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ISSUE 11 ARCHIVE - DIVING SELSEYPaul WoodburnI was made aware of the Emma Jayne from a local dive club I joined recently (Southsea Sub Aqua), they told us in March that Colin Cooter (owner of Emma Jayne) had installed his new lift. Five of us were already booked on another hard boat with lift on Sunday 9th May, as the tides were good that weekend I decided to suggest chartering this boat for the Saturday. Job done, we filled the boat with some buddies I know, and some others from SSAC. Only eight divers were needed so it wasn't too hard to fill. Eventually we decided to dive the Shirala and the Mulberries. |
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The morning of the 8th May came. We all met up on
Selsey Lifeboat Beach wondering where he was going
to pick us up, thinking we had to wade out to his boat.
Soon enough I got a call from the skipper and he picked
us up in Nobby, his landing craft. We boarded all the
gear and transferred onto Emma Jayne, you can't miss
her, she is bright turquoise and white.
On board, Colin briefed us all on his boat, and we came up with a dive plan, and off we went to the Shirala. Once we were topped up with fresh cups of tea, I started feeling peckish, I forgot to bring any breakfast so I started to look for my sandwich bag as Colin then offered me a big blue bag of lunch boxes, "Have one of these if you want and hand the others out". Wow! We were all flabbergasted with this, what a lovely touch. |
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This was the first time Colin had used his dive lift since
his practise session. It all worked fine. As she had been
a fishing boat he also has a potting winch which he
said that if we clip anything onto the shot line he would
lift that up for us too. Talking of the shot, it was placed
perfectly on the site. Once on the wreck, Scallops were
found, and a small corked bottle, of what seemed like
some type of citrus oil or it could have been an early type
of virgin oil, whatever it was, it had a very sweet smell
and when the cork had dried out on the surface the smell
got everywhere.
After we had surfaced we all changed our cylinders while Colin gently steamed off to the Mulberries, he offered us another spot where we could maybe have found some live lunch but we voted for the Mulberries. After my cylinders, I proceeded to change my lens and port in his cabin, and then had the rest of my free lunch. |
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Once we got to the Mulberries we tied up and went
down, we decided to veer off for a look round the
cuckoo wreck, where much to our delight we found
a huge lumpsucker hiding in the aft starboard hold,
unfortunately my camera was too big to get into the hold
so I left it to the compact camera guys to get a shot,
they do have their advantages. Once we got back to the
Mulberries, we dawdled around there for the rest of the
hour and found some brightly coloured nudibranchs,
not to mention dogfish, snakelock anemones, cuttlefish,
cuckoo wrasse and bib.
Once all surfaced and back on the Emma Jayne we got back to shore in no time, and Colin shipped us back to the shore aboard Nobby where the hardest part of the day awaited us, lugging our kit back up the beach. All nicely finished off with a pint in the Lifeboat Inn, that was us for the day. It's Colin's second year on the dive boat scene and I can't wait to go back. As well as doing full charters, he also has the option to book per buddy pair. More information on Colin's dive trips is available. |
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