Portland

Guest post by David Dooley

Photo: David Dooley

Andy and Sue towed the boat and lead a group for a week end at Portland.

After a night of intense thunderstorms campers and day visitors travelled in improving weather to the Castletown launch site.  The dearth of other divers was noticeable.  Andy drove the rib to a position just SSW of Grove Point.  There we found boulders, crabs, sponges, fan worms, hydroids, top shells and even a few fish in 2 metres visibility.

After a picnic on the beach or bacon sandwiches from the cafe we set out for a real wreck, the Countess of Erne, a paddle steamer downgraded to a barge before she lost an argument with the harbour wall.  However visibility was even worse, dark and  with a very easily stirred fine sediment on all surfaces, wreck, rock or bottom mud.  A few pairs managed to stay together! The last pair chose to look at the harbour wall boulders where at least there was some light.

After another night with some rain and the sound of the surf on Chesil increasing we set out to watch the keenest divers try Chesil Cove.  One look convinced even the keenest. Apart from the surf the water out from the beach was a dirty green-brown colour. 

The group dispersed to investigate Dorset cream teas and sight see around Portland.

The diving can only get better!

Can’t it?

Beer

 Guest log by Paul Williams

I dived with three buddies [in two pairs] at Beer on Sunday 4th May.

Viz was about five metres, though a fair bit of bloom made it quite speckled. Water temperature at the beach was 14C and 12C submerged. We were pleased to see a number of lobsters, crabs, a lone spider crab and some nice wrasse and dogfish.

The bottom had clearly been scoured by the winter storms, with a lot of rock that had obviously been covered with sand now showing as reef.

It is a shallow dive and we spent most of the hour of submerged time in 4 to 6 metres depth – maximum 7 metres.

Although it is potentially a good place for a training dive the parking [£5 per car per day] is very limited near the beach. Entry and exit is simple from the pebble beach, if a bit heavy on the knees and ankles.

Phenomenal Sea States

This autumn and winter have been almost constantly blown out for any diving. The powerful Atlantic jet stream has been steering low pressure systems across the UK like a conveyor belt, with rapid cyclogenesis spinning up deep low pressures which cause rough seas, in some cases 'phenomenal' sea state on the Douglas Scale has been reported off the southwest coast of England.

The sea is a rusty red colour where all the silt and sand has is in suspension, so any quiescence that does betide us will still be very poor in terms of visibility, and even any sign of more settled weather still seems like a dream, especially to everyone living in Somerset.