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Portland Bill & Chesil Beach

February 15, 2020 by Colin Jones

Portland Bill & the “New” Lighthouse, with the old lighthouse in the background (Web Photo)

  I’ve spent some time diving many sites on Portland Bill over the 10 years or so I was with the Army and the years I spent as a member of TIDSAC. I have a soft spot for the Bill and her surroundings even though many of the dives were just for fun and did not involve wrecks, unusual for me, I know! My first Portland dive was HMS Hood, written up elsewhere in this blog in September of 1991, the same day I took a dive on the breakwater which was over the Right hand side and with Gary, my buddy on the Hood, we dived to 10m and hunted the nooks and crannies of the wall and found Wrasse and Pollack on what was an uneventful dive

Portland Breakwater Fort looking back towards the Southern opening blocked from Torpedo attack by the wreck of HMS Hood (Web Photo)

The 19th century breakwater was designed by Captain E H Stewart (Royal Engineers) and constructed in 1868 and took Seven years to finish completing in 1875. (Wikipedia) The aim was to protect Portland and it has in-built forts of a similar type to those found at Fort Bovisands in Plymouth, the breakwater fort being round and having a resident garrison and being originally fortified with 14 heavy cannon, as can be seen from the various “ports” (now concreted up) surrounding the cupola in the photo

Portland Breakwater with the Fort in the background as work nears completion c1875 (Web Photo)

God only knows how much stone was moved from the Bill quarries to form the foundations for the breakwater spans, it must have been a monumental undertaking at the time. The photo above shows the latter end of construction somewhere around 1875 and the fort can be seen in a wonderful chequered paint pattern in the background, that pattern has long since faded away or perhaps even been purposefully removed at a later date. It is easy to see the size of the blocks of Portland stone finishing the top of the “piers” here, and the cranes used to place them. An idea of the amount of stone involved can be gained using modern technology, state of the art multi-beam side-scan sonar allows us to look much more closely at the construction, and offers a real insight to the “divers” view of the breakwater beneath the waves

Astonishing Multi-Beam Side-Scan & “Cloud-Point” images of the fort’s foundations (Portland Port Authority Ramboll Web Image)

  My first shore dive on the Bill was just a few months later, 02nd of February 1992 at Bull-Pit Rocks with Gary Horton, another, but at the time far more experienced, diver from Tidworth Garrison. Bull-Pit Rocks are on the South side of the Bill looking out towards the Isle of White and are marked by a distinct “Stack” said to resemble a church pulpit (the clue is in the name) with an open Bible on its’ top……. I recall it being a decent enough root around with a little caution being used as we did not want to end up too far out, the swim back would be against the tide which can run strong in this area

Pulpit rock, which I misheard when Gary identified the site and called “Bull-Pit Rock” in my log book…… Seen in very similar weather to when I dived it February 1992 (Web Photo)

My dive log records: “Shore-Dive, Bull-Pit Rocks Portland viz 3-4m – Cold Dive 6’ W. Temp Hunting crevices, amongst Kelp, few Crabs, very turbulent……..” I do recall the entry being a challenge, for the first time I had to judge a giant stride entry into tidal surge over rocks, it could easily have gone badly wrong, but I judged well and the dive went well too, the exit was a challenge too, only not as much surge which allowed Gary and I to haul out onto rocks without damaging ourselves or our kit…it was a decent little dive and I was keen to do more!

Portland bill caverns beautifully clear viz & industrial quarry & cargo cranes (Web Photo)

That same day Gary and I headed over the Bill to Chesil beach, the idea was to find the wreckage of the Royal Adelaide, wrecked on the beach in a storm in November of 1872. The Royal Adelaide is a strange story, the passengers and crew were saved by locals in what can only be described as heroic actions by groups and individuals, wading into the storm washed sea to pull hapless souls to the shore, or using rope to ferry them between ship and shore…. A truly epic tale of bravery……and what the wreck would have been primarily remembered for had it not been for the Royal Adelaide’s cargo of casks of Rum, Gin and Brandy…….The rest of the story has been the legacy of Royal Adelaide ever since, those rescuers often becoming casualties of liquor, drunk on the beach on a terrible storm ravaged night, some succumbing permanently to the effects of alcohol, or the cold, and passing away into history and local legend…….

The wreck of the Royal Adelaide and an early use of the “Breeches Buoy” fired by rocket from the shore to the wreck (Contemporary Newspaper lithograph)

Despite looking around for the wreckage and finding various twisted pieces of metal, obviously aged and corroded, Gary and I could not honestly claim to have been on the wreckage, the viz was not great and there was nothing we could truly identify as wreckage from the era. I wrote the dive up: “Shore dive – Chesil Beach – Portland…..Viz 2-3m – Cold Dive 6’ W. Temp…….Basic ferret about, loads of Atlantic Prawns, some wreckage, the odd crab……”  and getting out following the dive was nothing short of a workout….you could accept it, stand up and tough it out, walking up the Two distinct pebble slopes of the spit of Chesil beach, or you could crawl up on your hands and knees……I’ve never crawled anywhere, I wasn’t going to start now….but boy did it cost me, every step up was half a step back, when I finally got to the top of the second slope onto more compact pebbles I was a beat dog, breathing through my arse and my calves and thighs were on fire……and I was just 32, fit as hell and a soldier….Jesus…..what a place!

Chesil Beach is a deceptive challenge, getting in is not so bad, climbing out, in anything more than calm, is a maul (Web Photo)

After a bit of a break from Portland and the South coast, diving exotic locations and doing the day-job, it would be February of 1995 when I returned to Portland and the Bill. This time I was with Denise “Toots” Tuttle, I liked Toots, despite being female in a largely male world Toots could hold her own, and give back the shit she took with interest, and I loved and respected that……. Toots was a mate, I enjoyed teaching her diving and I trusted her whenever I dived with her! This was an opportunity to get a drift dive in otherwise poor conditions…..Ferry Bridge! One of the reasons I liked Portland was the diversity of dive opportunities it offered, if you got there and the sea was too rough to get out of the harbour, or your time was limited, you could drop in on one or another of the wrecks in the harbour, the Countess of Erne, the Bombardon and Tug, the landing craft or the Spaniard (all topics of posts to come…..). Weather great, but full boats…..do Chesil or the shore at Church-Ope or off the Lighthouse, or Pulpit Rock….. or take a drift dive under Ferry Bridge……

Ferry Bridge from the Bill, looking at the Ferry Bridge Pub (Left of shot) a lovely little drift dive (Web Photo)

Ferry Bridge is a good introduction to drift diving, it is mostly a Knot or so current, perhaps a Knot and a half which is manageable for most, even those who struggle with buoyancy a little on occasion, so there won’t likely be problems from pneumothorax or interstitial emphysema as the depth is perhaps 7m max, it doesn’t mean these issues can’t happen, it just means they are far less likely as 7m is the centre of the scour under the bridge and the lead in-and-out is short. Ferry Bridge can be an education to those deploying and controlling their SMB’s and it is great as practice for that too……..The access is easy too, there is an easy path down to the Bridge from the Ferry Bridge Pub side and a flat area there for kitting up. A short swim out into the jetty and mooring area and then a descent into the current, as the water is constantly refreshed between sea and harbour the viz is usually decent too, meaning separation from your buddy isn’t likely either

Ferry Bridge looking under to the Pub side from the Bill (Web Photo)

My log book for the day read: “Shore-Dive-Ferry Bridge- Portland Nice Little 2-3Kt Drift –viz down to 2m – good easy fun dive – no frills”…….. a month later, 08th of March ’95, I took a couple more trainees back for a nav-ex and drift, again my log-book records: “Nav-Ex Leading to a gentle drift 1-2Kt novice skills dive Viz 1m” Neither dive was going to set the world alight, but then neither was intended to, Ferry Bridge did exactly what I wanted and gave a gentle lift to the skills of those I was diving with without too high a task loading!

