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My Craziest Purchase: An Actual Shipwreck!
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Apr 22, 2025
I bought a massive 3,000 tonne SHIPWRECK from Facebook marketplace for £300 ($400) and then dived it! The SS Almond Branch was a turret steamer built in 1896 which was torpedoed off the Cornish Coast in November 1917 by the German Submarine UB-57 with the loss of one life. It now lies inverted and broken open on the seabed in 58 metres of water. Join me on my first dive since owning it - make sure you hang on for the dolphins on decompression stops at the end! *Highlights* 00:00 Introduction 02:00 Getting in! 06:07 Oops - Dropping my reel! 09:05 Attaching my strobes 12:20 Entering the engine room 17:28 What is a turret steamer? 23:04 Emergency helm & gun mount 26:54 Ascent 29:41 Decompression profile, kindle and dolphins! 33:57 Our chariot awaits! *Kit I Use*
View Video Transcript
0:00
it's not widely known but shipwrecks always have an owner in the UK it's
0:05
possible for private individuals to buy and sell them and I've always fancied owning one so when I saw this advert on
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Facebook Marketplace I knew that this was my opportunity built in
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1896 the alond branch was torpedoed on the 26th of November
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1917 by the very successful German submarine UB 57 like most Merchant
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casualties of the two World Wars the insurance claim was processed by the British government who then went on to
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own the wreck in an attempt to recoup their losses they sold it in
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1978 46 years later the owner decided they didn't want it anymore so put it up
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for sale on Facebook £300 later and a few messages I became the proud owner of
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a 3,000 ton shipwreck located in 58 M of water off the Cornish Coast having
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bought it there was only one thing to do and that was to go and dive it here I am
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today I'm going to dive my wreck yeah considering it was January
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conditions were absolutely fantastic This Is Us on board in Deep's dive booat seeker and that's my
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long-term buddy and the guy who produces the wonderful photo photographs Rick eron who's in front of me as we often do
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Liz is our crew she's there keeping us all on the safe and narrow making sure we're all uh we're all good to go this
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bit of the dive is always a bit challenging got to get up with all that gear on those ropes overhead make it
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really easy it also means that even in rough Seas you've got something to hold on to and something that's going to keep
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you upright as we often are Rick and me and the SEC are the second pair in so
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we're taking the lazy shot that's it there in my hand because this dive is relatively shallow for us at 58 m the uh
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lazy shot has been tied up so it doesn't otherwise it' probably hang on the bottom or catch on the bottom of the
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wreck so uh Rick's in there you can see conditions actually looking really good
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and as you'll see in a minute visibility turns out to be fantastic bit of a hiccup for me there you probably saw
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that the bottom of the lazy shot the clip had got kind of lodged in between uh part of the lift but I sorted it out
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with lizz's assistance and there I am in the water great news is not too far away
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from the shot which is vertically hanging down that's always a great sign
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means there's not very much current so Rick's already got down you can see him
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there my job is to get that uh get the lazy shot onto uh onto the shot line so that we can drop it down I'm swimming in
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Rick's waiting for me there which is uh which is absolutely fantastic and he's going to give us a hand with uh with
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getting that on so really nice you know when you know somebody well really well and you work together to try and get
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things done so I've had a quick look at him there seeing there's no bubbles coming off his gear he's going to be having a quick
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look at me as I go down I'll be going in front of him but in the moment we uh
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we're having problems the uh the lazy shot's not playing it's not uh it's not going down the Rope but uh we're both
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pushing it down it'll soon be on its way I'm going to use the weights to uh to pull me down and get me underwater so uh
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there we go it's starting to go 7 m 8 m and we're starting to to to head down
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and as you can see just looking down the the shotline there you can see the visibility is is really nice really good
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you don't always get that in January you certainly don't expect it so uh we've got high hopes for this dive we'd
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actually dive very close to here the day before on a recre called the East field the East field was sunk on the same day
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by the same submarine as as the Almond Branch it's absolutely incredible when you think um well you think that they
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weren't able to uh to notify other shipping in the area but but none of these ships had radios so uh so easy
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prey for submarines you can see I'm I'm heading down there uh it's all it's all
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going well visibility still looking looking really good we'd probably had I don't know 8 to 10 m visibility on the
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East field on on the day before which as I say is only several miles from here and uh so uh it looks as though we're
