The Jaffa – 24/8/25 A planned dive on the Pentyrch became a shorter trip to the Jaffa when the wind and tide decided to gang up on us from opposite directions and make John the Cox have to work very hard to prevent us crashing over the very fickle waves. The Jaffa was used as an armed merchant ship in the 1st world war and was sunk by a German U-boat torpedo in 1918. It is about 9 miles from Littlehampton and lies at a depth of between 25 and 30 metres depending on tides. There is a lot of the wreck to explore but it is in 2 parts. We dropped the shot on the wreck but the current was still pretty strong and John soon realised that it had drifted off so we reshot it and jumped in. It was a tough pull down the shot line but luckily (or unluckily) depending on which way you look at it, the shot had wedged itself inside the wreck so we didn’t pull it off – unluckily it meant we then had to get it out of the wreck, then dropped it into another part of the wreck so had to hoik it up again – well actually Justin had to, but I did hold the torch! Once we were on the wreck the current completely disappeared though it was bit dark and visibility wasn’t great but can’t have everything I suppose. There was a lot of wreck to look at it much of it recognisable as part of a ship – propellor, side panels, portholes – definitely worth another visit especially if the visibility was better. Lots of fish and starfish, a couple of big congers, one seemingly being guarded by a fish as every time I tried to get a better look it swam right in front of me, no crabs or lobsters or they were very well hidden.
Adrienne.
