Venture had plenty of room, cabin and heads, a diver lift, and we were well looked after. Also diving were Adrian's buddy for the Rosehill, Tony; a couple of re-breather divers, and a photographer also out for the JEL. After the surface interval following the Rosehill dive, passed with some rod-fishing, we moved over to the JEL. By now I was kitted up, and finally ready the signal to go was a tap on the head.
We went down the shot to the bow, and continued down the port side to the seabed (about 18 metres). The bow was very impressive and gave a very good indication of the scale of the wreck (JEL was over 7000 tons). There was lots to see and although visibility varied, overall it was very good, perhaps 5-7 metres.
Round and about was all kinds of wreckage, wheels (cargo), big sheets of steel fallen from the sides; toward the back - stacked pipes and the propshaft, and further within - engine parts and more debris. Not all of the material was from the JEL apparently, some of it had been dumped here later.
Early in the dive Adrian pulled out an edible crab from some wreckage, and there were common and spiny starfish dotted about. Later on I found a sea cucumber. As well as the dense encrusting turf, sessile life included a cluster of pink sea fans on the seabed about 2/3rd the way along the port side (very vulnerable I thought), lots of dead men's fingers, and also on the port side near the hawse hole were some chubby plumose anemones - these were a sickly mixture of pink and green. There were lots of fish! Gobies, wrasse, pollack, bib were around on the sea bed. Later when we swam between the framing girders, and along the upper sections we stopped to look at some interesting metallic blue fish and a school of bass.
On our return through the middle and our gradual ascent, I found my legs a bit floaty - I'd omitted to dump air. After some pointless and tiring acrobatics I dumped the air and we carried on. After that, I was more careful. Otherwise buoyancy was fine, and my surface air consumption (high still) was slightly improved.
Leaving the bow we made a slow ascent of the remaining 6-8 metres. Back on the surface we made the pre-arranged signal to Venture and very soon I was standing on the lifting apparatus and enjoying the ease it made of boarding. I de-kitted on our way back to Plymouth and inside the breakwater, while the re-breathers Dave and Ash went for scallops, Venture amidst some sort of yacht race.
Back in the marina, Yas met me outside the dive shop - she'd had a nice time around Plymouth's waterfront, and taken 'a few' pictures. It was a great dive and day out; the weather was warm and sunny, visibility good, and the JEL lived up to all I'd heard about her.
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