Portland Weekend May 2026

Mid May saw the first 2026 Mid Herts trip to Portland. Saturday started inauspiciously with one unfortunate diver losing their car key in Portland Harbour whilst loading the boat!  Happily, it was only in 4m depth and after an unexpected additional bonus dive the owner successfully retrieved the key, which still worked.

First dive on Saturday was the M2 submarine in Lyme Bay, which famously carried a small seaplane in a hangar foward of the sail but was sadly lost in 1932 during a training exercise.  Weather was bright but with a rather brutal swell which took its toll on the divers as we motored round Portland Bill.  The wreck is a dramatic sight even in indifferent (2-3m) viz with plenty of life to see: congers, pouting, crabs, wrasse and tompot blennies.

Second dive was the wreck of the James Fennel, an Admiralty trawler which sank in fog in 1920.  This had much better visibility and was an enjoyable dive with quite a few fish and a cuttlefish to be seen.

On Sunday, the swell was if anything worse so we abandoned our plans to dive the Elena R and dived on Binnendijk instead.  This was an early turbine powered cargo ship, launched 1921 and sunk by a mine in 1939 as one of the first casualties of WW2 in UK waters.  Visibility was again not great (3-4m) but the dive was enjoyable with good marine life, large boilers and plenty of wreckage to look at.

Final dive was a drift dive on Lulworth Banks, main attraction being lots of king scallops and fields of little queenie scallops doing joke false teeth impressions in the water column!

Chris worked overtime doing good deeds on the Sunday, retrieving a lost weight pouch (from a different boat) on Binnendijk and removing rope from a stricken boat's propeller (Mark assisting).

On both days, several divers had severe problems with seasickness and unfortunately had to skip dives.  However, above the water we enjoyed a couple of most enjoyable evenings in Weymouth which hopefully helped to soften the blow!  Many thanks to Mark for organising.