CHESIL BAY | TINKER SHOAL | THE SKELLY | LOCH LONG | FALMOUTH
5
easy dives
LIFE WITH THE CHAIN GANG TINKER SHOAL, PLYMOUTH
Two buoys, East Tinker and West Tinker, mark the extremities of the area of shallow reef known as Tinker Shoal, which lies a mile or so south of Plymouth breakwater. The reef is made up of rocky gullies, shingle and sand areas at a depth of between 12 and 15m.
Tinker Shoal is very popular with divers, particularly for a second dive following earlier deeper dives on nearby wrecks and reefs. When the weather is good, RIBs and hardboats ply to and fro continually around the buoys.
As an underwater photographer I am always looking for new challenges, and one day it occurred to me that there were two parts of the reef that nobody seemed to dive. Why not film the marine life on one of the mooring blocks and chains?
I decided to look at East Tinker Buoy. Rather than mooring up to the buoy itself, which I thought might not go down well with Queens Harbour Masters Office, it seemed prudent to anchor the inflatable nearby.
Visibility was excellent. Armed with two Nikonos V cameras, one rigged for macro and the other with a 12mm wide-angle fisheye lens, I descended the chain to the huge steel mooring block at 13m. Its surface seemed clean, and I wondered if it had recently been serviced. I later learned from the Harbour Authority that it had been attended to about five months before.
I swam around the block and came face to face with a lesser-spotted dogfish and a cotton spinner. Back on the block I photographed a starlet, young hydroids and, a pleasant surprise, a juvenile topknot that remained motionless on the rust. I moved along that section of the chain that was lying on the rocky seabed in a jumble, continually twisting around and scraping on the rock, but it was devoid of life.
After several metres it rose towards the sunlight. I left bottom and slowly ascended the chain, carefully examining the links, and the nooks in between. Life appeared only as I reached about 7m: small growths of kelp, hydroids, anemones, mussels and red weeds. Soon the chain divided into the two risers that formed a bridle to the underneath of the buoy, which was bell-shaped, with a cave-like area underneath.
Here was the most marine growth, particularly jewel anemones and hydroids, and I got busy with my camera.
East Tinker Buoy is in open sea, and susceptible to the continual wind and wave action. It's a small, self-contained reef system that is always on the move, and I had enjoyed a simple but fascinating photo dive. If you decide to go, the simplest thing is to head for nearby Fort Bovisand to take care of your air and boat needs.
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Dave Peake
Appeared in DIVER - May 1999