Parry’s Dive Centre from the rise on Chesil Beach March of 1995

I had a wonderful dive off Chesil beach later in the year, further down towards Fortuneswell, a little down from, and behind, what used to be Parry’s Dive centre. It was another Wednesday afternoon dive with Toots and we had heard the sewage outlet pipe was worth a look…..now you could be forgiven for asking why anyone would want to dive anywhere near an outlet pipe, but this one had been de-commissioned (at least that’s what we were told) years before. Following the pipe for a while and then, when we were at around 10m depth, swimming around “ferreting about”, we had a delightful dive, my log records: “03/05/95 Shore dive-Chesil Cove- Portland…pure pleasure dive hunting round the outlet, through Kelp fields, a couple of Wrasse, a Pipe Fish, a large Cuttle-Fish and plenty of Pollack (Small) couple of Spider Crabs – very enjoyable….” The log, as usual, understates the experience a little here, I remember spending some 10 minutes of the dive watching the Cuttle-Fish “irridesce” which I found absolutely mesmerising, such pre-historic creatures with such amazing capabilities, the colours were both vivid and beautiful

Cuttlefish…. pre-historic creatures with such amazing capabilities…. (Image On the Wight: Isle of Wight News)

So why is Portland such a good shore dive-site, well I have talked already about the weather influences, the geology helps a little too, as does the nature of the geography, Portland Bill essentially sticks a good way out into the sea, catching the tidal influence of the narrowing between the Isle of Wight and the mainland, essentially experiencing a faster current running along shore and bringing cleaner water in from the Channel mouth, this combined with the “Lower Purbeck Beds”, a former Limestone plateau from the Jurassic coast, lifted up by tectonic movement, mean the coastal rocks give clearer water than the clay side of the harbour and a nice, flat-ish area to use for kitting up and entry

The Bill looking towards Church Ope & 1st Beach March of 1995

For those of you who liked the Waterlip Quarry geology piece:

Formed at the end of the Jurassic period, around 145 million years ago Portland was nearer the equator then than it is today (Web Illustration)

 “A chemical reaction in the warm, shallow seas where Portland Stone was forming caused calcium and bicarbonate ions to combine, forming a ‘muddy’ calcareous precipitate. Minute particles of sand or organic detritus, such as shell fragments, lying on or in suspension close to the sea floor, acted as nuclei which gradually became coated with this fine-grained calcium carbonate. Over time more calcium carbonate accumulated around these nuclei in concentric layers, forming small calcareous spheres (less than 1mm diameter). Countless billions of these spherical sediments, called ‘ooids’ or ‘ooliths’, ultimately became buried and partially cemented together by more calcium carbonate, resulting in the oolitic limestone we now call Portland Stone” (Wikipedia)

Portland Quarry and the strata in detail (Web Photo- illustration)

The next dive I completed at Portland was a shore-dive off the Limestone rocks on the Church Ope cove side of the Bill, or the Left hand side looking down the Bill towards the Lighthouse…. at an area roughly around First Beach, the surf was up a little although that was to be expected in March. The sub-sea landscape on each of the dives in this area is, in my experience, rock gullies, some with remnants of the numerous small craft lost in the area such as the SS Bournemouth (1886) or the Reliance (1949)…….

Paddle-steamer SS Bournemouth ashore 1886 (Web Photo)

……..or fishing or carrying quarried rock from the workings on-shore and oddments lost or abandoned like anchors, chain and undetermined metal-work, beams and struts perhaps from damaged or lost cranes off the headland. There were several of these still in usable condition at the time and I always loved the look of them, stark against the sky-line and brutally industrial…….

One of the Portland Cranes …. stark against the sky-line and brutally industrial……. (Web Photo)

Entry to the water was always a challenge, it helped to have scouted beforehand, so you know the step-in will not be too shallow and end up “painful”. The swim out was usually against the incoming tide, I preferred that to out-going as that could end with a long swim back-in against the current, and there was never any great depth, these were shore dives down to 15m or so max, purely to enjoy and became a favourite “ferret around” of mine and Toots on Wednesday “sports afternoons”, which, although I didn’t know it at this point, were fast coming to an end and would eventually see me leave the Army just a year later, after Six years on and off in Tidworth. That wouldn’t end my time in Portland though, in fact it was really a beginning of sorts………

1st beach Portland, March of 1995 the Quarry cranes just visible behind the cars

Filed Under: General Diving

SS Thistlegorm 2015

February 11, 2020 by Colin Jones

I first dived SS Thistlegorm from the Princess Dalal on a week’s live-aboard with FSAC, the First overseas exped I had organised, a small scale affair really, for a couple of friends. I had heard of Thistlegorm for years having seen Jacques Cousteau’s 1950’s discovery on TV when in my teens. I’ve mentioned this before in another area of this blog and won’t repeat the story here, enough to say Thistlegorm is the subject of one of the wreck posts (or “will be” depending on when you read this!).  Thistlegorm has to be the most iconic of the world’s wrecks, there are bigger, there are more intact, and there are certainly more sought after shipwrecks, but there are few, if any, more prestigious wrecks. Thistlegorm has it all, drama, situation, cargo, history, heroism and global conflict and she is still largely intact, a tribute to her builders Joseph Thompson & Son of Sunderland

SS Thistlegorm (Web Photo Rendering: Courtesy thethistlegormproject)

  I consider myself to be one of the lucky divers who have spent some time in and around Thistlegorm, having now dived her 6 or 8 times over 2 decades, and one of the “privileged” who have dived in, and on her at night. Thistlegorm takes on an air of melancholy at night, almost as if she were a dingy South Coast wreck, rather than the magnificent picture she presents in daylight. The dive video was taken in 2015 and was one of a series of Three night dives our group had the pure luck to be granted by our dive-boat captain from Blue02, an unusual honour. We dived Thistlegorm, Salem Express and Rosalie Muller, the holy Trinity of Red-Sea shipwrecks (as far as I am concerned), over Three glorious nights in 2015. At the time night diving Thistlegorm was rare enough, to dive all Three, this was unheard of and we could all simply not believe our good fortune……

The dives were all with a long time dive-buddy of mine, Craig Toplis of Nottingham, and filmed using a go-pro (Hero- 7- Black) for those of you remotely interested, I have had this permanently mounted to my dive-mask (for several years now) which makes it easier to dive as I can simply “press go & forget” as long as the red light is flashing to begin with……I apologise in advance to those purists who would rather stabilise their shots and set-up multiple story-boards in advance, in order to capture specific agenda video’s, that isn’t me and I simply dive the dive, the camera records what it does……. The only planning Craig and I did was to agree to spend our time on the main bow and for’ard section of the Thistlegorm, in order to show, or travel the most interesting of the areas with our available air and deco-time……..enjoy!

Filed Under: Best Dives Ever

Kyarra

February 9, 2020 by Colin Jones

Twelfth of March 1994, I am back from Cyprus and the Blue water diving is officially over……it’s back to the South Coast and the wreck of the Kyarra off Swanage. I’m diving with Steve, another TIDSAC diver and it is the first dive “Tich” Tichener (another former Royal Navy sailor operating a dive-boat, the “Kyarratoo” out of Weymouth), has taken this season. The Kyarra was a beautiful ship, built by Denny’s of Dumbarton as a luxury liner in 1903, she has sleek lines and sits well in the water…….

