Guides
Babbacombe Bay
A very good early season dive with cuttlefish and later on for smaller critters.
{mosmap lat='50.4792'|lon='-3.5099' }
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Latest Photographs
E - And based on the black colouration it was quite old, it was confirmed by experts that the timber was circa 17th century so very, very old!
All that was missing was 'Steptoe and son', a scrapyard!
Scenic stuff with Poor Cod, Pout and other small baitfish amoung the ribs and spars
The sandstone bed-rock slowly steps up towards teh cliffs, in this case it is worn away in tiny steps, probably the equivalent to the layers that were laid down over time.
A very scenic dip with dead mans fingers (Alcyonium digitatum) covering hard rock with boulders in some of the larger gullies.
A Long Legged Spider Crab (Macropodia rostrata) there are loads on all or most sites, this one didn't have a huge amount of camouflage, I guess that he had recently shed his exoskeleton
Another partially cleaned brass breech block.......
Ahhhh, bollards! Well at least this is an identifiable lump in the middle of the wreckage
It was a bait-ball but obviously not sandeels, on closer examination they appeared to be Sprat (Sprattus sprattus). Locally they would be called Brit which is a catch all name for immature herring, mackeral and sprat which form a pillar to the local food chain.
Looking at the breech assembly of a deck gun.
Debris all around and most unidentifiable, in this case it's a section of hull plating.
Flat bits of plate, be that deck or hull are all over the site, I think they are deck as they are flat with very little in the way of thick metal ribs, but I do get things wrong.
After the propellor the next 'lump' is a set of bollards
Plastic waste.....................arrrrrgh!
Wreckage from SS Mistley, in this case from near the stern. This structure was only eally 'thrown up' after storms a couple of winters ago!
A pair of Wolf-fish (Anarhichas lupus) in a hole, these were a couple of large fish with 'fist' size heads, when looking for these fish look for secure holes, I tend to concentrate in cracks and fissures in the bed-rock, rather than loose rocks and boulders.
Sea Hare (aplysia punctata)
Near the end of the dive I was surrounded by a huge shoal of Saithe (Pollachius virens) unfortunately the silty water didn't do justice to the sheer amount of fish that were all around me, amazing!
A lions Mane Jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) moving past with the prevailing tide, the long stingers on these beggars can be 3m long and be left on shot ropes sooooo, dont approach them without caustion and wear gloves!
More wrecky bits against the reef face
Don't try this at home kids!!!
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