Well it was looking like a really good start to some serious off shore diving, even the weatherman was telling us a week before that the sunshine was guaranteed for the week ahead. True to his word, as we turned up on the shoreline, the sun was shining and the sea was completely flat and calm!

With a very leisurely start of ropes off at 11:00, we slowly made our way out to the dive site of HMS Landrail (a wreck that I had dived a few years previously and even put a comment in my log book “great little wreck and one to return too” which is unusual for me, I must of been impressed to rate it that highly at the time) it sank after being involved in a collision during the first world war.

Once the skipper had shotted the wreck, it was time for us to descend, five metres, ten metres, fifteen metres, twenty metres, twenty five metres, this is where it began to get dark and we all fired up our torches, thirty metres.... we were on the wreck! Now this was not how I remember this wonderful little wreck, not that the super structure had changed over a period of time but as one of my buddies said “I’ve been on lighter night dives” yes it was that dark and even after a few minutes of letting our eyes adjust to the light levels, we decided to bin the dive immediately and head back up to the surface.

So for the next dive we decided to head a little bit closer to the shore and dive the old “Baygitano” wreck. With a good shoal of Bibb fish surrounding the wreck and the conditions being a lot lighter, this turned out to be a good little wreck to potter around on.

Once everybody was on board, I thought it was a nice way to end the day (after the first disappointing dive) until smoke started to come out of the back of the boat with alarms in the captain’s cabin signalling that the engine was over heating! Straight away the skipper was on the radio “Portland coastguard, Portland coastguard, Portland coastguard this is.....”

With a good friend of the skipper only a couple of miles away, we were soon being towed back in to the safety of the harbour and all the emergency services could come off amber alert. It was good to see the skipper and emergency services react in such a calm and professional way, very reassuring to see it all in action, working so smoothly together. I just felt sorry for the skipper, as he had just spent thousands of pounds on a complete overhaul of his boat and engine to avoid such incidents, no doubt he would be talking to his marine engineer.