We met for the pre-dive briefing and breakfast in the Boathouse Café. Julian, Paul, Stuart, Steve and I discussed the dive and reviewed the information we had, downed the last sip of tea and coffee and headed for the RIB.
Steve took the RIB off the trailer and we headed out to the Ramsgarth. The sea wasn’t very friendly with waves and troughs in one direction and wind in the other. Altogether a bumpy ride! We reached the dive site and dropped the shot without too much fuss.
A hardboat arrived while we were kitting up and they told us we had 15mins until slack. Perfect. The first three, Julian, Steve and I, went down the shot, Julian attached the lifting bag and off we went, the tide was still running a little but the shot was on the wreck and we had about 4m visibility. There was a lovely wreck covered in life, huge congers, loads of crabs, a lobster made the mistake of waving at me from behind a piece of metal, I flashed Julian with my torch and the lobster lost the battle. There were so many fish that they were obscuring the wreck and didn’t seem to want to move aside so we swam through them.
We saw the boilers, these even I could identify, and lots more that I won’t try and name. Julian sent a DSMB up and we ascended. Altogether a very enjoyable dive, Steve felt it was the best wreck off Littlehampton, that he has dived so far. The second pair, Stuart and Paul, then went down the shot. When they returned to the surface they said the tide had been running ‘like a train’ for the majority of their dive but they had still found it a very enjoyable one.
We the went to Kingmere Rocks for our drift dive, the tide was moving at a fair speed and there was a lot too see including the largest lobster I have seen which strolled across the seabed in front of Steve and I. By the time I decided to grab it for tea it decided to dash off and slipped out of my grasp. Still a very enjoyable dive.
I then drove back to the marina, managed to get to the pontoon for fuelling but took 2 attempts and a bit of rocking to return to the trailer. (JM)
