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.