the evening high water for an evening dive, cut slightly short as my buddy for the dive is not a crab fan an the velvet swimmers were out in force being bolshy as ever.

Fairly early night then up early to drop the car off down the hill from hell to get a good space, back up the B&B for brekkie.

Back down to the beach for a nav dive off the breakwater - swam out across the bay toward Oddicombe beach, then back in and hugged the rocks back to Babbacombe Beach, a fairly uneventful dive, great navigation, but over lots of dead sand!

Second dive of the day the water was well on the way out, so tried to hit mushroom rock (out on 30 degrees), but as soon as we hit bare sand the spider crabs were out in force and my buddy called for a turnaround, so we went back in and nearly had our SMB taken out by a w*nker on a jetski.

Overall, a nice weekend, £5 per day to park at the bottom of a hill that makes Cardiac Hill at Stoney look like nowt, some nice diving to be had.

Big thanks to Daz for the info and to everyone that contributed when I asked for info.

Dom

[Justin Owen]

Nice report! Is your buddy really scared of crabs!? LOL! Reminds me of my friend geoff who I trained with for Ocean Diver who was scared of fish!

No cuttlefish...??

[daz]

Originally Posted by Justin Owen

No cuttlefish...??

It's getting a bit late in the year for adults, might be some young around soon though.

Daz

[dlegros]

No, no cuttles and yes, my buddy was terrified of crabs

Dom

[Fiji Dave]

I was there on monday and there were no cuttlers there then either, quite a few crabs and a nice lobster (I'll post a pic in a bit) and a cool pipefish. When we arrived the gent who runs the filling station apologised as the compressor was in bits. I asked how long it would be and he said probably about an hour. We both had 100bar so we thought we'd just have a shorter dive and then pop into town for a fill later on. Sat down with a cuppa in the sun and 10 mins later - hey presto - compressor was fixed! What a star!

You're right about that road though - it's not good is it. You seem to need a good run up from the car park and hope that nothing's coming down round that first bend at the bottom. After that it's 1st gear aaaallllll the way up!

Cheers
Dave

[Ant P]

Originally Posted by daz

It's getting a bit late in the year for adults, might be some young around soon though.

Daz

Diving on the Teapot off Selsey on Saturday we saw a cuttlefish out and about. It was a small one, but still a reasonable size. Dunno whether the season is different in Sussex.

Cheers, Ant

[daz]

Originally Posted by Ant P

Diving on the Teapot off Selsey on Saturday we saw a cuttlefish out and about. It was a small one, but still a reasonable size. Dunno whether the season is different in Sussex.

Cheers, Ant

Adults are still around but they tend to move off from Babbacombe after they have done all their breeding and egg laying. So you might still find them a bit off shore.

Daz

[Fiji Dave]

There were a lot of cuttlefish at Chesil Cove a week last sunday. We came across a group of about 10 on our first dive and a couple more on the second. They were'nt very big though, prob 5-6 inches long at the largest.

They were quite wary and wouldn't come too close, the ones in front stayed about a metre and a half away at all times, however whilst we stared at the ones in front a few others snuck up alongside to check us out!