Duo-Divers

Ta-daaaah, the bow shot!

Dead Mans Fingers (Alcyonium digitatum), a close up of the feeding 'polyps'?

Kelp (Family laminariales) does tend to be quite a long lived plant with the stem above say the first twenty centimeters quite a safe place for a plant to grow without the risk of sea-urchins 'browsing' you away. In this case dulse and other sea-weed encases the stem, making an eco-system up in the water column!

Ahhhhh yes lobsters (Hommarus gammarus) what I wanted to show here was the pile of 'scrattings' left outside holes by lobsters. At the start of the season you start seeing loads of scrattings as lobsters wake up and take back ownership of their holes.

The reel/rod feet were a bit of a chew, I tried to machine the brass to take a couple of M3 cheesehead screws but that wasn't 'right' so ended up brazing on the feet and then 'back filling' the machined holes for that little bit extra strength

The northern, vertical rock face is smothered in hydroids, sea-squirts and boring corals but no dead mans fingers, it's still nice and pretty in bright conditions

A common starfish (Asterias rubens) attempting to open a small scallop, one of my mates Hud, is so bad at scalloping he looks for starfish feeding and then steals the scallop!

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

So it was constructed from baulks of oak and glued and pinned together, I would have liked some brass staples but the wood was mineralised so not practical really

A long Clawed squat Lobster (Munida rogosa), these critters can be seen all over the dive sites once you get down to around the 15m mark

This smaller donkey boiler is standing on one of the flate ends and large sections of the outer case have, over the years, come adrift meaning that you can look in on the various tubes and pipes. To find it when you get out from the cut through Knifestone follow the wall right.

A common hermit crab (Pagurus bernhardus), this one was a tad larger and seemed to have eggs around the rim of the shell.

The prop shaft 'sans' prop! The propellor was made from high cost non-ferrous materials, phosphor bronze etc and an easy win for whoever was salvor in possession at the time.

This one was probably killed by a dolphin, we get quite a few white sided dolphins in the area and despite the popular public conception about friendly dolphins they actively kill porpoises so you rarely if ever see dolphins and porpoise in close proximity

A common hermit crab (Pagurus bernhardus), this one was in a strange part broken shell so you could see its 'soft' backend.

J - After a few coats it started to look the part

A scenic of a couple of divers with part of the superstructure infront of them, this time in colour, as you can see the vis was very good despite the diving taking place in October.

Looking along the wreckage of the Mistley, you can see the ribs or joints on the bottom.

The axle set was a bit of a cheat but not seen and strong enough