Plymouth, June 2026

A big thank you to Andy Bloss for organising another brilliant Mid Herts trip down to Plymouth. Everything ran smoothly from start to finish and was made even better by skipper Sam and crew member Alex from InDeep Diving, who looked after us all weekend and kept the tea, coffee and pasties flowing between dives.

Most of us arrived on Friday evening and enjoyed a relaxed night in Plymouth, catching up over a few drinks in the Armada Lounge and talking through the plan for the weekend's diving.

Saturday greeted us with wall-to-wall sunshine and temperatures more suited to the Mediterranean than Devon. We boarded Searcher and headed out to our first dive of the weekend, HMS Scylla. Deliberately sunk in 2004 as an artificial reef, Scylla is now one of the UK's most popular wreck dives and has become home to a huge amount of marine life. Visibility was fairly good and the water temperature sat around 16°C. The wreck was covered in life, with plenty of fish, starfish, crabs, crayfish and the odd jellyfish drifting by. A fantastic first dive and a great way to start the weekend.

After surfacing we were welcomed back onboard with refreshments of tea, coffee, hot chocolate and hot pasties before making the short journey to our second site, the James Eagan Layne. Torpedoed in 1945 whilst carrying war supplies, the wreck remains one of the South Coast's best dives. This was another excellent dive, with plenty to explore both around and inside the wreck itself. Swimming through parts of the structure added a real sense of adventure and there was no shortage of marine life, including a sizeable conger eel making an appearance.

The day was rounded off perfectly with an evening meal at The Ship Inn, followed by watching England secure a 2–0 win, which seemed to keep everyone in good spirits.

Day two started a little earlier and with slightly greyer skies, although conditions were still good. The sea had a bit more movement in it than the previous day, but nothing that was going to stop us getting in the water. Our third dive was on the SS Persier, a Belgian cargo ship torpedoed off the Devon coast in 1945. The wreck is famous for its huge boilers, although somehow several of us managed to completely miss them despite landing almost directly on the shot line next to them. Quite an achievement really.

The Persier was packed with life. Crayfish seemed to be everywhere you looked and there was also a very impressive lobster tucked away amongst the wreckage, along with more conger eels keeping a watchful eye on passing divers. By this point the wetsuit divers were definitely starting to feel the cold after two days of diving and some sensible decisions were made to remain onboard with a hot drink rather than head back in for another chilly dive.

The final dive of the weekend was a drift dive, providing a nice relaxed way to finish off a great couple of days in the water.

As always, there were a couple of memorable moments away from the diving itself. Russ decided Andy's car key needed a dive of its own and managed to take it for a trip inside his drysuit. Not to be outdone, Andy later flooded his drysuit on the final dive which unfortunately brought his dive to an early end.

Overall, it was another excellent Mid Herts dive trip with great diving, fantastic weather, plenty of marine life and, most importantly, great company throughout. Thanks again to Andy for organising and to Sam and Alex for looking after us all weekend. Roll on the next one.