T.R.Thompson Dive ~ 12th Sept

Wednesday morning I met with Andy at Brighton Marina for a Dive on the Thompson from Steve Johnson's Channel Diver. The only problem was that Steve's new boat had blown a gear box and he was still waiting for it to be repaired. Not to worry Steve had made arrangement's for the full compliment of divers to be transferred to the identical boat Sea Breeze.

Wednesday was one of those very special days when nature treats you very well.The sea was flat and mirror like,the sun was bright and warm not a cloud to be seen. On arriving at the T.R.T site the shot was dropped and peering over the side you could see the shotline disappearing quite a few metres down which promised excellent viz on the wreck below.

We were not disappointed the 10m viz allowed us plenty of opportunity to explore the stern thoroughly down to the prop, gun,boilers,engines,railings, etc. The biggest frustration was that 4 days earlier we had dived the TRT with a video camera and the conditions had been very dark with a lot of fluff in the water.Today in these conditions we didn't have the camera which is a real shame. All to quickly it was time to come to the surface and the luxury of a tailgate lift to put us back on board.


Dive 2 was a very gentle drift on ships ledge about 2 miles off of Brighton.

The ledge is a 2m underwater cliff full of life and very scenic. We were entertained by numerous large and very inquisitive cuttlefish, congers, large plaice and all the other usual suspects. It was the first time I had done this particular dive and would definitely do it again.

We also found a very large anchor which proved of interest to the skipper Terry Lee it appears no-one is aware of this.

Dive 1: TRT
Max depth 34m
Dive time 40 minutes
water temp 19.c on the bottom

Dive 2: Ship Ledge
Max depth 14.9m
Dive time 44 minutes
water temp 19.c

Good news is that Channel Diver is now fixed and Steve is planning to fit bigger engines over the winter period.

Tad