Diving into the bank holiday
Let’s paint a scene, blue skies encapsulating the golden sun shining high as it spreads its warm rays over the land and light glistening on the seas waters as if sprinkled with glitter, sounds
like a perfect setting for Bank Holiday Monday. The only way to improve on that scenario is to add a dive into the mix and that’s what makes for happy divers from Blackwater Sub Aqua club.
This was the exact way it played out for our Bank Holiday Monday, thanks to Des Browne who was dive officer of the day and organised a trip to the wreck of the Sento from Cork Harbour. The Sento was a dredger built for the Japanese government. In December 1900, the Sento began its journey from Greenock Glasgow to Formosa (now known as Taiwan) but unfortunately got into difficulty in a winter gale in St.
George’s Channel and the captain pointed the Sento for shelter at Cork Harbour but it overturned and sank shortly after that.
As our shot line was readied and dropped into place we paired off and kitted up, taking turns to roll backwards off the boat and into the depth of the sea. Making our way to 30 metres in depth, the buckets of the dredger Sento came into view. There’s a substantial amount of the wreck still to be seen that can help paint a mental image of its former function, and marvel at its engineering capability of the time.
Finning South following the line of buckets brought us to the massive drive gears for the dredging machinery. The size of the gears would make even the tallest divers feel small, turning at this point and following the second line of the bucket-chain circuit heading North brought us to the head of the chain.
All the while enjoying exploring the wreck, we were also pleasantly surprised by the amount of sea life present. Starfish were dotted around like stars in the night sky, urchins took shelter in the dredger buckets which has now become home, while fish such as pollock and vibrant blue and orange cuckoo wrasse, amongst others, swam inquisitively around us trying to decide if they wanted our company in their homes but I can gladly report we were more than welcome and both fish and divers swam around in harmony with each other for the duration of the dive.
When all was seen it was time to make our way back up the shot line to the surface signalling the end of our dive for the day. As we made our way back to Cork Harbour we all reflected on our fantastic dive and planning for our next day out began.