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going to get exactly the same thing on this dive also you know even though we're at 30 m here I haven't got my
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torch on yet there's still plenty of ambient light there's Rick coming down with me there's uh there's a lazy shot
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and I think we've probably got to the end of um of its length so next job is
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well first of all it's slightly hooked around one of my bailout cylinders next job is to get the pric off there get the
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PRC on the rope and uh and that's what we're going to uh do you can probably see there that my uh my sheer water is
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is telling me that I've got a stack time alarm that's uh a setting to um to
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record how much life there is left in your scrubber uh it shouldn't be showing that I've got plenty of life left in my
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scrubber I just forgot to reset the uh reset the the timer on the on the sheer
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water so so if you're worried about me please don't it's all going to be okay and there we go the PRC Loop is on there
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nice uh nice and tight we're going to take off the uh the shackle and put the shackle on now Rick's got the video
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lights or got lights on his uh on his camera already but there we go all
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sorted with a lazy shot we're both good to go and uh and off we go towards the bottom you can see it's a bit getting a
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bit darker so I've decided to put my torch on you also see that I'm just uh cancelling the uh the alarm on my Shear
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water there just making sure all is well for those of you interested in such things you can see my uh my diluent gas
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there is 1057 it's probably not the greatest uh greatest mix in the world for this depth
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but uh it's really easy to blend 1057 you just uh put in half helium and half
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air and that's what you end up with so I'm on the way down and you probably see there I've just realized I've dropped my
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Kent tooling reel uh with my Kent tooling reel is a um is an SMB and also
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an emergency SMB so there's probably I don't know 150 worth of stuff there so
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uh I've decided I don't want to lose it I know the current's really slight so I've just dropped off the shot and I'm
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heading straight down following my uh my reel but uh bit of stupidity by me there
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clearly I didn't clip it on well enough on my gear before I uh before I got in the water so uh quite amazing really
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that it actually stayed on long you know this this amount of time also quite amazing that I managed to spot it so I'm
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getting close to the Bottom now uh you can see there the wreck is starting to come into view so it's great it's great
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that I'm not not on the seabed so uh that will mean I should be able to find the shot without too many problems also
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um you know it means I haven't wasted to dive through stupidity so uh but what I
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can't see is is my reel so uh so where's my reel gone um and I'm having a good
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look around I mean I can't be far from it because I'm pretty certain that I dropped dropped straight down but there it is bingo so you know I probably came
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down with what within maybe a meter meter or so of it so I'm going to I'm going to pick it up and clip it back on
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uh I don't want that to happen now for those of you uh who are interested in such things these these reals are
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absolutely brilliant uh Kent to small British company located in Kent as you would probably imagine they make all
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sorts of interesting stainless steel stuff and they're uh their reels loads of the guys I dive with have these reels
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just cuz they're they're so nice to use underwater um they weigh quite a bit but the great thing about them is they work
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really well even when you've got completely frozen fingers so um you know
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it's not like a spool or something where maybe if you lost dexterity in your fingers it would be it would be difficult to use so that's why I'm I'm a
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big fan and I actually carry two I've got that that one there that you saw which is my primary one which has got my
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dsnb and my emergency dsnb on I also have another one that is configured for use as a distance line should I need it
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and uh and I carry in my pocket I carry a spare um orange dsnb and another spare
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yellow dsnb so if I uh I've got plenty of options for signaling if I ever need to so um if I ever dropped my reel for
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instance I'd be okay now the great thing is also um as you can see there I've uh
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you can see the strobe up in the top you can see there Rick Rick hasn't actually noticed that that I drop straight down
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um from the uh from The Shot line which is great but what I haven't done is put my strobes on so I'm now heading up onto
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the uh to the shotline I'm going to put my strobes on there so that they're there when I uh when I when I get back I
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guess the other thing to start noticing is is bits of the wreck and you can probably see down there there is the uh
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the drive shaft now the alond branch is really interesting it's uh it's
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interesting for loads of reasons but one of the reasons it's interesting is that it's actually upside down so normally
