Soudan at Salcombe

The Soudan is situated just outside the mouth of the Salcombe Estuary and very near Starehole Bay. The day we dived it the sea was very calm and the shot landed on the stern section. We dropped off the shotline about 3-4 metres above the wreck, which you could see lying east to west along the sandy bottom, and started finning east along the decking towards the stern. The first section was broken up and amoungst the holes we saw a conger eel's head poking up before we went over the decking to the north side and saw lots of pIumose anemones, dead man's fingers, various coloured anemones and many Bib fish.

We swam around the stern bumping into Martin Cox (what a shock, especially underwater when you're not expecting to see anyone!) before swimming westwards to find the boilers which were made up of lots of compartments. Simon Yates (who was my buddy) motioned me to look into a very large section which must have been 1 metre across. I peered in expecting to see something pretty but lo and behold there was this vast lobster looking out, his claw span was about 18 inches across. In the torchlight his shell was dark blue and blotchy and his feelers extended out a good two feet. Simon put his hand close to one claw and his fist was dwarfed by it. This was one old man of the sea which we felt was wise to leave in peace! In the other compartments were colourful orange fish peeping out at us, gorgeous coloured anemones and another lobster which we did think about taking before finding we didn't have a goodie bag on us!

Having spent quite a few minutes looking into all the compartments and going back again to the large lobster to make sure he really was THAT big - we met up with a huge cuttle fish, which once again was the biggest I've ever seen. It was purple but transparent and just swam in front of us. As I reached out to touch it so it would jet itself ahead to wait whilst we caught it up. It really didn't seem to want to leave us. Whilst pin pointing the wreck on the Decca we had noticed another lump of something to the west of the Soudan, whether another part of her or a reef we didn't know, so Simon and I finned over a long sandy break westward. I picked up something which looked like a fried egg with the white cooked over the yolk (I later found out that it was called a necklace shell). When we reached the lump it turned out to be a rocky reef with yet another lobster and lots of anemones (Sagartia elegans) on the sandy bottom. All in all it was a marvellous dive, very close to the shore and with lots of firsts.