Pirate Bear's scuba diving logbook on Diveboard

Pirate Bear
Scuba Diver
Dived in: Netherlands Antilles, Portugal, Viet Nam, Ireland, Spain, Malta, Australia, France, Egypt, Belgium, Maldives, United States, Norway, United Kingdom

Pirate Bear
Logbook

SHARE K

A mainly UK based diver but love diving all around the world (warm and cold waters). 

Originally was forced into diving whilst on holiday, hated the first day of it but fell in love from day two! Now I'm massively obsessed and spend a lot of my time thinking about previous dive trips, future dive trips and pimping my gear.

Love diving for such a different range of reasons.... silence, beauty, nature reclaiming man-made objects, isolation from Blackberry.... list goes on.

Places I've Dived

Total number of dives not on diveboard:
This number is added to the total number of dives logged in Diveboard (public+private) for the stat "Total number of dives".
Dives published:605
Total dives count:801
Dives this year:0
Total underwater time on Diveboard:18 days 23 hrs 15 min
Most dives on Diveboard in:
United Kingdom
Deepest Dive:
75m in Chepstow, United Kingdom
Longest Dive:
151 min in Gozo Island, Malta
Pictures in logbook:135
Number of species spotted:42

Favorite Pictures

Species Spotted

Data provided by EOL.org

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Favorite Dives

2014-05-04 United Kingdom Swanage
Kyarra

What an awesome dive. A real bonus at the end of the weekend. Visibility was much better than yesterday and we had lots of fun poking around in all the holes as well as being able to make out discernible structure on the wreck. Dropped on the bow as before but made our way sternwards spotting the winches, boiler and derricks. I spent a little while trying to free a lovely looking green bottle from under a section of plating.... in the process disturbing a large-ish lobster from underneath me who looked particularly disgruntled by the situation. Alas the bottle did not pop out of the silt but shortly afterwards Nessa spotted a Worcestershire Sauce bottle lying on the seabed.... what a find! Overall with the viz being lovely and such a nice array of congers, bib, lobster and crab to watch we ended up maxing out our bottom time (34 mins) and having over 15 mins of deco- ooops. Lovely dive.
2013-09-12 United Kingdom St Abbs
Glanmire

So happy we decided to head back to try this wreck again. What a treat awaited us on the seabed. Was still pretty dark at depth but the visibility was good with a torch and such a wonderful array of marine life coated this wreck. Came down the shot line very slowly with Katie as her ears were playing up. Shot line came down on the engine block that was festooned with dead mens fingers and anemones. Combined with the dahlia anemones that cover much of St Abbs head, there were actually a load of plumose anemones on the wreck. Underneath plates of wreckage lots of inquisitive ling were hanging about, aggressive looking pouty pollack (of which one scared the socks off Katie), small and large cod, tonnes of lobsters, edible crabs and velvet swimmers too. Swimming along I was dead set on seeing the prop so headed off sternwards. Was a lovely propeller when we found it although Katie took an extraordinarily long period of time to understand what it was. Took a few videos which have come out okay but was still very dark. Followed the prop shaft back along the keel side of wreck until we reached the engine block again. The boiler had a massive hole in the side but I couldn't tempt Katie to look in to it. Up towards the bow and was amazed to see the deck railings exposed on the seabed. The bow was coated in life as per the rest of the wreck. Katie found a fairly new looking mug around here somewhere that I stashed in my pocket! Spotted Liz and Tom around the bow making the most of their borrowed torches. At this point we had to send up a DSMB (which I managed to get a bit tangled at first) and head up for our deco stops.
2014-05-26 United Kingdom South West
Maine (Ss)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzJQviuPG_Y Cracking diving on this wreck. About as good as British diving gets. Shot was off the port side just aft of the engine room. So we made our way sternwards along the side before dropping into the main hull. Amazed to find a Bull huss just above the stern section. ... Mast have been at least 4 foot long. Filmed him and the conger eel underneath him for a short while before heading over to look at the steering quadrant which still looks very intact. Moving forward we soon found ourselves inside the main part of the wreck moving towards the massive engine block and boilers. Lovely light through the whole wreck and tonnes of bib, pollack and mackerel. Took plenty of video including a spider crab marching across the seabed. Up towards the bow we tried to make out the bow locker where the anchors used to be found. Looks like the storms over the winter have really damaged the wreck as most of the intact bow section has been knocked away. Amazed at how visibly damaged a wreck of a hundred years can become over just one stormy winter. Tried to set off my dsmb bottle but turns out it wasn't filled :-( so I filled it (poorly) from my octopus. Coming back up the line we had plenty of fun playing with the plankton and hydroids? In the sunshine and beautiful viz. Steaming back in to Dartmouth came across a few dolphin swimming West. A very good bank holiday indeed.
2013-09-05 United Kingdom Farne Islands
Abessenia

Lovely visibility on this dive in the morning. Into the water with tonnes of seals, Nessa and Michelle. Bit of surface drift so had to duck dive a bit to get under. Found bits of wreckage pretty easily.... there was tonnes about underwater. Took lots of video... was trying to get lots of the wreckage but the seals kept getting in the way :-) Had a really fun time with a little seal who loved kissing the camera, blowing raspberries at me but had an itchy foot (see video for evidence). Also Michelle and I had some fun high-fiving a massive seal which must have been twice the size of me! Also had a funny moment watching a lobster marching his way home with a fish in his grasp; looked like a decent supper for a lobster of his size. In fact there were tonnes of lobsters around on this dive. Overall a cracking dive and probably the best fun with seals so far. Am amazed at how lucky we have been at the level of interaction we have had with them and how many have been in the water at any point.