Drift dives for me have been very much a ‘pot luck’ thing, until this year, I would have nornally said dull and boring, the minutes dragging by looking at a muddy bottom!
This drift dive was really very nice and the Anchor Reef off Bracklesham has a varied bottom, without the mud, to keep any diver interested. When I mean any diver I have to restrict that to a ‘non blue water’ diver or especially a Solent diver.
The visibility was about 3 metres; the fish were about but usually kept their distance (I must remember to shower before a dive). The tide, for the diver, was a bit odd as it felt at times it was less of a drift but more of an eddy, surge, and wash about. The skipper Simon reckons both sets of divers were moving against the tide, which gives you some indication of the situation.
The depth varied from 8 metres to one point at 4.8 metres, in itself not a problem but maintaining my buoyancy was a constant effort, as was clearing my ears!
Dan, my buddy, has a strange affinity with the underwater life! How he gets hold of crabs and lobsters without getting his fingers pinched or nipped when he shoves his hand in their ‘hidey hole’ I never will know. This time he grabs hold of a dogfish!!
Dan let it go, I think that it is his way of keeping his animal grabbing skills honed, for those more important lobsters. I have since been checking out the skinning and cooking of dogfish!
This dive has been my longest to date at 75 minutes long with still 100 Bar in the cylinder. We really only stopped the dive as Simon was giving us a recall by revving his boat engine! We knew he had a pick up for the next set of divers after us.
Check out the video of the dive. The opening sequences have been taken from Google Earth and I believe the boat is in fact Simon’s boat.
Here is the link to the video Anchor Reef Drift 22nd May 2010
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