I had the most amazing dive on this old lady this weekend, and I figured it had to be shared with the rest of you chaps.
Anybody having dived the Kyarra knows this is a wreck characterized by poor visibility, strong currents and cold water. The best I've ever seen her so far has been 3 meters viz, and should you be so unlucky to try and descend or ascend outside of the slack, the dive turns into a fast drift.
Kyarra is lying outside of Swanage, Dorset in 32 meters of water, and is known as the ship of brass.
Me and my buddy set out from Swanage Pier on the charter boat MS Swanage Diver on Saturday at 5.30.
The skipper signalled for us to enter the water, and we had to swim for our lives to catch the shotline and attatch the float. Then, to our surprise, once we came about 10 meters down the shotline, we're starting to see the outline of Kyarra on the bottom. The current was still running quite fast, and we had to pull ourselves down the shot, which came up from the wreck at 45 degrees angle. Soon the current dies down, and we realise we have well over 20 meters of visibility on the wreck. After spending 20 minutes inspecting the wreck, we start our ascent.
As we get further up, we can see the entire wreck in all her glory, and as a result we spend 20 minutes on our ascent, and ending up admiring her from our 6 meter stop before we reluctantly have to call it a day and surface.
You can imagine the frustration of not having a camera to capture this sight, but rest assured the memory of that dive will stay with me for a long time.
For anyone interested, this website has some background on the ship http://www.shipwrecksofscotland.com/ss_kyarra.htm and have you not dived her, but fancy it, speak to Pete at http://www.swanagediver.co.uk/ and he can sort you out.
Anybody having dived the Kyarra knows this is a wreck characterized by poor visibility, strong currents and cold water. The best I've ever seen her so far has been 3 meters viz, and should you be so unlucky to try and descend or ascend outside of the slack, the dive turns into a fast drift.
Kyarra is lying outside of Swanage, Dorset in 32 meters of water, and is known as the ship of brass.
Me and my buddy set out from Swanage Pier on the charter boat MS Swanage Diver on Saturday at 5.30.
The skipper signalled for us to enter the water, and we had to swim for our lives to catch the shotline and attatch the float. Then, to our surprise, once we came about 10 meters down the shotline, we're starting to see the outline of Kyarra on the bottom. The current was still running quite fast, and we had to pull ourselves down the shot, which came up from the wreck at 45 degrees angle. Soon the current dies down, and we realise we have well over 20 meters of visibility on the wreck. After spending 20 minutes inspecting the wreck, we start our ascent.
As we get further up, we can see the entire wreck in all her glory, and as a result we spend 20 minutes on our ascent, and ending up admiring her from our 6 meter stop before we reluctantly have to call it a day and surface.
You can imagine the frustration of not having a camera to capture this sight, but rest assured the memory of that dive will stay with me for a long time.
For anyone interested, this website has some background on the ship http://www.shipwrecksofscotland.com/ss_kyarra.htm and have you not dived her, but fancy it, speak to Pete at http://www.swanagediver.co.uk/ and he can sort you out.
