Portland May 2025

The first club UK sea dive trip of the year saw 11 of us heading to Weymouth, for diving out of Portland.

We had two Ocean Divers along from the class of 2024, Katherine and Megan, both doing their first sea dives!  Megan was sporting a shiny new Hammond drysuit which due to her colour preferences only arrived in the nick of time, requiring an extra dip into Wraysbury on the way down (thanks Mark for helping with this).

Topside the weather was idyllic with blue skies and flat sea.  First dive was the Hartlepool which can be delightful but unfortunately was blighted by 1 metre visibility...not the best intro to sea diving for the newbies!  However, there were no insurmountable problems and everyone came up smiling.

The visibility was a bit better (2-4m) on the other 3 dives: Bats Head reef, Grove Point and the British Inventor though being early season the life was a little sparse.  However, the tally included Spider Crabs, Conger Eel, Lobsters, Crayfish, Goldsinny and Cuckoo wrasse, Dogfish, Pouting, and a beautiful ray.  (Clare and James must have had their X-ray specs on as they saw as much wildlife as everyone else put together).

Saturday night saw dinner for all at the Ship Inn who again turned out a very decent meal with some efficiency, despite being manically busy early on!  Some of the younger contingent hit the town afterwards but were happily in a fit state to dive the next day...

On the boat we were unusually well catered for with snickerdoodles (Megan), chocolate cookies (Katherine), a Colin the Caterpillar (Howard, due to a clerical error) and clotted cream scones (Devon style, Skipper Ed) available.

All round it was a most enjoyable weekend with smiles all round despite somewhat indifferent diving.  Thanks to Ed for another great job and everyone else for the teamwork and their excellent company!