Scubamoose

Date : 31st May 2008 Time : 27mins

Depth : 14.6m Temp : 14 C

Brighton Marina Yacht Club own a number of permanent marker buoys which are used for sailing racing. Over time the chains that hold the buoys in place and the base of the buoys become covered in mussels and start to sink down under the increased weight. The dive section of the club undertake cleaning the mussels off the buoys and chains to keep them floating high in the water.

So after diving ship rocks we headed to No3 buoy to check on it and scrub it of mussels if necessary and there was always a chance that we would find mussels as fabulous as the load we got last year. They were superb, really juicy and meaty.

So I strapped my twins back on and did my usual triple summersault over the side of the rib. There turned out to be alot of mussels on the chain and I spent more than 20 minutes pulling them off in large clumps and letting them sink to the bottom. There were quite alot of anemonies on the chain too.

When I finished at the bottom I went to check out the pile of mussels that had amassed and see if there were any good ones. Ripping them off the chains stirred up muck in the water so most of the time the visibily was so low that I wasn’t able to get a good look at them. Alas they were a little bit small so I decided not to take any, but whilst down there I did see some baby sole flitting about on the bottom.

The downside was that I was absolutely covered in sea bugs when I came up, it seems that they like to hang out with mussels from time to time. I think David called them Gabis or something, I will have to ask him again. My fellow divers scrubbed me when I reached the surface, and I still had to wash my kit down twice when we got back to get rid of them all. Lovely !