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With
huge anticipation we headed off to St Ives for the second bank holiday
weekend of May, ever hopeful of sunshine, good water, seals, a few
dolphins and, hope of hopes, even a Basking shark or two, who knows..
We made it to St Ives for ten o’clock
and settled in the Sloop for a swift half, watching Dan texting
like there was no tomorrow and waiting on Rob; little did we know
that his gay three cylinder VW Polo couldn’t top fifty mph.
He couldn’t make it for last orders so we retired, somewhat
the worse for wear. Keith sensibly left the bedside lamp on so there’d
be no chance of Rob climbing into the wrong bed. Rob, never having
met Keith, was thus a little surprised to arrive and find Keith
reclined in bed, wearing just a bowl of strawberries. Don’t
ask.
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The RIB ride
out to the St Chamond was bouncy but we arrived in one piece
and after a bit of hunting about with the depth finder and
a chart he’d bought off a bloke in a pub, our skipper
found the buoy and dropped us in.
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For those
of you who don't know the St Chamond, it is also known as
the Train Wreck and is the nerdiest of all underwater destinations:
a freighter torpedoed in 1918 with a compliment of five railway
engines.
It’s always a good dive and today
was no exception. She lies on sand in 22m so the light is
very good and you can spend plenty of time nosing around.
In contrast to other UK wrecks she hasn’t been battered
to bits and there are still large parts of her standing proud
of the sea bed, including those steam engines! |
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A
fine figure of a man |
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The
resident shoal of bib hung around the shot and, as always
their minder, a big daddy Pollack cruised on over and checked
us out. There was very good life on the wreck, everything
from cuckoo wrasse, goldsinny and even a cod to spider crabs
and Bloody Henry’s. Returning to the line we caught
sight of a substantial conger shimmying down into the decking;
he was six feet long if he was an inch and because he was
exposed outside the wreck he took on a beautiful dark blue
colour. When we got back to the surface the clouds had completely
lifted and the sun was just screaming down, it couldn’t
have been better.
I wish I’d put on some sun screen
at this point. |
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The
second dive was on the Barge in 21m and, if possible, was
an even nicer dive than the Chamond. The viz was out to 15m
and there was more life on the wreck than you could fit into
a large sautéing pan. We spotted a few dogfish making
their way past the tip of the wreck and were even lucky enough
to find the resident conger out and about. He popped out from
beneath the decking and nosed around out in the open for a
spell before crunching a shell between his not insubstantial
jaws and coming over to take a closer look at the thing making
all the bubble noise.
As he got to within a foot or two, that
thing started making panicked bubble noise and he decided
to leave it be before it had a heart attack, swimming back
under the deck plating and disappearing. |
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A good bit
of diving done, we pastie’d up and spend some quality
time sitting on the end of the pier overlooking the beach,
soaking up the hot sunshine and wondering if there was any
truth to the rumours that Porthkerris Beach was topless.
Well, there was only one way to find
out, so we went off to the Blue Fish for some dinner and a
great deal of white wine and tequila to give us a touch of
Surface Narcosis, if you know what I mean. |
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