Brighton Pier 

Brighton Pier

That's right! Brighton Pier. We don't dive in the tropics all the time...Much as we would like to.

It was early June last year when Malc and I went down for a day under the pier. His daughter Emma had suggested we go looking for the games tokens that get dropped through the Palace Pier by the unlucky. And of course there was always the rumoured pot of gold( bag of tokens) that was supposedly dropped through a hole in the pier several years ago.

Brighton is busy. Lots of cars, so no surprise, we had to put on our kit and walk. Luckily the sight of divers walking along the beach didn't cause any old ladies to have heart attacks, though the weight of our kit almost brought ours on.

After frequent stops on the walk down we finally made it to the Pier. It was allegedly just before slack tide so we hoped things would be pretty settled. Ah the plans of mice and men... The current kept trying to push towards Dorset but after a little acclimitisation we managed to adjust. Not an awful lot to see and a constant battle against the tide, except for a couple of minutes when it was making up it's mind whether pushing us towrds France would be better.

There were some pleasant bits though. Lots of Spider crabs and a couple of Congers to keep us happy.

When we finally surfaced we had a little swim against the tide back to the shallows. By the time we made it we were both puffing like steam trains.

After we had got our kit back in the car and gone for a bit of lunch, as you do, time had passed and we regretfully had to head back without doing a second dive....Okay. You're right, we couldn't be bothered. After all lunch is one of the most important meals of the day!!!!

If you are interested in diving somewhere a little more exciting this year please click on this link to our website. Dive Wimbledon are holding another scuba diving Rescue Diver course in February so if you are interested please check out our website for details at http://www.divebalham.co.uk/Courses/Rescue.htm