paralell Lines » Scuba Diving

101 minutes at 20m, 12 degrees and acceptable visibility.

Mark — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:53:46 +0000

I’d been doing a lot of teaching which had involved pool work and shore diving recenty and hadn’t had a lot of time for a dive myself. Sharky had Friday off, Andy was back on his leave so we all set off on Andy’s boat. Andy wanted to photograph the brittle stars that litter the area we call the cannon ball site, so that was the choice. The sea was flat and the visibility looked reasonable so I dropped in with Andy and started swimming around. We had dived a little further east than normal for a change to see what we could find. (more…)

Lamorna Cove

Mark — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:44:05 +0000

It was about time

I’ve spent years diving around Cornwall and have completed all sorts of dives including a lot of shore dives. Most of my shore diving has been between Newquay and Tintagel on the north coast and Mevagissey to Porthoustock on the south coast. I have heard many people speak of Lamorna Cove for shore diving or boat launching and thought it was about time I had a look. Saturdays weather looked most suitable so off we set. It didn’t take too long to drive the 35 miles or so to Lamorna, I didn’t use any maps or satnav, I just drove past Penzance towards Lands End and followed the signs. (more…)

Basking Sharks & good vis

Mark — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:22:15 +0000

We took ‘Atlantic Scuba 1′ out last Sunday to dive the wreck of the Caroni Rivers and ‘The Old Wall’. The sea was like a sheet of glass and the skies were cloudless. We watched the divers descend the shotline until all we could see were their cylinders in the distance. The vis was reported as being greater than 10m, from a depth of 15m they could see the boat on the surface.

On route to ‘The Old Wall’ we saw a lone Basking Shark, two of the divers snorkelled up and jumped in but the shark wasn’t being social and disappeared. The next divers jumped in on ‘The Old Wall’ with about 8m vis, the site is covered in kelp in the shallows, but as the kelp disappears the dead mans fingers and corals appear.

The previous day we dropped a group on the Rock Island Bridge wreck, a shallow wreck but with 6-7m vis and lots of life including a variety nudibranchs it is a pleasant dive. The divers came up with a few scallops for their suppers.

Atlantic Scuba Diver Training and RHIB Charter.

Mark — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:10:53 +0000

After a lot of thought I have decided to take this to the next level. I can now offer nearly the whole range of SDI courses from basic Open Water to Deep Diver (40m).

Full details on my website at http://www.atlanticscubatec.co.uk

I can also offer air to 300 bar. I will soon hopefully have a full mixing panel setup to be able to offer Nitrox & Trimix. I am based in Central Cornwall, 10 minutes from Newquay, 10 minutes from Truro, 30 minutes from Penzance/St Ives, just 300m off the A30.

RHIB charters! I have now bought a coded RHIB from ‘Dive Action’. ‘Atlantic Scuba 1 ‘ is coded for 10 people and runs twin Yamaha 4 stroke engines so is quiet, quick and reliable.

Milly, No, Sphene, not again!

Mark — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:37:39 +0000

After yesterdays mis-calculation of the currents we weren’t gonna make the same mistake today, we set off early to dive the Milly. The Milly is shallower and it would be a lot easier to dive if the current did start. Everything was going well until we rounded Pentire Point, there was a lot of chop on the water. We had to back off the throttle to a more comfortable speed, it was now going to take us half an hour of pounding and then it wasn’t going to be nice around the site. We looked at each other and decide that the Sphene was close and it looked a little flatter there. So it was back to the old favourite, that we had dived twice in the last 2 weeks. As the diver kitted up I trolled around looking for the boiler, we don’t use a GPS on this site, just transits, but it would be good to have the exact co-ordinates just in case.

I found the highest point and marked it, then sent the other diver in. I carried along with my trolling and mananged to distinguish the bow section as well. It wasn’t long before the other diver appeared and told me to go in, the vis was excellent. I dropped in and the vis was very good, 10-15m, failing light was a problem for my camera though. I did a couple of circuits and never found any current even though we were now well past slack water, yesterday there was a lot of current, today none.

Always a cracking dive, easy to navigate, shallow and loads of life. Oh well!

Drifting the Rumps

Mark — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 13:01:42 +0000

Friday evenings dive was cancelled as we didn’t have a boat. After a quick chat it was decided that we would go and dive the Ezra Weston. Slack water was around 3pm and as it was neap tides slack water should last for a long time. By the time we arrived at the site it was about 30 minutes after slack, we dropped the anchor. The sea was flat and the wind was non existant, but for some reason the GPS said we were moving at 1ft per second. Watching us drift away from our shot we had obviously missed slack water, which was strange as we had so much slack water last weekend on a spring tide. It was decided that we wouldn’t dive as too much current would ruin the dive. So off we went to get a better idea of how the seabed lies around the area. We eventually ended up near an island called the Mouls, I decide to jump in and have a look. (more…)

Sphene Again.

Mark — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:49:08 +0000

Several local divers wanted to have a dive off the north coast of Cornwall, some had never dived the north coast and wanted to see what it was like. Looking at the forecast the south coast was going to be a bit rough anyway, it could even affect the north coast a bit offshore. So with the divers and conditions in mind, the Sphene looked favourite for all. (more…)

S.S. Sphene and the Lobster catcher

Mark — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 09:21:00 +0000

It’s that time of year when we get the biggest spring tides, it also mean sthe smallest neap tides and we didn’t want to waste that. We had planned a dive to 60m on H.S. Rewa on either Saturday or Sunday or both, but as we got closer to the weekend the forecast wasn’t looking so keen so we waited until the day.

Saturday morning came and we were still unsure. Did we want to travel 26 miles on a RHIB in rough conditions and then have the dive cut short? Not really. I had planned 45 minutes at the bottom and relied on surface support in case of CCR failure, if it turned out rough I couldn’t rely on surface support finding me quick enough if I didn’t return to the shot line. So the safest bet was to wait until a flat day. Not wanting to miss the tides we ended up back on the old favourite, the Sphene. Sunk in 1946 in bad weather, it’s still a nice dive and a good place to find Lobsters. Even better with my new Lobster catcher! (more…)

Cannon Ball site

Mark — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 08:38:38 +0000

Just outside of the Fal estuary there is an area known by local divers as the cannon ball site. Local divers have brought up many cannon balls from here over the years and every now and then we dive there to see what’s around. It was our usual Friday evening dive and this site was selected as a change. (more…)

S.S. Kilmaho

Mark — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:09:14 +0000

Today saw the second of the two planned dives out of Penzance on Fred Buckingham’s ‘Pamela P’. We left at the same sensible time of 11:30 and once again decided the dive on route. As our remit was a maximum depth of 60m we were presented with a few options, the favourite being the Kilmaho. So that’s where we headed. The Kilmaho was sunk by UB-20 in 1917 whilst on route to Dunkirk with its cargo of railway components including track and carriage wheels. As far as Fred knew it hadn’t been dived that often and sounded interesting to us. (more…)