This year’s trip to Plymouth was organised – extremely well – by Adrian. He had a challenge on his hands as he had to find us a new hardboat and skipper as well as a new place to stay. For the last few years we have been diving off “Furious” skippered by Pete Hambly who also ran a guest-house with his wife Pam. Pete retired last year and we have since heard that he has sadly passed away.

On Friday night we all made our way to the Boringdon Arms which is a pub / B&B located in a quaint village on the South-West coastal path overlooking Plymouth and the Plym Estuary. We were warmly welcomed by Barry the landlord, who turned out to be a gem, with a wonderful dry sense of humour. The place had everything we needed – clean accommodation, hot showers, massive meals and well stocked bar! It was also extremely reasonable at £25 pp per night.

After a hearty breakfast on Saturday morning we drove round to Mount Batten to dump our kit and meet Glen, the skipper of our new dive boat, the “Maid Maggie”. We piled everything on board in the usual scrum and were pleased to find that Glen was pretty laid back and was happy for us to faff around for a while getting our kit organised before setting off. The boat was a bit small for 11 divers and all our kit but it was well equipped and thankfully had a lift!

The weather was perfect – sunny and not too hot, with light winds. Our first dive was the HMS Sylla in Whitsand Bay. This ship was saved from the scrapyard after active service and was prepared and sunk as a purpose made diving site in 2004. She lies with the top of her superstructure at 11m with a bottom depth of 24m, and is a great introduction to wreck diving for inexperienced divers. Several of us dived her the year she was sunk and several times since, and it has been fascinating watching the process of colonisation by sea life. She has now become a thing of beauty, covered in deadmen’s fingers and white and orange plumose anemones. As it was sunny the vis was good and we all had a relaxing dive.

Once we were all back on board we became aware that there was an incident taking place on the wreck of the James Egan Lane nearby. We saw the Lifeboat coming to their aid and subsequently heard that a 26-year old diver had died and another couple were taken for treatment for DCI.

We tucked into Cawsand Bay to have lunch and defizz before our second dive. Adrian had  arranged for us to dive the HMS Coronation, which is one of the UK’s historic wreck sites. She sank in 1691 with the loss of over 500 officers and men. The ship itself has disappeared but has left behind an impressive collection of cannons and two massive anchors. The site also had some interesting marine life.

The wind began to freshen in the afternoon and the forecast was not good for Sunday. Hoping that local conditions would hold we left the kit on board and returned to the Borington Arms for a hot shower followed by an enormous supper! The bar was lively and packed with other divers as well as locals.

The weather forecast turned out to be accurate and we awoke on Sunday morning to the sound of lashing rain and howling wind. There was no question of diving so after another hearty breakfast we made our way home.

I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say many thanks to Adrian for all his research and for organising a great weekend.