Diving out of Hope Cove

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Created on Saturday, 20 June 2009 17:09
Written by Debbie Heaton

We had a lovely day's diving out of Hope Cove and a big thank you to all who came out and dived and helped. The sea was a little lumpier than we thought it might have been but it was still do-able...

First dive was to the Persier (30m), more than a little lumpy going out and there were a few hardboats already on her which saved us having to drop our own shot in.
 
Chris and I dropped down the shot first as we were on twinny's.  The shot was right on the boilers, with a lovely conger lurking about round there, we went onto the bow, the viz was a good 10 mtrs and when the sun came out above it looked like it was floodlit, beautiful !  large shoals of pollock, large cuckoo wrasse, ballen wrasse, blennies,  it was a lovely dive, didn't even need a torch, I'd forgotten how much I like diving this wreck, we wished we taken the camera. 
 
As we were going up the dsmb after the dive we could see her laid out before us, from halfway up the line, amazing dive, well worth the boat trip. 

Caroline and Derek went in next and they had a very good dive.  Thank you very much to Bryan Radford for boathandling for us, only too sorry he didn''t get to dive and missed it but Terry C had decided that he wasn't diving so it left Bryan without a buddy.
 
We came back into Hope Cove and Les and Jake and Dave B were waiting for MIR, after a quick break we headed out to Burgh Island. 

We dropped the shot into about 12mtrs of gullies.  Derek kindly volunteered to boat handle for us, thanks Derek.
 
I dived with Les and his swanky new Buddy jacket (nice one Les!), got down the shot and it was running a little down there, no chance of swimming against it so we had something of a drift dive, about ten minutes into the dive we came across Chris and Jake who were doing some skills, the viz again was good at about 10m, didn't find anything too interesting in the way of wildlife for Les to play with just a few starfish, there were a few good sized fish down there but not much else I could find. 

Chris and Jake came up and said that they had played with a shark!  It was a dogfish of some sort perhaps but we are trying to find out what type it was, they saw cuttlefish also.  Jake completed his skills and is now a Sport Diver - Well Done Jake!!!  Unfortunately Dave B didn't get in the water as logistics didn't allow it but he assisted Derek, thanks Dave, appreciate it.
 
A lovely day was had by all, brilliant viz and lots of critters, can't wait to get back there again when the club goes down for Derek''s Salcombe Weekend first weekend in July. 

Don't forget if you want to go to let Derek know asap and put your name on the list at the clubhouse.