Three intrepid divers plumbed the not very icy (7°C) depths (2.5m) of Hinksey Lake on New Years Day 2016. Steve Litchfield, Andy Pickering & Howard Thomas completed a 30 minute dive in the fairly gloomy waters of the lake from the entry point next to the pontoons, over to the bridge and back.
Two Seasearch dives over the weekend. Balaclava Bay and The James Fennel / Boulder maze.
Also did a dive on the wreck of the Alex Van Opstal and a drift over Lulworth banks.
This Easter 2015 we headed down to cornwall to dive the beautiful wrecks and reefs there in clear (but cold) water. Nart, Stuart, Kerrie, Chris, Steve, Alex, Nick and Ritchie dived from the beach in Porthkerris, from the hardboat Celtic Kitten and from OUUEG’s RIB ‘Seahorse’. On one dive on the Volnay we found something a bit strange – Aliens infest our marine heritage !
For years the good (and sometime bad) people of olde Oxford Towne have been disposing of their ferrous, and non ferrous waste by dumping it into the old reservoir of Hinksey Lake. Here at Oxford BSAC we regard it as a sacred duty to recover all that unique historic trash and save it from piling up so deep that the lake become a swamp. We think we’ve got rather good at recovering old scrap bicycles, motorbikes and the occasional pedalo from our lake and thus our challenge.
The sea is getting warmer. The visibility is improving. Summer is here and the sun is almost certain to shine. With these thoughts in mind a diving weekend was planned for the last weekend in June targeting dives on the Aeolian Sky and the submarine wreck of HMS Sidon.
9th June 2013
We only dived one day, but the weather was fine and I hope an enjoyable day was had by all.
Only managed to dive on two wrecks, the first, which was new to the branch was the SS Treveal, which hit the Kimmeridge Ledges and sank just outside Chapmans Pool. As described, there is little left of this wreck, but a few people found the deck plates and some of the remaining structure.
A video of this dive by Chris Stevens and Anthony Hayes is available on our Facebook Page.
The second dive was one of our favorites, the Black Hawk in Warbarrow Bay, where the visibility was slightly better, the current was reduced and there are larger chunks of wreckage to be explored.
Many thanks to all who attended, especially Stu for skippering, Chris for assisting and cajoled scribes Rob & Anthony.
Logsheets of the dives are posted on the noticeboard at the club and are available on request.
Memories from the week-long expedition’s Thursday diving:
Anjali (aka Jelly) and I paired up for another glorious day of diving in the Isle of Wight in tropical temperatures. We started in mid afternoon on the Sandown Bay drifting at about 8 metres over sand with rocks covered in fine fronds of seaweed and snakelock anenomes, like miniature gardens, populated by small fish. We drifted over a couple of velvet swimming crabs spoiling for a fight and uncovered a nursery of cuttlefish eggs clinging to a rock.
Our second dive in the early evening opposite the life boat station was a faster drift around 8 metres with a glimpse of a big ballan wrasse checking us out as the rocky scenery floated by and tiny gobies stood guard by their burrows in the sand and rock crevices. We came up to white topped waves-thank goodness for the easy access on our new boat!
After the disappointment of the steering failure the previous weekend it was very satisfactory to get Endeavour in use again. Thanks have to go to Steven Litchfield who went down to the coast in the week to fit the new steering cable and give us confidence in organising a small party to go down at the weekend. So what was she like?
Finally at sea and looking good, it seemed too good to be true. Unfortunately – for one weekend anyway – it was..!
After many late nights and several early mornings by those willing to help, Endeavour finally left for the coast last Thursday morning. Boats Officer John Waterhouse met the transport in Southampton where Endeavour was craned into the water for the first time. On Saturday John, Richard Fraser and Maurice Elway took her around to Weymouth and onto our mooring for the first time.
I was invited on a dive from Swanage to dive the Valentine tanks, these were part of the D-Day landing vehicles. There is plenty of info on the net regarding these tanks. We left the pier and headed round and were soon on the shot.