Report by Dani Campbell
On Monday morning seven of us met up at Littlehampton Marina nice and early to get the boat ready for 8.45am slack. Stuart, Tim, Julian, Olivia, Alan, Alex and I got the boat ready for launch at 8am (or as near as possible). The morning was sunny and the sea flat calm. Just as everyone was ready waiting for the boat to be launched, Tim’s neck seal ripped just as he pulled it over his head. He quickly decided not to come along leaving six of us to head off towards the Shirala. Stuart on the helm and Julian shotting the wreck meant that we were in the water ca 9.20.
Stuart and I went in first, then Alan and Alex and when Stuart and I came back out, Julian and Olivia went in. Visibility was near to nothing (1-2m?), plankton in full bloom. However, the shot was on the wreck and we saw a fair amount of sea life. Edible crabs, spider crabs, tompot blennies and Stuart and I found ourselves in a shoal of silvery fish (nope, not sure what kind of fish it was). On top of that we also managed to hit slack despite arriving at the site later than originally planned. After everyone was back in the boat we recovered the shot and headed back to the marina. We didn’t really fancy a drift in near enough zero visibility.
We came back in at low water closely monitoring the water depth under the boat and stopped off for chips. All in all a nice relaxed early season dive despite the poor visibility.
