It was a surprisingly sunny morning down at Swanage, after the 2.5 hour drive from Bristol – or in Ollie’s case a 3.5 hour drive…
We started the days activities with an introduction to UK diving for Rocco and Toby, some Sports diver training with Ellie, and some easy fun diving for Chris, Josh, Lois and Ollie. There’s loads to be seen under the Pier! Taking special care not to get entangled in old fishing line (or line being used by fishermen on the pier), you can explore all the old wreckage where loads of velvet swimming crabs, edible crabs, shrimp and prawns hide away.
A huge shoal of beautiful silvery Pollock live under the end of the pier which are pretty cool, as you first see the glimmers of light through the (murky) water, before seeing the whole shoal. On the sea bed, you can find an abundance of snakelock anemones, often with tiny purple transparent shrimp living inside – a hidden gem! Also we saw flounders, small silvery sardine type fish, tompot blennies, and a crab munching away at a dead fish which Josh left under the pontoon!
Alongside some great diving, we narrowly missed a downpour, ate fish and chips, almost left the pier on time (closes at 4 I think), and made some wonderful doggy friends, making the trip a great success.
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