LITTLEHAMPTON TRIP

LITTLEHAMPTON DAY TRIP

Written By SUET
Photo's By Richard Garrett

LITTLEHAMPTON 19TH SEPTEMBER 2009

It was an early start for skippers & crew of Top Knots & MacD. To enable us to meet up with the divers for an 8:30 breakfast at Littlehampton we intended to leave Newhaven Harbour at 7:30. However, the tide was against us as both RIBs were still on the mud at 7am, an omen for the day maybe? I got us a take out coffee from the Captains Table, by the time we were afloat we had to then wait for the ferry that was entering the harbour. At 7:57 we were off.

The 23 mile trip was reasonably comfortable and we were more than ready for our breakfast, although we were a little later than the 8:30 arrangement. Ray kindly phone as we were making our way up the river to ask what we wanted for breakfast, Richard couldn’t make his mind up what he wanted & navigate the river too, multi tasking & making a decision, men! We moored the RIBs, Richard & Alan went off to sort the Marina fees while I trotted off to order breakfast & catch up with the divers. A welcomed pee, a cup of coffee & breakfast on it’s way. As I was tucking into my ‘Early Riser’ still no sign of the skippers so the café kindly kept theirs warm.

By the time we’d all had our fill of cuppas & grub three divers were still missing, Rocky, Kim & Suzy, stuck in traffic, the best plans & all that, another omen? Rocky arrived but still no sign of Kim & Suzy……time was passing & we needed to have the RIBs loaded & ropes off by 11am. Kim & Suzy finally turned up & it was all hands on the get them & their kit together…great team work.

Buddy pairs & RIBs sorted we were off to the Shirala¹, 7miles off shore. Upon arrival Richard expertly shot the wreck first time, however the tide was still running, we were nice & early for high water…..or so we thought? The tide never seemed to slacken & almost right before our eyes the tide turned & no slack…lack of local knowledge!! We all kitted up & jumped in as quickly as possible, it was quite a task to roll into the water & catch the buoy before you flew past it rather fast, there were some misses!

It was hard going dragging yourself down the line, it didn’t ease on the bottom either, Richard G & I passed Margarett, Derek & Ray who were making their back up the line, once on the bottom we dragged ourselves over the wreck hoping to find a lee of the tide but alas we ran out of wreck & the viz wasn’t as good as we’d all hoped, with the long spell of North Easterly winds we’ve had there was great expectations for excellent viz, so we let go of the wreck & flew along the seabed & shortly after sent up out SMB’s.

We surfaced quite some way for the buoy, Alan wasn’t too far away from us & he radioed Richard on Top Knots that we’d surfaced. Thanks guys for hauling me back into Top Knots fully kitted as I needed to go back down the line to send up the shot, with plenty of air but not much energy & an offer from Glenn to accompany me, I was dropped back at the buoy to begin another long hard drag 25m down the line, with several rest stops on the way down & hugging the shot to catch my breath I successfully deployed the lift bag & sent the shot to the surface…..I hoped?

Boy racer Richard got reprimanded for his entry into the harbour by a man in his aluminium bath tub, after a lot of micky taking he redeemed himself by salvaging a child’s sand bucket which had been dropped by a member of the public on the quayside. Hooray & cheers for Top Knots.

All back safe & sound we made our way back to Littlehampton for a tank change & cuppa. The café was very slow with the orders especially for food, skippers said ropes off at 3pm as we needed to get back before low water as the is a sand bar at the mouth of the harbour which prevents entry at low water. With divers arriving with their chip & sarnies in hand we left for the far Mulberry². Having eating most of Glenn’s chips we arrived at the Mulberry along with one hard boat & several other RIBs. I missed out on this dive as lets face it I’d already done two dives! Unfortunately the skippers had to put a limit on this dive due to the falling tide & sand bar. By the time all our divers were back most of the other boats had gone.

Upon our arrival at the harbour entry Richard approached with care, watching the sounder dropping slowly, 1.2, 1.0, 0.9, 0.8, a flashing 0.6, clunk, that’ll be the bottom then? Try a different angel, nope, run around again, local knowledge, you just can’t beat it! Oh well, plan B! With the depth only being ½m we evicted the divers to play commandos up the beach & walk back to the Marina, while we headed back to Newhaven with all the gear. Watching them to make sure they all made it to the beach as it was obvious that the current was running fast, it was dragging at their legs, it was so tempting to call the authorities to say that a bunch of illegals had landed! The sand was soft & the pebbles steep & they still had a mile walk back to their cars. Ian ran the mile to get his truck & they all piled in like an Egyptian taxi back to the Marina! Well done Ian.

We had a mirror flat sea & made it back to Newhaven in under an hour only to find that because of the extremely big spring tides we couldn’t get the RIB’s back on the moorings, it just wasn’t our day with the tide! However, we were able to get onto one of the pontoons & I got the trolley from NSC to start unloading all the gear, 15 sets! The drag back up the pontoon fully loaded was a hard task even for me & Alan, just as we got to NSC with the first of three loads, Ian arrived, our knight in shinning armour again! With his fitness & strength we got all the gear into the centre ready for collection the next day, thanks Ian. By now there was enough water to moor the RIB’s and a well earned pint & an early night, boy was I shattered!

So, although things didn’t exactly go to plan, it was a day full of fun & an awful lot of laughter. Thanks everyone for a great day trip…..next time skippers lets do it on a neap tide?