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upside down wrecks are really rubbish to dive because all you do is see loads and loads of Hull the interesting thing
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about the Armond branch is that the hull is broken open so you're actually able to look down on the wreck from the
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inside now because of the cargo the Armond Branch was carrying um it was
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actually quite substantial cargo which is why the the the prop shaft is lying
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on top of the the cargo so uh the cargo is is kind of a bit odd it's it's some
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sort of uh I guess cylindrical shaped stuff you quite often see these on Rex
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and and what it is is stuff that would have been put in barrels so maybe pitch or tar or China clay or something like
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that I mean I don't know exactly what it is but it's in the barrel the barrel has rotted away long since but the stuff
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inside the barrel hardened and that's why the the drive shaft is lying on top of it and you can see here the drive
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shaft you'll see it in a second off to my right hand side the drive shaft is actually suspended above the bottom on
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this cargo it's held together as you can see in in different chunks with uh with big nuts now normally those were were
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steel so so often on Rex they do rot away the the nuts and bolts but on the Armond Branch they appear to have uh
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they appear to have survived so you can see there drive shaft is suspended several you know probably a meter or two
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above the bottom uh while the the hull is broken away and is and is off either side of it so really unusual to see this
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actually often drive shafts are buried under cargo or they're buried under the seabed very very rare in fact I can't
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think of another wreck I've dived where the drive shaft is is suspended in in midwater like it is here but but what
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I'm doing is I'm I'm following the drive shaft along now I have actually dived the Arman Branch once before probably
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about 5 years ago maybe it was uh it was before I owned it and my recollection at that time was that it wasn't a
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particularly interesting wreck but that's not my experience at the moment I'm actually really enjoying this dive
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it may be because I've own I I now own it but but also it's it's you know really interesting you've got this suspended drive shaft you've got all the
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cargo and what we've come to here is the uh the end of the the engine room so you can see us there we're starting to to
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look into the uh the engine room and you can see there's various pistons and conrods and uh all sorts of bits and
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pieces in there some of the uh the uh the decking that would have allowed the engineers to uh to get around it and to
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have a look at the engine obviously engines like these needed loads of Maintenance um you know regular
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maintenance while they were in use but also periodic maintenance when they were stopped so the ability to access the uh
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the engine is really really useful because the engine is also really solid
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and the boilers are right next to it it also means that this is the highest point of the wreck above the seabed so
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the uh the deck and the plate is being held up by the by the boilers and by the
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engine what this does is creates a bit of an opportunity here and you can see there that's me just having a bit of a a
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look inside and uh trying to figure out uh you know whether it's possible for me to go in here and just have a bit of a
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look around um I I've clearly decided that first Gap isn't isn't okay so I'm
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having a bit of a look at this one here and uh and this one is looking a bit more promising uh that looks like a bit
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of a boiler maybe on the uh the left hand side and the engine I think probably on the right hand side so I'm
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just going to maneuver myself and see if I can uh drop in here and just uh have have another good look round um clearly
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uh going inside Rex is not for the faint-hearted um so but a but a great
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tip I think is if you're going to go in something like this try and go in feet first uh if you go in feet first that
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makes it a lot easier for you to get out if you go in head first then uh clearly you've got to either try and come out
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backwards or rotate uh around some some somehow and clearly there's nowhere near
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enough space to do that in here obviously the downside of going in backwards like this is that whatever
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goes in first is going to kick up the uh the visibility and there's loads of silt and stuff here there's actually uh a
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river the river Foy that come relatively large river comes out into the sea not a
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million miles away from here so I think a lot of this stuff would have would have come down the river and therefore
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accumulated on the wreck so so I've gone in backwards um there's no an awful lot of room you probably saw a few uh bits
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of my gear got caught on stuff but it does mean I can have another look around in here and just see if there's anything
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interesting clearly what I what I'd really like to find in here is an engine maker plate um if you've seen some of my
