A group of hardy ‘good eggs’ had an Easter weekend to remember with the Jurassic Aqua Sports team aboard DV Waverider, and raised £910 for the RNLI at the same time.
Over the four days of diving the Easter fun included a salute by both Weymouth Lifeboats.
Luckily, on Good Friday divers were blessed with fine weather and a flat sea for day one of the extended weekend, starting at the wreck of the Black Hawk Bow in Worbarrow Bay - albeit to discover the underwater visibility wasn’t great. After heading south to the Lulworth Banks for dive two and hoping to find better visibility at the next dive site in the Canyon, a fellow skipper called on the boat phone asking what the visibility was like because they had poor underwater visibility at their chosen sites. The spirit of friendly co-operation demonstrates the benefits of skippers and crews working together.
On Saturday, Waverider visited the wrecks of the British Inventor and the Hartlepool, again in stunning weather for good diving with improved underwater visibility.
The Sunday morning divers enjoyed a slightly later start, which nicely coincided with the Weymouth Lifeboat team concluding their training session before returning to Weymouth Harbour. Both the All-Weather Lifeboat (ALB) and the Inshore Lifeboat (ILB) paced Waverider at the entrance to Portland Harbour, performing high speed runs to the delight and appreciation of all aboard. Waverider then passaged onwards to a perennial favourite dive site at Bat’s Head Reef. The afternoon’s second dive site was within Portland Harbour on the wreck of the Countess of Erne, which turned out to be the most popular dive site of the weekend when word spread of 3-4 m visibility on the wreck, encouraging every boat and its divers to head there.
It wouldn’t be an English Bank Holiday without some adverse weather and Monday didn’t disappoint, though with diving in and around the ‘bally-bay drop off’ in Balaclava Bay and the outer walls of Portland Harbour protected from the worst of the weather, good diving was had by all.
On Tuesday, David Collins (Skipper of Waverider) met with Weymouth Lifeboat Coxswain Andrew Sargent and Mechanic Rod Britton to hand over a cheque for £910 to Weymouth Fundraising Chair, Teresa Drage.
Dive the Jurassic Coast
There are still some openings to dive with the Jurassic Aqua Sports team this year aboard DV Waverider, as well as opportunities for BSAC Diver development and Seamanship training with a focus on diver safety, which includes the BSAC / RNLI Diver Safety Course. For more info just head over to the website jurassicaquasports.co.uk
