Report by Julian Avis
Not the best of weather this morning, gray skies with showers forecast later. The boat was ready to go when I arrived at the marina, all I needed to do was put my kit together get my dry suit on and away we go or so I thought. We still needed to get fuel but getting the tractor to launch the boat ended up being a bit of a wait. Once we had fuelled and got under way it had gone 10.30 am but the sea only had a slight chop to it and we were able to power out to the wreck site in just 45 mins.
Once we got there Bryan soon had a shot line in down to the wreck of the Jaffa. The first pair in, Bryan and Tim, then 10 mins for Paul and Stuart to get kitted up and I dropped them on the shot.
As we were all diving on air, we only had a max of 30 mins bottom time before going into deco so we did not have very long to wait before the first surface marker boy appeared. After Steve and I had recovered Bryan and Tim the second pair were on the surface so I picked them up before Steve and I got ready to go in.
Steve and I got dropped in and there was little to no current, at the bottom of the shot the vis was about six to eight metres and there were lots of fish about.
After sending the shot line back to the surface with a lifting bag we went up the starboard side of the wreck and straight in to what would have been the engine room then around the boiler and along the propshaft to the stern, then out of the port side and around the propeller. Then back over the side and back to the engine room and out the other side to see how much more of the stern of the wreck there was only about twenty-five metres past the boiler.
I sent up the DSMB after 35mins as we were starting to clock up a bit of deco time.
Then it was back to the marina, wash the boat, put on the cover and off home. Good day out.
