As I was going to St. Ives........

By Mark Milburn on 23 September 2008

I met a shop called Dive St. Ives….....

One of my dive buddies, Andy, had booked us on their rib for two dives. The first was the St. Chamond, better know as the train wreck. It was a WWI German submarine victim sunk on 30th April 1918 a couple of miles out of St. Ives.

Her deck cargo included several steam locomotive engines; stories vary between five and seven in total. The St. Chamond had two boilers, of which only one has been found, so the steam engines could be anywhere.

Low Tide….Long Walk

As it was low tide we had to walk out about 60m to the boat; not the hardest of things to do, just a pain in the a—e. The sea was flat within the protection of the St. Ives, but the swell picked up as we cleared the headland. Ten minutes later the shot was dropped, we kitted up and entered the water. The visibility was probably only around 5m, which would make taking any decent photographs of the wreckage almost impossible. We had descended next to one of the steam engines, laying on its side in 22m of water. As we swam around it trying to see if we could get an angle to shoot from we swam into a shoal of large bib. Bib are very common on most of the wrecks around Cornwall, but not usually this size. We managed to get a couple of photos of the engines, but they weren’t the best. We continued around the wreckage, which seemed to be covered in lots of tubes, possibly meant for boilers. Some could have come out of the crumbling steam engines or even the missing boiler.

Forever trying to find something small to photograph, we came across lots of nudibranch eggs, but no nudibranchs. In fact the life on the wreck was minimal. This site is really about the steam engines. We came across just three of the engines on this dive. I have counted five previously, all within the wreckage of the St. Chamond. The rib we were on didn’t allow twinsets due to the lack of space, so a single 12L didn’t give us enough time to explore properly, as well as take photographs. After 38 minutes in a maximum depth of 25m we were back at the surface.

The tide had started to come in now and the boat could get closer to the pier, so less distance for us to walk back.

Porthminster Reef

We had left our kit on the rib while we went to get a full cylinder; as I said, the tide had been coming in and thankfully it was now a short walk. A few minutes on the rib and we were at the reef. Porthminster reef is very shallow, but covered in life, and kelp. As soon as we descended we came across a nudibranch – something small to photograph at last! Under the kelp we found an abundance of small things from dahlia and snakelock anemones to large common pipefish. In all I found over ten nudibranchs, two different types, a couple of pipefish, shrimp and a decorator crab. The reef is a macro photographers dream, always covered in life. Apparently there are seahorses living on the reef but I have yet to find one. If they are there then I will find them one day.

Since writing this article, Dive St. Ives have ceased trading.

Contact

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

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