Newbury SAC Trip to Salcombe

24th to the 30th May 2003

This Diary has been put together after the event by the group, which is why some of the reporting is a bit hazy. Photographs were taken by Sheilah and Helen.

Day 0 24/5/03 – Chairman’s Birthday

Ten divers, 4 Children and a Boat headed for Salcombe. Unbeknown to the Marshal, the club’s towing guru had held a master class in boat reversing which necessitated the Equipment Officer holding a master class in tube patching the previous night. Which is why some of the team weren’t down quite as early as planned and weren’t exactly bright eyed and bushy tailed. After successfully bringing the traffic in Salcombe town centre to a halt we moved on to our campsite, Sun Park, were we had 3 large Caravans waiting for us.

The most important rule from the BSAC Marshalling Course is ‘sort out the food and beer and most divers won’t even notice the rest of the trip falling apart’. To this effect the Marshal had brought 60 pints of Romsey Pride with him. So we kicked off the week by breaching the beer and having a BBQ (most of the meat being a hunch of venison which had been brought down), it was also the Chairman’s Birthday so he was suitably toasted (or was that p**sed).

Day 1 25/6 – The Maine Attraction

A bright and early start, well early anyway. The Marshal had apologised to everyone about the string of 07:00 starts but told them it was down to the tides. This hid the truth that he was sharing his caravan with his soon-to-be-one son, who considered 06:00 a lie in and the Marshal failed to see why he was the only one who should be up to see the dawn in.

Starting as we mean to go on, we did the Maine as the first dive. Well what can we say, British diving doesn’t get a lot better than this. The wreck has lost most of its superstructure but apart from that is intact except the damage that originally sank her. We had 10m viz and you had to push the fish out of the way to see the wreck. And some of us managed to clock all five anchors.

The second dive was meant to be the Herzogin Cecile and would have been if we had looked at the chart before diving. So we dived the pinnacles in Stairhole bay. Still a cracking dive with rock pinnacles at a depth of 2m dropping onto sand at 8m, again good viz and lots of life.

In the evening those with children stayed in the vans for a light supper and to make further inroads into the beer supply. Those without Children when out to Malborough for an early breakfast, at least that’s what it felt like by the time they were served.

Day 2 26/5 – Nearly the Persier

A slight change of crew, as those staying on shore to be looked after by the children swapped around with those diving. The boat headed up into Bigbury Bay to do an old club favourite, the Persier. Those who dived the Persier said she was as good as ever, those who dived the reef next to the Persier said that was also pretty good too. The moral is ‘ don’t use someone else’s shot with out checking it first’. A second wave went in around Burgh Island for a shallower scenic dive.

We chose to only do one dive on this day. The reason for this will remain a closely guarded secret (so everyone knows it already), and it provided some extra training for some of our Advanced Diver candidates. However the quote of the day (after one diver had been dispatched to Salcombe to save the day) was ‘well we are either sorted now or we are really in the s**t as we have just lost the Marshal’s wife’ as she disappeared with 2 young men half her age. To finish the day she took her and another diver’s mobile phones for a swim.

Again those with children felt the need to continue working on the beer supply while those without when out for a considerably better meal (and service) in Hope Cove.

Day 3 27/5 – Day of the Dolphin

All four times we went out of Salcombe Harbour there was a pod of half a dozen dolphins playing over the Bar (where else would any self respecting dolphin be). It was hard to pull ourselves away from them to go out diving. At one point two swam under the boat and were silhouetted against the white sand below, magical.

However the dive was worth pulling ourselves away from the dolphins. We dived the Oregon, a four masted, ironclad, sailing cargo ship, which sank in 1890. Her hull is collapsed in sections but some sections are still in good condition, her masts lie out across the sand. In addition to that it was like diving Tesco’s fish counter. Wandering around the site were some of the biggest edible crabs most of us had ever seen, several lobsters were sighted, there were scallops on the wreck (more about those later) and there were plenty of flat fish on the site too. Again the viz was 10m plus, going back up the shot you could see most of the wreck laid out below you, especially the masts lying out across the sand.

In the afternoon we went back to Stairhole Bay and this time actually dived the Herzogin Cecile. This was another four masted, ironclad, sailing ship. This was broken into large chunks resting on white sand in 15m. Most people managed to do the hour on this one. While we were waiting for the last pair someone noticed there seemed to be lots of purple petals floating in the water, on closer inspection they turned out to be baby Portuguese Man-o-War! If something doesn’t eat a lot of them Salcombe is going to have a major jellyfish problem on its beaches in a couple of months.

