First sea dive of 2018 a blog by Mike Beharrell

First sea dive of 2018 a blog by Mike Beharrell

All the diving gods were smiling on Saturday 5th May for the Newbury Scuba Diving Club dive down at Portland. Sunny weather – tick, no wind – tick, good company – tick, no traffic –tick,  good viz – tick. At this point I have run out of ticks so supply your own.

Six went, five divers and a splasher (me). We drift dived across Balaclava Bay, in about 10-12 metres, with viz at about 6-7 metres, looking at the soft coral, the Snakelock anemones and a profusion of good-sized scallops that very quickly fell victim to the eagle-eyed Alan and others.

I was too busy congratulating myself on finally achieving a reasonable level of buoyancy control (pride comes before a fall) to pick up supper. There were some decent sized spider crabs but very few fish (too early in the year?).

The water was a chilly 10 degrees C but the benefits of my new drysuit were evident and welcome. There was a second dive planned (on the Countess of Erne) which I was looking forward to but never managed because I managed to drop my weight belt somehow, scrambling back into the boat (the incident of the slightly faster than planned ascent and the tangle with the DSMB line shall not be mentioned although I’m told that in terms of Silly Bugger awards, it comes way down the scale – hopefully).

Overall, a great day, much enjoyed by all and a great start to the season. May there be many more days like it (apart from the ascent, the tangle and the dropped belt of course).

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