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other videos you see I had a really good year uh last year and I and I recovered well I ended up recovering three
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although there's only videos of two uh clearly I'd love to add another one to that list especially if it's the uh if
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it's the armor Branch obviously the ship they they own unfortunately no joy but uh but I'm
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taking my time and having a good look around in there uh unfortunately not really seeing anything so I'm going to
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uh going to come come back out pull myself out and uh and then get on uh
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with the rest of the dive now I've been to the bow before on this wreck and if you had a look at the multi-beam image
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at the beginning of the dive you probably saw that the bow is quite flat so the most interesting bit of this wreck is is the stern in my in my view
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so I'm going to uh I'm going to make my way back to the stern last time we were there we saw a gun mount so I'm going to
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be having another look for the gun mount and maybe the gun uh and also obviously got that prop shaft up in in the
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midwater so that's where I'm I'm going to be heading uh in a little bit it's
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also worth mentioning a bit about um oh there's the boiler you can see it in front of me big obviously cylindrical
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shape classic Scotch boiler in fact the uh the armor branch has got two there's
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there's the other one they've kind of ended up a bit uh on top of each other two large Scotch boilers and then uh
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there's also going to be a condenser somewhere and I'm going to see that in a moment the other interesting thing with
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the alond branch is it was a quite an unusual category of ship it was uh it was known as a turret deck ship or a
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turret deck steamer and these were were designed to um give them reduced toll
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faires going through the sews canal and presumably other other canals oh and just see there I've got a bit of fishing
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line caught on me given where this wreck is relatively close into the to the shore and and near a few uh a few
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fishing ports it's not really surprised that it's it's heavily fished anyway uh I've got got that with got rid of that
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without too many problems and I'm off on the rest of the dive and uh oh yeah that looks as though it may be either a
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condenser or a um maybe a donkey boiler donkey boilers were kind of smaller
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boilers that they used uh to they didn't use as much coal they didn't require as much effort to keep
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them stoked so they they would ships with those would use them in Port to keep uh facilities running without the
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hassle of having the uh the entire um you know the main boilers fired up so
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the the that one there you can see it's kind of like a cylinder with a dome on it so that would have the top of the
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Dome would have been upright uh and it's clearly it's collapsed um when the when the ship uh fell over so you might say
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actually looking at this that the ship is more on its uh starboard side um than
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completely upright but um anyway so so I'm I'm I'm wandering off now this is
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kind of I guess the area in and around the engine so there would have been accommodation there there would have
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been you know maybe Bridge gear that's some sort of brass thing I've Just Seen there that's kind of bolted onto uh a
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piece of plate so there is stuff around here you can see actually loads of pink sea fans these are the kind of very
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colorful sort of uh I think they're kind of a form of cold water Coral or or some
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sort of cold cold water marine life there also quite a few fish around and everything so uh you know it's quite
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nice to see those things growing on the wreck so yeah going back to the Armond Branch being a turret deck steamer these
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were a really odd design where the where the bottom of the wreck or the bottom of the ship is almost is wider than the top
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and you can see here in this cross-section um a diagram of how it would look so the bottom of the ship
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obviously uh quite flat and then uh you know quite bulbous and then it comes in
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as you get closer to the shop top of the ship and here's another picture of one being built and you can see the ribs of
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the ship there once again with that really pronounced wide at the bottom and then coming in closer to the top going
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back to one of the pictures of the alond branch I showed you earlier on once he kind of you realize it's there it's
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quite easy to see so you can see the guys on are actually some guys just stood on that kind of the top of that
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bulge um so yeah it's a really interesting design and and one that was was all about reducing tariffs there was
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quite a few of them built I mean I don't think it was a super popular design but certainly there was there was a whole
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array of I guess relatively cheaply produced ships that conformed to this
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design and and that were used all over the world I mean I've during my time researching the alma Branch it it
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clearly got round a bit there's uh pictures of it in Australia there's picture of it in VAV devostock there's a