Everyone gathered at the Marshal’s Caravan for another BBQ. The Chairman had invited some of the scallops from the Oregon as well so they put in a brief appearance, however one diver had to be shown exactly how big 4 inches was, he looked a little crestfallen afterwards.

Day 4 28/5 – LARGE Fish ‘n’ Chips

The dive on the Oregon had been so good that we decided to go back and do it again. This time the wild life was left intact. Everyone enjoyed the dive and said it was nice to do an older wreck. The two coppers on the team failed in their search for a Lignum Vitae block (a hard wood), which is what the original truncheons were made of.

A second wave went in on the Louis Shied, a vessel that in attempting to evade a U-Boat nearly parked itself on Thurlestone golf course. This is a shallow dive (a mark for future reference was got by a diver standing on the boilers and holding the boat) but very pretty dive. Despite being shallow she is not kelped out and has plenty of life. The sea has been kind to the Shied and large sections of the vessel are recognisable as ship.

It was then back to Salcombe for pasties, then to keep the day short the Herzogin Cecile was revisited for the second dive. This was the day that our Chairman claims he saw an octopus, the rest of us are convinced he was suffering from Narcosis (at 6m).

Wednesday night was Fish ‘n’ Chip night at the campsite. At 7:30 a van pulled up in the campsite and proceeded to cook Fish ‘n’ Chips for everyone there. We had to queue up for a while, as it was all freshly cooked, but this wasn’t a problem as we just took turns to go back to the caravan and fill up all the beer glasses. Most of us struggled with a medium Fish with medium Chips (some even bottled out and had a small) but the Chairman went for the LARGE Fish with LARGE Chips. This consisted of half a battered Whale Shark served with 56lb sack of potatoes deep fried, it had to be wrapped in a broad sheet, not the Sun which is what the rest of us got. He was reduced to begging strangers and their pets to help him finish it.

Day 5 29/5 – Oscar’s Birthday

The Dolphins were back, chilling out at the Bar.

The first dive was at Prawle Point. This has been the nemesis of over a dozen vessels over the years stretching back to 1738 and as recently as 1992. One of these vessels was carrying diamonds, nobody admits to finding any but the Marshal has been a bit freer at the Bar than normal since this dive and has just bought himself a new car. Unfortunately the area of interest was right in the shallows and was very kelpy, leading to a very frustrating dive. The last pair in took heed and went deeper, they had a much better dive in a wide sandy gully, a cuttlefish, a little cuttle and a ray joined them for a swim.

The second dive was in some sea caves, there was also meant to be an old wreck there, but we either failed to see it or dived in the wrong caves. Still a nice dive, big wide gullies ran into the shoreline and then things got darker and darker as you ventured into the caves.

This was an important day, one of the shore party was one. So they all went to the Zoo in Paignton to celebrate. When all the divers got back we had a Birthday Tea with lots of finger food, Cava and cake. Some of the older Children (those just over 40) were heard to complain that there wasn’t any jelly and ice cream. At this point two of our divers decided that they had enough of the good visibility and sunshine and departed to go and dive in 3m of mud in Poole Bay. Luckily another couple joined us fresh from Newbury, or they were fresh when they left, they were slightly less so when they arrived at one o’clock in the morning.

Day 6 30/5 – Last Day!

For the morning dive we did the Cantabria. This was a shallow site (10m), which meant that everyone could go in on one site. The wreck is well broken but her boilers stand upright, a low stress, chill out dive to finish the week on. Also seen was the anchor of the Hornsey, which is near by.

As a second dive and the last dive of the trip we went back to the Louis Sheid, as the Marshal’s Wife said that was her favourite of the second dives. There have to be some perks of the job.

We finished up the week with a final BBQ, the beer was finished and any spare food consumed, including a large amount of venison the Marshal had found going cheep in a Salcombe butcher. A different crew where coming down to take over the boat and dive the weekend. Some of them joined us for dinner and were briefed about the best place to get a pasty in Salcombe.

All in all it was good week; we had some fantastic weather, did some stunning diving and had some fun parties. Thanks to everyone that came along and made it happen.