Lyme Regis 13/14 June 2009

Divers:  Simon Bates, Ian Mackay, Mike Reader, Steve Brooks, Paul Sharpe, Mark Norbury, Howard Smith, Alan Harman, Roy White.

Mid-June this year saw the annual Stortford Divers trip to Lyme Regis.  On Friday night it was not looking too promising: no wind, but an absolute pea-souper of a fog as we drove gingerly down the hill into town for our rendezvous at The Volunteer.  The forecast was for more of the same, and it would have been an irony to lose the weekend through insufficient wind!

In the event there was no need to worry.  The few shreds of remaining mist burned off early the next morning and it was another superb bright day on the Dorset coast.  A civilized start too, with ropes off at 1130 for a change! 

The first dive we did was Frognor in about 35m of water.  Having had a few days settled weather the visibility was excellent at well over 8m.  The Frognor was a 1500-ton Norwegian steamship torpedoed in 1918 and whilst heavily salvaged there is still quite a lot there including a relatively intact stern.  Fish life was sparse but the wreck was jumping with lobsters including some real whoppers!

The second dive of the day was our old friend the Baygitano (in 21m) as we’d never seen it before: the visibility was 15m+ and with lots of light from the afternoon sun the dive was truly fantastic!  The cuckoo wrasse were out in full breeding colours (even the pink hen wrasse shone out from the wreck) and dense shoals of pouting hovered over the wreck in the current.  There were a fair few conger eels, including one in the boilers; a lobster there too; and a few sea bass for good measure.  Half an hour just wasn’t long enough...





After unloading the boat we went for a couple of well earned pints of Palmers at the Pilot Boat Inn followed by some wonderful home made pizzas at the Lyme Bay restaurant. 

Sunday was one of those occasions where the dedicated diver has to suffer for his art: in this case with a gruesomely early start.  Ropes off was at 0615 on another bright sunny morning as we headed off for the weekend’s star turn, the Salsette.

The Salsette was a 5842 ton P&O liner, 440 feet long sunk by torpedo in 1917.  With twin quadruple-expansion engines it was good for almost 20 knots and was much in demand on its Aden-Bombay shuttle run across the Indian Ocean.  When war broke out it served as a mail steamer between London and Bombay and also made two round trips to Sydney. 

With its excellent turn of speed the Salsette was thought to be immune from U-boat attack.  Sadly, whilst zig-zagging off Portland Bill as a defensive manoeuvre the German U-boat UB-40 had a brief chance to get a shot off and made the most of it.  14 lives were lost, mainly in the engine room, as the ship went to the bottom and settled on its port side in 45m of water.

The Salsette is deeper than our usual club dives and therefore required appropriate care in planning.  The conditions on the day were however superb: once again 10m+ with lots of ambient light. 

The dive did not disappoint.  Doug placed the shot line a couple of boat lengths behind the bow.  Descending to the wreck the full scale of the ship quickly became apparent as the top was at about 35m.  Amazingly after 92 years on the sea bed, a great deal of the timber decking was still there although numerous holes and swim-throughs abounded.  The wreck also had a fine selection of fish (pouting, pollock and conger eels particularly). Swimming to the bow there was the usual foredeck equipment (winches, bollards etc) but on a gargantuan scale.  One of the two huge anchors is still hanging in place on the starboard bow whilst the other is on the sea bed.

All too soon it was over but for the decompression.

Our final dive was on the East Tennants, a pretty reef with crabs, lobsters, wrasse, scallops and numerous pink sea fans.


Once again Lyme Regis delivered!  Four great dives, nice weather, good food/beer and no problems.  A special mention must also go to Alan and Roy, our guest divers from Harlow: it was a pleasure to have them with us, and was as usual a breath of fresh air to have divers from another club on our trip.

Thanks especially to Simon for cooking up a memorable weekend!

Howard Smith.