2013 - A Brief Review of the Year

2013, just what did it bring to Atlantic Scuba? We taught lots of people to dive and took loads of people diving on our boat, nothing much new there.

So, the highlights.

• We were asked to supply some Thornback Ray footage for Channel 4's Easter Special program, "Easter Eggs Live" - LINK
• We released 1,000 juvenile lobsters for the National Lobster Hatchery on the Old Wall Reef in Falmouth. We also released 1,200 baby lobsters around the Hera wreck - LINK
• We re-found and corrected the GPS co-ordinates of the Andromeda and Bay of Panama wrecks, we also corrected the co-ordinates of the Ponus with the UK Hydrgraphic Office.
• We helped Wessex Archaeology with a project to identify one of our local submarine wrecks. The project is to be released to the public during 2014.
• We found remains of up to seven different wrecks, previously un-found, throughout the year.
• We were interviewed by several students from Tremough University, for various project.
• ITV took some of our lobster release footage from You-Tube, WITHOUT our permission, and used it on a news item - LINK
• Monty Halls chartered our boat for one of his 'Great Escapes' weekends. Both Monty and his 'escapees' were very happy with the diving, we look forward to his return.
• Some of our underwater photo's appeared in SCUBA Magazine over the year, mainly in Nick Lyon's Scuba Bloke article. 
• The Guardian newspaper booked our boat to take out some freedivers from FreediveUK (Newquay) - LINK
• We were asked if our boat 'Stingray' could be used as the safety boat for a German film, 'Evita's Revenge'. It ended up being used for some of the filming, the film is due to be shown in Germany Spring 2014.
• We were contacted by TwoFour film company, we were asked to take part in a TV program, which we did. The series, including our episode, starts on Channel 5 early 2014.
• Another group of Tremough students made a short documentary film about us, it is being entered into several film festivals, it will not be available to the public until it has been show at all the festivals.

So, quite an eventful year. I wonder what 2014 will bring?

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.

Facebook Comments

I do love some of the comments we get on Facebook, some are saying what a good time they've had and some are just quite random. Here's a few of the more recent ones -

• Atlantic Scuba, Cornwall's premier sub-aquatic ballistic projectile discovery solutions facilitators.
• A nice day's diving at Fraggle Rock with the media whores who are Atlantic Atlantic Scuba.
• An enjoyable training session today with Atlantic Scuba at Swanpool beach which was only slightly spoiled by lots of bikini clad wimmins spoiling the view of the beach.
• The official Atlantic Scuba wreck hunting song... PASTIES
• Big thanks for the dive today,really enjoyed my self and absolutely over the moon with the swag I managed to bring back .. Will be recommending yours selfs to other club members who manage to get down this end of the country. And I plan on sorting out a club trip with yours selfs
  Ones again thanks  
• what an awesome dive with Paul Freeman and Atlantic Scuba, cannon balls galore, scallops and two very interesting finds
• Great little bumble with Atlantic Scuba today. Thanks mark and nick for letting me tag along.  
• Had a lovely day at Swanpool beach with Nick and Atlantic Scuba. While Mark and Nick took someone in for a dive, I enjoyed a latte with the ladies. Tomorrow, I am on the boat 'helping' (drinking tea and looking for seals) Mark while the divers are down. I could get used to this

 Just thought I'd share some of them , I especially like "Cornwall's premier sub-aquatic ballistic projectile discovery solutions facilitators", I can see a T-shirt there. 

Falmouth's U-Boats

At the end of the Great War, the Keisers's high seas fleet was interned at Scapa Flow, Orkney. Due to some mis-communication or lack of communication, Rear Admiral von Reuter ordered the scuttling of the entire fleet. Most were removed straight away except the deep ones. The German U-Boats in UK waters went to Harwich to surrender, with various fates over the next few years. We are still looking into the exact reason why any were sent to Falmouth, there are misleading reports about the actual number sent, from 5 to 9. What we do know is that there are the remains of 4 left in the area. One supposedly broke it's tow near Dodman point and was sunk, a bit of target practice. Apparently it was easier to sink it than try and restart the tow. There is a U-Boat there near Dodman Point, UB113, which was on patrol when lost according to official records. The remaining U-Boats ended up moored in Falmouth Bay, awaiting whatever their fate would be. A south easterly wind arrived and the U-Boats came adrift from their moorings.

The photo above shows 4 U-Boats on the rocks at Pendennis headland, Uboat.net has UB86, UB97, UB106, UB112, UB128 and UC92 as the 6 reported to have been sent down to Falmouth.

What we can say for sure is that UB86 is pictured above, you can read it on the side of the conning tower. Remains of these 2 U-Boats still exist, as does another on Castle Beach. The Castle Beach U-Boat is thought to be UB128, the one behind UB86 in the photo above is thought to be UB97. The only problem with the Castle Beach U-Boat is that it should be visible in the top photo, it isn't. Did it sink deeper and dragged ashore for scrapping? Maybe, one day, the truth will be known.

So if six arrived and we have four on Pendennis, one on Castle Beach, what happened to the other one? Was it re-floated and scrapped? There is no information available on it that we can find, so far.

Over the years the Falmouth U-Boats have had a hard time. They were gradually broken up as these pics show.

Whatever was left was then flattened by George Renton in 1966/7. Contracted by the Navy, probably sub contracted by the Harbour Master, George did a fine job of flattening the remains. All that is left visible above water now is at low spring tide, part of UB86 stands maybe 2' and can be seen below.

On Castle Beach, the U-Boat stands proud about 1' at low spring tide, centre in the photo below.

Today, all 3 U-Boats are well worth diving and are easily accessed from the shore, whatever the other 2 may be.

UPDATE:
After Wessex Archaeology spent two days in June investigating the Castle Beach site, taking photos etc., we were asked to go and take a couple of extra measurements. There are six circular features near the shore end of the sub, measuring 1m in diameter and 9m from front of the first to the rear of the last. This was the last piece of data required to determine that it is in fact UC92. The six circular features are the mine shafts, as UC's are a mine layers, UC92 was the only mine layer of the six. Records state it was lifted in 1971 and scrapped, it looks like it wasn't lifted, just dragged up onto Castle Beach to be scrapped. The stern lies at 50.147027, -5.055695, the bow at 50.147299, -5.055984, it is visible on Bing maps or Google maps.

UC92 at the end of the war.