13th March 2011
‘Challenging but nothing that a bacon sandwich can’t put right’ (a pearl of wisdom from Tyneside 114 chairman Hubert Desgranges after participating in the above dive).
With the prospect of a neap tide and slack water at 10:50 am, thus not requiring a ridiculously early start, the opportunity to dive the Glanmire off St Abbs Head proved just too tempting to miss. On arrival at the harbour, dive gear was quickly stowed aboard Paul Crowe’s latest dive boat, the MV Tiger Lilly, an Interceptor 38, and we soon headed out to sea. On station over the wreck site were already two other dive boats with shot lines in place: Clearly we were not the only ones keen to take this opportunity to dive the Glanmire!
Kitted up we jumped off the stern platform into quite a lumpy sea and quickly descended down the line. On the way down we passed two divers heading quickly back up the shot, with bulging eyes staring anxiously up towards the surface, clearly some were not too impressed with the dark water below!
Undeterred we pressed on until eventually the beams of our torches lit up the bottom.
Conditions were very dark with limited visibility of only a couple of metres requiring the aid of a good torch. Indeed it was more akin to a dive off the Tyne rather than the usually clearer waters of St Abbs. That said, our torch beams lit up the amazing marine growth that covers every available area of this wreck and we pressed on until the need for a deco stop and the cold were really beginning to bite
Tony Freeman deployed his SMB and we slowly started our ascent back towards the surface.
On completing our required stops we surfaced and were soon picked up via the stern lift of Tigerlily. Tightly grasping a hot cup of coffee soon started to restore warmth to frozen fingers as we headed back to St Abbs harbour. My dive computer recorded 30.4 metres depth, 6 degrees centigrade water temperature and a dive run time of 36 minutes. The wreck of the Glanmire, despite the lack of tidal current due to neap high water slack, had nevertheless with its dark and cold conditions had provided us with quite a challenging dive. Back on shore we needed no excuse to head over to the Ebb Carrs café to reward ourselves with a bacon sandwich…….
Thanks to Hubert Desgranges for organising the Tyneside 114 members, and also to members of Poseidon BSAC who joined us in this dive, Ebb Carrs Café, St Abbs harbour, for supplying post dive bacon sandwiches!
Also thanks to dive boat skipper Paul Crowe.
Paul Crowes – Mobile : 07710-961-050
http://www.divestabbs.info/index.html
e-mail: paul@divestabbs.com
