Let Sleeping Dogfish Lie
Each of the five cars making the seven hour trek to Cornwall had different strategies for coping with the journey: Mike listened to the pumping sounds of the Radio 1 Massive, while Nic had his learn-to-speak Russian tapes. Tricky and Catherine listened to the XFM weather forecast, and Pippa was forced to hear to one of Janos’ compilation CDs. Nicky and Ian on the other hand, sadly lacking a radio, had to pass the time listening to Nicky’s musings on the best way to fill a car with petrol (ask her next time you see her).
It was early to bed on Friday night, and up bright and early in the morning, refreshed, relaxed, and glad to be out of London. The eight divers were staying in two different places. Mike, Nic, Janos and Pippa were staying in a B&B in Porthallow, a small village by the sea. The B&B had fantastic views over Porthallow bay, and was a short walk from an excellent pub, the Five Pilchards. Tricky, Catherine, Ian and Nicky had minimised staggering home time by actually staying in a pub in nearby St. Kervern. Both establishments were used to divers, and quite prepared to offer hearty cooked breakfasts at six o’clock in the morning.
Fortunately this was not necessary, as the divers met at the civilised time of eleven o’clock at the Porthkerris dive centre. Hellfins have been coming here now for around five years and with good reason. Porthkerris dive centre is efficient, organised, and provides tasty pasties and ostrich burgers throughout the day. It operates a catamaran and several RIBs, and on Saturday the Hellfins were diving from the cat. Kitting up on the beach the first minor crisis of the weekend arose as it transpired that Nicky had left Ian’s mask in the shed. However tragedy was averted as Ian was bombarded from all sides by spare masks. Everything now accounted for; the eight Hellfins lugged their kit across the stony beach to the waiting cat.
Waiting for the cat to reach the shore, Nic became concerned that Mike had forgotten to add enough lead to his weight belt to compensate for the change from fresh to salt water, and attempted to rectify the situation by filling Mike’s drysuit with stones. Diplomatically, Mike assured Nic that this was not necessary and without further ado the Hellfins boarded.
As eight of the twelve divers on board were Hellfins, the club chose the diving for the day. The skipper of the cat was very knowledgeable about all the local dive sites, and suggested the first dive could be the wreck of the Citrine, lying in about 24m. The water was a slightly chilly 11°C, but the visibility was a comfortable 8m or so. The wreck was fully of marine life, and returning divers spoke excitedly about the dogfish, cuckoo wrasse, and other life that they had seen. Mike spoke excitedly about what he planned to do to Nic, as he fished stone after stone out of his drysuit.
After a warming lunch of homemade soup, the boat headed off to the second dive site of the day: the wreck of the Carmarthen. Lying in the 21m, the Carmarthen was a much larger ship than the Citrine, and several huge boilers lying largely intact on the seabed provided shelter for even more fish. Visibility had improved to around 12m, although the divers in wetsuits and the more sensitive of the drysuit divers were feeling the chill by the end of the dive.
Everyone had warmed up sufficiently in the evening to enjoy a somewhat salty dinner in the pub in St. Kervern. A couple of pints of Doom, the local beer, helped quench the thirst and encouraged lively conversation. Tired and relaxed, the Hellfins turned in to get a good nights sleep ready for the next day’s diving.
Sunday morning saw another round of artery clogging breakfasts and then down to the beach to kit up and board the RIB. After a bouncy ride out to the dive site, Ragland Reef, our French cox Serge dropped the divers downtide of the buoy, and a short but tiring swim against the tide was needed to get to the shot. At the bottom of the line was a huge quantity of hard and soft corals. Plumose anemones and sea squirts covered steep walls and drop-offs, and crabs and shrimp lurked in crevices.
Ian and Nicky skipped the second dive, because of sinus problems, and instead chose to visit the local cider press. The remaining Hellfins boarded the rib and Serge took dropped them to the wreck of the Spyridian Vagliano. Close by is one of the most famous wrecks off the Cornish coast: the Mohegan. Most divers who visit Cornwall will be familiar with the tragic sinking of this ship and the heroics of the ship’s crew, without whose brave actions many more lives would have been lost. By swimming across a sandy patch of seabed that was the home to dozens of dogfish, divers can make their way from one wreck to the other.
The evening saw the divers in the Five Pilchards in Porthallow. Although the Doom and cider flowed freely, the divers were muted, exhausted by the days diving. However the generous portions of food soon revived spirits, and, as only one more dive remained, Ian produced his Almanac and charts and talk turned to planning future trips away.
The last dive, on Monday morning, was perhaps the best. Serge and the RIB took the divers out for another the Manacles, where he dropped them exactly on the buoy. With no tide running, an easy descent down the shot lead to a scallop bed, and all around were dramatic rocks and gullies covered in a variety of life. Diving as a three, as Nicky was still having sinus problems, Ian, Janos and Nic came across two dozing dogfish, which completely ignored the approaching divers. Indeed, Nic even managed to pick one of the dogfish up. Understandably annoyed, the dogfish squirmed out of Nic’s grasp and turned on him, attempting to bite him savagely. As the dogfish seemed to have unerring accuracy in picking out Nic’s hoses, the incident could have turned nasty, especially as Janos and Ian were not in a position to assist Nic, rendered incapable of helping by extreme fits of laughter. The motto of the story: Always let sleeping dogfish lie!
All the divers thoroughly enjoyed the trip, and those who can will certainly be there next year. Congratulations and thanks to Mike for organising such a successful trip.