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.

Chesil Beach

We still have that slab of high pressure sitting over us now as we did on Sunday, which was a perfect opportunity to get to some of the more 'exposed' sites. 

There was only myself; Dave H, a sports diver; and Oli, one of our new trainee ocean divers. It was my turn to organise the dive so the previous Thursday I brainstormed some ideas with the other instructors Andy and Paul. We ruled out places like Hallsands and Lulworth Cove, and wanted something different than what we normally do. We agreed that Chesil Beach in Dorset would be ideal as a shelving shore dive, and the abundance of rocks and pebbles would ensure at least moderate visibility.

geograph.co.uk

It took an hour and a half to get there from Tiverton, but we arrived at the civilised time of 10am. We planned to dive off the far eastern end of the beach, closest to Portland. The sea was a flat calm and almost deserted despite the end of summer holidays, that is save for a dive trio that were just coming out of the water. They were reporting visibilities of 10m in places! Tropical! Jenny my wife carried out marshalling duties while the Dave, Oli and I kitted up and did our buddy checks. These are always essential even for the experienced diver (especially for the complacent diver) as I had accidentally attached my weightbelt to my BCD! 

We put our fins on in the water and Jen took lots of photos of us all hopping around in the mid-surf!

We got ourselves organised and descended to about 6m initially. Dave was the only diver with a compass (mine is still ratting around Babbacome beach somewhere) so he lead the dive. We navigated straight out in a southwesterly direction. Visibility was good, although I would have said not quite 10m, but enough to impress and ocean diver trainee on his third ever dive! Oli was very enthusiastic and was powering on ahead, so not only was he using his air a lot faster than Dave or myself he was missing all the scenery! He slowed down on the way back after he was the first to reach 140bar. I was having a lot of fun holding different static positions underwater thanks to my loaned semi-drysuit, for instance I really enjoyed hovering upside down and looking under rocks that way! We spotted three wrasse, two lobsters (one of them was truly gargantuan but too embedded in the rock to retrieve) and a lonely cuttlefish, which was Oli's spot.

We exited a few hundred yards to the west of where we set out, and it was a steep climb up the stoney beach back to the drybags and lunchboxes. 

Once again I had worn a semi-dry as my beloved drysuit is still at the menders. But you know what? I think I've been converted!

Babbacombe

Date: Sunday 11th August            Dive Number: 176
Place: Babbacombe, Torquay       Buddy: Jade K, Elliott N 
Time Down: 1130                         Dive Time: 00:32 + 00:10
Time Up: 1215                               Max Depth: 8.8m
Visibility: 0-1m                             Water Speed: 0kn
Weather: F3 BKN015 W18C         Entry: Pier steps

1townhouses.co.uk

Dave and Adrian managed to get away for a club dive relatively early on, and visibility was good to the south of the pier. We ourselves eventually got kitted up after a lot of mucking about with cylinder fills! There was a wedding on at the hotel which also choked up the car park, and Elliott was getting rather hot in his semi-dry. It was Elliott's first ever sea dive and Jade's final Ocean Diver lesson - leading the dive. I constructed a plan that would fulfil both OO1 and OO5 requirements, getting Elliott to do some simple drills at shallow depth before Jade lead the dive to a greater depth.

After letting my wife (dive marshal, keeper of the diveslate) Jen know our air and time in, the fishers on the pier know we would be swimming around the base of the pier before descending, we entered via the steps where I felt the biggest leak in my drysuit I have ever had. Becky on surface support checked my drysuit zip but it appeared fine. I thought my dump valve was letting it in, but it seemed to taper off within a few minutes so I thought no more about it.

We circumnavigated the pier avoiding all the fishers and descended to the base, a depth of around 2m. Elliott did a good fin pivot, it seemed he had the correct weights at the time. Jade then buddied with Elliott and lead the dive with myself behind, with the intention of using the rock wall as a navigation aid, but the silt had been stirred up rather rotten and at times all I could see were the end of Jade and Elliott's fins. I was keeping an eye on our direction with my compass, which Jade did not have or anticipate needing. Jade turned round and signalled to surface so we could get a look at where we were. We were a far way off the wall and about 150m away from the pier. We gained our bearings again and started to go down again but Elliott had problems equalising (popping his ears). We surface swam back to the pier where I suggested we complete Elliott's mask clear drills but he was uncomfortable, so asked if he could get out. This was no problem and probably a good idea, as noone should dive if they are uncertain or uncomfortable, as this could lead to major incidents.

Becky helped Elliott back to the car park while Jade lead the dive back from the pier to the shore, which gave her more of an opportunity in clearer water to check my air, check I was okay and generally navigate to the shore which was successful  At chest depth we did a low-air buoyancy check which was fine, and finally Jade jettisoned her weightbelt to complete the lesson. 

Date: Sunday 11th August            Dive Number: 177
Place: Babbacombe, Torquay       Buddy: Becky H, David C
Time Down: 1515                         Dive Time: 00:31
Time Up: 1600                               Max Depth: 4.3m
Visibility: 2-3m                             Water Speed: 0kn
Weather: F3 SCT020 W18C         Entry: Shelving shore

The second wave was later getting away than planned but it was mid afternoon and noone seemed too rushed. My wife had to take the boys home so Jade looked after the dive slate. We planned the same lesson, but the tide was a lot lower, almost at low tide, and the best bet at any visibility was in the bay where Jade and I found it to be a lot clearer previously.

geograph,org.uk

Elliott kindly lent me his semi-drysuit (I have never worn one until today!) which I managed to squeeeeeeze into as my drysuit was incapable of being a dry suit. We stumbled over rocks and boulders to get to the water's edge to the amusement of everyone watching from the beach and cafe! We did buddy checks and Becky have a good brief to David as part of her exercise. The plan was to use her brand new compass to navigate in a straight line out of the bay, turn round after 70 bar (one third) of our air had been used and come back on the reciprocal bearing. 

