Porthkerris June 07

[Okeanos]

I'll start the ball rolling.

Another excellent weekend organised by Simon (sch). It was so popular that the boat, Celtic Cat, had to go out twice each day. I was on the afternoon shift, so this is my report of those dives.

Day 1 Dive 1, City of Ghent.
We were given the option of the Citrine or the City of Ghent, it had to be the Ghent. It turned out to be the right choice. Lying near Lizard point it can get a bit tidal and needs slack and we got there just in time. The Ghent is a small coaster lying upside down in about 30m, what we didn't expect was the vis to be so good, 15m roughly. There were places to enter the wreck and swim through it and plenty of life, great fun and a dive we all enjoyed.









Dive 2
We were dropped onto the bow of the Mohegan and drifted along until we got to Raglans reef, the vis wasn't so good as the tide was ebbing and after all the rain we had it was bringing the muck down towards us. We probably had up to 5m vis, the drift wasn't too fast and you could swim against it, but Raglans is always pretty in current. Reaching Raglans after about 25 minutes all the anemones were open in their glorious colour, I managed to get around to the leeward side and spend some time admiring the view. Excellent.

Day 2 Dive 1

We were down to 6 divers!! I'll let them tell you why.

Options today were, the Citrine or possibly the Active. Mike said they've been looking for the Active for about a year, they knew the rough location but had never found any remains. The wreck was situated somewhere on the reef off of Lizard point. Mike used the transits he had from the BSAC wreck register and dropped us on what looked the highest point. We descended, reaching the bottom the first sight was an attractive looking reef and a couple of flat fish. There was a lot of life, jewel anemones, nudibranchs and dogfish but no wreck. One by one, or is that 2 by 2 divers surfaced and told Mike there was no sign of it. He wrote down the co-ordinates of every DSMB that appeared, by the time the last diver sent up their DSMB he gave up writing the co-ords. He should have, I came across the remains of a wreck. I do mean remains, it was mainly flat with a couple of pieces sticking up a couple of feet, this was in the bottom of a gully in sand so there was more. A couple of pairs of bollards were all that made it recognisable as a wreck. With vis over 10m and lots of life it was a great dive.

Dive 2

Again the option of the Citrine or the Carmarthen, the Carmarthen was the choice. A large wreck that was now quite flat apart from the 3 boilers, 2 on their end and 1 the right way up and a small section at the bow. A couple of cuttlefish were spotted as well as a few Congers. Vis was again reduced to around 5-6m due to the ebbing tide but was still very enjoyable. The reef at the southern end of the wreck was colourful and made an enjoyable end to the dive.

More pics to follow when I have time to sort some out.

[Dave_S]

Gutted,

only 6 on the boat and i' couldn't get the day off work :-(

[GLOC]

Nice pictures Mark.

[Okeanos]

Tim Ingmire


Mark Davies & Yazzyfooty


Sharky


Gizmo


Adrian


Adam

[Kirstie]

Lovely photos!

What on earth is all that stuff dangling under Mr Ingmire?

[Okeanos]

Day 1 dive 2 pics

After the dive I was asked what happened to me, I was supposed to be with Tim & Gizmo. I got a new buddy down there, he followed me the whole dive.


It wasn't a fantastic dive so I played with lighting


Just a glimpse of what Raglans is like, jewel anemones galore

[Okeanos]

Day 2 dive 1, looking for the Active

The first sight, a flat fish


It was a pretty reef



Loads of Dogfish


Bits of the wreck

[yazzyfooty]

Just a few lines to say what a cracking diving weekend it was and with many 'firsts' for me.
1.My deepest dive to date 31m
2.Wreck penetration even though short penetration (yeah I know its no big deal to some people but i conquered a fear)
3.First cuttlefish which was happy to sit there and let me watch it for 5 minutes.(went onto see another one on a different dive)
4.Nudibranches at long last! Beautifu things and hundreds of them on the reef.
5.Jewel Anenomes colours are amazing
6.A bloody big conger that did make my sphincter contract slightly.

Simon thanks for arranging it. Well worth the very long drive down
there am glad I had someone to share that load with me. Thank you Mark and for being a great buddy. Great meeting lots of new people and those I had met previously.

Thank you for not mentioning the bonfire, everyone!!

[Mark Davies]

What on earth is all that stuff dangling under Mr Ingmire?

Well, Tim would have you believe you're not the first woman to ask that question!

In this case it appears to be his SMB, his soon-to-be-doomed camera and, hanging way down, the head of his umbilical torch. He's an untidy bugger sometimes!

[Kirstie]

Well, Tim would have you believe you're not the first woman to ask that question!

In this case it appears to be his SMB, his soon-to-be-doomed camera and, hanging way down, the head of his umbilical torch. He's an untidy bugger sometimes!

I dunno, bloody grockles. Comin' down these 'ere parts, dangling their stuff all over our lovely Jewel Anemones, breaking our Pink Sea Fans, scraping our Keel worms and scaring our Blennies. (I did the Seasearch course on Saturday)