Crescent Island - 8 September 1996

Crescent Island, 1996. The day's diving on Sunday 8th September 1996 was marked by an event quite unprecedented in the annals of the South China Diving Club. Though momentous, this event was not entirely unwelcome, yet the chance of its being repeated is, I fear, slim. The event itself? Jo, despite (or possibly because of) not being on the DM's list, was the first person to arrive at Tai Mei Tuk. Incredible, you might think, and you wouldn't be wrong, but Jo wasn't content with that. She even arrived before the junk (at 8.50am, she said) and brought some kit!

It took a thorough and assertive briefing from Tam and Neil, before setting off from the pier, to restore order to the company, with the general state of shock and Jo's lightly-dropped remarks about time-wasting.Though the day was fine, an East wind dictated a sheltered site, and Crescent Island was chosen. Rather than anchoring close to the low rocky islet near the middle of the bay, it was decided to investigate a different spot. Tucked out of the wind, inside the right-hand arm of the crescent, the visibility looked surprisingly good, and close to the shore, the mottled colour of coral patches could be made out.

The first wave went in at a little after 11am, and found the area under the boat to be the mud the chart led us to believe. Not just "mud", it should be added, but that fine silt that seems to have no bottom, and sticks to you for three weeks afterwards, should you be fool enough to go near it. The visibility was as good as peering from the boat rail suggested, about 10m. A strong thermocline 1m from the bottom reduced the visibility to rather less than a metre, as well as the temperature by several degrees. Cunning things, thermoclines; Dominic and I, trying to find 15m for a training dive, paused atop the murk. Signalling downwards, we descended slowly, arms out-stretched, to settle gently into rather than onto the bottom, before we realised it was there.

Those with more sense navigated neatly over the top of the thermocline to the narrow strip of coral, which as Les and Sue, and Paul and attested, harboured lots of life. Searching for our elusive 15m, we took off into the bay on a compass bearing, and found it. Disappointingly, it looked remarkably similar to 12m. Cheered on by the large numbers of small holothurians - sea cucumbers - we found, we conducted a navigation exercise, traversing further expanses of mud with neat right angles. We didn't venture back as far as the shore, so on our getting back into the boat, I immediately prepared to go snorkelling. Before I could ask Neil, acting as DM, for permission to get back in the water, Jo nonchalantly wandered over, half kitted up for the second wave. As soon as Neil's back was turned, she asked, in a whisper, if she could borrow my mask. Brought all her kit? It had to be too good to be true!

Our ever-observant DM was not fooled, however. Jo, surprised, asked how he knew it wasn't her mask. "It doesn't co-ordinate," Neil replied, immediately. Pause, "and it's got 'Tom W.' written on top!".

The second wave went without further incident, and the general feeling seemed to be that we should move for the second dive. The coral along that part of the shore is in a narrow band due to the steepness of the bottom, about 3-4m wide, and from 1-3m deep, which really makes it a better snorkel than dive. Those who spent some time there did report quite a lot of life, though.

Having anchored off the rocky islet in the bay, site of so many night dives, we found the vis. to be excellent by HK standards, over 10m. The huge amount to see, and the shallow depth made for long dive-times, and big smiles on surfacing. Biggest of all was probably Andrew's, after he and found a turtle skeleton and carapace. Doubtless anticipating disbelief, he tried to pick it up, though to his dismay, it disintegrated. Jo and Kimberly were naturally anxious to find this unusual sight, and asked Andrew for directions. Jo was still muttering about the importance of where bearings were taken from, when Kimberly took her directly to the spot. The turtle, incidentally, was, or rather had been, a green turtle, and apparently eaten, as the plastron, limbs etc. were missing. The moral of the story being, if you're a turtle, avoid HK waters, unless you live in a sewer and like pizza.

As the sun sets on the colony, it's nice to see some British traditions kept alive, especially by newcomers to the Club. Such favourites as drysuits and Buddy STABs, as modelled by Paul, deserve honourable mention. They were, I feared, soon to be only memories, fading along with the likes of solar topees and pink gin. How nice to be proven wrong. The pleasant weather of that Sunday seems distant after a couple of washed-out weekends; by the time you read this, we will hopefully have had one as dry and relaxed as this was.