Given
the conditions, we were it seems lucky to be out diving at all though to
be honest one or two of the old lags were mumbling things like "
Huh! We'd have been out in a force 10 in my day!"...well perhaps
not but it didn't seem that bad, as we cruised to the south of the
breakwater, heading notionally for the Pulmic or something of that
sort....alas the sharp turn to port at the end of the breakwater
signalled a decision on the part of our skipper to drop is in round the
tower.
Now
I personally don't mind a dive round the tower if otherwise it means no
dive at all. I have a decent picture of a spider crab from here so I
won't have a thing said against it.
So
there we were under grey grey skies dropping in close to an old cable
that ran down the north side and descending into what even I will admit
was a low viz dive. Mind you, there was plenty to see in the vaguely
clearer bits in between the silt, including small spider crabs, and the
usual selection of sponges and weeds, blennies and old bits of
iron.
I had camera
with me, although I could tell my buddy Sue, was wondering what sort of
demented madman would attempt photography in such conditions. However,
it was set up for macro in an attempt to photograph small things and
reduce the lens to subject distance through the silt laden water. We
groped our way round the tower to a point where a bearing of due south
set on the compass pointed roughly at right angles to the wall so we
knew that if we headed off that way we'd get to the north side of the
breakwater.
The
silt in this area was like brown talc and surged up in clouds just by
being glanced at....however, sitting on this were to be seen those
blennies, grey with spots on, that invariably face away and flit out of
sight just as you press the shutter. Tropically coloured they are not
but somehow getting a picture of one of these had become a kind of
challenge and suddenly there was one right in front of me facing the
wrong way of course. What the hell - I focussed and framed and at the
last minute it turned and faced the camera and I fired.
So
we moved on slowly, now having reached the rubble that indicated we were
at the foot of the breakwater itself. In amongst these rocks were more
blennies and then a beautiful jelly fish, probably a compass jelly fish
[chrysaora hysoscella] which was drifting against a small velvet crab
trying to push it away. That produced a few pictures as well. So on we
went until nearly an hour had gone by and I'd run out of film, then
carried out a very disciplined ascent with a 3 minutes stop. For some
strange reason everyone else was back on board....."
Report
by George Mitchell
(Plymouth
photo report)
