Porthkerris, August 1998

Simon Hanmer of Scubaplus arranged a trip to Porthkerris for 8 of us in 1998. Several of the group had been before in May and had good (read: hot) weather, basking sharks, good viz etc. so naturally we were expecting no less. The motley crew consisted of:

Simon & Andrea Hanmer
Joe Bailey
Keith S. (that's me!)
Keith Franklin (doing his AOW)
Chris (Also doing her AOW)
Bob and Meredith  Hammett (Meredith was not diving as she was pregnant, OK we'll let you off this time!)

Noticeable by their absence were Neil Briffet and Riita Toro who claimed they couldn't afford it. Feeble excuse, raid your piggy bank next time Neil!

Driving down the M4, M5, A30 the weather did not look too good. I tuned into Radio Cornwall hoping to find out about the weather but got more on whose cow was sick that day in Truro. Oh well. Finally about 7:30 I arrived at what the directions said was the B&B. It didn't look like a B&B. In fact it looked more like some old lady's home. Me: "Is this the BB?" Old Lady: "No, this isn't a B&B". "Oh." "You're not a diver are you", she said. I had to admit I was (was it the 5 cylinders in the back of the car that gave it away?). Elsie (the old lady) told me it was not a B&B, just a B (bed), as breakfast was provided by Porthkerris divers. With that over I unpacked my toothbrush and headed for the pub to find the others.

Friday morning, we had to be up bright and early to be at the dive centre at 8 AM. Paperwork filled in, we settled for tea while comtemplating the weather, which was a bit gray. One of the nice things about Porthkerris is that it faces east, so with the usual SW or W winds blowing it is quite sheltered, as it was today. Porthkerris dive centre is on a steepish hill overlooking the bay, reached by a steep and windy single track road. There's ample parking on the beach, although that's not as easy as it sounds as it is quite steep (like Chesil Cove), so lugging your gear back from the boat to the car after a dive can be hard work.

We were going to start with a shallowish drift off Pencra Head at 9, followed by the Mohegan at 12:45. Loaded the kit on the RIB and headed out to Pancra head, dropped in about 15m water, deployed the DSMB and drifted through rocks, some kelp, heading southwards. I think we didn't go east enough as we were getting shallower and shallower and the kelp was getting thicker until after 20 min in 4m Bob and I decided it was getting boring and surfaced. Once up the skipper Giles picked us up pretty quick and we sat around waiting for the others, watching their DSMB's bobbing around. One couple on the RIB had twin sets which seemed overkill for this sort of diving - him twin 12's, she twin 10's. Actually I'm just jealous as I have just a 12 and a pony and am always running out of air before I want to come up.

Back at the dive centre we had a yummy breakfast, then it's down to the RIB again, this time for the Mohegan. The Mohegan was wrecked in October 1898 and is pretty flat now, like most shallowish Cornish wrecks. Only the 3 boilers stand proud of the seabed much. However there is a lot of life in amongst the wreckage to look at, and usually a half- to one knot current to drift you over it. I spotted a large edible crab and pointed enthusiastically to Bob, but somehow he must have missed it. In fact when we came up later he was a bit upset I had not caught it, as he is fond of the odd crustacean or two, nicely cooked. It was low tide, so the maximum depth was around 23m and we managed about 35 minutes before up went the DSMB closely followed by Bob and me.

That night we trooped down the White Hart again to talk divers tails again.

Saturday dawned dull and misty, but no wind. The sea was as flat as a lake - hardly a ripple. We were to do the Volnay, which hit a mine in the first world war and sunk in the bay in about 20m. Down went the shot and down we went too near the boilers. The Volnay has a rather silty seabed, so after heading N for a bit when Andrea and I turned back S we hit the low viz from other divers, well we could pretend we were on the Countess in March again! Fortunately we swam through it and further on S the viz was about 5m. After a while we came upon a second shot line near the stern. Around the seabed there were scattered lots of lead shot, looking like white marbles. We collected a handful of these and stuffed them in our BC pockets as souvenirs. Heading back we found the boilers again, and peering into a hole at the top of one of them spotted a ginormous conger inside! As air was starting to get a bit low we went off in search of the shot but could not see it - "I'm sure it's round here somewhere!". So up went the DSMB again this time with Andrea reeling in furiously as we ascended into lighter water. At about 6m we spotted the shot and swam over to it for the last few metres ascent.