Kyarra c1904, One of Denny’s ships out of Dumbarton (Web Photo)

I wanted to dive Kyarra since hearing of her, many times, whilst diving around the South coast. Kyarra was one of the easiest wrecks to get to, being close to Swanage, and there were plenty of boats that would take you out to her, Tich was our choice as he was, like us, from a services background, it made things easier as we all spoke the same (tribal) language. On this occasion we had headed down in a bit of a rush and were kitting up on the boat deck, unusual as I prefer to be suited and booted before we sail on short trips…… Kyarra had been commissioned by the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company for service to and round Australia, and was launched into the river Clyde on February 02nd of 1903 being registered in Freemantle, Australia, although her owners and “flag” were London registered. Kyarra would spend 10 unremarkable years sailing between her home port and Sydney until the looming of World War 1 on the global horizon…………

Kyarra in her Hospital Ship colours, White hull and prominent Red Cross under her funnel 1914 (Web Photo)

The Australian government met the call to arms of the mother-country, when, in 1914, the UK asked all commonwealth countries to aid in the struggle against the Kaizer and his Austro-Hungarian and German Army! On the 6th November of 1914 Kyarra became the “HMAT A.55 Kyarra” , requisitioned in Brisbane and intended to act as a medical unit transport ship, supporting the Egyptian theater of battle (Wikipedia). The work of hospital ships would turn out to be as dangerous perhaps as that of troop transports, several would fall to U-Boat action, despite the clear and obvious hospital markings!

The Australian Nurses of the Kyarra prior to embarking for Egypt 04th December 1914 (Web Photo)

However Kyarra would survive her brief period as a hospital ship and be transferred to troop carrying duty by March of 1915, barely 5 months later. Kyarra was named after the pelt of the native Australian “Possum”, the word being Aboriginal for a small strip of the creature’s fur, perhaps it was intended to refer to her sleek looks, or perhaps it was just a whim of the owners……… The technical bit, for those who enjoy such things, goes like this: Kyarra was 6953 Tonnes (Gross) and 415 feet 5 inches long with a beam of 52 foot 2 inches and a draught of 31 foot 5 inches. She was powered by Two triple expansion steam turbines and capable of 15.4 Knots (just shy of 18mph). Kyarra could carry 2600 Tonnes of cargo and 286 passengers, 126 of those being “1st Class” (Wikipedia) which, in the day, meant exactly that, Kyarra being intended for luxury travel!

Kyarra, a line drawing of her general arrangement (Web Graphic)

Kyarra almost made it through the war, she came to lie in the channel, off Swanage, following an attack by UB 57 under the command of Johannes Lohs, just off Anvil point, outside Weymouth. Kyarra was sailing from Tilbury to Devonport, travelling light, carrying civilian passengers and expecting to take on cargo on arrival (Wikipedia). UB 57 was commanded by Johannes Lohs who had begun his career as a “Seekadett” in the Kreigsmarine 01st April 1909, just Six years following Kyarra’s launch. Lohs had a long career by the time he crossed paths with Kyarra, by then, on the 26th of May 1918, he had risen to the rank of “Oberleutnant zur See” and was a holder of the Iron Cross, 1st class, as a result of his successes with other U Boats. Like many of his peers, Johannes Lohs did not survive the war, his body washing up on the Dutch coast 21st August 1918 after UB 57’s last contact with controllers, 14th of August ’18, when Lohs was said to be homeward bound, somewhere off the Sandiette bank in the Dover Straits. At that point Johannes Lohs had sunk an estimated 165,000 Tonnes of allied shipping (U-Boat Net)

Oberleutnant Johannes Lohs, Commander UB 57, 24/06/1889-14/08/1918 (Photo U-Boat Net)

Our dive on the Kyarra started off with a wicked current running when we arrived, kitting up gave us a bit of time to see the current seemingly drop a little and we entered onto the shot line mid afternoon on the 12/03/1994……This was an uneasy descent, Steve dropped his torch and chased it off the shot-line, forcing me to either follow, or end up separated from Steve which would effectively abort the dive, neither of us would want that, so I followed…….. What follows shows how easy it is to make mistakes, which just compound…….The assumption on my part, when Steve suggested the Kyarra, was that Steve had dived it before, our haste to get kitted before it started to get dark meant the brief was just a buddy-check, and then the separation from the shot line meant, effectively, in the bloody poor viz, (about 1/2m at very best, in torch-light) that we were pretty much blind! Here’s what my log book says….. “Missed the shot line in nil viz-total black-out after 15m. Onto a sandy bottom full of wreckage, when finning against a 2kt current water went “dead” figured we’ed entered the hull inadvertently-no viz even on torches past 1/2m. Very dangerous not knowing if we had wreckage overhead. 16 mins gone by now so we ended the dive….very apprehensively…ascent was clear thank God…...”

The Kyarra in better viz (Web Photo: Courtesy Rick Ayrton)

What isn’t apparent here is what I was feeling at the time, If we’ed been tied off on the shot line I’d have been happier by far, following a line is my default setting in low viz on a new wreck, too many have died trapped inside wrecks, that is not the way I want to go! I was seething with myself for not asking the right questions before the dive, my dive slate said it all “…….can you enter the wreck….?” Steve shrugged (I got madder) “…..are we inside it.…?” Steve shrugged (I got even madder) ” ……dive over….” Steve, bless him, agreed and we turned 180 degrees and swam with the current for couple of minutes before I deployed the SMB. It was a huge relief when the water became lighter, and I realised the SMB was at the surface, not under a hull-plate……..lesson learned! Talking with Tich after we exited the water, he believed that at 29m or so, we had swam under the stern of the Kyarra which was what shielded us from the relentless current, and what had caused me to stop in my tracks thinking we had entered part of the hull. Showing the dive slate to other members of TIDSAC that evening was a sobering and humbling experience, one I have not forgotten to this day………..

Filed Under: The Wrecks

Waterlip Quarry

January 26, 2020 by Colin Jones

Waterlip Quarry, Cranmore, 04th April 1994

April of 1994 TIDSAC decided to take an inland dive-trip to Waterlip Quarry in Somerset, it was half the distance to Stoney Cove and that proximity, in the day, meant it was easier to get divers interested. I suppose I was lucky, Stoney was not so far out of the way for me and made a decent dive on the way back to Tidworth after weekends, or leave, spent with my then girl-friend Ellie and the family. Obviously those serving in Tidworth Garrison found no real benefit from such a long journey North, and the traffic on the return could be a pain too, after all, these were dives to be taken when the weather was blowing out South coast dives, which were obviously far more of a pull than a quarry dive!

Waterlip Quarry, Cranmore, Somerset (Web Picture)

Waterlip Quarry is located near Cranmore, in Somerset, and is known locally more often as Cranmore Quarry, originating from around 1860, it was originally Two Quarries with a road between them but became One, larger, edifice somewhere around 1890. The quarry was extracting Carboniferous (Black Rock) Limestone, a product of Volcanic activity in pre-historic days, and a result of the “Coalbrookdale Formation” of Silurian Volcanic rock. Basically the debris from a huge volcano eruption which settled onto sea-water, and became layers of sediment (pumice) and pyroclastic flows over the existing bedrock. I am sure there will be geologists horrified by that very inadequate and basic description, but I’m not giving a geography lesson here, I trust I can be forgiven such basic ignorance……

The “Coalbrookdale Formation” of the Mendip Hills area (Web Illustration)

The journey from Tidworth to Cranmore, in the Mendip Hills, takes around an Hour or so, a pleasant journey across to the West from Salisbury, and a picturesque one. It is hard to believe there was ever a Volcano, nor that the eruption of such a thing created the local landscape, no matter how long ago that might have been. But whatever it looked like, the strata of the local area was precious enough and plentiful enough to break it out from the ground to use and to sell. Most people have seen working quarries, or at least pictures of them, I personally like the historic images, the way things were achieved, before the introduction of modern commercial methodologies and massive plant equipment

Quarrying Methods back in the 1800’s locally (Web Photo)

Waterlip is another quarry with a transportation story, similar to Stoney Cove’s….. The quarry owners found it difficult to get product to market, in a similar conundrum to that faced by those at Stoney Stanton, the original method being horse-drawn carts, with all the limitations implied by steep quarry access roads, and the energy available from the horses! The canals were little help, several canal ventures locally, the Nettle-bridge Valley & Radstock canals, failed, and the Somerset link to Kennet & Avon was too far North for the Mendip quarry production, so it wasn’t until the 1870’s that a rail network was established which opened up wider possibilities

Waterlip Quarry-men & their Hose & Cart transportation of the 1800’s (Web Photo Courtesy of the National Stone Centre)

If nothing else, understanding the way rock is quarried, even back in the day, makes understanding the underwater topography (Bathymetry?) far better, and therefore aids navigation to some extent! I also love to see the “Health and Safety” of the day and reflect on what a “cotton wool” society we have become of late! Arriving at Waterlip you made your way over to the Quarry head, where there was a building and access (if there were divers there already), or, if I recall correctly, an improvised key-collection arranged beforehand. To be honest I’m not sure as to how that worked at the time, but the kitting up area was out of the weather, and clean with plenty of room, no luxuries, no shop, no cafe or bar, but it was out of the wind and comfortable!

