Every now and then my belief in the gods of fate and providence is reaffirmed. Out of the blue I receive an email from Ben Slater inviting me to join him for a few days diving. What I get really excited about is the location he will be specialising in, which he describes as “diving around Pendeen lighthouse covering most of the wrecks and reefs. ”
Pendeen is a headland on the north side of the Land's End peninsular, about half way between Sennen and St Ives. Now I have dived lots on the other sides of Land's end; it's one of my regular spots in the UK. But I have only done a few odd dives on the north side, and none on this stretch. Ben has nicely offered me some diving right at the top of my wish list.
Wanting to make the most of it, I schedule a few days when the tides are good for hitting both high and low water slack. I end up meeting Ben at 7 am for an 8 am departure for a wreck known simply as "The Gun Wreck".
34 metres down the lighting has that spooky quality. Its only 8.30 and the sky is overcast, the surface oily smooth and the water just green of clear. Just enough light penetrates to illuminate the steel skeleton almost floating on a sea of coarse granite sand and fading into the distant green gloom.
We swim stern-wards past boilers and engine then along the propeller shaft. The wreck is cut down almost to the level of the seabed, save for the engine and boilers which stand well clear.
As my eyes adjust there is enough light to dive by, but not enough for my camera's auto-focus which whirrs in and out attempting to lock on. I have to switch on my dive light to compose photographs.
At the stern we search port and starboard, seeking out evidence of the gun the wreck is named for. Either the gun has been salvaged or it has sunk below the sand. Ben points out the area where he has found shell casings in the past, just below the steering quadrant.
Like many wrecks in the area, the Gun Wreck was extensively salvaged some time before sports diving became popular. Maybe the true identity of the wreck was known to the salvers, or maybe they just grabbed whatever was there without caring.
Over the next few evenings Ben shows me copies of newspaper clippings, old photographs, Admiralty reports and pages in the Shipwreck Index. Whilst the identities of other wrecks are positively resolved, there is not even a cautious possible reported anywhere near the Gun Wreck's position with the right machinery configuration - 2 boilers and triple expansion engine.
For a second dive the trouble is not a lack ideas. Having started early we have plenty of time to wait for the next slack water and dive another wreck. The problem is one of priorities. In the 30 to 40 metre range there are just too many wrecks to choose from, so which do I dive this trip and which get saved for the future?
In the end we opt for the Enrico Parodis, a 3,800 ton steamship that went down in 1916 after striking the rocks at Gurnards Head in dense fog. A salvage team working on the nearby wreck of the Neto tried to save the Enrico Parodis, getting it clear of the rocks and under tow towards St Ives, but it eventually sank a couple of miles offshore.
We arrive on site in plenty of time and Ben gets the shot in next to the boilers again, this time just aft with the line draped over the engine.
It's mid afternoon and the sunlight sparkles on the sand at 34 metres. The wreck is in a similar state to the Gun Wreck, on an even keel with the hull cut down just above the level of the sand, though the engine is broken to port and resting on top of the donkey boiler.
I am completely puzzled by a structure of three curved rods. Each about 10 centimetres in diameter and two to 3three metres long, each evenly curved in a large arc. The three rods cross near the middle and the overall structure stands upright, just to the starboard side of the engine.
Later in the dive I find an identical structure projecting from the sand in the area of the forward hold, so they are certainly a deliberate design. But are they part of the ship, from the cargo, or something lost at a later date? I am totally flummoxed by their purpose.
Diving an hour later next morning makes a big difference to the light on the wreck of the Busby. I get a distinct sense of déjà vu as I work my way round at 33 metres. Its another fairly conventional steamship, 3,200 tons, 2 boilers and triple expansion engine solidly in place amidships, with the rest of the ship sunk a little bit deeper in the sand than the previous two wrecks.
Then it clicks. The wreck, scenery and general disposition of the Busby is remarkably similar to some of the wrecks I had dived of Brittany. It's just like diving on an enormous aquarium model.
After the many shallow wrecks broken up close under the cliffs, the Busby is the closest wreck to Pendeen. It originally steamed into the rocks right beneath the Pendeen coastguard station in 1894. The wreck was subsequently re-floated and put under tow, only to founder less than a mile off shore
Further east and off Gurnards Head again, the Saxon Britain represents a bit of a conundrum. In the Shipwreck Index and Admiralty data, the wreck at this location is given as the Denebola. The current disposition of the wreck at this location matches the description given for the Denebola. The wreck is broken just forward of the two boilers with a gap, then debris from the bow which had turned as the ship sank and now points towards the boilers.
