Kimmeridge Bay, near the Turbeck Hills in Dorset is part of the Jurassic Coast and is a designated Marine Nature Reserve. The bay is wide and shallow with reefs of black shale running out from the shore.
On 24th August I met up early with fellow Ashford Dive Club members Dave Woods and Rick Stewart and we set off to Dorset for three dives: Kimmeridge Bay and out of Swanage, the wreck of The Kyarra followed by a dive under Swanage Pier. After an excellent breakfast at the M3 Winchester Services, marred only by my inability to find eleven items for the Giant Breakfast – I had to make do with the nine item Classic Breakfast instead, we arrived at Kimmeridge Bay. The weather conditions were wonderful and seemed all the better for the knowledge that the weather in our home county of Kent was dreadful. Although I dived close to Rick and Dave, my dive 1485, somehow they seemed to see an awful lot more marine life than I did. They saw two sea hares, a sea scorpion, a dragonet and tompot blennies. I didn’t spot any of these indeed I was just about to pass a sea hare when Dave pulled my fins to show me what I had missed. It was magnificent - I had never seen one before. The sea hare is a sea slug with a reduced shell is hidden by soft tissues. It seemed quite large, I was really surprised. It had large flap-like lobes of tissue on its back and two pairs of tentacles on the head, the upper pair being broad like a hare’s ears. Dave didn’t show me any more marine life after that so I just admired the beautiful vista and we slowly finned our way back to the shore.
A week later my wife Eve began a 30 day spell in Kings College Hospital, London and after visiting her each day, I spent some nights in Dorset rather than Kent so that I could enjoy early morning shore dives in the comparatively better underwater visibility. Three of these dives were in Kimmeridge Bay. The first two, my dives 1492 and 1493 were solo dives and fortunately I was more observant than on dive 1485. I photographed a tompot blenny which seemed shy if not apprehensive in comparison to the bold tompot blennies which I have frequently seen on my local dive sites, Dover Harbour West Wall and Sandgate Reef. At the furthest point of this dive I came across the highlight of the dive, a pair of sea hares.
With visibility of up to 15 metres on my next dive, my dive 1493, this was the best visibility I have enjoyed on a UK shore dive. I have never seen a John Dory before but I think I may have caught a glimpse of one on this dive. I had been scouring the sea bed for sea hares when something moved at the periphery of my vision. Looking up I saw what appeared to be the back of a John Dory disappearing rapidly into the distance. After 96 minutes without finding any sea hares I had to admit defeat and began to make my way slowly back to shore. Almost immediately I found three sea hares in a chain! Sea hares can sometimes form a mating chain where each behaves as a male to the one below and as a female to the one above.
My regular UK dive buddies Graeme “Spotty” Hastings and Dee Smith left their home in Dymchurch, Kent at 4.00 a.m. to join me for my final 2007 dive at Kimmeridge Bay, my dive 1494. As they kitted up one of Dee’s cuff seals and Spotty’s right dry suit glove both split. Fortunately Spotty had brought spare dry suit seals and wet suit gloves otherwise they would have had a long early morning drive for nothing. Kimmeridge Bay is so large that almost inevitably we dived in an area that I had not dived in on my previous three dives at the site. Having been spoilt on previous dives, I thought that the underwater topography I saw this time was less interesting, there being too much kelp and too little rock for my personal preference. Spotty and Dee had not seen sea hares before so I was keen to find some for them but it took me almost 90 minutes before I came across a pair. Almost immediately Spotty caught sight of another pair. At 134 minutes this proved to be longest of my Kimmeridge Bay dives - I had become quite addicted to long relaxing shallow dives and went onto complete a sequence of 14 consecutive 100 minute plus dives until my enthusiasm for these marathon sessions evaporated with an October dive at The Esplanade, in Sandgate, Kent in visibility of just 0.5 to 1.0 metres.