An early start this Sunday morning saw our team consisting of Dave, Les, Philippa, Rob and me arriving at the Bracklesham launching slip in good time. This allowed us to visit the shop and then re-locate to the revised site at Selsey East. Dave, as Dive Manager of the day gave a good dive brief of what we might expect to see underwater.

The weather was best earlier in the day but stayed mostly dry.

Our first dive was on one of the concrete units that were to have been part of the WW11 Mulberry harbour of the D Day landings. The armed forces were practising with it prior to D Day and must have been a bit rough as they managed to permanently break it! It was the first time I had dived this site. The depth was 11 metres with variable viz of between 2 and 5 metres. It was quite warm with the temperature varying between 14 and 11 degrees. I was most careful not to become impaled on the many protruding steel rods. I enjoyed seeing the “chickens”, Lumpsucker fish that, guarding their nests, just hovered and stared back at you.

A quick return to shore and turnaround saw us off on our second dive. This was the “Brigette” This wreck had been my first UK sea dive just two years ago under the guidance of Dave. We had enjoyed a good dive on that occasion, seeing much of the wreck with 10 m visibility and filling me with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, today showed the other side of the coin. The viz soon diminished and then disappeared entirely before Philippa and I had reached the bottom of the shot. We quickly agreed that viz of less than half a metre did not make for a good dive and agreed to abort the dive. All other divers appeared to be of the same opinion and we were soon heading back to the shore for our journey home.