Mulberry Harbours

I have just returned from the most fantastic day of diving down in Sussex. Visibility could not have been better and conditions were near perfect. For a change I am going to let the pictures do some of the talking. Though I will provide a little commentary. We had booked to dive with Wittering divers and the first bit of good news was that the boat didn't need to leave until midday. Still Dave decided to pick me and Billie up at 7am. This is way too early for Billie and that combined with the scintillating company of Graham and James on the back seat meant she slept all the way to the coast.

Once we had managed to gather all twelve divers together and get on board Big Blue II we were soon speeding over the gentle waves to the Mulberry Harbour. I can't recall the last time I had dived here without looking in my log. On the boat were people up for the first UK dive, people who had never been on a rib and people with vast experience. As I was with Billie I had elected to use my open circuit so it all felt strange for me too. Once on the site it quickly became apparent that the viz was phenomenal as you could see the sea bed from the surface.

This made for tremendous light and great colours.

I remember the last time I dived on the Mulberry's because there were so many Bib that you almost had to push past them. Today there were still a lot but it seemed the parents had all gone off for the day.

Billie and I managed a leisurely 50 minute dive circumnavigating the old harbour and as you will see there was lots going on including a close encounter with a Lobster tucked under the eastern end.

Close to the start of the dive we found and open Lobster pot and I was quite relieved to see it was already open as Billie had threatened that if she saw one that she would try and make me release any creature that happened to be trapped. All over the place were lots of small bib and the occasional wrasse. But, I still can't quite get over the number of nudibranchs around. Sadly I didn't choose the right lens to do them justice; next time.





On surfacing I was sorry to hear that there had been two foreshortened dives due to free flowing regulators and I am very sorry for those that missed out. Personally I was touched to be told thankyou for such a wonderful dive, to be honest you see whilst I may have organised it we were in the lap of the gods, and it appears he is smiling on me.





After a brief dash back to shore, a short break and change of tanks we got back in to do a drift on the fossil beds. Our skipper kindly showed us a sharks tooth that had been found in the area and encouraged all of us to go find more. We didn't.

This dive provided another really enjoyable experience even without the sharks teeth and indeed such good visibility. The shock for me as we gently drifted along for another 50 minute dive was the astonishing number of Lobsters. Billie seemed to have an eye for them and in all I counted in excess of twenty. I love Lobster and could easily have had a feast but today we took nothing but photographs and left nothing but bubbles.

Once back on dry land we quickly reloaded, kinda. Made sure that the tanks resembled bombs on top of Dave's Land Rover and set off via a brief visit to the local hostelry. I would like to thank all of those that joined us and made it such a good day. I would also like to apologise to those that had to rush off and therefore didn't get in the group shot.

We have already provisionally arranged some more one day stints down to the south coast and if this is anything to go by I would encourage you to come along.

Finally, on a personal note a big thankyou to Gary who sat in the centre today.......next time is yours.