Adrian kitting up in the Waterlip dressing rooms, clean, comfortable and out of the wind!

Access to the water is a different affair than elsewhere, there is a set of steel stairs, adequate but still slippy if you are not careful, and a series of pier affairs, at the time a legacy of military testing for acoustics and for early torpedo systems I believe. Nowadays they are owned, or at least operated, by Thales and likely still being used for similar purposes, knowing the areas of engineering Thales are mostly involved with….. We assembled our kit outside of the dressing rooms, and buddied up with those others that had joined us for the day. I was buddied with Adrian, the albeit temporary TIDSAC DO, Norman having been very glad to pass on that role for what he hoped might be at least a couple of years, but ended up more a couple of months due to Adrian’s onward posting

“The Road to Waterlip Pier” (…..with abject apologies to George Orwell)

My log book records: “Inland dive, Waterlip Quarry Somerset, Cold & Dark, No Viz from 12m – Nothing to See, W. Temp 6′ Air in 200 – out 50 Viz 0.5m -nil Buddy Adrian” I clearly was not impressed on our first outing, and remember trying to find anything to guide navigation other than the quarry wall, which we eventually used to go around by putting it on our Left shoulder, and then at half the allotted air, turning about and putting it on our Right shoulder for the return journey…….and we saw nothing, it was an effort to keep in touch!

Exiting Waterlip quarry and helping off with dive kit April 1994

Undeterred we went back in for another try, determined to try a different tack and head out direct from the wall, all was going swimmingly, albeit in very similar visibility, until we reached bottom at around 15m when Adrian signaled he was in difficulty….. my log book again records the detail: “Inland- Waterlip Quarry Somerset, Dive to 15m – Adrian lost a fin – controlled buoyant lift from 15m for D/L qual otherwise same as above Air in 200 out 150 Viz 0.5m to Nil Buddy Adrian” I remember Adrian being pissed off at losing his fin, which we did manage to recover, but by then I think we’d both had about enough of the abysmal visibility and cold to push another attempt out. On this occasion Waterlip had beaten us, we’d seen precisely nothing………..

Filed Under: Tidworth Sub Aqua Club

Blue Planet

January 25, 2020 by Colin Jones

Some of you may be familiar with the huge shopping complex at Cheshire Oaks? Some may wish they perhaps were not, as, to say it is a retail outlet is one thing, to say it is expensive….. quite another! Cheshire Oaks does feature a large range of “High End” shops and designer outlets, in a similar way to the American “Malls” & “Premium Outlets” found in Florida……… Some of you may be familiar with Cheshire Oaks for quite a different reason though, co-located, amongst the Ralph Lauren, Hugo Boss and Armani retail stores sits Blue Planet Aquarium, a peaceful haven amongst all the consumerism of the 21st Century……..

Blue Planet Aquarium, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire (Web Photo)

Blue Planet has heritage, it opened as the UK’s largest Aquarium in 1988, and it has prestige, it was no less than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II who opened the wonderful new attraction, in the north West of England, all those 30 years or so ago. The statistics of Blue Planet are impressive, it has 20,000 species on exhibit, in over 100 displays and 14 themes. I have to say, I love well thought out and well displayed Aquariums, even though I am no fan of animals in captivity. That’s a contradiction, and I guess could even be called hypocrisy, however there is a bigger picture at play here, in very human terms, and I believe it is a vital one to the ecology and well-being of the planet itself………. If you cannot get to see exotic species from around our planet, (and many do not have the resource to do so), and you do not get shown the miracles of nature or engage with them, then why would you care for them….or what happened to them? These wonderful, vital creatures, full of elegance, wonder and grace, would simply be abstract….there….. but of no consequence, a picture, a distant memory. If we do not want the denizens of the sea to become distant memories, then Aquariums have an important place to play in the story of humanity and the more immediate and tactile the better…….as far as I am concerned

The tunnel at Blue Planet, 70m long and a wonderful experience for divers & non-divers alike (Web Photo)

It was from that point of view that I wanted to get our divers, especially those who might not get to take the exotic holidays necessary to encounter such creatures themselves, into the water with Sharks. I knew of Blue Planet, having taken my own children there to spend a day, their favourite of all experience, other than the huge glass walled shark window, and perhaps the tunnel under the sea, (where non divers can experience “something” of what it might be like to be underwater), was the Ray pool, where Rays of several types get to swim up and, being curious creatures, stick their snouts out of the water, which both (for an instant) terrifies, and then fascinates, both children and adults alike……… I had been in touch with the Blue Planet staff to see if I could bring some of FSAC up to take a dive there, and had duly placed a poster asking for interested parties on the club notice board in Fenton Manor. It did not take long for the numbers to fill, I had spaces for Ten divers and we ended up squeezing that to 12 on the first dive-night

Behind the scenes, the public don’t get to see the complexity of such a large Aquarium (Web Photo)

The trip up from Stoke-on-Trent took around an hour, there were a dozen excited divers, and another half dozen family members (almost as excited), as we assembled in the foyer of the Blue Planet facility. It took just 10 minutes or so to be briefed by the staff, and to be split into the groups we would dive in, and those that would enjoy the attraction, empty now of the public, with unlimited access whilst we kitted up for the evenings diving. Those of us diving went to the kit room for briefing, what we would do, how this would progress and what we could expect…..and then the safety side of things, what to do and what not to do, all usual to divers and nothing unexpected, apart from the “don’t raise your hands, or try to touch the Sand Tigers…….it might not end well………“

Three of the FSAC divers, Phill Sherratt, Mark Hill and Sharron attract the local residents in for a closer look

There is considerably more to see in Blue Planet Aquarium than the “Star” attractions, there are Moray eel, big Rays, shoals of Atlantic fish species of several types, all happy to get up-close and personal with the divers. As the “Coral” in the Aquarium is artificial, divers are not allowed fins, the “dive” is more a walk through, but it is well worth a visit and I highly recommend the experience if you have been considering it!

The “Coral” of Blue Planet and one of the more “individual” residents keeping its own council!

This is an opportunity to see behind the scenes at a huge underwater attraction, our divers were just as impressed by the plumbing and filter systems, and the technical introductions to the aquarium, as they were with the underwater wildlife. I was lucky to take divers in several times, the prices rose considerably between 1998 and our last dive there, somewhere around 2002. I was disappointed to see what was a 200% increase at the time, nowadays the price is eye-watering by comparison, but it is a unique experience, and still well-worth the effort, the cost, in comparison to the the outlay for a Red Sea dive to see the same creatures, is nothing

The fish are not shy and like to come in for a look if you kneel for a moment or Two on the bottom

There is something special about Sharks, no matter who you ask, Sharks are emotive creatures, loved and hated equally, featuring as demons of the sea in many block-buster movie and, at best, represented as dangerous animals best to avoid everywhere else. I can only say this has never been my experience of these majestic creatures. My very first encounter with Sharks was in Jamaica, off Port Royal (of Pirates of the Caribbean fame) when told, ” Just get in and descend through them, they aren’t interested in humans as food, especially divers…..” by Don Shirley, who later confessed “I put you in first Col, because I knew no-one else would “go for it” in amongst circling Sharks….and I was “pretty sure” you’d be OK!“…..but more of that in another post later……

The Sand Tigers and Rays of Blue Planet Aquarium…..a fly-by showing they are not at all shy……

I knew the Fenton Sub Aqua Club Divers were excited, and I knew they were also nervous, you can always tell when divers are a little edgy, but here in the aquarium, I knew if they did what they were told then they would be alright. I wasn’t disappointed, all our divers behaved perfectly whilst with the Sharks, no waving, no attempts to touch or chase after the graceful denizens of the Blue Planet, and they had some marvelous encounters with magnificent creatures we should all be protecting and concerned about! These creatures are Apex predators, keeping sick and injured marine life and over-population in check, prejudice that eco-balance and everything under it potentially collapses……….

