Cracking dive with Michelle. Couple of firsts..... First UK sea dive on the rebreather followed up with spotting my first squid in the UK and then saw a toadfish hiding under a bit of wreckage. Also spotted a greater pipefish and plenty of bits of plating that didn't seem to be around in previous years. Lots more small pieces of coal and broken crockery dotted around. Overall a nice dive to get into the water given the forecast. Shame we only got the one wave out and some people didn't get a chance to get a dive in. Hoping the weather improves for tomorrow.

Set off on the first boat wave of the day anticipating to dive with Mark on the Glen. Sadly his unit had other ideas and started giving some very strange pO2 readings (this would obviously not be the only time in the weekend). Mark managed to fix the issue by replacing the batteries though so we headed back out on Red Alert to the Scylla this time (what a shame!). Had a lovely dive on the Scylla in the end dropping down to seabed level as we made our way from midships to stern along the port side. There is so much life clinging to the wreck now that it really is becoming a great dive. The jewel anemones which are now taking root on the hull are starting to complement the dead mens fingers and plumose anemones nicely. The highlight of the dive probably has to be when we'd made our way back from the stern up to in front of the wheelhouse, where we spotted two squid. Was wonderful to sit and watch them hanging in the water with their skirts frilling. I wonder whether there was some mating ritual or just an act of aggression but the larger squid darted at the smaller one and threw it's tentacles around at one point. Amazed to have seen more squid in the UK especially on one of the most famous south coast wrecks.

On the way back from the Scylla we dropped in south of the Breakwater to dive the Poulmic. Michelle joined Mark and I. Found even less wreckage on this dive than when we did it in September but was a nice drift overall especially as it was pretty bright and the visibility was so good.

Quite an interesting dive in the end with Mark. Since we had to dive from only the one boat (as opposed to having two boats out for a single wave) we were diving quite late in the afternoon on this second wave. Before jumping in I had joked that Mark and I would be back first out of all the diver, which I later thought would come back to jinx the dive! Descending the shotline Mark signalled to me that he had an issue with the cell readings on his console. So we halted the descent around 12m. Then during a very slow ascent rate up a few metres I was cursing my comment about being the first ones back on the boat. However the issue seemed to clear and so we carried on descending the line. At the bottom I freed the grapnel and left it sat on top of the boiler. I made sure throughout the dive to keep a keen eye on Mark for any abnormal behaviour as I still wasn't 100% confident on his console/cell. The wreck felt considerably different to diving it last year as it was a lot lighter underwater (remember it being pretty overcast last Easter). We made our way towards the bow having circled the boilers. Plenty of life around the wreck; the highlight of which being a huge lobster hiding under a piece of plating. When making our way back forewards we were swimming into the current and it puffed us both out a bit. Given all the other concerns it made sense for us to end the dive so we just headed up to the safety of the sunny afternoon.

Cracking dive with Laura (her first for at least a year) and it was lovely to see her reaction underwater.... she seemed to be giggling and humming like a school girl for a lot of the dive! Almost immediately on hitting the sea bed I spotted a dogfish (seeming after I'd just asked myself out loud where all the dogfish were!). We made our way down the slope working our way into the current a little bit. The water was lovely and clear and allowed us to look at all the varied life around the site. In particular there was a few candy striped flatworms around the place and an odd type of fan worm I've not seen before which looked a bit like purple sprouting broccoli. Once we had reached our maximum depth we started to let the current drift us back up and along the reef. As always on the Mewstone I was fascinated by various topological features. When we were working our way back up the sandy slope I was amazed to see very large ripple marks (around 17m) which seemed odd but did provide us with another dogfish to look at. Could sense that Laura was getting a bit nippy towards the 40min mark so up we popped and enjoyed the evening sunshine followed by a barbecue on Bovi harbour..... happy days :-)

Diving with Michelle on this beautiful crisp calm spring morning. First onto the wreck and secured the shotline in the forward section of the wreck. It is such a dinky little wreck but some nice features presented themselves to me on this dive including a tiled floor about 3/4 of the way back along. Also there was a large dead barrel jellyfish floating upside down in the forward hold. Danny had told us about the reef that lies off to the south of the wreck which was absolutely massive. Turned into a nice way for Michelle and I to make the most of our time underwater after we'd covered the Elk a couple of times. The current drifted us along the reef ascending to a depth of around 21m. There were lots of sponges and soft corals littered around the reef, as well as the lots of edible and spider crabs. The coolest thing we spotted was a shell which was about the size of a 15 litre cylinder with a pointy end.... very cool. Michelle shouted 'don't touch it!' when I pointed it out to her. Probably tonnes of them littering this area of the seabed but fun to find one.

What a treat to fit in two of the best wrecks in one morning.... definitely a good Monday morning :-) The viz was definitely poorer around here in Whitsand Bay but still better than I've seen it. Was amazed to see how much the James has degraded since I last dived it; was pretty difficult finding my bearings to start but soon. We attempted to make our way off to the stern section but I was too worried about not finding the main section on our return. We did spot a pretty large cuttlefish which was nice. From the stern we made our way further foreward passing the engine and boilers..... these are now very exposed and open as it appears the housings around the wreck have all fallen down. The only real section which had any overhead coverage is up near the starboard bow.... oh how the wreck has changed in the ten years I've been diving it. I did pass over the wooden planking that I remember racing along with Al Morgan back in 2005 but otherwise the poor wreck is starting to look quite different. As usual on the James though there was a lot of life in the form of pollock, wrasse, crabs, soft corals and pink sea fan coral. Around the bow and looking around the scour the viz seemed a bit better but I had a moment of being super happy and content in my rebreather diving.... really enjoying it. Apparently others had been watching some bizarre squid mating ritual with 6 squid up by the bow- what a great thing to see! Managed to mook up my DSMB but the reel ended up dropping back down so resolved the situation a little bit. Overall a cracking dive to end a cracking weekend down in the Plymouth.