12 hardy divers (a full boat load) spent 3 wonderful days in July diving the beautiful, but challenging Manacles reef off the Lizard peninsular in Cornwall.
To our surprise the sun shone almost throughout ! A haven in what was the wettest and windiest summer on record.
Even the wind eased and blew from the Northwest giving us almost flat seas. Perfect we thought, even the viz looked good and it was !
The only shock of the weekend was striding off the boat into 12C !! This is July with the Cornish coast supposedly washed by the Gulf stream we thought, a few of us recalled 20C a few years ago on our last trip to these parts !
Most but not all of our party quickly adjusted and donned more insulation for subsequent dives, but not alas Clive Bennett our intrepid traveller with “form” who on Friday night having travelled 300 miles from home with Sean announced that he had forgotten to bring his dry suit. Oh no not another Golden Boot Award, he must of thought, or even worse. Alas he received his punishment after hiring a semi dry that was more semi wet !
The first day saw our dynamic duo swing into action, I refer of course to Alan & Deborah, who having arrived early from a overnight stay at their Bath Estate and taking up residence in their “Executive Caravan” made almost all the eating arrangements for the weekend. We started on Friday night at a picturesque pub overlooking a sun lit Coverack Bay, then on to “The New Yard Estate” restaurant on the Saturday night. It was French and even Sibilia seemed to approve, well of the food anyway, if not a few of our attempts at speaking the language.
The weekend constantly ran to plan and all records were diligently kept by our hostess and my right hand woman Amanda who was the perfect assistant dive manager for the weekend, leaving me to do very little and take most of the credit.
On the surface we saw a Sun Fish, underwater we saw swimming Congers, many lobsters, crabs and fish of all sizes. Most beautiful of all was the high reef walls encrusted by jewel anemones. With viz creeping up to 10m + on occasions it was a spectacle not to be missed.
We did 6 dives in total, 3 wrecks “The Mohegan”, “The Volnay” and “The Hera” of which The Mohegan is most famous, a passenger ship which hit the reef at “full ahead” with a full crew and passengers, most of whom lost their lives in the 1880’s
We did 3 reefs, The famous Raglan reef, but also an interesting drift between 20 and 30m off Black Head Point, a new and simply enchanting site.
After the last dive on Monday, some had the long drive home for work the next day, but of the 6 who remained 4 of us went for an excellent evenings entertainment at the Minack Theatre, where we picniced, drank wine and saw The Madness of George 111 with the sunset as a back drop over Porthcurno Bay. At the interval the first rain of the weekend started to fall but the play went on. A lovely evening enjoyed by all and not dampened in the slightest.
I’d like to pay credit to all who came for the weekend: Amanda Radley, Sean Salter, Robert Taylor, Ron Purcell, Gill Seels, Sibilia Quilici,
Angela Gregory, James Godbold, Eunice Kendall, Clive Bennett, Alan Davies and our shore support Deborah Davies for such a good, fun and safe weekends diving and to Mike our skipper for the use of his wonderful vessel “The Celtic Cat” The double diver lift was a real winner !
Paul Coxon