Wrecks

Here are some of our North Sea wrecked ships....

First dive of the 2015 season

We launched out of Sea Palling just after 8am for the first dive of the day.

There were 4 of us onboard Jimmy Rib, with Ian at the helm. The trip out was a nice calm sea state.

We’d spoken with Trevor, from the boat, Thetford diver, who went ahead to the wreck “Cordine”

The British ship “Cordene”, built by Swan Hunter in 1924, was a cargo ship bombed by the Luftwaffe on 8th August 1941. All crew members were rescued.

The location of the ship is: 53°00′32″N 1°48′30″E

It was part of convoy: FN 503

Trevor had put the shot into the wreck, and by the time we arrived, it was almost slack, so we quickly kitted up and commenced the first wave of divers.

The weather was warm, but the sky was a little overcast.

The sea was fairly warm, and the visibility was excellent. At 31 meters it was 10M visibility without a torch! Brilliant for the first dive of the season (for me, at least).

I went down the shot line behind Ian, and got down to the wreck in about 90 seconds. We headed left at the bottom, and the wreck was fairly well ripped apart from explosions. I got to near to the front, and came across the gun, which was pointing directly to the surface. It was covered in encrustations and things, but all the right shapes could be made out.

I swam around the gun and could see live ammunition boxes, and wondered if the sailors managed to return fire, during the attack. My guess is that they probably did, because of where the barrel was pointing (skyward).

After a further swim round, I managed to find myself some dinner to throw in the cooking pot later.

When everyone’s dive was complete, we headed back to Sea Palling for a spot of lunch and some rest for the next dive.

The afternoon dive was a shorter trip, which was just as well, because the sea state had changed and it was a bit of a lumpy trip.

The wreck this time was the “Isle”. This wreck lays about 6 miles East of Sea Palling.

The visibility on the afternoon dive was down to about 1 meter with a torch. The depth was 28 meters.

I did some swimming and looking around, but there wasn’t much to see, and I was getting a bit cold, because (as I worked out later) I had twisted my neck seal a little, and that was where I had a leak, and got a fair bit of water into my dry suit. (Note to self…. Check neck seal before jumping in next time!).

All in all, a very good first day diving of the season.

I’m glad we managed to get out this week, because the weather has blown out at least the last 6 weeks.

(Above) The Artemisia (Below) Willowpool

25th May 2015

First slack tide is 10:00 and although the forecast said it would be slight North Westerly’s, they underestimated the wind strength!

As you can imagine, it was a white knuckle 12 mile ride out to the Willowpool. We were pushing for time anyway, because someone had been fiddling with the radio & chart equipment 2 days earlier…. and we had a flat battery! So, Steve went and swapped the battery with the one from his car, so we could get the engine started.

We didn’t spare the horses for our mission to make the first dive.

As usual, Ian got us there in time (shaken, but not stirred).

No time to hang about, we quickly got kitted up and straight in.

The Willowpool was built by Ropner Shipbuilding & Repairing Co., Stockton in 1925. 4815 Tonnes.

It sank on 10th December 1939, by a mine laid by the U-Boat U-20. All 36 crew were rescued by the Gorleston lifeboat ‘Louise Stephens’.

It is in approx 30 Meters of water, and the visibility was a good 5M+ with a torch. It was well broken up (is had been wire swept). No great artifacts to observe, however, there was a fair bit of sea life on and around the wreck.

Jack dropped his cylinder when entering the water, and although Steve tried to sort him out under water, they had to cut their dive shout, and Jack carried his cylinder under his arm back to Jimmy Rib.

When we got back to Sea Palling, Graham was there waiting with the trailer for Jimmy Rib! But we were going out (braving it) for the second dive later.

We set off about 15:15 for the 16:00 slack, and this time, we went for a short haul. The Artemisia, 6507 Tonnes, a steamship built in 1920 and sank on 14/3/1941 by bombing from an air raid.

By this time, the wind had died down a fair bit, and the outbound trip was much easier.

The Artemisia was in about 25M and visibility was about 3M+.

This wreck was well ripped apart and had long since been collapsed.

Again, this wreck has lots of fish and shell fish in and around the wreck.