by Iain Grant.
15th August
What a year it’s been so far, first visit to site this year was not until 19th of April, the first job was try & find the sinker for the site marker buoy.
This came ashore last November time & finished up about three quarters of a mile west along the beach with about 8 metres of chain still attached.
Several dives in mostly poor visibility were expended trying to find it with no luck.
Towards the end Of April, we did set up a part of the excavation frame ready to start excavation work, then the weather went bad.
The next visit to site was the 19th May, two metres down, vis was zero, we experienced a major plankton bloom, the worst I’ve seen in thirty-five years diving on the site.
By the end of the month plankton was starting to die off & I thought the dive team was as well! down to three of us, still searching for the sinker.
By the 22nd of June we suddenly got 5 metres plus of vis, recovered a twenty-five & a half pound sounding lead, another pair of dividers & part of a pewter spoon.
Dan spent an hour & forty minutes swimming up & down with a GoPro collecting four thousand stills which have now given us a new complete site plan.
Oh & guess what? We found the sinker at last, so we buoyed it, pinged it with the GPS, we should not lose it ever again! “Famous last words”.
On the 4th July we towed the site buoy out & attached it to the sinker ready for the visiting divers coming at the weekend.
We then moved to an area of the site not visited for a while due to a large sand bar covering the area.
Wow a major new find, but more of that in the next blog…………………….
The Hazardous Project Blog 