The club members gather at the Cove Inn at Chesil Beach on Friday evening at the start of this year’s Portland Dive Trip. Two days diving ahead. We were ready and keen for a great weekends diving.
Saturday morning we all meet up again at 7am at Portland Marina to board the dive charter Waverider and head out to start the diving. Flat calm sea awaited us as we headed to dive the “Pin Wreck” off Warburrow Bay. This is an unknown old wreck lying at 28m with timber held together by large copper pin line bolts holding on an outer copper skin. Hence its name.
A great dive in good visibility of 15m at least. We could see the whole wreck with all its unusual equipment of boiler, water tank and winches. What was this all for? Possibly some kind of salvage barge? Still a mystery.
The second dive in the late morning was a slow drift dive over the remains of the wreck of the British Inventor , WW2 wreck which has been heavily salvaged. Lots of fish life around the wreck and lots of scollops to be collected. Great drift dive at 20m again in great visibility.
The evening meal was at Prezzo’s in Weymouth where we sat down and enjoyed an Italian in a meal together before heading to our beds around 10pm.
Sunday morning and the calm seas had changed to a strong swell as the wind speed had increased overnight. We headed out to our planned dive site at Pulpit Rock. Unfortunately the sea state was too rough to dive there so we moved on to Lullworth bank to do a drift dive at 27m through a small gully. Several divers encounter Armed Bullheads, large Thornback Rays, Cat Sharks and even a Nursehound Shark. The sea bed looked healthy and plenty of good scollops were collected.
With the wind freshening to a strong gusty state we headed for the shelter of Weymouth bay for our last dive. This dive was on the scattered remains of the Hartlepool, a 5000 tonne merchantman torpedoed in WW2 by a German U boat. At 11m depth the remains were very flat but still full of sea life with Conger eels, Tompot Blennies, Bib and shrimps everywhere and even some good size lobsters and crabs. 
Back to the marina and a quick drink in the local pub overlooking the mass of moored sailing boats, we reflected on the great weekends diving.
