Trip Video:
Isles of Scilly dive trip report – by Alison Brammer.
Sat. 28th July
We met at the harbour at Penzance and loaded our kit into the container, parked our cars and then returned to the ferry to board. The crossing was extremely rough with many people suffering sea sickness, our group included. We discovered why the ferry is known as the Sickolonian!! That evening, we went for dinner at The Beach with fabulous views overlooking the harbour.
Sun 29th July
There was no diving since the conditions were too rough so we explored the island of st Mary’s. Vesta and Liz (and dogs) had a rough crossing but made it over. We all went for dinner together at Juliet’s Garden.
Mon 29th July
We met our skipper, Dave McBride. at the quayside and loaded the boat with our gear.
Our first dive was on Olympus reef in swell. This was a lovely wall dive with branching sponges, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and ballan wrasse. The wall was covered in pink and blue jewel anemones. Visibility wasn’t good following the storm and we were very glad of the boat lift!
The second dive was on The Cita, a container ship which crashed just off sho
re with lots of cargo on board. The ship has broken into two. We explored the hold which was covered with sea urchins, plumrose anemones, deadmens fingers, red fingers & spiny starfish. We also saw nudibranchs, ballan wrasse, corkscrew wrasse and goldsinny.
For dinner, we all met for fish and chips on Porthcressa beach.
Tuesday 31st July
The sea was calm and our first dive was on The Lady Charlotte. We descended down the shot line onto the wreck and then swam over the rocks and found the rest of the wreck.
The second dive was on the wheel wreck at St. Mary’s . This was a relatively shallow dive (14-15m) and very pretty. There are no remains of the ship but lots of wheels and pipes. We spent only 17 mins underwater to conserve our air.
Our 3rd dive was a shallow play with the seals which we all thoroughly enjoyed.
Wednesday 1st August
We went to dive The Hathor. There was a lot f swell and kitting up was a challenge! The Hathor sits on top of an earlier wreck, The Plympton. This was a lovely dive. We swam between the boilers and over the superstructure. There was loads of life including deadmens fingers, plumrose anemones, red fingers, sponges, spiny starfish and corkring wrasse, cuckoo wrasse and pollock.
Our second dive was at Trinity Reef and was spectacular. The walls were covered in jewel anemones, plumrose anemones and pink seafans. We could see blue jellyfish being eaten by the coral and lots of jellyfish in the water. We also saw a cat shark and a seal as we ascended up the shot line.
Wednesday evening saw us all head over to St Agnes by boat for a meal at The Turks Head and we then saw the end of the female gig race (and watched the losing Tresco team row themselves home!!)
Thursday 2nd August
Many of us took a day off and went to visit Tresco with the non divers.
Friday 3rd August
Dave took us over to the Western Rocks and the Bishop Rock lighthouse, this is the most westerly point and beyond that is ocean until you reach the USA!. We watched the sea fog roll in around the lighthouse but it lifted and didn’t cause us any problems.
Here are some of the trip photos. Click them for the full sized version.
Photos from Jon.
We also had a second contingent of ECSAC members out in the Scillies again a week later.. (just can’t get enough of the place!)
