Thursday - Arrived at about 5pm after a leisurely drive via Ilminster and settled into our room ready for a great weekend with plenty of good diving ahead. The weather report for the weekend was looking good so we were all raring to go after some years of indifferent fortunes.

Soon others began to arrive and we settled into the bar at the Mountbatten Centre for a welcome meal and a few drinks and caught up with everyone. We discussed buddies and what dives we would do. 

Friday - What a beautiful day, we awoke and grabbed some breakfast before gathering the kit together to await the arrival of our hard boat “Seeker”. It looked more like we were all going on a month long expedition rather than a days diving. (George’s camera equipment did it in my opinion!!) 

After loading the gear we were away across the flat calm that even Julian would find hard to be ill on towards the Scylla and James Egan Layne. These two pleasant wrecks were ideal for a gentle warm up. It was good to see how the Scylla had developed in the last 2 years and certainly looked a great deal different from the fresh faced wreck I first investigated as a cautious newly qualified sports diver, two years ago. My buddy Bryan, was off like a rocket into the wreck and I must say after my experience gained in the Red sea last year, I felt far more at ease inside and took in the sights rather than worrying about getting back out! After about 45 minutes we began to surface and concluded a very nice dive.

The Egan Layne was equally good and I confess I now realise what a boiler looks like, even though I must have finned past dozens before now. My only discretion was miscalculating my weight with a 12l tank and resurfaced at the start of the dive to gain a couple of kilos. (Sorry Bryan!).

That evening we went to a great restaurant found by Jenny and Lindsey on their adventures in Plymouth during the day. We then returned for a well-earned rest and an early start the following day.

Saturday - Today we had two hard boats as Danny’s crowd had arrived with a few more from Banstead the night before. Today we were to go deeper at about 33metres to be precise. The Persia was a great dive and was to be my first that I led. Tracey was my buddy and Mr Hubbard came along as his buddy missed this dive. I enjoyed this a great deal and apart from straying a little too far in front and losing sight of Tracey for a moment all went well, including navigating around the wreck and finding the shot line again (even though we chose to deploy an DSMB for practice).

Unlike the day before I did not feel as cold towards the end of this dive even though the water was a cool 12 degrees centigrade. There was plenty of life and a couple of well-camouflaged crabs.

The afternoon took us to The Black Rock trawler. There was an abundance of starfish and the occasional fish! In comparison to the previous dives this was probably the least interesting of the weekend. After 40 minutes we began to surface using the DSMB. 

At the end of the day we retired to relax at our apartments before visiting another rather nice local pub across the ferry in Plymouth again found by our land based explorers. I took it upon myself after being challenged by Mr and Mrs Hubbard to demolish a full rack of ribs. (Very tasty indeed). 

Sunday - Again the weather was perfect and everyone had now developed a nice array of tans, some redder than others! Today we were to dive the Elk and the Glen Strath Allen.

On entering the water my buddy Tim and I descended down the shot line and found that we were the first to arrive on the wreck. This proved to be a blessing as by the time we finished the silt had been kicked up and visibility had been greatly reduced by the numerous other divers in the water. We saw a few crabs and hundreds of starfish. After about 30 minutes I was close to going into decompression so we decided, as the visability was poor at this stage, to ascend and finish the dive. The maximum depth we reached was 33m and the water was a cool 11 degrees.

The afternoon dive on the Glen Strath Allen saw a few more signs of life than on some of the earlier dives. We descended the shot line to around 17m and finned away from the line and back every 90 degrees to see the broken up parts of the wreck. The visability seemed to be better than the earlier dive of the day and we saw cuttle-fish and a weaver fish along with a crab or two. The usual scattering of fish swam around having a look to see what we were up to and then darting away if we approached.

It was a relaxing dive and finished the weekend off nicely. I deployed a DSMB and we ascended without any problems after about 45 minutes.  

This concluded an ultimately good holiday which I feel everyone owes a great deal of thanks to Tracey for organising along with the roving ground crew of Jenny and Lindsey for the choice of food establishments chosen over the weekend.

Bring on next year!