A Weekend at Porthkerris - Saturday

By Mark Milburn on 27 September 2008

The Citrine and The Volnay

Even though Porthkerris is only 45 minutes away for me I had decided to travel down on the Friday evening to avoid any rush or traffic on the Saturday morning. The holiday season is under way and Saturday is the day when most people travel down to Cornwall making the roads busier than normal. Camping in the car park, right next to the beach, it is an idyllic place to wake up in the morning or spend a peacefull evening.

The boat wasn’t going to leave until 12:30, so we had lots of time to get ready and introduce ourselves to each other. The trip had been organised by ‘sch’ from the Yorkshire-Divers forum. I had managed to get a space after Sean, another YD member had to cancel his weekend.

Celtic Cat

Whenever I had been to Porthkerris before I had always gone out on one of their RIB’s. Today’s dives had been booked on their catamaran, the Celtic Cat. Everyone’s kit was loaded onto the rollable jetty, which was then pushed out into the sea for the boat to come to. The kit was loaded and we all boarded. The Celtic Cat has a fly-bridge; that’s where the bridge is on another deck above the main deck. This means that all the electrical equipment is out of the way, which leaves wet divers able to move around inside the cabin for cups of tea or coffee without having to remove drysuits etc. By next season they will have a lift and kit benches – kitting up isn’t too bad, but by next season this may be one of the best boats to dive from.

The Citrine

The MV Citrine was a 779 ton cargo ship that sunk in bad weather after the bow hatch had been breached by the water on 2 January, 1956. It had started to head towards Cadgwith Cove, hoping to beach itself and its cargo of limestone chippings, but it never made it. We were dropped right on the bow at around 19m and headed straight for the hole in its side. A short swim through, past a load of chains and a staircase, and we were on the port side. The visibility was better than expected at around 5-6 metres. I had thought it was going to be quite bad due to the plankton bloom we get at this time of year but the bright sunshine topside helped a lot. The wreck is very broken considering its age, with bits of winches and parts of the wreck scattered across the reef. After about 20 minutes or so the slack window was over and the current had started to run. I managed to hide on the starboard side for a while before running out of cover from the wreckage. It was then time to drift. Up went the surface marker buoy and off I set. The current wasn’t too strong and every now and then I could find refuge in a gully, look around and then drift some more. The reef goes on for ages, covered in dead man’s fingers, starfish and sea cucumbers; the occaisional sea squirt and cup coral breaking up the monotony. After 55 minutes and a maximum depth of 23m it was time to join everyone else for some lunch.

A range of sandwiches, crisps and fruit is provided, along with a Burco boiler full of hot water for tea or coffee. Very welcoming!

The Volnay

The second dive of the day was going to be the Volnay, a WWI 4,609 ton cargo steamship, sunk by mine in December 1917. At 117m it is a big ship. Amongst its cargo of tinned foods it also had munitions, including anti personnel shells. The Volnay is close inshore and is mainly unnaffected by currents. It is also the fall back dive should the sea conditions be a little rough; because of this I had already dived it many times. We dropped back in the water after a 2 hour surface interval. The shotline had been dropped right next to the largest pieces of metal left; the two huge boilers and the smaller condensing boiler. My first target was the debris field where most of the shells have been and still are being found. A quick look around and nothing was visible – the site is quite silty and it doesn’t take a lot of rummaging to destroy the 6 metre visibility. I then headed towards the south and the bow of the ship. There are some big pieces of wreck here. I managed to penetrate part of it, although I did turn around – the exit didn’t look as big as me. After the bow there is a reef. It was at this point I decided to head back and try to find the main part of the wreck.

Swimming back along down the starboard side towards the stern you pass loads of plates and steel ribs sticking up at different intervals. The stern is broken away from the main part of the wreck due to two seperate attempts to dynamite it to make it safer for shipping. As you approach the area where the stern was, the steel spars are twisted and contorted from the explosives that tried to flatten and destroy its cargo. The stern section lies about 10m from the main part of the wreck and slightly to port. There are odd bits of metal that will lead you there. It’s rarely dived, as the gap appears to be the end of the wreck, so most people turn back there. All over the wreck there are small white balls. These are lead balls from the anti-personnel shells coated in lead oxide. I picked up a couple just to show what they look like out of the water. As to navigation, compasses do not work too well when you are surrounded by 4,609 ton of steel; your only form of navigation is the negligable current.

Fish & Corals

All along the wreck there are dead man’s fingers, fan corals, cup corals, spiny starfish, smooth starfish, sea squirts, nudibranch eggs, dahlia anemones, sea cucumbers, bib, several types of wrasse and some very large pollack. Conger eels are frequently seen, as are ling, but I never saw any on this dive. I had a very inquisitive young ballen wrasse watching me take a photo of some cup corals. I never did get a decent photo of it; every time the camera got close the wrasse swam away before it could focus, except one time when it was too close and the flash completely over exposed the image. Typical! The wrasse on the top of the boilers were a lot less concerned about me and let me take a couple of photos of them. Sixty three minutes later I joined the rest of the group for a cup of tea and a kit kat, courtesy of the boat.

All in all it was the best dive I had ever had on the Volnay. A shell would have been nice – a couple of cases were found at Easter this year. Just one shell and timer head would have made me happy. I should look more closely next time and leave my camera at home.

Contact

Author: Mark Milburn
Email: info@travel-dive.com

Article Comments