Diary page
Sunfish has been very busy recently.
" At the beginning of June, 2 teckie divers (twinsets & stages!!) were diving off the breakwater beach, while they chatting on the surface, they were totally oblivious to the 3m basking shark cruising by less than 5m from them!!!
" In mid June we were filming with ITV for a Lifeboat TV program over in Hope Cove with the Surf Lifeboat.
" A few lucky sightseers have been out on dolphin watching trips and we've managed to find some pods of bottlenose dolphins numbering around 40 animals. On 27th June we even found a group of 4-6 common dolphins in Brixham harbour. Sunfish's ultra quiet 4 stroke engine means it is very easy to get nice and close : INSERT PIC HERE
" Weekday evening diving is taking off Big time now, with regular trips from Paignton Harbour on Tuesday evenings and from Sunfish's mooring in Brixham on Thursday evenings. Wednesday is also available if you are interested!!
" I've been given some fantastic u/w pics by Teresa from my Tuesday evening group, check them out! (hyperlink to page)
" Sunfish also carries out "Rescue work" for Sea Start (hyperlinked), towing a motor cruiser from Odicombe back to Teignmouth. Also we towed a commercial fishing boat from the Ore stone back to its mooring in Brixham INSERT PIC HERE
" At the beginning of July Sunfish had a group of underwater photographers onboard taking part in the 2009 BSoUP Splash In competition held in Plymouth. We had fairly poor weather with SW3-6 rain, sunshine and a huge swell, just to make things interesting!! The view of my group was that in general the images were nothing to really shout about, but there were still some good photos were taken.
" There are still some weekends free and spaces on other weekend dives, want to blow some bubbles?
" Diving conditions are great at the moment, the weather is a bath like 17.5oC (OK, albeit a rather cold bath!), and the viz is averaging 5-8m :
" During a mid week evening dive on Mudstone Ledges, we saw a pod of around 20 bottlenose dolphins on a glassy sea, with a blue sky and lovely evening sunshine (a perfect start to a dive?). The divers had a great dive with lots of dead means fingers, plumose anemones, quite a few purple/brown jellyfish (cyanea capillata), wrasse, pollack; I even saw some bass when putting in the shot! There were very few scallops, and only tiny edible crabs. The viz was around 5m and everyone had a great dive, especially those who found the swim through!
" Last weekend had a fairly poor forecast of SW8, but due to Torbay's micro-climate, we only had a SW3-4. We managed a great dive on the Bretagne with 6m viz and apparently it was "fish city" down there, one diver also had a really good crab. Things weren't so great in Plymouth, where unfortunately the dive boat Aquanaut sank off Bolt Tail, click here for a link to the BBC for a full story
" Please be aware there is now a scallop ban. No scallops can be taken by ANYONE, even for personal consumption. As a result no scallops can be taken whilst diving from Sunfish. This ban finishes on October 1st 2009.
" The sea life of South Devon is at its most prolific at the moment. There are lots of rapidly growing fry about now, these in turn bring in huge shoals of mackerel. There are some whooping great grey mullet feeding off the pilings around the marina, interspersed with the mullet are some clonking great bass! (Why are big mullet so frequently accompanied by equally big bass??). Due to heavy fishing there are very few scallops remaining inshore, indeed the seabed around the Ore Stone is like a ploughed field 9 Its just a good thing that the dredgers can't take the rather extensive life that lives in the rocky gullies around this fantastic dive site :
" Perhaps there should be a no-take zone forbidding anyone to take any kind of sea life less than 1 mile from land all the way around the UK? If there was a no-take zone, sea life would at least have a chance to recover. The sea is a finite resource if we take it all, it'll be gone……..forever.
