Duo-Divers

A grey seal (Halichoerus grypus), the mother (?) keeping an eye on the young seals the reason loads of divers visit the islands

An internal photo of SS Breda

I was half expecting to see waves and spray 'freeze' in mid-air.....

An immature cod (Gadus) this particularly colourful and lonesome specimen is obviously going to be a 'kelp cod' that's to say one of the sub-species(?) which stay inshore all year around and turn red as they age.

Sponges tend to have colonised kelp by late in the season, I think that this particular sponge is Stelletta lactea but I could be wrong.

Not sure what these sections are or did but there are several on the site so unless they form an integral part of a gun carriage we can say that the pipes are not cannon

Again the wreckage from the port side, there are more planks than you would think as I am sure that the wreck would have been heavily salvaged by locals!

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!

More dulse covered iron-work, this time a Ballan Wrasse is heading off at a rate of knots!

The lower mounting position where the pin would fit with a wrist mounted compass to give some sort of scale

A whelk (Buccinum undatum) there are loads of shells around the site and quite a few live ones. They are a popular food in some parts of the country and taste like eating rubber.

The results of a successful 'bilge hunt' on Mistley, teh exposed surface of the pipe is nice and grey, the section concreted in to the rock and rust tends to be black and horrible.

A pair of brittle stars (Ophiura ophiura) these critters are actually quite rapid and much faster than other types of starfish

As you look along the bottom of the gullies you will see that the hull-plate has moulded onto the bedrock whilst the vertical sections are rapidly being eaten away by the sea

A view into the propellor shaft, simply taking a bearing along the shaft and follow over the sand and you will reach the other part of the wreck

A bit of a clincher regarding the dating of a wreck.

I think it was 1858 when sailing ships were compelled to carry a red port lamp and 1837 for steam ships.

If you find any glass from lights then you can date the sinking from after these dates.

It was at about this stage that machining the trunions entered the 'too hard box', the blank was machined flat and I decided to push fit and solder in brass rod.

I think that this is part of the range-finder arrangement which was located on the conning tower, basically the wider apart the two sighting positions , the wider the angle and the more accurate the range calculations!

Into Staple Sound and providing there is no current its just coarse sand and fist sized stones with some Dead mans fingers (Alcyonium digitatum) and other small creatures, not worth the swim guys!

Toby and Lucy starting to surface, it was 'odd' to do a three minute safety stop.......

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.

A dead female lumpsucker, found at Saltburn but common enough around the coast

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

I just dropped outside of the hull at this point as I was 'bored', hopefully some sense of scale for both vis and wreck size

A good old RAF roundal...used everywhere apart from the pacific in WW2 (apparently they looked too much like the Japanese 'meatball')