Sunday 23rd May and after a good nights sleep I woke up and took a look out of the window. Sky - blue. Wind - light, very light. I threw some clothes on and wandered to the breafast room. Sea - flattish. Hello...

Todays we were to launch form the beach and we were out in the RIB. Tides meant a 10:00 start, which we made somewhat miraculously considering Scott had to rush back from the beackh to the B&B to get his undergarment. We had the usual fun and games getting into the RIB, bid Sally farewell and headed out to the wreck of the Mohegan, a dive I had read about and had hoped we would do. For some pics and a description of the wreck you can look here:

Mohegan

But for now foret the wreck. We had gone no more than 5 minutes from the beach when I noticed that there was some green gunk on the surface. Before my thoughts had managed to properly crystalise someone shouted something to the effect of 'shark!' We were in business, a basking shark of somewhere around 12ft (a little 'un) was sweeping up the green gunk - plankton - no more than 30yds off of the front of the rib, dorsal and tail swishing about out of the water. All thoughts of diving were set aside as the engines were cut and we all took a good look at the fish. Then it got better. A little further out a larger fish was feeding, this one maybe a little over 20ft in length. So we made towards it and cut the engines to watch it swim it's circular feeding pattern. Then it got much better. It started to head our way. It kept on heading our way. It damn near hit the RIB before veering off. Close encounter with 20ft of shark. Mission acocmplished, we could all now go home with big grins.

But first there was some diving to do.

Our dives were on the slack tide, and we could not hang around too long, so we stopped bothering the shark and made our way the 100yds or so from the fish to the wreck site. Maybe on our safety stop we'd have a close encounter was filling my thoughts. Kerri decided to sit the dive out, partly a hangover from the queasy feeling of the previous afternoon, but I suspect more to do with the 20ft of shark swimming nearby. The rest of us kitted up, the shot line went over and in we went.

The dive was to be part wreck and part drift, SMBs up after 20minutes. The shot was right on the wreck and as we descended to the kelp covered reef we had to fin only a few kicks to get ot the boilders, huge imposing cylinders covered in life. There was the possibility of a swim through between them, but the water was moving through a bit and it was a little tight, so I opted to swim around, managing to bounce off of the wrecka couple of times in a very embarrasing manner that I am not proud of (bloody amateur!)

Apart from the boilers the wreck is, as with the majority of sub-30m Cornish wrecks, little more than scrap metal. In this case life encrusted, but not at all ship shape. Past the boilers we hit some current and started to drift past gulleys and ledges covered in Kelp, sponges, anenomes and all manner of colourful stuff. The remainder of the dive was spent drifting past or sheltering behind walls. Drift a bit, shelter a bit, drift a bit, shelter a bit. It was lovely, probably my best UL dive to date in terms of topography and life.

At 16minutes I started to unclip the reel, get out the bag and prepare to shoot it, which I managed to get done on the 20minute mark with the help of Scott, who was probably plotting bloody murder when I handed him the reel so I could inflate to SMB. Bag away I took the reel back and continued to drift, which was a pain in the arse as we were told to head west to avoid drifting deeper but the current was taking us - and the bag - in a more southerly direction. So I let out more line than I wanted to, but it allowed us to swim around a couple of lovely walls, into some still depressions in the reef and so on. A magical mystery dive.

Sadly we did not see any sharks on our way to the surface, but by that time I really didn't care, because I'd had a great dive. Scott had not had to contend with the reel-of-death and Sean's new suit had kept him dry. Back on the boat Kerri had been watching sharks swimming around so it was all good. One of the other buddy pairs had bemoaned the fact that they had missed the boilers, which I thought was very odd considering how close they were to the shot. The shot that they had not followed to the bottom. Dumb, dumb, dumb...

The rest of the day was less eventful. A quick steam back to change tanks, have pasties for lunch and pick up Sally for a ride in the RIB and we were back out again. I am still not sure how she managed it, but Sally managed to get from the beach to the RIB, via a tall diver, without getting wet. Very impressive.

Dive 2 was only about 5 minutes away, the Volnay, another mangled pile of metal that rumour holds was one a ship. After the first dive I found this one a little disappointing, which says more about dive 1 than dive 2. Sitting on a sandy/silty bottom out of any current she is a bimble of a dive on which you search out little critters and find more of the fabulous fixed life the area had. You had to seach more for the good stuff here, but it was in evidence. Nice fixed life - especially on the reef - sea cucumbers, edible crab, flatworms and so on. We had a bimble, we went back to the boat. Sean dry still, Kerri glad to have completed a second UK dive, all of us wondering just what the temperature had been (my gauge read 14 degrees at one point - I'm sure it lies.)

Back to shore to pay, an experience in itself as confusion reigned, Sally not bothering to brave the beach rather stay on the RIB as it was hoisted from the water. And then it was off home, one traffic jam so a return time of 6 hours which was rather painless.

A great weekend.