It was difficult putting fins on in such shallow water so we instead put helped each other on with fins slightly further out. The seaweed was a nuisance as well. We didn't get a very inspirational depth but it was sufficient to stay underwater. David was on the light side of neutrally buoyant when doing the fin pivots, but otherwise seemed comfortable in the water. Becky did a good job leading the dive, checking David's air and that he was 'okay', but found the compass a challenge. This didn't impede on the lesson (aside from ending up at the same dead end twice!) as she took assertive corrective action when she realised the error, and directed David accordingly. Becky signalled that David had finished his first third of air and lead us on the reciprocal bearing back to the shore. Visibility was slightly better, but not as good as earlier. Certainly not the most inspiring dive where marine biology was concerned, I saw a few dead crabs but nothing else of interest! Towards the end of the dive the partial-flood mask clear drill was carried out, Becky maintained a mid water hover on low air at 2m depth, and finally when they were chest deep they both jettisoned their weightbelts. I picked up both weightbelts and unfortunately this caused my compass to slip off into the silty seaweedy tidal waters. I hope someone finds it and has many an enjoyable and memorable dive navigating with my compass! 

The best moment of the day however was watching an overloaded motorhome trying and failing to leave the steep sharp bend on the hill out of the carpark!

shoredive.co.uk

Ansteys Cove, Torquay

Date: Sunday 7th July 2013            Dive Number: 169
Place: Ansteys Cove, Torquay       Buddy: Keith S 
Time Down: 0930                           Dive Time: 00:57
Time Up: 1030                               Max Depth: 5.3m
Visibility: 6-8m                             Water Speed: 0kn
Weather: Warm and sunny           Entry: Shore

The weather is stunning. The jet stream has gone for a holiday over Iceland and has left us with hot sunny weather for the beginning of July at least. What better way to enjoy this warm sunshine than from under the water! Today my wife and sons also decided to come along to watch us, and take photos of us all through the morning.

The plan was for a shore dive from Ansteys Cove in Torquay, a mere hop along from Babbacombe Bay on the other side of the cliffs. It's quite a steep drive from the top gate and after dropping diving equipment off at the quayside we returned our vehicles to the car park at the top. At least parking was free which was a welcome bonus and made the trek seem worth it!

I paired with Keith who was doing his first dive of the season. It was such a hot morning especially under all our layers that all we wanted to do was get into the cold water! I decided to take my surface marker buoy in on this dive. Although it was six years old I had never used it until today, I had always used delayed SMBs, the variety you inflate deploy from depth. We descended down to the shore and waded in, the cool water providing a blissful relief as we donned our fins and masks. We decided to swim out to the right of the bay, along the cliffs for one third of our air supply (assuming no currents) and then turn around. It was an exploratory dive as neither of us had shore dived from Anstey before.

We surface swam from the shore out to a reasonable sinking depth, whereupon we descended to three meters. We skimmed across the seaweed and kept our eyes open for life, which had reportedly been scarce on the last dive. The plankton bloom had since moved on and visibility was fair to good, I estimated around 6-8m, possibly up to 10m in places when looking towards the cliff. The first lifeform I spotted was a dazzling bioluminescent comb jellyfish, which was zapping all sorts of colourful lights down itself. I pointed it out to Keith, but he didn't seem too impressed. Judging by the fact we saw dozens more of them on the dive, I guess he'd seen plenty before!

There were plenty of wrasse, including one very big pregnant one which was lazing amongst the seaweed. There were also some other jellyfish, and fish identification being a weakness of mine I will resign myself to refer to them as 'classic' jellyfish. The ones with a hollow dome shaped body and tentacles coming down out from the middle. It was difficult to get any depth below three meters, so I directed us slightly away from the cliff wall, hoping to find a drop-off which would give the dive a bit of variety. It did eventually drop off to about five meters, but the visibility was very poor, reminiscent of the last dive we did in Babbacombe where visibility was only 1-2m. We retreated back to the clear waters of the shelf and continued to weave our way between the outcrops of rock and seaweed.

Nursehound. Photo by David Dooley.

After half an hour we turned back, I also had to briefly ascend (stand up) to get my bearings just in case we had drifted further than anticipated and thankfully we had gone where I though we had gone, which is a moderate achievement without a compass as it can be very disorientating underwater. We didn't see much else in the way of flora and fauna, but Keith did spot a sizeable dogfish or nursehound which swam towards us to investigate before turning tail and scarpering! I was able to identify points that we had passed on the way, a rock outcrop which had a trianglur peak sticking out of the water, three clear patches in a line and a long transverse ridge of seaweed which required circumnavigation. We hit the bay dead on return, with a dive time of 57 minutes and a maximum depth of 5.3m.

After debriefing, dekitting and rehydrating I gathered the family up and went for a slap up meal in a restaurant in Newton Abbott, then returned home to wash off the kit, which I delegated to someone else...

Accumulated time underwater: 3 days, 11 hours and 5 minutes.