Saturday afternoon the weather was picking up a bit with the odd outing of the sun. We were off to do the Spyridian Vagliano (sounds like a new sort of pasta, doesn't it?) which is close to the Mohegan. In fact when we came up the skipper told us we were over the Mohegan - we must have drifted onto it and assumed it was still part of the Spyro. It's rather similar anyway, being flat in most places with interesting overhangs close to the seabed to shine your torch in in case there's any crabs or other crawly things to look at. I started buddying with Chris, but when she was down to 100 bar Joe decided to take her up on his DSMB, so I continued with Keith who had been Joe's buddy. As he only had 110 himself after a few minutes out came the DSMB and we reeled up nice and slowly (actually I couldn't reel in fast if I tried).

Later back at the B. Elsie was watching the TV and telling us about the Welsh divers she had had earlier that week. Then she came out with "We're in Cardiff tonight". I contemplated this for a few seconds. No, St. Keverne had not transported itself to Wales as far as I could tell. It seemed a long way for the St. Keverne WI to go. "Cardiff?" I enquired. "Ooh yes", said Elsie, "the TV is from Cardiff tonight!". Hmmm. As we left Chris (who had been in her room reading and heard it all) was nearly wetting herself imagining the looks on incomprehension on our faces.

 Saturday night we had a meal at Porthkerris. It was a sort of Malaysian Chicken curry, in half a coconut, and very nice too. When your plate is empty they take it away and refill it! Later that night there was a lock-in at the White Hart as there was a wedding party going on, but we left at 11:30 as we had diving to do the next day (and were also knackered).

Sunday morning there was a rather strong wind blowing. In the shelter of the bay it was not too bad, so we decided to do the Volnay again and have another rummage for souvenirs. Getting ready for the dive I was using Simon's O2 analyser when I temporarily forgot which way to turn a cylinder valve off (well that's my excuse). The resulting sound of compressed air escaping woke up several divers nearby! Fortunately the analyser wasn't damaged (sorry Simon), the tube had just shot into the depths of my car somewhere.

Michael the very considerate skipper took the RIB into shelter of Porthoustock cove for us to kit up. At the last minute I found one of my fin buckles had broken. Rather than abort the dive, Michael fished around and found a cable tie to make a temporary repair, which did an excellent job. Another very pleasant dive ensued, and I came back with yet more lead shot and a copper ring from a shell to polish and sit proudly on a shelf somewhere and gather dust. The cordite we found slipped through my goody bag though - probably just as well though!

In the afternoon we were to do Vase Rock. This goes in a series of ledges down to a sandy seabed at 41m. Over the shot went in 14m, followed by 4 other divers. Next Simon went in with Keith. Simon had his Drager Atlantis rebreather on, with a 40% mix. A little after they went in and just as Joe, Chris and I were about to, the 4 divers surfaced. They'd been down to 25m and not found the bottom. Meanwhile, apparently Keith had headed down to 30m at which point Simon, breathing very gently as his ppO2 was 1.6 bar, caught up with him and they headed back up (somewhat relieved). We, meanwhile, were taken by the skipper Giles to the Pinnacles (I was also on 40%) where we could free descend until we found the rocks at about 15m. There was a lot of life and color down there. Bright purple, yellow, red jewel anemones really shone in torchlight. Sea urchins and starfish, wrasse etc. A shame we didn't have a camera with us. We drifted around the rocks for half an hour until it was time to come up, in a rather choppy sea with a force 4 blowing.

All too soon it was pouring with rain but we were heading back over Goonhilly Downs and Bodmin moor on the long drive back home. All in all it had been an excellent weekend despite the weather. Porthkerris certainly look after their divers and the diving there is relaxing and fun. Roll on the next time! PS if anyone took any photos that weekend that I can borrow to scan into this page, let me know!