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really interesting series of pictures from Oregon where it would appear that it it somehow managed to get caught
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against the bridge and also um captured or sort of a ferry was involved in that
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somehow unfortunately I've not managed to find details of the story but um I'm sure there's uh it would be really
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fascinating if someone could for anyone who's interested uh in doing some research that's the Morrison bridge in
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uh Portland Oregon so I think it's 1902 so anybody with access to a newspaper
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archive uh it would be really fantasting to uh to find or to hear what you can find out I'm sure there's a there's a
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fabulous story um and that was uh obviously not that long after it was built and uh and certainly quite a long
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time before it was sunk so clearly the the Armond Branch had an eventful history at me I'm I'm clearly rooting
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around on the wreck and uh that's quite interesting there pulled out a bit of a mug uh not certain if it's original or not
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looks um as though it could be there's no uh there's no markings on it that I can see it does look like a uh a
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Mariners mug so may have been may have been original may have been something that somebody else has chucked overboard
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and that's just ended up on the wreck uh don't know in fact I'll be honest I don't know why I didn't bring that up
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but um but I didn't so anybody wants to dive the Almond Branch go down have a look and find the mug and bring it back
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uh I'd be really interested to uh to to sort of hear what you found on there so
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this is me just uh swimming around the uh I guess off to the side so this would
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be the uh the starboard side of the wreck it's broken it's broken down onto the seabed quite flat here and you can
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see there's loads of just bits of um bits of ribs bits of uh you know ship
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super structure really so it's there on the seabed and and actually the whole area around the um around the wreck is
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like this it it's really quite flattened down what you can see there though if if you look down you can see that curve in
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the uh curve in the hull you can see it there and um that's really uh distinctive for a uh for a turret ship
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now I don't think there's anything uh for certain that's ever identified the armor Branch so nobody's brought up the
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Bell or the the maker plate or anything like that the way it was identified was because it's the only turret ship that
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is lost in this area and it's about the right side size it's about the right length it's got the right number of boilers so a combination of all those
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factors is why this is believed to be the the armor branch of course that
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something could come up from it to to prove that wrong does occasionally happen but um you it would have to be a
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very very lost turret ship I think for that to happen in this case so here I am
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swimming around again uh you can see I'm starting to get into the cargo area so it's starting to see whatever that stuff
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was that was in barrels is is just off to my left hand side you also probably saw the strobe this looks like a mast uh
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underneath me uh quite eaten away but but clearly there would have been a um
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this would have been for loading and unloading the ship really important in this time that the ship had the Mast the
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ship had the lifting gear very different to to Modern ports where ships don't have anything for lifting uh cargo it's
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all um provided by the port um so yeah
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different different times so here am swimming around on uh on the stern again and uh quite a lot of
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fish around on this wreck quite a lot of people comment on this on on my other videos actually and all the wrecks in uh
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in the English Channel are alive with marine life um all sorts of uh different
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uh fish they they breed here clearly there's uh lots of places for them to shelter there's loads of food for them
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and and that's why uh one of the reasons wrecks are so important I think to the to the local ecology they're also safe
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here from trolling um and to a certain extent from fishing because a fisherman doesn't want to get too close because if
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they get too close with their Nets they're going to get trapped in the uh in the wreck and clearly uh they don't
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want that to happen so another diver up in front of me there uh that's uh that's will he's um he's clearly he's got
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something in a bag and uh I see it later on and it's a really really big um
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edible Brown crab so um he's going to take that home and have that for dinner
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and uh and mighty tasty it will be as well so uh I'm quite close to the stern here and uh you can see there I can see
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that's that's the boss of a uh of some sort of Helm so um you know you got to
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ask what's the what's the boss of a Helm doing in the stern well uh almost certainly that is the emergency steering
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position a ship like this would have had the main Helm or or possibly Helms up in
