Newhaven Harbour Arm Dive ~ Done ! 9th August

L-R: Simon , Debbie, Trez, Sean, Caroline, Kev, Max

After some quick planning the Harbour Arm (West) dive took place , it's a fair hike from the car park to the waters edge , which on a warm day with all your gear is perhaps not the best part of this venue! A couple of other divers had started off about ten minutes before us and had entered near the base of the Arm. By the time we arrived there , a fisherman, asked us about Sharm El Shiek. It transpired he was an Egyptian and he thought it was wrong of us to dive when there were fishermen there. I mused on the thought about whether it was right to fish when there were divers there and wondered where divers & fishermane were to make their own 'beach bookings' . But the fisherman had decided to give-up and go , complaining the beach wasn't big enough before any informed discussion could took place. We didn't think it was a good idea telling hiim there was nothing worth catching at that location in any case!

So with the new entente cordial established we got in the water! What seemed like promising viz soon turned-out to be a false hope! The viz was probably no better than a metre! The rocks and underwater sea defences were covered in a light brown silt , I think , worse than I have seen it before. It did look as though the silt was killing-off the marine life.

Simon and I saw five small lobsters in the rocks , a few velvet swimming crabs and some small Bib. It was not the best dive on the Arm I have done, quite disappointing for viz & life. We swam out for 30 minutes reaching a maximum of 10 metres depth before returning for a total dive time of 63 minutes.

I found some fishing lures (sorry Robbo , no ankle weights ...well none that I'm going to admit to) which were trapped on broken line in the rocks. I picked them up and passed them to another fisherman on exiting the water. There see, the nice divers have massively improved your catch for the day!

So then it was the return hike back to the car park before changing and making for the Captains Table for light post-dive refreshment! Richard G was already in there , tucking into a fry-up sandwich after diving in the Brighton Marina, shrewd move Richard, worth refueling before washing all that kit off!