Sunday dawned bright and early, well about 4.45am for Clare and I. We crept out of the house trying not to disturb a sleeping sixteen year old, and headed down to Brighton for a day out on Brighton Diver II. The boat has a big open dive platform with plenty of room for the 10 divers who turned up on the day. The cabin is at the rear, so the entry point is on the starboard side of the boat through the lift. All in all a pretty good boat, though potentially lacking in cover on the days that it rains!

We arrived in Brighton about 6.45 and unloaded our gear onto the boat. There was still spare time so we went into the McDonalds that is situated very close to the boat and right next to a large multi-storey car park that was free!! Having ordered a ‘big breakfast’ (never to be repeated) and had a chat with the various other early arrivers we headed off for our day out. As we were setting up, Paul Dyer – the skipper, turned up. Paul is clearly an experienced skipper and diver and was excellent and putting us down exactly where he said he would.

The dives were to be the Ikeda, which is a cargo steamer sunk by UB-40 in 24m in 1917 whilst on a trip between London and Galveston, and a drift dive. There were 10 of us in all mostly on singles, Clare and I on twins and Antony with his rebreather, so a fairly good cross section of the club. We all buddied up and jumped in the water about 9.45am. The Ikeda is pretty flattened, with portions buried under the sand, but plenty of space to route around That said there was plenty of life on it, including edible crabs, lobsters, tompot blenny, bib, pollock and more. For those that wanted to wander further afield, there were scallops grounds around the wreck.

After about 30 minutes, and with deco time encroaching, Clare and I headed for the surface. To fill the time on our stop, I took a few photos. I hadn’t taken any on the bottom, because as evidenced by my self-portrait, there was a lot of plankton in the water, making taking quality photos problematic.

On the surface, we were duly supplied with tea, coffee or soup, and settled down to a slow cruise back towards Brighton and our second dive site. After almost exactly two hours surface interval, we jumped back in for a drift dive. Paul’s advice – if you are at 10m head right, if you are at 8m turn left. Which we duly followed to keep us on track for a pretty slow bimble along the reef, there being almost no current. Paul had advised us to keep an eye out for some plaice for dinner, but we didn’t find any. The siting of the day was certainly down to Bryan and Liz who turned up a lumpsucker, which it has to be said is a very strange looking thing. The picture here, it has to be said, wasn’t taken on Sunday!!

We headed back into Brighton after the dive, and were in Weatherspoons in time for lunch about 1.30pm.

Thanks to all who made it a fun day out – Clare, Bryan, Liz, Kate, Mark, Garrick, Sally, Antony and Rick.