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Keeping Busy
By Mark Milburn on 27 September 2008
A few dives planned for the weekend
This weekend was going to be a mixture of diving. Friday evening was going to be a reef dive on Pencra Reef. Saturday we were going to play with air lift pumps in some shallow waters, around the remains of a 17th century French Galleon, know only locally as the Queen. Sunday was going to be one of the local wrecks, most likely the Volnay.
It was another Friday evening on ‘Redeemer’, the sun was out, the wind had stopped and the sea was flat. We normally end up on the Manacles, but today we were going to try the reef near to the Manacles, called Pencra Reef, off of Pencra head.
Pencra Reef
Looking at the charts it had noticeable features, a pinnacle at around 6m then falling away eastwards to depths of down to 45m. There was also a pinnacle south east of the shallowest point, rising up around 10m from its surroundings. It sounded fine, and it would make a change from the Manacles.
We were dropped in near the shallowest point in around 10m of water. Around the entry point there were a lot of gullies, some were too narrow to swim through, some weren’t. I immediately headed south east, looking for the pinnacle. Within the gullies there were a large amount of wrasse, mainly ballen with the odd corkwing or cuckoo wrasse. Kelp lay on the tops of the rocks, covering the gullies, peeking through there were dead man’s fingers lining the sides. On any slightly more exposed areas the odd sea fan had popped up. Passing one particlular rock I noticed it was covered in jewel anemones – just the one rock, there were none that I noticed anywhere else.
It was gradually getting deeper, more gullies and then a sharp drop down to around 23m. At the bottom there was a horizontal crevice with several wrasse and some bib using it for cover. As I turned a fairly large dogfish swam past, obviously disturbed by another diver. Carrying on deeper there were more sand beds, with some rocky outcrops. The visibility was around 8m, but I couldn’t see the other pinnacle. I was now at 27m and the site was getting less interesting compared to the gullies in the shallows. I decided to turn and head back. On the return I came across another small crevice with a squat lobster, tiny body and huge claws and a small Dover sole inside.
Heading back further towards the shallows the kelp was getting more prevalent. Hiding within the kelp I came across a red scorpion fish laying still, then quite close to it a tompot blenny swimming freely. Without it’s usual hole to hide in, it was very camera shy. I must have passed the shallowest pinnacles as the kelp was dissappearing and it was getting deeper; time to get back to the sunshine.
Playing with Air Lifts
Saturday we had arranged to go out on ‘Westbay Lass’, another boat operating out of Falmouth. A local commercial diving company had tested their lift pump on site of a 17th century French galleon a year or so ago, and, as a project, we all made one to try. The galleon was known as the Queen. None of its remains were visible from the sea bed, but the commercial company recovered a sword when they did their test. Their setup is impressive – we haven’t anything like that. The site was going to be between 7 and 9m deep, so no problem with our bottom times. The sea bed is covered in dead maerl, a calcified red seaweed.
First test was Jason’s, it was a piece of rigid duct, connected to a compressor. It did suck well, but the surface compressor wasn’t big enough; we had to keep stopping while the storage cylinder recharged. Next was mine, a 110mm soil pipe, fitted with a ‘Y’ piece on the end. The junction was blocked off and fitted with a blanking plug. Attached to the blanking plug was a dry suit inflator, connected to a regulator and a pair of cylinders. This also worked well, the biggest problem was holding the button of the inflator in, my fingers got cramped very quickly. Also the cylinders did empty a little too fast; it would have benefitted with a surface supply. Lastly it was Alex’s, a 68mm gutter downpipe, connected to a cylinder with no regulator. Again it worked well, the flow was controlled by the cylinder valve, I think it emptied in a few minutes. We never found anything, we didn’t really expect to. If you are going to test out equipment you might as well do it where there is a possibility of finding something though. The dead maerl was around eighteen inches thick. Under that was a slightly compacted layer of silt, which was the layer we wanted to expose. We did manage to expose some of it, but the maerl soon fell back into the hole making our attempts almost worthless.
After our play with the lifts I went for a little swim and came across what looked like the remains of a steel ship. Several pieces of metal sticking out of the bottom. There was probably a lot more buried beneath the maerl beds, which lay over eighteen inches thick. After I surfaced I asked Jason about it – he said it was probably the remains of HMS Torrid, apparently after being blow onto the rocks in rough weather it was heavily salvaged. That sounded about right after what I had seen. There is also another wreck very close, but I didn’t see any other remains.
After two hours in the water and several hours of hot, sunny weather we had to return Alex and Nev to the quay. Jason wanted to dive the Hera. I had enough air for another dive and so did Sharky, so we just collected Darren and off we set.
More Hera
I have dived the Hera several times before, and I had been told of the other piece, but never found it. Jason dropped us on it. This piece is smaller, but probably more intact. There were large areas where you could swim into and areas where you could rummage. The wreckage was covered the same as the main part; dead man’s fingers and various anemones. The usual pollack and wrasse were spotted swimming around. There were signs of people searching the wreck; new rust and pieces of wreck on top of sea weed. I was surprised to see that some of the timber floorboards were still intact as well as some skirting board. After a hundred years below the water I would have expected the thin timbers to have dissappeared. Some of these had been broken by divers exploring underneath. I looked at my watch and it was 9pm, time to surface and head back to Falmouth.
More Volnay
On Sunday all the boats were fully booked, but Shaun was going to run out in the afternoon when his charter had finished. 3:30 at the quay, and we were off to the Volnay. The Volnay still has its surprises. The visibility is always varied and the silt is fine, that means if you get close you won’t see much for a while. As soon as we arrived at the site I jumped into the water, negatively buoyant, to get to the bottom as soon as I could. It was going to be the only way I could film around the shotline area without the silt.
I headed for the stern again – it is the most intact piece, which isn’t saying much really, as apart from the boilers it is all flat. Not much to report differently from the last visit. I did hear knocking, which meant that someone had found something. I swam around trying to find whoever it was making the noise, but underwater trying to tell the direction of the sound is almost impossible. I presumed that someone had found some more anti-personnel shells. One day I’ll forget the cameras and look for some myself though it’ll have to be soon, before they all go. We were only allowed an hour for this dive. Shaun doesn’t usually set a time limit, but he had another job to do, and we were squeezed in between his booking. Time to surface and check out the video, and find out what the knocking sound had been.
Shells
The knocking sounds I had heard underwater came from two of the other divers on the boat. They had found a case of shells. The brass part of the anti-personnel shells are about twelve inches long and about three inches diameter. Attached to that is a copper ring and an eight inch long steel tube containing lead shot. On top of that would have been the timer. The other divers had recovered two brass shells on their own and one brass shell with the steel tube attached. The brass sections have been crushed by the pressure of the water, but are still recogniseable as shells. I explained the danger of the Cordite within the unopened shell and it has been dismantled carefully, and the Cordite has been disposed of.
Contact
Author: Mark Milburn
Email: info@travel-dive.com
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