On sunday the 15th August George arranged for some of the members of UK DiveBuddy to dive the wreck of the Alunia about 10 miles out from Eastbourne.We all met up at Eastbourne Marina at 8.00am ready to board our boat for the day "SUSSEX". George and myself was joined by Tony, Mark, Cel and Dieago.
Wind could have been better however we gave it a go and headed to the lock, and then the 10 mile trip out to the Alunia.
The Alunia is one of the largest ship wrecks on the Sussex coast approximately 532 feet and standing about 6-8m up from the sea bed and lying in 30m of water. As we all kitted up and checked our gear the usual banter started .
This was Cel and Dieago's first real UK wreck dive, so we buddied up George and Dieago with Cel and myself this left Tony and Mark to do there own thing. The skipper lined up and the first 2 divers went in and down the shot line, the 4 of us had aggreed to go last in giving everyone else a chance to get clear as we knew there could be possible problems with Cel never being deeper than 18m's. It was our time to get into the water as we stepped off the lift one by one into the water. We gathered at the top of the bouy and prepared to desend down the shot line, Dieago and George went first then Cel and myself followed slowly, we got to about 12m and Cel just needed a few seconds to settle himself then down the shot line again we went. we had soon reached 20m so I stopped and shock Cel's hand he'd already been deeper than ever before, this also had the effect of taking his mind of how deep we was, we looked down and could see the dark mass of the wreck below. We reached the wreck the visibility was around 5-8m's the torches was switched on as we started to peer through the hull, George managed to spot a huge conger in one of the holes, the hull had hundreds of small pouting and the occasional pollock swimming by.
Cel followed me to the seabed where eh managed just under 27m of depth again this was another personal best for him. We continued to explore the hull however all to soon our time was up and we had to start back to the surface. I signalled George to send up his SMB passing me the reel he inflated the SMB and off it rocketed to the surface. I then inflated mine and another SMB missled to the surface we split into our buddy pairs andslowly ascended to the surface.
The boat came round and Cel got on the lift first, then follwoed by myself Dieago and George had already been picked up, as we dekitted the boat manouvored around to pick up Mark and Tony. Soon we was all safe on the boat , with Cel having completed his first wreck dive and achieved 27m also.
