France Aimee + Luis

Trojan - 17th April 2005

Well the weather forecast said it was going to be rough and all the viz reports said it was dark and silty. So naturally the weather was fine and the viz great. But .............we had planned to do the Polo and thought a nice easy workup day for some kit play might be a good idea. So instead, with a nice neap and hardly any water movement, it's a couple of shallow ones.

First up is the France Aimee. This small collier vessel is a great little wreck, plenty to see and a mound of lobster pots trapped on the wreckage attract large shoals of fish. The wreck is broken into 2 main parts and lies in a scour with a max depth of 16m.

Karl and Russ with a less than impressive DSMB. Many comments about floppy ones, but they did have a good excuse. Had sprung a leak and was all tied up. Water and sky looks good though, was nice weather.

Ok it was a nice bimble, water colder than we thought, so a few more vests go on and after a nice long lunchbreak it's onto the Luis. A WWII British Steamship, the Luis is one of the favourite dives in the area. The main reason is that an eddy at the end of Sandown Bay result in a very reasonable current, even off the ebb, so it is a great second dive. Just off the wreck, there is the opportunity to find large numbers of fossils. The Luis was carrying a cargo of shells when it went down and they can still be found in large numbers along with grape shot "musket balls" which litter the whole dive site. Plenty of lobbies and even bigger congers.

Time to get sorted. Next dive the Luis.

Almost there!

At last, ready to rumble!

Phil doing his rummaging bit on the Luis.

Phil, Damien, Dinky, Tel.

One of the larger inhabitants of the Luis and no we didnt eat him.

Phil finding a discarded lump and using that all important lift bag. Well worth carrying one, you just never know.

Yep, it's gone all cloudy, a swell is building up and it looks like that bad weather is arriving. Time to go home.

Not a bad trip, with some really good viz . When we were doing our safety we could see the bottom 10m below us, so plenty to see. Our favorite large conger was missing from the left firebox of the Luis boilers, but had lots of fun looking at all the rest.

Who went: Dinky, Damien, Tel, Russ, Karl, Phil, Ann, Martin, Gareth, 3 of our friends from Netley SAA & of course Pete.