Who’s watching Who? the huge viewing window in Blue Planet Aquarium with FSAC family members behind the glass…..

The visits FSAC made to Blue Planet were always popular, and always well-attended, I think we did Three in the Ten years I ran Deep Blue Diving, and I loved each one. I would not get so close to Sand Tiger Sharks again until diving Torpedo Alley in North Carolina in 2017, that, again, is a story for another time. I suppose the commercialisation of the “Shark Diving” at Blue Planet was inevitable, the alignment with the professional association of dive instructors (PADI) has introduced a more “formalised” approach, I’m sure, and of course a little more “pizzaz”. There were no “certificates” on offer when we dived Blue Planet, and there was an age restriction if I recall correctly, 15, I believe…… now, children are encouraged to dive with the sharks there…….I’m not against that, I am just not completely comfortable with the age of those now involved, just me being “old” I expect………..

Ragged Tooth, “Sand Tiger” sharks, the business end looking impressive, like most Shark species, they are largely fish eaters…….

As I write this, and look back over the photos here, it pains me to miss one of the nicest people I ever met, enjoying something I was privileged to have taught him, (and indeed Two of his daughters too). Mark Hill was a diver, a member of FSAC and a very close friend, I remember him here with love and affection and I miss diving with him immensely. I dived with Mark in Swimming Pools, in Quarries, in Water Cisterns, in the Red Sea….. and in Blue Planet Aquarium over Ten years, indeed I took him on the last dive he would ever take

Mark “Marky” Hill……. (“Hilly” to many in Stoke on Trent, Marky to me), in the centre, doing one of the things he loved…… diving

Mark Hill was one of the nicest people you could ever meet, with a very giving, gentle nature and a quick wit and ready smile. I don’t remember once seeing Mark sullen, even as he was undertaking the fight that would eventually, after almost Four years, take him from us,…….a fight against an enemy very few beat………

Mark Hill (“Wind K” Sharm El Sheikh 2006) R.I.P

Filed Under: Fenton Sub Aqua Club

Zenobia

January 19, 2020 by Colin Jones

Zenobia, Empress of Palmyra 240-274 AD (Photo Wikipedia)

Zenobia was crowned Empress of Palmyra around AD 260 at perhaps 20 years old, and is shown above on the obverse of an Antoninianus, a coin of the third century (worth about 2 Denarii). Zenobia reigned as queen of the Palmyrian Empire in Syria, following the accession of her husband Odaenathus. Zenobia, thought to have been high born, became the ruler of Palmyra (following the assassination of Odaenathus), and is known for having launched an invasion of Roman territories in the East, culminating in the annexation of Egypt in 270, although in reality still bound to Rome, her rule extended across Ancyra through Anatolia to Egypt. In 272 Zenobia declared her son “emperor” and Palmyra independent, prompting Roman reprisal and her defeat in battle. Zenobia was exiled to Rome where she died around 274 AD (Wikipedia)……. A fitting back story to a Ship crowned in Malmo Sweden, sailing to Athens, which eventually died, very young, just outside the harbour at Larnaca, Cyprus

Zenobia, in her death throes outside Larnaka Harbour, Cyprus, 07th June 1980 (Web Photo)

Zenobia, a brand new “Roll-on-Roll-off” ferry, had been constructed in the Kockums shipyard in Malmo, Sweden, and she was “state of the Art” at the time, fully computer controlled and pride of the yard, she was Lloyd’s registered, registration number: 7806087 and completed in 1979. Zenobia’s details: Length overall: 172,02 meter (560 feet), Beam: 23.04 meter (75 feet), Draught: 13.01 meter (43 feet), Gross tonnage: 12,000 tones, and finally, her Maximum speed was 21.5 knots…an impressive ship! Sailing almost immediately following her sea trials Zenobia was bound for Athens, on the way the captain encountered steering problems and Zenobia took on a distinct list to port. It was initially believed the list was caused by excess water pumped into the ballast tanks, this was pumped out and she then departed for Larnaca, Cyprus, before eventually expecting to reach Syria

Beyond saving, somewhere around 45′ Port list, Zenobia is headed below (Web Photo)

Zenobia arrived at Larnaca on 2 June 1980, still dogged by ballast problems from the computerized pumping system, which was continually pumping water into the side ballast tanks due to a software error, making the list progressively worse. On 4 June, Zenobia was towed out of Larnaca harbor to prevent her becoming an obstruction, should she sink, and was left at anchor around 1.5 miles offshore. On 5 June, with Zenobia listing at nearly 45°, the captain dismissed the engineers and maintenance crew, and made requests to return her to Larnaca harbor, these were denied, sealing Zenobia’s fate……… at around 2:30am, 7 June 1980, Zenobia capsized and sank in Larnaca Bay

Zenobia, ……. 07th June 1980, as she finally goes to the bottom of Larnaca bay (Web Photo)

I had wanted to dive Zenobia since hearing about the wreck from TIDSAC divers over the last few years, by all accounts she was the best wreck dive you could get, bar those of the Red Sea, and some said she was better than most of those! Zenobia was the main reason for taking Phill up on his offer of a break in Cyprus, I knew he was going to be working most of the time and I had no desire to be in the way of his wife, sat around their home for a week. I had been in touch with Ian McMurray at Octopus Divers beforehand, having been told of his exploits recovering unfortunate divers, (those who made the mistake of getting lost within Zenobia), over the 13 years she had sat on the bottom of Larnaca Bay. I once again took the little Suzuki trials bike out, and made my way to Ian’s quayside slot where we loaded up and briefed the dive, assigning buddy’s as Ian went about preparing to motor out the mile and a half or so to the wreck

The Octopus Divers Skiff loaded and ready to go 08th December 1993

  My log-book entry reads “Zenobia the now famous Cyprus ferry wreck c/w cargo of lorries sank when ballast computers went haywire on her maiden voyage (for the second time) A whole wreck intact, dropped to bridge @ 17m then over side & along to cargo decks & lorries. They hang on chains as Zenobia is on her side. A great look around this area, then back along the hull to the bridge for a look. Two precautionary stops – 9m & 6m a fascinating wreck.” My buddies on the dive were Two BSAC divers, one a Scot, “Jock” and one called “Charlie” both seasoned divers who looked after me very well

Zenobia’s Deck Cargo, Trucks, where they landed after she sank (Web Photo)

I vividly remember seeing the glint of sunlight on the deck rails of Zenobia as Ian moored over her, she is only 16m or so beneath the surface and she is a big wreck, you can make out some of her hull, the upper promenade along her Starboard side, and as we rolled back into the bay, under beautiful Cyprus sunshine, you could see her in all her glory below you, Zenobia was, and I am sure still is, an impressive sight. The descent is an easy one, we had little if any current on the day and we quickly made our way, as was our training, to the deepest depth agreed on the brief, which was the 30m mark. At that depth, hovering above her stern, it was possible to make out her prop some 10m below us , and to see her stern decks with the twisted remains of the trucks, some at the limit of their deck chains, some completely free, having broken them during the sinking

Hovering above her stern, it was possible to make out her prop some 10m below (Web Photo: Courtesy B N Sulivan)

My memory has us spending a little time just circling the stern deck, looking at the lorries just meters below us, and then swimming back along the deck to the main superstructure, the beginnings of the restaurant and the accommodation and bridge structure. There was no penetration to be had on this dive, for a start I had never dived her before, something I am absolute with at all times, no “entry” until I feel I have familiarised myself with the lie of the wreck around me, and even then it is often several more dives before I would feel confident enough to enter a wreck, no matter its condition.

