The Exeters

Dived with Susan H at the coordinates given in Dive South Devon for the reefy area known as the 'Exeters'. Descent with DSMB to silty bottom at 27.5 m. Very poor visibility (dark too). Swam in widening circles but found no reef - we'd landed in a big large sandy patch.

Lots of conical shells and bits, tube worm cases. Live animals included hermit crabs, numerous long legged spider crabs (~20cm), and small scallops. There were some dead mans fingers, anenomes, sea squirts, and the occasional sand goby. Larger animals included a fairly big dragonet and a dogfish.

Terrible vis and variable current but actually saw quite a lot; and was good practice.

Just outside Teignmouth, we helped locate and re-float a speedboat grounded at Mackerel Cove south of Ness Beach. The second wave went to the Galicia and Parson and Clerk between Teignmouth and Dawlish.

Beer

After a cup of tea and a sausage and egg bap on the beach from Kenno's (very good and reasonable too) I got my kit together to go snorkelling. I wore my thick wetsuit and tried the 11kg of weight I estimated previously. It was fine, I don't need any more. But with so much weight I think some of it would be better on the ankles. Visibility was alright, 3 to 4 metres perhaps. About 15 to 20 metres from the cliff I was mainly over kelp. Further on and closer in I found some rocks and shallow reefs to look round.

I took a few picture of the sponges and fan worms and found a thin semi-transparent worm I hadn't seen before. As well as a look round, I wanted to test my flash some more and see what might be done to get the flash (a Sealife SL960D) to work when it's supposed to. What seemed to happen today was that in 'close-up' mode, the auto-flash setting triggered the strobe; whereas the forced flash had frequently failed. I need to try this again, if this turns out not actually to be the case then I wonder if ditching the cable and using the flash just to 'fill-in' might be worth a go. Some fish were about: two-spot gobies, ballan wrasse, and a few sprats.

There's a lot of little boats in and out, so a blob is a good idea.

In the afternoon, Yas and I walked over the big hill to Seaton, along the front to Axmouth and back again - which was very agreable, and also I didn't feel so bad about eating 2x pasties for dinner!

Budleigh Salterton

A good relaxed reef dive from shore with Derek's son, Chris. Snorkelled out a short way then to the bottom and straight out over fine sand (keeping sun on right) to the shallow (5m) stony reef. On the way out there were big and small hermit crabs; and the usual sort of thing, gobies, worm casts etc. Shortly after finding the reef we saw a dog fish. There were lots of velvet fiddler crabs, some edible crabs, shore crabs, also a spidery spider crab, and the usual 'giant' spider crab. Chris found a spider crab shell heavily encrusted and blending into the surrounding rubble and weed - it was about a foot across - but motionless and perhaps dead - then suddenly it lunged, with its claws out and amidst a cloud of silt it was a real monster!

Found some anenomes - not many - the small white ones, and embedded in the sand a grey/white dahlia anenome. Later in the dive we encountered some misty patches and the light was falling. I had two torches and gave one to Chris.

On the way back I found a masked crab. The reef was certainly very crabby! It was good watching them. I took a few pictures but once again (despite some fiddling with the fibre optic cable and attaching it carefully - and prior testing) could not get it to fire consistently underwater. By the time we got out, after a dive of nearly 1hr 20min, it was almost dark.

Budleigh Salterton beach is very nice, I like pebbly beaches, but parking at the car park at the end of the seafront is a bit expensive and you have to pay round the clock. The chip shop is very good apparently - but I don't know - I didn't have any!

Exmouth Dock

A Sunday morning dive at Exmouth dock. Clint managed the dive and I was buddied with Geoff H. It was a spring tide and we went in about ten minutes after hight water (HW 10:42). Stride entry in, we dropped down below the ladder on the side of the pier facing Mamhead slipway. We went up into the estuary mouth, exploring the rocks examining the junk. I found a boathook which later on was good for poking about with; there was old carpet, tyres, bags of discarded shellfish, lots of fishing tackle and lead, cheap knives, old rope, everything 'including' the kitchen sink [Clint found a nice casserole dish].

We soon arrived at the cave and had a look in and around it, but there was not much to see. There were lots of tompot blennies, larger silver fish above us (mullet possibly) and later on a eel, as well as many common starfish. Before very long the current had got a bit stronger and I started to find it fairly hard going. We turned back, and on the way Geoff feed the blennies opening a few mussels (it was good to stop for a rest and to relax and think about something other than the current); they were surprisingly bold and greedy, gulping down some biggish lumps. A little further on we found the car. Heavily encrusted and festooned with weed.

With the current it didn't take long to get back to the seaward side of the pier. We cut in sooner than planned - my idea - ensuring that we didn't overshoot the slipway. There wasn't much to see off the slipway - a pretty boring sandy and shelly bottom, but there were cheerfully coloured sponges on the deeper rocks.