Yet the Denebola is listed as having a triple expansion engine and a 12 pounder gun, and the wreck here has an intact 2 cylinder engine and no gun. The gun could easily have disappeared since the ship went down, but there is no way the engine matches that listed for the Denebola.
On the other hand, Ben has dived the wreck located at the position given for the Saxon Briton. It is only a mile and a half away and has a general disposition matching the description given in the book for the Saxon Briton, but it also has a triple expansion engine and a gun, whereas the Saxon Briton is listed as having a 2 cylinder compound engine.
The simple answer is that someone in the past managed to get the locations of the Denebola and the Saxon Briton crossed over. Perhaps with no other data to go on, for convenience just naming an unknown wreck after an unfound ship that was known to have sunk somewhere in the area. Since then the state of the wrecks has been correctly reported against the wrong names, but the discrepancy in the machinery must have been overlooked.
As far as my log book and wreck sketch are concerned, I record the dive as the Saxon Briton. But what's in a name, Saxon Briton or Denebola it is still an enjoyable wreck with the added technical interest of the 2 cylinder compound engine, a predecessor to and much less common than the triple expansion engine that subsequently became the universal standard for steamships.
Our last wreck dive is another unknown, a well broken rear engined ship lying upside down in 40 metres. The shot lands predictably within a few metres of the boiler again, consequently close to the stern of the wreck.
The configuration is immediately evidenced by the engine fitted tightly into the remains of the keel at just a few metres behind the single boiler, the whole lying tipped onto one side with propeller still attached to the short shaft.
Off to one side an intact 12 pounder stern gun lies on one side still fixed to its pintle. A good indication that whatever the wreck was, it most likely happened in the First World War.
The wrest of the wreck is a jigsaw of flat double bottomed keel. Ben had spoken to a retired crawfish diver who dived this wreck in the 60s who had described it as more intact, but nevertheless perfectly upside down. The wreck is generally referred to as "The Tanker", though other than the rear engine there is now little evidence to confirm this.
I work my way between sections of keel to the bow where I find a spare propeller poking out from beneath the side of the wreck. It would be an interesting wreck to spend a few more dives with, looping out across the reef which stretches along the east side of the wreck. Maybe it originally landed on the reef before sliding to its current position, in which case debris from the upper part of the wreck may be scattered across the reef.
Wanting to get a good cross section of the diving available in an area new to me, I also sample some of the scenic dives available. (No, I am not suffering from some mental aberration caused by excessive nitrogen and Guinness, I actually thought it would be nice to do some scenic dives).
Looking out from Pendeen, the immediate reef is Three Stone Oar, a line of rocks which stretch parallel to the coast a few hundred metres from the cliffs.
We head out a couple of hours before slack water to drift along the outside of the reef, the tide still just flooding. Maybe we should have started a little earlier, because the current is barely noticeable and I have to swim with it to cover distance, passing below walls, along gullies, through sandy grottoes and round pinnacles of rock.
Halfway through my film we drift along the jewel anemone encrusted side of an isolated pinnacle of rock and come across something every UK underwater photographer gets excited about - a John Dory.
The fish knows this and does its best to frustrate me. Swimming just within range, but never turning better than 3/4 away from me. I dodge left and right, back off and swim round, but never get close enough to a good profile or head on angle.
Ben's father John, who is my buddy for the dive, tries to herd the John Dory my way. Maybe he can coerce it to point towards me. After all, once surrounded it surely can't head away from both of us at the same time? Somehow it does, continuing to do its best to frustrate me. In some ways I would prefer to be stalking a fish that just bolted rather than remaining so tantalisingly close.
Allowing for a short surface interval it is just after slack when we dive in the shadow of a series of pinnacles beneath the headland at Bosigran Castle.
The current is noticeably picking up and I have to dive bomb the pinnacle and get in tight behind it. Its another sheer wall of jewel anemones and hydroids, falling from 7 or 8 metres to the coarse sand at 20 metres.
Its a fair sized rock, stretching maybe 20 metres on each side with the current picking up round both sides and over the top. As I meander back and forth looking at some of the smaller marine life in detail I spot an aquatic dust devil twirling at the confluence of currents just off a corner, specks of sand lifting from the seabed and dispersing at the top of the funnel.
Back home I have another search for clues to the identity of the Gun Wreck or Tanker, but without success. The wrecks had obviously been salvaged at some point. Maybe by hard hat divers in the years after their sinking, maybe by the explosion of smaller scale commercial salvage in the 1960s when scuba first became common. It is a shame that much of the knowledge of wrecks in this area gleaned by the salvers has not been documented.
Diving an "unknown" can be frustrating, but on the other hand it is also part of the lure. Maybe the next dive will reveal vital evidence and the discovery of the true identity.