UKRS Plymouth 20/21 June 2003

Being an IT consultant, I have quite a lot of time to my self these days. At least this meant I could get a nice, early start on the trip to Plymouth. You need plenty of time to battle down the M5 on a sunny Friday afternoon in Summer - and even more time to find Mount Batten, which is the location of Deep Blue Diving and their boat Seeker, which Al had organised for this weekend's trimix diving.

An original contingent of 12 had wittled itself down to 7 by the time we'd all met up in the bar of the Mount Batten Centre. Jason grumbled about getting stuck behind the "Solstice Hippies" heading for Stone[d] Henge, but Zac was the last to arrive - at about 10pm. The usual friendly badinage, a quick grumble about the weather, a cheeky half and it was off to bed. Richie at Deep Blue had provided fills for those of us who turned up without any gas so we are as prepared as is possible for "ropes off" at 8am.

Attendees: Al Allan, Frank Bruce, Steve Chaplin (me), Ade Gorst, Gordon Henderson, Jason Poynting, Zak Sherlock.

Saturday

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, but with an unpleasant, chilly Easterly picking up a bit of a chop. Greg, the skipper brought Seeker round to the water taxi pontoon due to the low tide and we loaded up. We headed out at a decent rate of knots (Seeker doesn't hang around) to our chosen dive site. The Medoc was a 1100 ton French cargo carrier about 80m by 10m. She was carrying ammunition when fired upon by an enemy aircraft. I know little about the Medoc other than that she sits in about 56m not far from the Eddystone. She's not listed in the usual books though. Before we knew it, we were on site and Greg informed us that he'd put the shot "on the shell cases", which is a bold claim by anyone's standards!

Anyway, I was diving with Jason and coincidentally, we had similar mixes, which is convenient. We agreed 25mins at 55m would give us plenty of time to hang around fiddling with our reels on the way back up. The sea was a little lumpy with about a 1m swell which made kitting up a bit of a pain, especially as Seeker tended to spend most of her time beam on to the swell, which doesn't help. Jason and I were the last pair in and, after a rather slow start on my part, we settled into a reasonable rate of descent. I think the 3m of brown sludge on the surface we had to pass through caused a bit of drag on my kit! It got pretty dark towards the bottom although the vis was actually quite reasonable. 7 or 8m I'd say. We spotted other torches before we saw the wreck. I came to a nice tidy halt at the bottom of the shot - which meant Jason came to a nice tidy halt on top of me....! A brief orientation, kit check etc and we were off. We observed the shell cases immediately. Rather squashed and broken but definitely right at the bottom of the shot as predicted. We headed away from the others across the decks to the port side of the ship where we turned left and headed towards the stern. Amidships is quite a "splat" and there's a lot of rope, netting and line. Travelling further back along the outer port side, the hull becomes more intact. There are many enticing looking holes and the place is teeming with congers. They are everywhere - in all the holes and free-swimming too.

We worked our way right to the stern, which is lying tilted over on the port side, and around the large and impressive rudder. On the starboard side, the prop is clearly visible - intact and huge. This whole area is covered with anemones and is rather picturesque. Above towers what's left of the superstructure with some mast type thing reaching up into the lighter water above. Moving forwards, we stayed down at about 52m where we moved towards the centre line of the ship and started to move forwards. Pretty soon, we came to one huge boiler sitting in the middle of the vessel. I don't think I've ever seen a ship with just one boiler quite this large. Forward of this is a maze of pipes and valves which must be the exposed engine room area. Not much further forward than this and it was time to go. Jason bagged off and we started the ascent. We followed Jason's plan pretty much. Jason dived 21/30 trimix with 50% and 80% deco gas and I was 21/35 with 50% and 100%, so there wasn't much to choose between us and we actually surfaced together! In the end, total run time was 68min for 25min at 55m. Not bad really.

