Camberwell & The Mixen Hole

What a really good day’s diving although to start with my dive marshalling skills were brought into question before we even got there. Lesson 1 – ensure you have the right set of instructions before the sat nav is programmed.  When we were 11 miles from Littlehampton our expected journey time to Selsey was 15 minutes ah……..- good job we had Sat Nav 2 although the tone of voice was a bit aggressive at times. (Could have been worse though could have ended up in Southampton!).  If you don’t have a road name for sat nav for the dive destination try Beach Road – it would have worked on this occasion.  Having overcome this slight hitch the glamorous assistant dive marshal asked for the dive slates er ah now where are they? Oops!.

The diving was really good, we had a long blast out in the rib about 30 mins to the I.O.W. Dived the Wreck of the Camberwell.  Lies in 30m although part of it is at 21 so plenty of broken scattered wreckage and a haven for crabs and lobsters.   Is there a BSAC course in the art of catching lobsters coz they seem a bit quick?

We had some good visibility and around 20 mins on the bottom. Loads of the usual UK fish on the wreck – take your pick of gobies, blennies, bib, pollack.

On the way back to the beach for the surface interval (to fill tanks and visit the bakers) we did have a brief sighting of a dolphin just a few meters from the boat – it seems there are resident dolphins in the area as witnessed by the two Marks earlier in the year.

The Mixen Hole is a strange place – different currents going on but once over the 5/7m ledge you can sky dive to the bottom at 22-26m. There’s a claying thing going on which for some reason is no good when trying to cling onto a ‘rock’ with a crab hook – funny that!

There are loads of ledges and rocks with crustaceans (small edible crabs, velvet swimming crabs and also lobbys). It was like spider crab city on the first part of the dive.   Almost had a lobster on the dive but it got away (AGAIN!).

There were a few large fish (if in doubt call them wrasse for the log book), blennies and gobies, not much else.  Weird dive in a way as we had the current over the interesting bit and slack over the bland bit. A nice long 40 min dive though.

The only downside to Selsey is the climb up the shingle beach with kit at the end of the dive – smokers & pie eaters beware!

Diving is an ongoing learning experience and the lessons to be learned this time are (no names):

• Don’t try diving without your mask again

• Don’t forget your hood

• Remember to put a weight belt on

• Ankle weights are a great idea for keeping you horizontal in the water

It seems that one of our more ‘senior’ divers has taken up extreme diving. The Mixen Hole in places was a bit bland towards the end so ‘he’ decided on a spot of inverted diving.  Not a lot wrong with that except that you need to be aware that when signalling it is time to surface – you know which way is up!

Other news

School Try Dive: Some local school kids around 40 in all have done a try dive over 2 Sundays and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  Julie has already thanked everyone but this is again reciprocated – it is appreciated that members gave their time in preparing the kit, taking the kids in and putting the kit back.  The treasurer was also extremely pleased with the numbers in the pool for a change.

St Dunstan, Portland Rocks, Binnendyk and Lulworth Banks

Everything made for a great dive weekend.  The B&B was in a very good position – right on beach with a nice sea view.  A bit of a walk to the boat but you can’t have everything.

The dive boat was awesome  a brand new catamaran with so much space, a great sun deck, tons of kitting up area, dvd, computer, divers lift – PERFECT. The weather was great probably one of the best weekends of the year, the sea was flat calm.  And the diving was fab as well (probably one of my best weekend’s diving… If Carlsberg did diving weekends……..) the viz was very good, sea life pretty good. Even the air fills were very generous with 230-250 bar the norm.

The first dive was on the Wreck of the St Dunstan – this is a fairly easy wreck to navigate round as it’s mainly in tact albeit twisted on its’ side but it looks like a wreck rather than a pile of metal.  I’ve dived it 3 times now, every dive has been different and even I can find my way around it.  Tons of life on it – usual UK stuff – bib pollack, crabs etc.

fish 3097AA clipartOn the second dive (Portland Rocks) the crab hunters (Richard & Mark F) brought up biggest crab I’ve ever seen after a very long struggle.  It was spotted walking about in the open probably thinking I’m big, I’m hard nothing is gonna get me, ah! except for divers! And I also found out that size does matter especially if your goody bag is too small for a monster crab!

On another personal note also caught sight of my first cuttlefish on a UK dive, we almost landed on them as well as a blond? ray (don’t know if it was a ‘natural’ or not). Also saw a large skate (another first) and whilst I was contemplating what sauce to put on the chips to go with it, it had gone.  Plenty of crabs and lobsters on this gentle drift dive.

The third dive was on the Wreck of the Binnendyk.  What I saw of this wreck was pretty broken up with plates, girder and cogs strewn about -well worth a rummage about though.  Did see the boilers and saw the biggest lobster I’ve ever seen hiding in a pipe (the one that got away ? – although granted a few other divers saw it as well). There were loads of smaller fish on this wreck.

The fourth and final dive was a drift dive collecting loads of scallops Lulworth Banks.  Saw a nice size ray straight away and a plaice /skate (flat fish anyway) later in the dive. Also spotted a dog fish and possibly a weaver fish (need a fish ID slate me thinks!).  Quite a lot to see as there were loads of gullies to drop into some had some large shoals of fish (pollack / bib) sheltering from the current.  Filled a goody bag of scallops on this dive – thoroughly enjoyable drift with a few ‘different’ sightings.

Footnote –after some assistance from ‘Windy’ and the loan of a big pot from ‘Woody’ the crabs were cooked & shelled (apologies for making a mess of the kitchen Alan, well I didn’t know the goo was gonna go all over the place when you break the shell apart).  Had some nice crab sarnies during the week as well as the scallops (first time for me) and they were delicious.

On a semi serious note there were however some lessons to be learned for the weekend – no names mentioned but you know who you are: don’t try diving without:

• A weight Belt

• A Mask

• Your dry suit zip still open

Also note that seasick patches don’t work

Big thanks to Wendy for organising the diving / weekend.

Hopefully I’ll find the time to keep this going on a regular basis as this will be a source of info for diving – dive reports & site information as well as info on social events etc.  Feel free to email any dive reports, event info / report etc to news@hsd1223.org.uk and I’ll include it in the newsletter

Richard Porter
when we diving the M2?