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the bridge which would have been located above the uh probably above the boilers or just four of the boilers in in this
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uh for for the uh the alond branch oh there that's the gun mounts you probably see it very sort of distinctive conical
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shape the armor Branch had a 4in gun uh no idea where the the actual gun is but
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um uh it's got to be around here somewhere or or possibly will have been recovered so the Armond branch has been
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known about and dived for a very long time 58 M they would have done this quite happily on air back in the day uh
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and clearly it was bought in the 7 by uh by the guy I bought it from so it
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may well be that they uh they salvaged the gun clearly very high quality Steel in in a gun so they would have been able
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to sell it so so I've gone back around here and there's that that boss again um
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trying to figure out you know if there's anything else it's attached to but it's all a bit of a mess here everything's on
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the seabed but you know that is uh really interesting thing I mean potentially of course that's got the name of the wreck on it it does might
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have the name of the Arman branch um so you know there may be some sense in bringing it up to identify it
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unfortunately you can see it's also attached to a whole load of other stuff so so getting it up is is always going
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to be a bit challenging so um you know I've been underwater quite a while now
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the uh you can see there the the water temperature according to my parall lens uh in the bottom right hand corner is is
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10 1 12° actually it feels pretty chilly oh there there's something interesting I
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guess that's um some wheels don't know what off the uh we
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haven't got any details really on what the um what cargo the armor Branch was carrying so according to the records all
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it says is 1,000 tons of General cargo it was on its way from London to South America presumably uh was hugging the
25:15
the coast or maybe had popped in to refuel or drop mail or something like that um in in Cornwall um and and
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therefore was heading basically West when the UB 57 saw it and uh put a
25:27
torpedo into to it there's will with his crab again he's obviously found something interesting to look at down
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there don't know what it is um I'm I'm going to head up to the right on the seabed uh up up to the top of the wreck
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cuz I'm kind of feeling that it's uh it's getting close to the end of uh end of my dive uh Wills obviously having a
25:47
lot of fun there maybe you see another Lobster or another crab or something one of the uh one of the great things is
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we've got a fairly detailed account of the sinking so uh for those who who've never read it there's a book called
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worldwi war on channel Rex bit of a specialist subject I have to say uh written by a guy called Neil Moore who
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went into the archives in London had a good look around and um uh you put it all together oh Wills kicked me in the
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head there which is uh which is very good of him but yeah the uh according to the information he's got the uh the ship
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was uh was torpedoed in the on the starboard side they saw it they saw it coming before it hit um it was early in
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the morning 8 05 a.m. so um they got hit it blew all the hatches and stuff off
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the number four hold and to be honest that's probably the the area that we're in at the moment the number one uh the
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number four hold they managed to uh to get the engines full of stern get the engine stopped um they wanted to do that
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before they lowered the boats as um as lowering boats when the the ship was
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stolen under way could cause loads of problems so they got the uh got the vessel stopped um and they got everybody
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uh off in an orderly fashion the whole crew were there apart from one one person who
27:04
they think was maybe killed in the initial explosion so everyone got got off and uh got into the boats and then
27:11
they uh they obviously sailed away while the um and watch the ship sunk shortly
27:17
after it it sunk the uh the submarine surfaced and the um pointed some guns at
27:23
the uh the the master of the ship and demanded details of of who they were where they were coming from name of the
27:29
wreck and all those kind of things the master um a guy called Captain Donald uh
27:34
wasn't particularly Keen to the give the information but he didn't feel that it would have been wise not to do so given
27:40
the fact they were pointing some guns at him and the ship finally sunk about 45 minutes after it would after it been
27:47
torpedoed and the uh the crew were picked up by a another ship and then
27:53
taken into uh Goran Haven which is a local fishing fishing vessel
27:58
on the dive you can see I've uh I've recovered my strobes I've told Rick that I'm heading up uh he was clearly a bit
28:05
Keener to spend longer down than I am and you can just see me there I'm changing my set point from uh 1.3 to 1.5
28:13
bar on on both my rebreather and my uh my offboard handset and that's just to
28:18
uh to accelerate the decompression I'm I'm clearly uh you know coming up here you can see i' I've got to about 33 M so
28:26
very shortly I'm going to arrive at where the where I left my tag and the lazy shot so I'll be taking those off
28:32
and then uh and then heading up for The Deco the thing that's flashing is my strobes I've clipped them on but I've
28:38
not not turned them off yet I I've just uh I'm just in the Pro of doing that uh
28:43
and there is the uh there's the lazy shot with my uh with my my tag on in fact you can probably see there's only
28:49
only a few tags there'll be mine there'll be wills and then I think there will uh there'll be Ricks so Rick almost
28:56
