INDEX
LUNDY ISLANDby Steve. | |
| We eventually all met up in Illfracombe on the Friday evening and after eating returned to our home for the next few days the MV Datchet. Despite a few concerns about the boat initially ("is this it??" I remember being a quote from a member of our gang!) we found the sleeping area to be very spacious and quite comfortable. | |
 MV Datchet | The following morning we were all up bright and early as MV Datchet set sail for Lundy. The sea was a bit lumpy but the 75ft steel hull made light work of the 1.5 hour crossing. The best thing about the Datchet was the amount of deck space which was available for kitting up. A huge home made table was also provided for us to spread out on and there was plenty of space for sunbathing too as we found out later on in the weekend. |
| Our first dive of the weekend was The Robert, a coaster which lies on it's side in around 26m of water. The long wait for this trip to come about meant that we all expected a lot of the diving here and none of us were dissapointed with the first dive. | |
| The shotline took us directly down to the wreck which was still remarkably intact, the hull completley covered with anenomaes. The dive was split into two, first half exploring the port side which lay on the sea bed and the second half returning along the starboard side at around 18-20m eventually ending up back at the shot line. The Robert was small enough to explore the entire vessel in one dive but not so big that it was impossible to recognise as a ship. Life spotted during the dive included wrasse, a sun star, pollock, shoal of garfish, blennies and a huge lobster hiding under the bottom of the vessel. |  Diver with seal |
| Our second dive of the day was at Gannetts Bay, a site popular with seals as well as divers. We took the huge plunge from the side of the Datchet into the water (seeminly about 5m below the deck!!) and descended to the bottom at around 17m. Following our compass bearing to the shore we headed in search of seals. The bottom sloped gently up as we headed inshore and changed dramatically from stones/shale to rocks and kelp as the depth changed. After 25 minutes we had seen lobster, jellyfish and a few wrasse when the first seals started to investigate who we were. Within about 5 minutes each dive pair had a seal circling them and sneaking up behind for a crafty nibble on the fins. Because we eventually ended up in around only 6m of water we were able to clock up aroun 60 minutes+ total time and make the most of the encounter. It was my own personal first seal dive which I thoroughly enjoyed. | |
The Marisco Tavern
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The evening was spent in the only pub on Lundy the "Marisco Tavern" where
the Lundy bitter and plentiful food was very satisfying. Back on the beach
we signalled for the skipper to come and pick us up in the dive tender and
returned to our bunks for the night after a good days diving.
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Saturdays first dive site was Long Roost, a 26m drift dive of which we
all had varied experiences. My own dive was of a pretty dull sandy/stoney
bottom but with a big variety of life. As well as the usual crab/lobster
combination we were also treated to a dogfish, cuttlefish as well as
cotton spinners and nice anenomaes. The highlight of the day was, however,
a visit from a Basking Shark when back on deck between dives.
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 Rat Island |
Our second dive was the very broken wreck of the Carmine Filomena. The wreck
floundered just off of Rat Island on the very south point of the island and
diving her at the time we did was compared to diving in a washing machine.
Although descending directly onto a large boiler the rest of the dive was
spent avoiding large lumps of steel and broken ship! Joining in the fun
were pollock and wrasse as well as many spider crabs gripping onto the
kelp for safety. The dive was still enjoyable but after 41 minutes of
what seemed like a fast drift we actually ascended about 3 metres from
where we went down!
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Sunday took us first to Black Rock, a dive which I actually remember (and wrote)
little about. Simmilar to long roost we saw a variety of crabs and wrasse.
The afternoon dive was at the Knoll Pins. The pins are two huge
points of rock which rise from the sea bed at 19m and just break the surface.
The dive was spent circling the outside of the pins and finally swimming
between the center of them. It was a very "original" and enjoyable dive
on which we all saw a variety of nudibranch, sponges, anenomaes as well
as rainbow wrasse, goby, blennie, mermaids purse, urchins and flatworms.
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| The final day of our Lundy trip started with an indecisive morning. The skipper did not really seem to know where to go so we decided to re-visit the sites which we dived on the first day. The first pair of divers were dropped by the shot and immediatley drifted past it. It became apparent that this was not slack tide! After recovering the two divers with the tender we all battled down the shot to the wreck which had been such a realxing dive on the Saturday. The swim along the port side took no time at all due to the current, returning back to the shot was to prove difficult however. A few pairs decided to send up a delayed SMB and go with the flow (and ended up finding scollop beds!) but the more foolish among us decided to try and return to the shot. Using the wreck to pull ourselves back against the current we reached the shot and after a near horizontal safety stop at 6m we ascended. Did catch a glimpse of a conger eel as we flew past it! | |
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We retuned to Gannetts bay for the last dive but it was low water and
the seals were much more content to sunbathe than come and play before our
return to the mainland.
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The weekend was overall a very enjoyable one. The novelty of visiting Lundy,
eating/drinking in the one pub each night and the beautiful scenery of the
area would have been enough without the diving.
The diving started with 2 excellent sites but perhaps a lack of ideas
on the part of the skipper meant that they all got a bit "samey" after a
while. There was an abundance of life on even the most boring dive though.
The Datchet was an excellent dive vessel - very spacious and lots of space
for kit and sunbathing - and came at a very reasonable price. The skipper
and crew pretty much kept themselves
to themselves but were friendly enough. After a bit more experience of
different sites around the island (there is a total of 137 shipwrecks!)
I'm sure that vessel and crew could put together an impressive weekend
package.
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| For more information on Lundy and the Datchet visit the Lundy Islandweb site. | |
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