The Medoc is a reasonably interesting little wreck and would be brilliant in about 30m. On balance, although I enjoyed the dive, I don't think it's worth the hassle [and expense]. A quick vote showed that no one was interested in the James Eygan Layne as a second dive so we were back into port by about 1pm. Tanks in to Deep Blue for a fill (Helium topoff for the Open Circuit boys) and then a rather pleasant afternoon sitting outside the Mount Batten Centre bar in the sun. Eventually, Gordon went back to his country mansion, some went over to the sea life centre and I sat with Ade and chewed the fat.

The evening saw us in the New Inn at Turnchappel where Zak managed to blag us the only unreserved table. The weather forecast was not good for the Sunday and it was a dillema as to whether we should call the dive and drink too much, or get up at 5am in the hope the predicted storms hadn't arrived. In the end we arrived at a compromise. We scrapped the planned Medina dive - a P&O liner in 65m - a "fantastic dive" according to Richie at Deep Blue who would have come with us. The new plan was to dive an unknown in 65m that Greg had the coordinates for. So, food, copious quantities of Orange juice (much to the bar staff's disapproval) and an early night. At least it was ropes off at 8am now and not 6.

Sunday

Pretty much everyone was woken at 5am by the thunderstorm - except Al and I who heard nothing. A good call then! Frank had really come to dive the Medina and with that out of the question, he packed up and cleared off. Now we are six!

Come ropes off at 8am and the sea was calm and getting calmer. A bit of cloud around but the wind had dropped right down. Optimistically, we steamed out to "HMS Unknown".

The plan was a cunning one. We would send Ade down first. If HMS Unknown turned out to be HMS Large Stone, we would haul Ade out again and go dive the nearby Australbush. Ade could make the tea! On the other hand, if she turned out to be HMS Never Dived Before But In Fantastic Condition, Ade would send up a bag (or two!) and we'd all jump in. Fantastic.

Suspiciously, Zak volunteered to go in with Ade on the trial run. Hmm! Strange this!

Anyway, we dropped in the advance party and completed our kitting up. The sea had gone flat calm and the wind had dropped - luverly! Unfortunately, what had also dropped was the cloud... and we pretty soon found ourselves sitting in the middle of a pea souper. Vis came right down to less than 50m in a matter of minutes. Just as the cloud was coming down, Ade's bag was coming up to indicate that this was indeed a wreck. With consumate timing, Greg called the dive! It was clear that with all of us expecting to hang on deco for nearly an hour, we could easily drift off into the fog - not a pleasant thought. Ho hum! So, we all de-kitted and packed up whilst we waited for Ade and Zak, by now bagged off and on deco, blissfully unaware of how we were cursing them.

Ade and Zak are not known for their [trip] writing abilities so you may not hear anything more about this wreck. On the sounder, she looked to be in 60m and standing 10m proud although neither Zak nor Ade saw anything that tall. It sounded like the bows of a ship standing about 2 or 3m proud but heavily splatted. There were signs that she had been fished a lot but maybe not dived. Perhaps one to return to.

Having picked up our two exploratory divers - now in brilliant sunshine, and been regaled by their tales of derring-do, we reluctantly steamed back into harbour. Given the traffic on the way down, no one was keen to hang around so, we bade farewell and went our separate ways.

Thanks to Al for organising the weekend - an excellent boat, decent accommodation at the Mount Batten Centre. A shame four of us didn't get to dive on Sunday, but it was entirely the right call to make under the circumstances. I'd rather grumble a bit on the boat than spend days grumbling in the middle of the Channel before being run down by a bunch of sleeping Liberians!

Update from Zac: The wreck did stand 10m proud in places and he has the Cochran to prove it!

Steve Chaplin (24.06.2003)

Bonus Pics

Al has some strange habit! Is he emptying it?	Caught in the act! What are you doing? Ideas anyone?	Gordon checks his equipment!
A carnation would look nice - just here.	Now where did all those cylinders go?	Pah! Who needs a lift?