Hot on the heels of a superb Portland RIB weekend, our next destination was West Bay, about 25 miles from Portland Marina around the Bill. With a logistics plan worthy of a field army, Matteo, Sam and I hopped into the Richmond Explorer and set sail. The weather, amazingly, co-operated, and we had a lovely motor in the afternoon sun. Sam took his drone to get some footage, and hopefully you've all seen it by now! (On RSAC Casual Whatsapp)
Taking the boat into a strange harbour was a new experience for all of us, but when we got there the mooring was easy and the harbourmaster friendly. West Bay is a lovely seaside town with all the eateries and facilities for an enjoyable few days. It's frankly a much nicer place to stay than Portland!
On Monday, the rain was torrential but the divers were keen, so off we went to the M2. We had a great dive, with Adam penetrating far into the aircraft hanger. The usual congers, pout and lobsters were in abundance. Unfortunately we had to cancel the second dive due to the swell.
On Tuesday, we had to cancel the whole day of diving due to high winds, but many of us found that West Bay offered some stunning coastal walks.
On Wednesday, our last day, the seas had retreated and diving was back on the programme. Our first dive was to the St Dunstan - an old paddle dredger a few miles northwest of the M2. We had one set of coordinates, and after a bit of fruitless hunting on the sonar we hit google for more, and ended up with 3(!) different coordinates for the wreck - with none of them showing anything at all on the sonar. Figuring that nobody really moves wrecks, we dropped a shot onto one of the sets and descended to the bottom. Vis was ok but not great, so we didn't see a scrap of wreckage, but we did find a seabed alive with life. It seemed to be some sort of starfish breeding ground, with large (30cm) brittlestars sitting on the bottom stretching their legs upwards to catch the current. We saw many varieties of crab, and even a sea urchin or two, which I haven't seen around Portland before.
For the second dive we went to West Bay High Ground, an underwater hill feature. I had a plan to drop to the west of it and drift onto it, and after a lively debate about where exactly we had dropped the shot (leading to some confusing directions) down we went. We hit a featureless sandy bottom, and started looking for the reef in atrocious visibility. After spending a few minutes getting east and west confused, we struck out in a new direction and found the reef. Unfortunately the other team didn't see anything other than sand!
Even though we only managed half of the dives we planned, the whole experience was great. It was superb fun basing the boat out of somewhere new. Many lessons, small and large, were learned, and it's certainly something we will try again next year.
