WITH THE
E
yes closed and my head resting against my makeshift pillow, I thought back on the alreadyhectic morning starting with a 5am alarm, and then somehow still managing to be late in leaving resulting in a race from Falmouth to Penzance, in order to get there in time to throw all our dive kit in the container! But finally, I got to sit and relax on the Scillonian III, better known as the ‘great white stomach pump’. But it was all worth it because at the end of the three-hour journey, we would be arriving in the Isles of Scilly for a week’s worth of diving on some of the most-amazing dive sites in England. I had been to the Scillies before. Last year, John Adams and I joined in with a week organised by the NUPG (Northern Underwater Photography Group) and fell in love. So we put together a group of ten made up of Seaways staff, regular customers and close friends and booked our own week with Dave Mcbride. There are only three dive charters operating in the Isles of Scilly and due to weather there is a very short dive season, so we were incredibly lucky to get our own week. We had to book it almost a year in advance, so finally 12 months of waiting
and excitement had past and we were finally on our way. A three-hour nap later, we arrived. I had managed to sleep the entire way, which probably had something to do with the early start - and the fact that I am in no way a morning person – this was definitely going to be a problem for the rest of the week! Our first pit stop was the Mermaid for a spot of lunch and a chance to finally gather our group in one place. The way Dave runs his charter is six days of diving Sunday to Friday, meeting early in the morning, starting the first dive before or around 8.30am and being back on the island after two dives around 2-3pm - just in time for a portion of chips and a pint (or two) in the Atlantic for the mandatory post-dive debrief. So bright and early Sunday morning, there we were, cameras in hand, half asleep and ready for our first day of diving. The first dive of the day was the Lady Charlotte and it was a perfect first dive to kick off the week. Even though the sky was a rather miserable shade of grey, the sun was attempting to shine through, the sea was flat calm and the water a toasty 14 degrees C. The Lady Charlotte is an old cargo steamer formally known as the Aphrodite. She was about 3,593 tons and was built in 1905 by the Tyne Iron Steamboat Company. Sadly, on 11 May 1917, she become lost in dense fog while travelling from Cardiff to France before managing to run aground on St
The Isles of Scilly is renowned for its seal encounters, but as Roisin Maddison discovered, there is much more to this destination than playful marine mammals PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROISIN MADDISON