Porthkerris - July 2010

Here are a few notes about July’s trip to Porthkerris. This was the first summer trip using out own boats for a couple years. In 2008 and 2009 we dived later in the year and used their boat – the terrific Celtic Cat.









Porthkerris Bay

We stayed at the Gallen-Treath Guest House again this year which is becoming something of a tradition. Clive and Alicia and friendly and patient hosts and have a such a large and eclectic range of egg cups and salt and pepper pots it will take many more years before we’ve worked our way through them all.



View from Gallen-Treath




The trip started with a very slow start, we were not on the ball at all on our first morning ( Sunday 4th July ). Happily, the tides were in our favour with the only useable slack of the day being at midday.
We picked Vase Rock, a favourite pinnacle dive in the middle of the Manacles and it didn’t disappoint. The good early summer weather meant we found the visibility better than the previous few visits. The anemone, coral and fish life looked particularly healthy in the clear water. It is a great dive and it continues to reveal more little caves and tunnels, all lined with plumose anemones like a divers soft play area!






Vase Rock Resident


In the Five Pilchards, Porthallow


On the Monday we tried to get moving earlier and used a trip to the wreck of the Volnay as the first dive. Being in Porthallow bay The Volnay can be dived at any state of the tide. It also has the advantage of being 3 minutes around the corner from the Porthkerris Bay launch site. Again the visibility was better than usual with quite a lot of fish around. The afternoon dive was a gentle drift in the shelter of Pencra Head with it’s interesting granite block sea bed. In some places it looks as if prepared blocks from the local quarry might have fallen off a coaster they are so regular – or it may just be the true site of Atlantis?













On The Volnay

On Tuesday, the morning slack was still a bit early so we were lazy and did The Volnay again. This was bad, you should only do The Volnay when the weather is bad but we had fun with a sort out the transits game between the two boats. Our old transits for the wreck included a pattern of three telephone/power line poles on the hill behind Porthkerris. Shockingly, in the last few years these have been moved – BT must be asked to write to BSAC whenever they move things on the coast!

In the afternoon, we got our act together and used the slack to visit Raglan Reef out on the Manacles Reef. This is another great scenic dive, with life of all sorts and again superb visibility.


On Raglan Reef


On Wednesday, the day’s diving was planned by Jackie who was taking us to the wreck of the Hera, a steel four masted sailing ship that was wrecked in January 1914. We had done this dive in 2008 from the Porthkerris boat so this was our first attempt to find it on our own. Needless to say Jackie pumped Mike from Porthkerris for as much local knowledge as she could get!
The boats were lightly loaded with four divers each. However, Jonathan’s arithmetic is not what it once was and on his pre-passage call he informed Falmouth Coastguard that there were nine of us; this gaff has since been immortalised by Dave Worthy in the form of a tee-shirt, so if you see one…………
The Hera lies in around 15m between the shore North of Falmouth and a small island known as Gull Rock. The latter can be seen for many miles and makes the initial navigation to the site pretty easy. That morning the sea was slight and the 10 mile, 30 minute voyage was uneventful.
On arriving between Gull Rock and the shore, those of us on Scuba Doo started looking for the transits we had acquired plus the usual discussions around interpreting them. Our attention was then dawn to the outbreak of a yelling and a waving that had broken out on Tigger Too.
Their engine was doing a passable impression of drying pieces of scrap metal in a tumble dryer and it was obvious to even the least mechanically minded that something had gone seriously wrong. It was also obvious that going diving now came a poor second to getting the boat safely back to shore.
After a short period of nautical cursing, it was decided to tow Tigger back to either Falmouth or Porthkerris. The latter was favourite as that was where the trailer was, but Falmouth was closer and it’s always good to have a fallback plan. An attempt was made to tell Falmouth CG our troubles, but they were busy dealing with an emergency so as we were now steadily underway we decided not to pester them.

Tigger Under Tow


I could tell you that we endured mountainous seas and untold privations on the return journey, but apart from the sea being a bit choppy in the middle of Falmouth Bay and everyone’s bladder being severely tested we were fine; apart from it taking two and a half hours that is. In my own experience, it was also the best example of why it’s good to have two boats at sea at the same time.


Wednesday’s shenanigans meant that on Thursday we were down to one boat; poor Scuba who had manfully towed Tigger the 10 miles back from the other side of Falmouth. I went off to break the bad news to Ian and then went off sightseeing and visiting an old college friend.
With Rob in charge and with Jackie navigating, Scuba and crew set off to find Pen Vin, one of our big favourites. This is a tricky site to find; it is a short sheer walled pinnacle with rather awkward transits, but they found it and triumphantly reported the fact that they had a brilliant dive when I returned from my wanderings.


Postcards from Porthkerris!




Oi Keith, leave us some chips!


On Friday morning, our last day of diving, I suggested that as I had missed Pen Win the previous day it might be nice to go back there. Much to my relief everyone immediately agreed. However, another fly alighted in the ointment in the form of Scuba’s GPS/Sounder unit being accidently dropped. We now had one working boat without a working sounder. Undaunted, we set out to find Pen Win entirely via the transits Jackie was sure were burned into her memory. We also had a promise from Mike to run over the area in the Cat to check our position. There followed and absolutely legendary piece of location when Jackie ordered the shot overboard in exactly the right position, without the use of any electronics or visible sacrifice to any deity. Mike pottered over a few minutes later and confirmed the direct hit and in we went. Needless to say it was a great dive.

on Pen Win
















In the afternoon we went North and dived the mouth of the Helford River in the hope of finding some seahorses in the seagrass. Only a 50% hit rate this time – we found the river, no seahorses but take a look at this Wrasse courtship dance!.


The week was finished with a very nice meal in the Paris Hotel in Coverack and a feeling that we might be back next year! Fancy coming with us?