Babbacombe

Weather wasn't looking great for the weekend with strong SW winds and gusts gusts, not to mention springy tides, but I reckoned Babbacombe would be OK - and so it was. We'd agreed an early start and when I arrived Geoff was already there and kitting up. Vis looked very good. A few other divers were already in and a few more started to turn up. We went out to the reefy bit and around the rocks, north then west. We had a very nice easy-going dive, pootling along at about 7-8m for 70min.

There was a fantastic lot of wildlife. A cuttlefish, goldsinny wrasse, ballan wrasse, sand gobies, pipefish, spider, edible, velvet fiddler, and long-legged spider crabs, gravel sea-slugs (2-3x) one of these biggest I'd seen and unusually much of the body was visible. Common starfish in the shallow sub-lit, and few tiny brittlestars seen on the silty sand beyond the rocks. A flatfish on the inside of a wheel rim, various sponges (stalked sponges etc), a tiny candy-stripped flatworm, and various molluscs - netted dog-whelks etc,..

Louis Shied

Partly because of the expectation of similar conditions to Budleigh Thursday, no sea dives were planned as far as I could tell. However Kevin on Friday had contacted the management of a certain reservoir to carry out a risk assessment and preliminary dive (he had applied formally and had permission) but they refused at the last minute saying they were busy. I had arrived there already - wasting fuel in the middle of the shortage - and the place was almost deserted.

We had a quick rethink and Kevin, Rob C, and myself met at Thurlestone. The vis was 5m, and conditions perfect. We swam around the rocks there in about 5-10m. We saw lots of life including cuttlefish (4x), dogfish, a shoal of bass, a monster spider crab, and off the rocks found a spot where a large number of netted dog whelks were grazing on worms, and close by, in a layer of organic matter, we found handfuls of marine isopods (underwater woodlice). Lots of other fish, crabs and the usual sea-squirts, sponges and so on. All was wonderful and even the algae fantastic and colourful; deep reds and yellows, and irridescent green, with lots of blue and red tinged snakelocks anemone amongst it all.

Budleigh Salterton

Derek, Geoff H, Phil and myself dived Budleigh on Thursday evening after work. It was a lovely sunny evening. Unfortunately the vis was less than a metre and like swimming through a glass of congealing fat. Derek and Geoff covered a prodigous distance in seach of clear water but to no avail. It wasn't the nicest dive ever (and I didn't see a living thing - not even a snail) but was all very good practise. I took a few pictures and some video just to show how terrible it was.

James Eagan Layne

Penlee Point