I wrote in a previous post about members of my local dive club participating in an introductory course in marine archaeolgy on 28th April.

That article covered the first 2 parts of the course, whereas this article covers the final part of the course where we all got wet in a local swimming pool to try and translate the stuff we’d learnt in the classroom and on the outdoor, ‘dry’ exercise into practise.

The photo shows an underwater frame, which is one technique of surveying all or part of a dive site. The other technique we used…
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This is the third post relating to a dive I did in North Marina a few weeks ago and this time I’m going to show you one of the harbour’s most common marine species, although it’s also the one with the funniest name…

Here’s a photo of a couple of them:

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In previous posts I’ve written about the wreck that has been recently discovered in Norman’s Bay and the plans of the licensee of the wreck to work with my local scuba diving club to research it further.

As part of these plans, five dive club members attended an Introductory course delivered by the Nautical Archaeological Society (NAS) on 28th April, at the NAS headquarters in Portsmouth.

The course was split into three parts:
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Following on from a previous post here’s your chance to go underwater and see what’s it’s like in North Harbour.

The photo below shows one of around 30 starfish that I swam over during my dive:

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Eastbourne’s leading PADI scuba diving club, Planet Divers, were celebrating yesterday at the Annual Achievers Awards, run by the Eastbourne Herald newspaper.

The club’s efforts over the past four years were rewarded by winning the newly created ‘Environment’ award for helping to clear up one of their dive sites, in and around North Harbour of Sovereign Marina.

Read on for more photos of the event, and also last year’s clean-up…
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I went on my first dive of 2007 in the Marina yesterday, and I’d like to share some of my photos with you.

Thought I’d start with something you can see without having to get wet :-)

This time of the year, all areas of Sovereign Harbour are awash with jellyfish like the ones in the picture below:

Read on to hear what it’s like to dive with them…
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If you thought that Eastbourne’s Sovereign Harbour was just a cold, dark, wet place with not much at all going on below the surface then think again.

Did you know that it contains, amongst other things, some seahorses…
…

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Meeting a group of new people is always a slightly nervous occasion and Wed 21st Feb was no exception for me.

It is said that “you only get out of something what you are prepared to put in”, so I put on some warm clothes and gritted my teeth, as I braved the cold train journey from Eastbourne to the big city lights of London, and specifically the Holland Club within the campus of Imperial College, near to the South Kensington tube station on the District and Circle line.

It’s here, on the first Wednesday of every month, that some of the World’s best underwater photographers meet to share ideas, anecdotes, and socialise in a well-suited subterranean meeting room…
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Whilst this was the catchphrase from a woman’s deoderant advert from the early 1980s, it has a much greater local relevance, and relates to an ongoing maritime saga that’s happening just off our immediate coastline in Pevensey Bay.

The ‘She’ in question is the HMS Resolution (known to have foundered in Pevensey Bay during the Great Storm of 1703), or could it be a Dutch Warship (lost during the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690)…

The mystery deepens…
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Friday 9th Feb was a busy night for members of the Planet Divers scuba diving club as they were treated to not one, but two guest speakers.

Paul Stratford, club member and licensee of the recently discovered wreck in Normans Bay(believed to be the British warship Resolution built in 1665) invited Ian Barefoot from the Nautical Archaeological Society (NAS) to discuss the role that this voluntary organistion has in educating, recording and interpreting British Maritime History. Read more »