Juvenile Lobster Release - 30/11/2013

On Saturday November 30th, we took out nine divers and 1,200 lobsters, on our RHIB Stingray, to the Hera wreck.

During the week, we had received a phone call from the National Lobster Hatchery, asking if we were diving at the weekend. We had already arranged to dive the Hera followed by the Stanwood wreck on the Saturday, and, we already had a few booked on the boat. After describing the sea bed substrate around the Hera to Ben at the Hatchery, he said it sounded ideal. The sea bed around the Hera is a mixture of Maerl (dead and alive), coarse sand and shells, giving the juvenile lobsters plenty of places to bury and hide. Most of the divers were locals and some had even previously released the baby lobsters on our boat before. Two divers had come down from Portsmouth and loved the idea of helping with the release. Eight divers each took down one tray, containing roughly one hundred and fifty 25mm long lobsters. Several had cameras, one diver just took their camera to film some of the releases.

After the dive, there was a nice buzz on the boat. Everyone was happy with what they had done and the fact they had a nice dive. With over 10m visibility underwater, it made it a great dive. The sun shone on us all day, even if the wind was a little chilly.
This was our third release and our largest so far. Previously we have released 300 lobsters on the Manacles and 1,000 on the Old Wall Reef.