certainly is going to be the last man up the line and he'll be the person releasing the shot so I'm going to uh
29:02
I've taken my tag off there you can see the uh the other two tags wills and uh
29:08
Ricks uh different different qualities there uh Rick is uh Rick is beautiful
29:13
and uh and lovely and uh and whs is made with a couple of pieces of string and
29:19
some sticky back plastic doesn't matter all do the same job all work well and that's me uh that's me carrying on uh my
29:26
asent I'm going to think of going have a look back down the line see uh See will there he is coming in for his so it'll
29:34
just be Rick then Rick's last man on the wreck and he'll be the last person on up the line for those who are interested in
29:41
such things here's my dive profile it's not the longest it's not the deepest but hey it's January and it's my wreck uh an
29:49
hour or so hour and 10 hour and 15 underwater 58 M uh still you it's a
29:55
pretty decent dive uh fast forward a few minutes I've got rid of all the Deco and
30:00
just moving up to my 6 M stops you can see there Wheels in front of me he's got his bag with his big crab in and there's
30:07
my Kindle uh hanging on the end of The Deco trapeze will very helpfully is
30:13
starting to take it off for me and um he's going to hand it over to me I'm going to uh going to clip it on which is
30:18
great because um uh you know I'm quite looking forward to a bit of a read of my book uh I've got my heated vest on so
30:26
not too cold uh visibility is nice this is nice chilled relaxed phase of the dive so it's good opportunity to uh
30:33
catch up on a bit of reading which obviously helps no end accelerate The Deco so what I normally do at this point
30:40
is I clip the uh I clip the the Camas bag in which the Kindle is onto my uh
30:46
onto myself and then what I can do is I can open up the bag and bring out the Kindle I've got another double ender
30:52
there which I'm going to use to secure the Kindle to to to a clip on my wrist so that's this is a a fairly well uh
31:00
established process it does work well you can see there's a bit of swell on the surface which is uh which always
31:05
kind of annoying you see the the decompression trapeze going up up and down there and the risk is always that
31:11
uh your boance is good you stay still and you know what you don't want is the The Deco trapes to smash you in the face
31:18
just looking down there you can see Rick he's he's probably at 12 M there I guess he stayed on the wreck a bit longer than
31:24
I did uh and so he's paying the penalty with a bit more deco but there's my uh there's my double ender that's going to
31:30
go on my wrist and I'm I'm just getting ready to uh to settle in to watch my
31:36
book or to watch my book uh to read my book there we go it's all good just checking how much how many stops I've
31:42
got left going to pull the book down all is always is very pleasant and then all
31:47
of a sudden that happens and it's like wow uh a dolphin I mean you just don't
31:53
expect to see dolphins uh Will's completely not noticed it he's telling me something about the waves and uh and
32:00
there we go a dolphin mother and Cal and that one there I mean I swore I felt it was going to hit me I almost had to dive
32:07
out of the way but there they go will spotted him which is great and uh they head off there um and you you just go
32:14
wow uh that has uh that's made a great day out even better uh will obviously
32:20
agrees with me there he's giving me a double okay fast forward another minute or two and uh we're obviously all
32:26
looking out clearly uh hope that they'll come back and bump there they are again at the same pair poor old Rick down the
32:32
bottom there he hasn't actually seen them but here they come again uh just absolutely incredible how close these
32:38
dolphins are to us um and uh you know just an absolute privilege to see you
32:45
know large marine mammals in their native environment you know interacting with us and uh yeah just incredible just
32:53
just made the dive um and uh unfortunately uh we spend a lot of time
32:59
looking out for them but uh they don't they don't come back or if they do we don't see them uh fast forward again and
33:06
this is near the end of my dive you can see uh will and and Rick are still down there I've obviously come up shallower
33:12
I've I've cleared my decompression I'm looking uh forward to getting out the water it's it's not that cold but um I
33:19
do even with dry gloves I do feel it on my hands so there we go there's the two boys supporting the the trapeze and
33:26
there is our there's our our dive booat Seeker um always great to uh to see that
33:31
when you come up and clearly they're they're very intentive I've given them an okay signal and they're going to uh
33:38
they're going to come over and they're going to pick me up at this point I want to give a shout out to the guys who
33:43
operate this boat it's in deep they're uh there a few young Lads in uh in the
33:49
Plymouth area they operate three boats and they've just got a fourth this one here Seeker with which fantastic isn't
33:56
it the uh the teeth on the front of it the big the big sharks teeth it's actually a really famous dive boat it's
34:01
been used um for 20 or 30 years for taking divers out and some of the the
34:07
you know the biggest Dives in the UK have been done off this or certainly the English Channel have been done off this
34:12
boat not necessarily with the current people who operate it but it's it has got a great history and uh the current
34:18
team are absolutely brilliant um done loads of diving with them uh hopefully I'm going to do a load more and there
34:24
you go they've dropped the lift in the water uh I'm going to get myself on on the lift and then uh after however long
34:30
it is gravity is suddenly going to return with a Vengeance I got all my kit on and it's going to make its presence
34:36
absolutely felt so there we go going to bring me up on the lift there lizz's lizz's videoing so um she's videoing me
34:44
I'm videoing her to kind of keep a record of what happened and up we come there's Ben he's our skipper for today
34:51
just wants to make sure I'm okay and obviously they're all they're all buzzing so you've seen the Dolphins on the surface as well so it's always
34:58
really nice to uh it's really nice for them to kind of uh to have happy punters
35:04
I guess and uh that's certainly me today and so here's the action from a slightly different perspective that's me uh in
35:11
the water there and uh getting get myself on the left with all my bits and pieces kind of attached on me you can
35:18
see my uh you can see my two parall lenses there I'm just giving Liz the okay signal to tell me that uh she can
35:24
bring me up uh and uh and here and here I come
35:33
so that's the end of uh a brilliant day's diving I've dived uh the wreck that I own for the first time we've had
35:39
dolphins on The Deco stops we've had stunning visibility had great surfice conditions it's January so uh life is
35:48
good I hope you've enjoyed this video as always uh please feel free to tell me
35:54
what was good what was bad and uh I'll look forward to seeing you for the the next one thanks a lot
#Diving & Underwater Activities