Four of us were lucky to get away for the August Bank Holiday weekend and Jurassic Camp once again managed to fit us in. With winds coming from the East we decided to have our first day on the West side of Portland Bill. We started with a gentle dive just south of Chesil Cove and swam amongst the boulders searching for critters. We found lots of Boring sponges , white horsehoe worms and antler sponges.
As the cove was sheltered we stayed for our lunch stop that included Mr Blobby cakes. With one diver down due to kit malfunction we had a ready made Coxn for a single wave on the submarine of the M2. It was a fairly dark and snotty vis but we made our way round it exploring the main features including conning tower, aircraft hangar, anchors and deck gun. We spotted a number of huge conger eels on the wreck including one right inside the anchor hawser. We stopped for an obligatory photo stop at Portland Bill on the way back.
BBQ/takeaway dinner Saturday night with two fire pits going to keep us warm, despite efforts to try and set the camp site on fire. We were joined by a (not-old) peasant woman who couldn’t get close enough to the fire !
We decided to head to Woborrow Tout for the first dive of the next day. There was some added topside interest as we watched the RNLI come into the bay to rescue what turned out to be an injured fisherman who had slipped on the rocks. Mixed reports from the divers and perhaps not a dive for wreckies but the sqidge lovers decided that further up closer to the dip in the rocks rather than the point had more interesting nooks, crannies and bigger boulders. We spotted a white nudibranch (duvaucelia lineata) and baby conger in a crevice and lots of Trumpet anemones. The day finished with a dive on the Aeolian Sky.
With strong south westerly winds on the Monday we decided to get the boat washed down and make an early start back home to beat the Bank holiday traffic (after an FEB at the Sailors Return !).
