"A Day out on our Club Rib" by Julian Avis (DO)

Sunday 7th May 2006 -  At the Marina at 8.45am spend an hour getting the boat ready and diving kit together.

Seven of us today - one of the party will be on his first dive in the channel off the rib and one of the ladies first trip out in our boat, so a quick run through the safety bit on the boat.  We have a six metre X rib which can take up to eight divers out at any one time with kit for all.

Launch boat at 10.00am.  Fuel up for the day.  

It takes twenty minutes to get from the Marina out to sea, then we head south west to the first dive site.  The HMS Pine is less than ten miles south west of Beachy Head an armed trawler of 530 tons.  A victim of two German flotilla of E- Boats in 1944. she lies in 17 metres of water, well broken up but there is a lot of life on her.  Covered in conger eels, crabs, bib, wrasse and whiting.

We dive at slack water, which starts about two hours before the high and low tides.  Today being a very neap tide we have about an hour and a half before the current is too strong to stay on site.  We send three in first to get more room to go over what the channel virgin is going to see and give him a chance to see what is going on in the boat.

The visibility is good - four to five metres today.  This makes it easier to make out that the shot line is just by the boiler of the wreck.  As last pair down we have to get the shot out of the wreck so the boat can recover it.  Once this is done, we start having a look around the sea bed.  There is a sandy bottom and it has covered at lot of the wreck.  You can make out the prop shaft but there is no prop at it’s end.  Off to the port are bits of winch gear and some super structure.  The Pine is very broken up with very little that looks like the ship she once was.  After 35 minutes the current is starting to run so we head for the surface.

For the second dive of the day we head for Black Ledge, which is about five miles south of Butlins Holiday Camp.  Same groups go in as before.  This time we all go in with surface marker buoys so the boat can track us as we drift through the rocks.

There is no need to fin - you just go where the current takes you - so you have to think about where you get dropped in.  Again there is a lot to see.  The visibility is a little less now that the current is running but still a good three metres.  We see fish, crabs, spider crab, tompot blennys and lots of soft corals.  After 25 minutes we are a bit low on air so its time to leave.

Back on board we have a quick coffee before taking the boat back to the Marina.

We arrive back at the Marina at 4.00pm, wash the engines through, give the boat a wash, put the boat cover on and head for home.

I will get the paint brushes out at home next weekend if the weather blows up. IF