‘This brings back memories’ by Mike Beherrall

Diving on the Black Hawk on Saturday, August 4, was a pleasure in two senses. Firstly because it was such a good dive in itself and secondly because it was a nostalgic return to a dive site of many years ago. When I first joined Newbury Sub Aqua Club in the early 1980s the Black Hawk  was the first open water dive I did, diving with Dave Guardhouse and a couple of others. Then, all I remember was feeling very nervous and not really taking in what I saw, let alone appreciating and enjoying it. But this time the dive was fabulous.

The weather was good, the company was good, the vis was surprisingly good and the wreck was so much bigger and better than I remember. Massive iron ribs sticking up from the seabed 8-10 feet or more, plus lots of shoals of various fish ( I’m not going to pretend I knew what they were!).

Plus two big surprises. First a massive, and I mean really big edible crab, probably 6-7 inches across the shell and best of all, catching sight of a conger eel in the wreckage. Surprisingly, It came right out of its hole and moved off to another, so we were probably annoying  it. It was huge, probably 5-6 feet long, the thickness of an arm and steel-blue in colour. I’ve never seen anything like it and it was very, very impressive. Click here for video link 

Many thanks to Hilda and the crew for making it such a great day.