Portland: ‘M2 & Other Submarines’ (4/5 July)

By Stefano Ferron

Day One

Our first day in Portland started early, with breakfast around 7:00a.m. (a nice start!) and a 7:15am departure, heading to the harbour to prepare the boat and our kit.

The first dive was at around 11m, on the wreck of the SS Hartlepool – a 5,500-ton merchant steamship that fell victim to a torpedo from a German E-Boat in July 1940. The dive was mainly a warm-up to help everyone get comfortable with their kit, the boat setup and everything that comes with starting a diving weekend. It was a great way to ease into things.

The visibility was excellent, the sea very calm and there was no current. It was incredibly enjoyable to dive in such relaxed conditions while seeing so much marine life. We spotted lobsters, crabs, several different species of fish, and plenty of starfish. Overall, it was a beautiful dive. [Editor’s note: for the historians among you, you will find a description of the attack, written by the captain, on the Deeper Dorset website.]

Our second dive was on the iconic M2 submarine. The boat journey out to the site took almost an hour and four of us became seasick during the trip. Personally, I felt really unwell, trying to throw up at least four times but never actually managing to. Once I was back on the boat after the dive, I was still feeling pretty rough. Despite that, the dive itself was absolutely incredible!

Diving the M2 was a huge milestone for me. After two years of scuba diving, I’d heard so many people talk about this famous submarine and I finally had the chance to see it with my own eyes. We were also lucky to have excellent visibility, which made the experience even more special. I could stand in front of the hangar, which was completely dark inside, and barely see the edge. Feeling the energy of that place and seeing the size of the M2 are unforgettable memories. 

We also had the opportunity to practise some boat handling, with Harini and I taking turns to drive the boat, including bringing it back into the harbour and docking it. It was exciting and a great learning experience.

Overall, a fantastic – if completely exhausting – day!

Day Two

The second day was another great success and very interesting.

Our first dive took place just outside Portland Harbour, at Balaclava Bay Drop. It involved a bit of a drift, although there wasn’t much current. It was enjoyable exploring the seabed, observing the marine life and finally getting the chance to take some photos and videos underwater [Editor’s note 2: Stefano’s ambition is to become an underwater videographer.]

There wasn’t an enormous amount of marine life, but we saw a few sea hares and spent some time looking for octopuses and other fish. Even so, it was a lovely dive.

Our second dive, scheduled for after midday, turned out to be much more complicated. We had planned to dive the UB-74, which lies a few nautical miles offshore at just under 40m depth.

I had the chance to drive the boat from inside the harbour up to the location, testing my beginner boat handling skills on quite a long trip. Even dropping the divers in the right place in the open water was a challenge, but we did it!

We dropped our shot and, shortly afterwards, Gian Maria and Matt entered the water. A few minutes later, we noticed that they had already deployed their DSMB. We waited the usual three minutes for what we assumed would be their safety stop, but they still didn’t surface.After more than ten minutes, we started becoming concerned, standing by next to the DSMB. Jaka, the cox, realised that, by coincidence, their DSMB had become entangled with our buoy, which was drifting away from the point where we had originally dropped it. The waiting time became too long, so all of us started to look around, searching for them. After quite a while, we finally spotted Gian Maria and Matt on the surface, several hundred metres away from us, in the opposite direction.We managed to recover them safely, along with both the DSMB and our own buoy.

Unfortunately, when we tried to recover the DSMB, the line became tangled around the boat’s propeller, so we had to spend some time removing it before we could retrieve the buoy completely. It was a fairly complicated situation, but thankfully we managed to sort everything out.

Because of the conditions, we decided to abandon the dive on the UB-74 – the current was simply too strong and Gian Maria and Matt had already experienced difficulties returning safely to the surface. So we changed locations and returned to the eastern side of Portland Island for another drift dive at Grove Point, this time with a much stronger current. It was great fun drifting through the underwater landscape, surrounded by huge kelp forests and all the marine life living among them.

I was diving with Brendan and everything went smoothly until we decided to deploy our DSMB. Once again, the line became snagged on a buoy and it took us a little while to free it, but eventually we managed without any major problems.

Overall, it was another fantastic weekend. We had great weather, enjoyed ourselves and came home with another valuable collection of diving experiences. It was yet another memorable trip for me and now I’m already looking forward to the next one!