Interesting newsletter Paul. Which was scarier the mines or the sharks?
Well its strange Chas but the scariest thing when we went there was the clear water. We were used to diving in muddy waters using our hands to feel around and being in crystal clear water was scary. The mines we were used to and that wasn't terribly new. At the time there were still 60% of WWII mines unaccounted for around the coast of the UK and if you know what you're looking for you can quite often come across one. Whilst doing a pleasure dive in Falmouth we found 2.
The sharks were of course scary, we hadn't encountered any before and there were some big ones especially after we'd blown up a mine. They used to come around because of the smell of dead fish. We lost one and usually didn't go back to the area for 3 days to let the sharks thin out a bit but on this occasion we went back the next day. Darby Allen, one of the divers thought he knew roughly where it was and got in the water and within seconds was back in the boat followed very closely by the biggest Maco shark we'd seen. It must have been a funny sight, six hairy arsed divers huddled together in the middle of an inflatable. When we went back out I had to go and put the charge on the mine and my neck was rubber looking for the beast.
Unfortunately Darby was killed 2 years ago when diffusing a land mine in the middle east while working for MAG (Mine Awareness Group).