I recall the sunlight glinting off the upper deck railings as I looked at Zenobia under Ian’s dive-boat before we entered the water (Web Photo)

We swam back along the deck and passed the bridge windows and the entrance door, the wreck was only 13 years old when I dived her and there was considerably less growth on her than in the photos I have found of the areas we dived, and I only recall One of the windows being broken on her bridge…… This was the window used to rescue a diver trapped inside in an air pocket several years beforehand, luckier than her dive guide who paid the price for getting lost in the accommodation area, having disturbed the fibre board partition walls, long since reduced to tiny shards and lying in wait for those passing, creating a black-out of tiny debris, almost impossible to see through, especially when disoriented or starting to panic when low on air…..

The Bridge deck and cafeteria have long since lost their interior dividers, fibre board lies heaviest in the accommodation area (Web Photo)

It would be easy to drop in and look around Zenobia, I sat and waited at the Bridge whilst Jock and Charlie had a root about the area, but they clearly thought, as I did, that going inside was not part of the plan and we all made our way along the Starboard deck rails, past the bridge to see the bow area ahead of us. Zenobia being such a big and intact wreck, it was clear we did not have sufficient air reserve to push down to the bow, we had had such a good look around the lorries, and stern, that our safety stops would leave us at 50bar, the standard BSAC reserve for any dive. It was enough to see the bow reaching out in front of us, as we steadily made our way back up the shot-line, looking back below as Zenobia retreated into the Blue of Larnaca Bay

Modern Technology allows a photo montage and clever rendering to re-construct how Zenobia looks in her entirety (Web Image)

I am intrigued again, to find imagery on the web which shows Zenobia as she sits on the bay floor at Larnaca, I can, once again, clearly see the route we took on that December dive in 1993 and pick out where I was at each point I remember, it adds some clarity and acts as a valuable reminder. If you imagine Ian’s skiff moored to the bridge at its foremost, highest point you can see the distances we traveled to the stern and back again, along the hull, gradually moving from mid depth and mid-deck level, to join the promenade rails along Zenobia’s upper Starboard wing and back to the shot-line to ascend. I know I would love to return to dive her more extensively, and if I hadn’t been going back to the UK a day later, then I would gladly have dived her again at the time….some things just have to wait for another day…………

Some things just have to wait for another day….(Web Photo)

Filed Under: The Wrecks

Protector III

January 18, 2020 by Colin Jones

Protector III….When a Shipwreck is not a Shipwreck……

I was privileged to join a Dive Expedition to the Falkland Islands, Lead by Don Shirley in January of 1996, the year I would eventually leave the Army. I had met Don on a previous Army Diving Expedition to Jamaica and we had got on very well, despite the difference in rank, I a lowly Lance Corporal, Don a Warrant Officer. Don was someone I would soon call friend rather than Sir, a down to earth and highly professional soldier, but also a keen adventurer with an infectious spirit and a healthy regard for those willing to take a step outside the ordinary! Don had planned the Expedition over the last year or so, with the ambition of diving under the ice of South Georgia, this would be thwarted by the desperate acts of an Army expedition the year before we arrived, where a canoe party forced back to shore by storms at sea, failed to re-supply the party that had tabbed (marched) the island and were isolated, without the rations carried in the sea canoes…..to the demise of some of the local penguin population. It was felt by the Islanders that our expedition should be denied diving South Georgia as a result, probably just a reprisal for the outrage caused by the roasting of a protected species, but it pissed us all off….there’s millions of the bloody things……. everywhere….. and Don had actually served through the Falklands war, ungrateful bloody Bennie’s!

Don Shirley, Warrant Officer, Adventurer…..Diver! Weddell Island January 1996

Anyhow, I digress, when is a shipwreck not a shipwreck? Well, in this case when it is “Protector III” lying ashore in New Island’s Coffin Harbour. She sits just around the corner from the Two settlement houses occupied by the Islands Two inhabitants, the Islanders and renowned wildlife artists, Ian Strange and his immediate neighbor Tony Chater. Protector III was built in Port Greville, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1942 during the latter stages of WWII. She was of wooden construction, built at the Wagstaff and Hatfield Shipyard for the British Admiralty, with the original purpose of mine sweeping. The Germans had made significant use of magnetic mines, dropped by parachute into the seas surrounding the UK, wooden minesweepers had a distinct advantage in counter-mine operations, obviously, not being made of Steel, and undoubtedly saved many ships by successfully clearing magnetic and acoustic mines as a result. Protector III served until the end of the war, then finding employment in various roles before being bought to be used in the Falklands, as a sealer, and later as a fishing and general work-boat, an ignominious end to a heroic career. She was beached, (hence, although “wrecked” is not truly a “Ship-Wreck” in diving terms, for quite obvious reasons,) in Coffin Harbour, New Island in 1969. Co-incidentally the Southern Craftsman Expedition was bunked on New Island for the second phase of our Diving adventure, following a week long stint on Weddell Island

The First Nazi Magnetic Parachute Mine. Shewburyness 1939 (Photo HMS Vernon Heritage)

The Sight of Protector III was unusual at the time, to say the least, here was a complete shipwreck, sat on the beach, as if she could be re-floated and, with a little ingenuity, resume her journey…. Nothing is ever, truly what it seems, at higher tides it was evident Protector III’s hull was not in any way sound as she did not float, rather she lay slightly to Starboard as if relaxing in the surf. It makes you wonder if there are many of her type remaining as examples around the world as, from a historical perspective, Protector III represents a valiant, and relatively unsung fleet. Such vessels crews, who’s “Navy Reserve” status meant many were regular trawler-men, disdainful of rank and Naval discipline, but were still willing to undertake some of the most dangerous work on the high seas, hunting and de-fusing that which could easily destroy far larger ships than theirs! At the time it wouldn’t have taken so much to get Protector III back afloat I’m sure, no matter though, now she is in quite different condition as photo’s taken more recently show

MMS (and Llewellyn) Class Minesweeper MMS 636…. as Protector III would’ve looked in 1942 (Web Photo)

I cannot find Protector III’s previous MMS designation, it would be nice to add a little of her earlier history to this piece, she could have been a “Llewellyn” derivative having been made at Wagstaff & Hatfield, but there would need to be evidence of that and I have none but anecdotal to go on. It is clear that as Protector III there was modification carried out when she was re-roled as a “Sealer”, the Mine array reel was removed, and her transom replaced to fill the stern-gap the mine drag-lines were deployed through. On the picture of MMS 636 you can see the Bow carries the modification carried out to many of the wooden minesweepers, a device fitted to cope with “Acoustic” mines, a later development deployed to go off based on the “sound signature” of passing shipping. Basically this was a hammer affair used to create an artificial “signature” to set-off mines before more valuable ships were taken down in passing

The “open” stern (Transom) area of a similar vessel to Protector III during operations in WWII (Web Photo)

What can be said about these small, and not truly “Navy” (in the “Royal” sense of the term) ships, is that they carried out incredibly hazardous work. I have dived HMT Elk some way off the Breakwater in the sound at Plymouth, a story for another post on here later, sunk whilst carrying out operations in the sound and hitting a mine in 1940. Many served, and many were lost, taking incredibly brave and not well recognised heroes to the depths in the service of their nation. The “T” in HMT is not a mistake, the minesweepers of the class were designated “Trawlers” or, to give their full title, His Majesty’s Trawler….. abbreviated to HMT

Deployment practice, or training for the sweep array, on the stern deck of a similar vessel to Protector III during WWII (Web Photo)

Here was a ship, “wrecked” but ashore, the worst thing possible for a wreck diver. It didn’t help that there were other wrecks around the Falklands that we were not permitted to dive, compounding the disappointment brought by the forbidding of our under-ice diving ambitions. The Admiralty and the Ministry of Defence had refused us permission to Dive the Falklands war wrecks of HMS Coventry and HMS Antelope, although at the time none of us but Don would have dived Coventry as she sits deep at 90m, I’d love the chance today though! I did get to dive a true Falkland island wreck earlier whilst on Weddell Island, and would dive another, later, whilst in Port Stanley, but you will need to visit other posts on here in the future to hear those tales……..

