Duo-Divers

A very large, well the largest that I have ever seen Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris), I knew that there was a big occie about as there is a noticeable 'lair' with loads of smashed edible crab parts, the trouble is that inside their hidey holes there is nothing to see.

I do get carried away with Starfish photographs, in this case a Common Starfish (Asterias rubens), mainly because you can get damned close for macro shots of all the parts!

A view of the bottom plus another piece of large debris, again WTF?

Heading down the boulder slope for the starting point, good vis but don't go straight to the bottom, you will go round and round in a pit!

An internal photo of SS Breda

The Staple Sound side of the site is a wall smothered in Dead mans Fingers (Alcyonium digitatum) and is a great scenic dive!

A windlass, bow gear, hanging on the deck at ninety degrees to where it should be, if the wreck is on it's side it can be so disconcerting with good vis!

A Tompot blenny (Parablennius gattorugine), this one was hiding in his hole and almost attached to my camera by a piece of string.....as the camera got close he retreated into his hole!

A scenic of the bow, due to the previous salvage operation it has 'snapped' and fallen away from centre to left of the photograph

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!

Arty-farty alert....again!

Everywhere that you look the bottom isn't bedrock, it is formed from sections of ship, although it is all well broken up and smothered in filter feeders which acts as a reminder that the dive is particularly tidal.

The results of another successful dip on Mistley, more non-ferrous rubbish

One of the gun barrels, SMS Brummer was primarily a mine laying crusier so the guns were used to bully anything smaller and the engines to outrun anything bigger!

This can only be a section of keel as it is thick, wide steel that would have had no place on the upper part of the vessel

Until we were lens to nose, so to speak!

More wreckage that has just collapsed in on itself

Rust, rust, rust......after every storm the coating of plants and cruid is 'bashed' away leaving bare metal which rusts and in colonised by the sea only for the process to repeat, eventually leaving noting behind but the larger structural pieces of steel.

Head 'straight down' from the propellor and you will land on two large boilers, just follow the debris!

Dropping to the bottom about eighty meters from the cliff face and you are faced with a bottom comprising of boulders with coarse sand between them, the boulders vary in size from the size of cars to maybe a meter cubed.

Scenic stuff with light coming through the hull where the plates have gone and we are left with ribs and bits only