Oxford Scuba Diving Club

Tag: weymouth

  • Weymouth Weekend June 29th and 30th

    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.

    By the end of the weekend, and having switched to plan C, we had dived on 4 sites; Ringstead Bay Reef, the Aeolian Sky, the Countess of Erne and a drift along White Nothe Reef. The sea temperature has increased to 14°C and visibility was around 4 to 5m.

    Saturday began with a dive on Ringstead Bay Reef which is a rocky reef in about 10 meters of water. The shallower parts are covered in kelp with the deeper parts and surrounding seabed clear of seaweed and home to fan worms, anemones and the odd spider crab. This was followed by a dive on the Aeolian Sky which is a large wreck in parts standing 13m above a 30m seabed. Plenty of tompot blennies and jewel anemones were seen as well as the shadowy forms of many larger fish swimming about on the edge of the 4m visibility. Barring a bit of seasickness, this was a very successful and enjoyable day.

    Sunday started with heavy fog and we decided to dive within Portland harbour while the fog remained. For us, this meant a dive on the Countess of Erne. While this wreck is well known to many there is always plenty of life to see such as the Nudibranch below photographed by Alex Gibson.

    The fog began to clear after we surfaced so we moved on to another rocky reef near White Nothe for the second dive. Here a current was running which carried divers east over a rocky and sandy seabed where spider crabs, dogfish, cuckoo wrasse, the odd scallop and even a stingray were encountered.

    In all a very enjoyable weekend!

    Many thanks to all who came and especially skippers Stuart Allen and Paul Minto and dive manager, Alex Gibson.

  • Wrecks East of Weymouth

    Wrecks East of Weymouth

    9th June 2013

    We only dived one day, but the weather was fine and I hope an enjoyable day was had by all.

    Chris Stevens diving SS Treveal - picture by Anthony Hayes

    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.

  • Dive Oxon 2012 – Back to Weymouth

    Dive Oxon 2012 – Back to Weymouth

    dive oxon19th-20th May 2012

    Once again we have our annual get-together with clubs from across Oxfordshire to dive from Weymouth. 

    After last years partially successful (despite the weather) weekend, we are at it again! This year we are going back to Weymouth, camping at the popular East Fleet Campsite where we have a great relationship with the owners.

    We hope to have lots of you attending for some great diving from many different platforms (including our new hard boat) and some excellent socialising.

    As ever we hope to make this an inexpensive weekend open to divers of all experience and qualification, so bring the family.

    (more…)

  • Weymouth Dive Weekend

    Weymouth Dive Weekend

    19 & 20 November 2011

    The plan is to do some easy wreck diving – Countess of Erne and the Hartlepool on Saturday and on Sunday venture slightly further round Portland if possible to the James Fennel, finishing up with a drift (and maybe scallops) on Grove Point. All dives will be under 20m, so suitable for all grades.

    (more…)

  • Alex van Opstal survey, 3rd and 4th December 2011

    Alex van Opstal survey, 3rd and 4th December 2011

    Alex van Opstal Survey Divewierd pressure vessel

    I’m planning (weather-permitting) to run a survey dive on the Alex on the weekend of the 3rd & 4th December. Plan is to use the ‘new’ RIB out of Casteltown to shuttle to the dive site.

    Dive plan (provisional):

    Saturday 3rd

    Dive 1
    • 0830hrs launch RIB and begin loading kit.
    • 0915 hrs all aboard , ropes off.
    • 0945hrs – arrive at Alex and deploy shot
    • 1010hrs divers in – start of slack – tide running SW 0.4 knots
    • 1100hrs divers up – second wave in
    • 1150hrs all divers recovered, pull shot and return to casteltown
    • 1230hrs lunch at castletown, air fills etc

    (more…)

  • Dive OXON 2010

    Dive OXON is a multi club diving event.

    This year the Oxford branch took along there brand new drive boat ISIS.

    The plan for the Oxford branch was to dive using three (yes 3) dive boats.

    (more…)

  • Alex September ’08 Expedition

    Alex September ’08 Expedition

    September 2008 Alex van Opstal expedition team photo

    The Target: Simple really – finally figure out where the various chunks of the wreck are with respect to one another and make a very crude map of the site to guide us when looking to prduce a more detailed map later on in the project….If only it were that simple….

    (more…)

  • Weymouth Week Expedition Report

    Weymouth Week Expedition Report

    At the end of this year’s ‘week in Weymouth’ event we had one dive on the Alex – in amazing visibility and totally slack conditions. For once we could really see what was going on and get a better picture of the wreck site and it’s surroundings.

    (more…)

  • Winter Weymouth 2008

    On the icy weekend of 6th and 7th of December 2008 a hardy group of divers braved the cold for a last weekend of diving before the close of the year.

    Our first dive was in lobster alley, just along the cliffs East from Lullworth. Vis was truly awful with a very milky green sea making for a dark and glomy seabed at 15m. Torches were vital. Even so we kept on bumping into sponge covered rocks and the occasional crab.

    Second dive on the satuday was an attempt at visiting the Aeolian Sky which despite careful planning was a bit of a disaster. Slack was supposed to be around 3.30pm but never seemed to come. Diving to recover the shot we found we’d managed to drop it into a porthole in the wreck and wedged it between two decks inside the ship. A bit of effort got it out of there but alas the rope was already abraded on the sharp edge of the hull and the weight dropped off when we tried to recover it later. The wreck was nice though – lots of jewel anemones on it and much better vis than earlier near the shore.

    Getting home after dark we repaired to the Sea View for chinese and sunday we started out to do a little easy diving on the Jurassic coast. A fery frosty morning greeted us but diving in Man – O -War cove and on Ringstead bay was surprisingly good with shoals of Bib and small Pollock about. Despite the cold one hardy diver made two dives in a wetsuit! Well done Terry. Weather was excellent all weekend and a big thankyou to Bob for his efforts in skippering.

    Chris S.

    WinterWeymouth08

  • The Alex Today (June 2008)

    So far this year we’ve dived the Alex twice and found two different views of the wreck. On the first dive we found the main section of the ship from just behind the number 2 hold to the engin rooms. Lots of wreckage was dotted about there.

    (more…)