MMS 15 under construction c1942…sister-ship to Protector III (Web Photo)

There are several co-incidences in respect to the Protector III, she gave me a perfect look at what HMT Elk would have been like when at sea, something I loved when I was diving the Elk years later. The second is the similarity to HMT Texas which I dived in Jamaica, all Three of these gritty and heroic little ships sit upright and proud, in Three different locations around the world, and fascinated me whilst underwater and ashore. But there is one more, although a little more tenuous, co-incidence here, Protector III sits in front of a museum now, when I was on New Island this was a desolate stone building full of whale-bone and the relics of those who pursued the leviathans of the deep in Southern Oceans. I did some research following my stay on New Island and found a little more about the site, having spoken to an American couple who were gradually restoring the building one holiday at a time, at their own expense I might add!

Barnard’s Hut with a whalebone, a spinal Vertebra, mounted on the wall January 1996

The coincidences continue as the hut was built by Charles Barnard, marooned on New Island June 11th 1813, June 11th of course being my Birthday. Charles Barnard was on New Island as a result of the wreck of the ship Isabella, out of Port Jackson, New South Wales (Sydney, Australia) en route to England when, being so badly handled by her Captain, George Higton, she ran aground off the Falklands on Eagle Island in February of 1813. Bear in mind 1812 was the American war of Independence….(a kind of “Pre-Brexit” divorce case where the USA (Largely British) dumped Britain….) leading to a tale of Two ships crews…….. the potential rescuers of those wrecked on the Isabella, from the American Sealer “Nanina”, and the remnant crew of the British ship Isabella, marooned on Eagle Island. Thereby hangs a tale best read in David Miller’s (Ex-Rupert in the Signals) excellent book “The Wreck of the Isabella” (ISBN 0-85052-456-3) which I read shortly after getting back from the Southern Craftsman Expedition. For those who can’t wait, or who will not look up such a story, it is one of treachery, where rescuers become the marooned after mutiny………It is far too good a read, and too well researched, to do more than whet the appetite here…….. I promise those reading it will not be disappointed!

My favourite shot of the Protector III, taken from Barnard’s hut on New Island 1996

So what has become of the Protector III today? I took a look on the internet and quite quickly learned that time has taken it’s toll, sadly the valiant survivor of WWII still sits in the lonely bay on New Island, and the weather and the years have not been kind. Protector III has become a shadow of her former self and it seems inevitable that she will eventually fall into the sands of time, as we all must. There is always a glimmer of hope, eventually the world woke up to the potential loss of the SS Great Britain, another long time resident of the Falkland Islands, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s first Iron, Propeller driven, Ship in the world. Now I am not saying Protector III is of the same importance or of the same innovation, but who know’s perhaps she is the last of her line and somewhere, someone cares enough……..

Protector III today, tragic and forlorn, a shadow of her former self (Web Photo)

Filed Under: Other Stuff

Capernwray Sturgeon

January 12, 2020 by Colin Jones

My first dive in the Lake district at Jackdaw Quarry Capernwray 12/08/1998! I had gone up with a group of divers including my brother Barry, who I had taught not long beforehand, and Mark Hill and his daughter Kelly. I had Jason, one of my regular Dive-masters with me, and we were going to check out Capernwray as a potential change of scenery from Stoney Cove. I had been hearing about Capernwray for some time and a change is often just what is needed, despite the long drive up the M6, which to be honest everyone can do without, for those with Rose-Tinted glasses the M6 was a nightmare even back then….. The car-parking at Capernwray was as bad if not worse than at Stoney Cove, but, like the Cove there was a filling station, a cafe & dive shop and changing rooms with toilets

Capernwray Slip on a very quiet day! (Web Photo)

I liked Capernwray, I knew the distance from us would mean it would only ever be an occasional visit, however there were attractions you wouldn’t get at Stoney Cove, the abundant Trout the owners had put in the clear and cold water of Jackdaw Quarry for one thing……..Every entry down the slip, and even more so, every exit from the water was met with dozens of big Rainbow Trout eager to be fed by divers, they weren’t (and still aren’t) backwards in coming forwards, and divers often get “buzzed” by the more aggressive of the shoals which is great fun, it’s not often you get a slap in the face from a wet trout…………Later on the Quarry owners would add Sturgeon to the venue, not on the menu, but in the quarry itself, now I knew that Trout could thrive in lakes, even though they were truly river fish, I’d have never thought Sturgeon, natives of the mighty Volga river of Russia, would make lakes their home, but they are still there, getting bigger by the year and are approachable too! I placed this post in the marine life section of the blog as it would be a mundane dive if not for the Sturgeon we swam with and the trout as we exited……..

Capernwray, a dive around Jackdaw Quarry 2015

Filed Under: Marine Life

Achilleas

January 11, 2020 by Colin Jones

This is likely to be a disappointing post, Achilleas is the next wreck in my little Red Wreck book, the earlier wrecks from 1991-2000, and was one I completed whilst in Cyprus following Northern Ireland staying with Phill Talbot and his wife in Akrotiri. I say it will be disappointing and that means to me personally, I have spent quite some time trying to get some history on the Achilleas without success. I remember asking the guys at Cydive for some background at the time, and they had little too, which is odd considering this is a fairly young wreck going down outside the Paphos harbour in 1975 as a result of an explosion……. Achilleas was my 50th dive, an auspicious moment to all divers, the first 50 and then the 100 are special dives, but no one could give me much on this wreck, I think she is just one of those many ships lost to the Greek Merchant Insurance schemes as a result of poor management, a diminishing business for medium and smaller commercial transports, and greed……..

Phill Talbot, contemplating the village streets local to Troodos, waiting for a pint in Omodos square!

I wanted wrecks and there were wrecks to dive, so once again it was out with the Suzuki 125 trials bike and off to Cydive for the morning, this was to be my last wreck with Cydive. I was off to Larnaka the next day to dive with Ian Mc Murray at Octopus divers, but more of that in another post…….I knew this was going to be a nice easy dive as Achilleas sank shallow, as many 1970’s Greek wrecks seemed to do…..12m max as far as I was told beforehand, and again we would be in crystal clear Aegean waters on a wonderfully hot day, 07th December 1993, my buddy was to be Stan another UK diver getting a little winter sunshine in Cyprus! The boat ride out was fairly short as I remember it, no dramas and an easy kit-up before we dropped in to the warm embrace of the sea off Paphos, I could see the upturned stern of the Achilleas from the surface before we descended so finding her was not an issue!

Achilleas, the Stern, Rudder and Prop, with her Engine just showing (Cydive Photo)

My dive log speaks volumes about the wreck “Achilleas” A Greek vessel which sank “mysteriously” in 1975 off the harbour at Paphos (R.H. Side) 3 main areas of wreckage, all are inverted. Stern section is well sunk in and overgrown. Bronze prop still in place & portholes still about. A large Grouper lives in the bow section & shoals of smaller colourful fish abound. A great dig about in a well dispersed wreck ……..

Nicely captured shot of Achilleas Engine, Atmospheric in Black and White with the scale distorted slightly probably by a domed camera port (Web Photo)

I do hope there will be something more to add, better marking the passing of such a vessel in the ’70’s…… which just frustrates me to be honest, a ship “explodes” off a Western Hemisphere port, in the 20th century, and nobody bats an eyelid…..very odd! I’d love to add something about the history of Achilleas before her sinking, and a photo, but I have found nothing through the years, there will be someone out there that has something more, I truly hope they get in touch so I can edit this post and share more of the story, but until then this is pretty much all I have. I have asked Cydive and the local Cyprus press to help and we will see if anything comes up but until then…..on to the next wreck!

