WantageDive

David Parker booked a charter to dive The Salsette with skipper Doug Lanfear on Blue Turtle out of Lyme Regis Harbour, the dive was open to DL+. Our brief from Doug was to have all kit ready to load at 10:45. Mark & I arrived a little after David & Harry. We got a quick coffee whilst David explained that two other divers would be joining us which meant loads of space on the bardboat for only 6 divers!

We arrived at the dive site around 1245, we were going to dive at 1315. The two other divers were both called Alex and were Russian, they had semi-drys on, proper tough chaps, one had a single 15 on his BC with a front slung 15 (hmm... this could be a good setup for the club ribs... assuming I could get two cylinders on without Roly noticing!)

Doug showed us a sketch of The Salsette and described exactly where he would shot the wreck. We dropped down the shot and the viz looked great, from 20m you could see bits of the wreck. At 40m we had 8-9m viz, it was absolutely stunning. There were lots of holes through the decking where you could see straight into the carcus of the wreck. It was covered in fish. Mark & I had 22 mins bottom time and then started our ascent.

For lunch, Doug had treated us to hot dogs with fried onions, tommy-k and mustard followed by a small apple pie - brilliant! We set off for the Baygitano for the second dive.

The Baggy was it's normal excellent self, the viz was just as good as the morning and the fish life was even more abuntant than my last dive on this wreck. We saw 2 John Dory, one of which appeared to be an albino. The huge congers were lurking in their holes whilst enormous shoals of pouting swam by.

Overall we had an excellent day, Doug is a great skipper and his boat is top notch. We'll see if we can get another week-day trip in with him before the end of the year.

Steve Colam

Click here for Steves Photos