The group included divers - Graham Knight, Steve Prior, Cathy Prior, Lorna Hope, Mimi Robbins, Alan English, Geoff Vernon, Rod Hogg, Colin Murray and Sharky Ward. Mark Smith came and did a little diving. Pippa Barfield came, but chose to have a relaxed weekend instead. Non divers along for the trip were Moira English & Maureen Murray
The West Bay trip is an old favourite of Bicester club, one of the more demanding dive weekends in our calendar, but can also be highly enjoyable. We got decent weather, quite a lot of sun and a pretty calm sea.
Lyme Bay is a large bay, with many wrecks providing refuges for masses of marine life. The dives included a variety of interesting WW2 wrecks or drifts. (NB, in 2008, there’s a West Bay Trip. If interested, please see the dive diary.)
Photo on the Right - Ian Cornwell, a great skipper, also has one of the best dive boats we use, photo on the left - Huntress.
Because Alan & Moira were turning up late on the Friday, Steve kindly volunteered to put their tent up on the Friday evening. Somehow Steve wasn’t available when it came to putting the tent up, so we (Cath, Rod and me) put it up. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
What we’d not realised was that Alan had bought a new tent for the weekend. We soon discovered it had highly ambiguous instructions. It proved to be an absolute ‘mare as they say in Liverpool. The layout of poles wasn’t obvious and the instructions contradicted themselves. A combination of brawn and brawn finally solved it. The following picture indicates how impressed Cath was with Steve:
Finally the tent was up and we were desperate for a drink. So, what happens? Steve calls Alan on the mobile – where is Alan? (as we put the finishing touches to the tent)....HE’S IN THE LOCAL PUB........ the bar steward!!! Steve decides to wait for Alan to arrive, at this point there was near mutiny......
Some of us camped, the rest of us stayed at the B&B (Durbeyfield). Vicky the landlady now has a nice bar with real ale, plus a restaurant, and provided a good meal for the Saturday night.
Rod Hogg (above), irreversibly traumatised after helping Alan with his tent erection.
Wreck diving Saturday - The first dive was an old favourite, the St Dunstan, a wreck I’ve probably dived about 10 times and still don’t understand the layout. Much of Lyme Bay has a soft bottom which gives it erratic visibility, this trip was fair to middling visibility, no buddy lines necessary but not exactly crystal either. In the afternoon, we dropped in onto the Baygitano, one of my favourite wrecks, two large boilers, reasonably easy to navigate and shallow enough to have good light and absolutely tons of marine life.
Photo on the right - Geoff trying to look normal:
Wreck & Scallop Diving, Sunday - On a deeper dive, the Gibel Hamam, I saw one of the rarest sights on a Westbay trip - a lobster not in Sharky’s goody bag, within reach of Sharky.......the only reason it hadn’t been bagged – Sharky was taking the photo!
The last dive of the weekend, as is oft the case at West Bay, was a scallop dive off the Sawtooth Ledges, East of West Bay.
Sharky showing off his suntan on the deck of the Huntress.
Many Thanks to Steve Prior for organising a great trip, Sharky for providing some of the photographs. The rest of the photos and the write up came from me. (I apologise now!)
Author: Geoff Vernon - December 2007
Further Information
Gibel Hamam Wreck: http://www.bevs.org/diving/wkgibel.htm
Baygitano Wreck: http://www.divernet.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?id=5353&sc=&ac=d&an=
St Dunstan Wreck: http://www.divernet.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?id=1688&sc=&ac=d&an=
Sawtooth Ledges: http://www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/dorset/marine/seasearch/Dorset%20Seasearch%201995-2004%20Sawtooth%20Ledges.pdf