Filed Under: The Wrecks

Stoney Cove

January 11, 2020 by Colin Jones

Stoney Cove, Leicestershire Ariel view c1994 (Web Photo)

My first ever freshwater dive 27/02/1994 was with a mate from TIDSAC, Mark “Milly” Millward, another REME soldier from Tidworth garrison. I had not long got back from Ireland and I had been hearing about Stoney Cove for as long as I’d been diving. Stoney isn’t far from where my mother and step-father lived in the Midlands and it was, fortunately, on the return journey back to Tidworth……. in a round-about fashion. Anyone who was anyone at the dive-club had a story about “The Cove” and not all of them ended well. To be honest, I was a little apprehensive before I got there and made my way down onto the bottom car-park to meet Milly. I knew it was going to be cold, it was February and Cyprus was behind me now, it would be cold, wet and bloody miserable, typical British weather, I was sure! Still I had a 5mm Neoprene dry-suit now and I was young enough to take the 4′ water temperature I was expecting from all the stories I’d been told beforehand

Mark “Milly” Millward, Stoney Cove Feb 1994

I was pleasantly surprised when I got to Stoney Stanton, the weather was great, sunny & mild with no wind, no rain and although it was chilly, it was certainly not “Arctic” as I had been expecting! The cove back in those days had limited access, there was the “Bus Shelter”, built back in the days when British Engineering could’ve achieved the impossible…….if the amount of divers crammed onto one Meccano (look it up) “scaffold pole” platform is anything to go by…… I was amazed the thing didn’t just tip over and dump every one of them into the water, if they had actually managed to get down the stairs in one piece to begin with! Then there was the Ski-Hut slip, designed to allow the local Water Ski-Club Rib to be launched, albeit with a slope equivalent to a Black run in the Alps, and a turn your differential wasn’t ever going to enjoy (even the Diff on a military 4×4 Land-Rover 110)….at least that wasn’t going to collapse underneath you, and it had convenient walls to rest your gloves on, or to hold onto to drag yourself out. Then there was the little platform at the bottom of the steps, the only time these weren’t a safety hazzard was in summer….once diving had finished….after an hour or so of 30′ sunshine, dependent of course on no-one spilling their coke……. But there were changing rooms, a toilet block and a cafe, hell there was even a pub for a post dive pint! This might turn out OK after all…….

Stoney back in the day…..nothing dodgy to see here….move along

We kitted up and Mark took me in off the Bus-Shelter and onto the 6m shelf, the viz was great, 10m or so and it was a balmy 10′, we worked our way past the Viscount cock-pit, and along the shelf edge to the drop-off opposite the slip swimming down to the Wessex helicopter at 20m. As I entered the Starboard door I could clearly see the pilot and co-pilot’s feet working the pedals as they clattered the rotors to full pitch and lifted us out of the field on the Fermanagh border…too close for comfort……and then I was back in the room………. and the water was Green and Mark was beckoning me out to swim round the front of the cock-pit and along the tail, past the RAF roundel. I must be one of the last to have been extracted by a Wessex, they were ancient war-horses, legacy equipment even in my time, it was just a very surreal experience to have been ex-filled from patrol so little time ago, and then to find yourself underwater at 20m in the English country-side staring at the business end of such a piece of shared history….. and it had been totally unexpected, I had no idea the Wessex was even in there

The Westland Wessex being placed into Stoney Cove (Web Photo)

Years later I would use the RAF roundel and it’s iconic Blue, White and Red remaining paint to demonstrate the removal of colours by depth, to Open water divers taking their PADI Advanced Open Water Quals. A simple task, shining a torch on the area and panning its beam across the Blue which, at 20m deep, still showed some of its colour, then onto the Red which, at that depth, seemed plain Grey…… until the torch beam revised the spectrum and the Red leapt out, clear and bright. That always stayed with those I showed it to, a living physics demonstration, one that I particularly liked myself, as dry old teachers “telling you” this stuff never really had the same impact as being there and seeing it for yourself…..probably why I was such a poor student myself! By the time I got to the Wessex with Mark, it bore little resemblance to the photo, the windows had gone as had some of the fuselage and, although it was an interesting attraction, it made me wonder at the type of idiot that would take something off such a piece of history, wherever it lay?

Lane’s Hill Quarry, known locally as “Top Pit” c1950 (Web Photo)

No one I know can tell you when Lane’s Hill Quarry (Stoney Cove) was started, although it was known that the Stoney Stanton name came as a result of the surrounding rock outcrops, and goes as far back as the Domesday book of 1086, when the records show a local Bursar (Robert) owned land worked by 7 villagers, 3 smallholders (with 3 ploughs) and 4 freemen, and was meadow-land of 12 acres and woodland of 3 furlongs valued at 20s, presumably shillings rather than shekels (Wikipedia). The quarry became a source of Granite, eventually requiring a rail-head of sorts to get the stone into Stoney Stanton, and on to markets in Birmingham and the surrounding area, using Two steam engines, “Violet” (pictured) and “Billy”. It is still possible to see the remnants of the rails at the edge of the 6m shelf to this day…….

Violet, One of Two steam engines, along with “Billy”, the quarry transports for the Granite produced out of Top Pit (Web Photo)

Over a Ten year period between 1996 and 2006 I spent sometimes 50 out of 52 weeks a year taking divers around Stoney Cove, weekends and Wednesday evenings, I must have dived it well over a Thousand times during that time, and I knew it like the back of my hand. I got to know the staff there well, Margaret and Rob, who I still see occasionally when I get a chance to return and dive the cove, Simon, who is still a good mate (and ended up running Poseidon UK for several years), and Fluff and Paul from the shop, all great people I loved talking to, and who were always so supportive and willing to do anything to help. I even got to know the owner Alan, a lovely bloke who allowed me to test the FSAC Rib one Saturday after the diving had wrapped up, although he also knew the then owner Sid, which may have been more the reason if I am honest…. Incidentally, when I eventually sold the RIB to Lance (of Lance Palmer commercial diving) I learned it had been sold on to Bill Murray of Ghost-Busters and Caddy-Shack fame, apparently Bill had seen it on the set of Tomb-Raider when Lance was safety diver for Angelina Jolie and the crew, it’s a hell of a story whatever the truth…….by the way Lance, if you are ever reading this, where’s my Kit Harrington autograph?

Stoney Cove, probably the best diver training facility there is……. Something for every skill level, Light Blue 6m, Medium Blue 20m, Dark Blue 36m (Stoney Cove Photo)

So why Stoney Cove and why the reputation? Stoney certainly had a name for incidents through the ’90s and that carried into the early 2000’s too, I would frequently have to assure potential Deep-Blue trainees that they weren’t “going to die” if they went to Stoney Cove……. I consider Stoney to be the best diver training facility in the UK, and have, ever since I took my very first divers there for their Open Water courses. I’d taken BSAC trainees there before-hand too and I knew the safety there was second to none, If you are going to have an “incident” then Stoney Cove is the place to have it! I have seen the Cove staff literally hurl themselves down the steps to the rescue RIB to get to a casualty as fast as they can, I have taken part in searches for casualties at Stoney at their request, and I have seen and listened to them agonize over the “what-if’s“….could they have moved faster, done more, worked harder, been smarter….and I have seen the toll this has taken on them….. and it is one I could not have borne myself…… I consider each and every one of them to be hero’s and I have seen them work on casualties well beyond saving….because they can, and because they care….deeply! Make no mistake, scuba diving is a dangerous activity, not for those brow-beaten into the couch at weekends, not for the timid either, it is for the adventurous and that, like any other risk activity, eventually results in fatalities. Personally I think the undeserved reputation Stoney Cove has with some is a result of the sheer number of dives there, some 50,000 plus per year the last time I looked, how many of those divers have undisclosed health issues, unknown problems, badly, even un-serviced dive-kit and how many were so unfit as to be a hazzard to themselves and others from the outset? Stoney Cove doesn’t kill divers, diver’s die, eventually, and let’s not forget……it’s not a tragedy to die doing that which you love………..

Filed Under: General Diving

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