I booked Wrighty for the third year in a row to do some diving out of Plymouth in the sub-45m region. I'd only managed to get an air fill as I'd turned up at the dive shop 15 mins before they closed, but I had carefully charged my torch only to leave it in the spare bedroom. Ooops. Still the drive down there was surprisingly quick and I had time for a couple of pints in the Boringdon Arms before closing time.
England was in the middle of a heatwave as I drove down to Plymouth on the Friday. I'd left early, so traffic was fairly light and I was at Deep Blue by 2.30pm where I dropped off my tanks for a fill. Our accommodation was the New Inn in Turnchapel, which is only about a 15 minute walk away.
We decided to dive the Australbush on the Saturday. This was an armed 4398 ton merchant steamship, which was en-route from Le Havre to Barry when it was torpedoed in November 1917. Some websites claim it was British, but it seems to have been Australian.
I decided to try and organise a UKRS trip a bit later in the year than usual. Plymouth seemed like a good idea as we hadn't done a trip there in ages. I booked the hardboat Storm. It launches from the Mount Batten centre, which has plenty of free parking and you can now get nitrox and trimix fills there from Deep Blue. We stayed in the New Inn in Turnchapel, which was only 5 minutes away from the Mount Batten centre, and had plenty of car parking. They also did reasonable food.
