I've realised a long held ambition this week - I've dived on a submarine! Dave Lock has been teasing me for ages with little snippets about a sub he dived from Felixstowe last year, and kept telling me how much I would enjoy it if I could only get there. So, after much anticipation and a blown-out trip or two, we finally went to see it on Wednesday. Dave had described it as 'mind-blowing', so I knew that it was likely to be a real treat. I can't quite explain why I wanted to see a sub so much, but I think my fascination stems from the fact that it is supposed to be underwater, rather than on top of it, so somehow seeing it in it's proper environment makes more sense than seeing a broken up ship.

Having done several dives in the preceding week or so, we had found that diving on the morning low tide gave good visibility, but that the vis was much worse in the afternoon, so it was to be a morning dive. We have had neap tides this week, so we got a slack water of about an hour and a half. We had a force 2 South Easterly wind, so the sea was slight and the trip out and back was pretty smooth. I don't think that the conditions could really have been much better.

The co-ordinates that Dave had from last year were pretty accurate, and now that GPS gives you your real position rather than an invented one, we should be able to go and find it even more easily in future. We had to use the Magnetometer to locate it, and it was a bit tricky, as it is small compared to most of the wrecks around here. Dave, the expert wreck finder, managed to get the shot onto it on the second attempt which is pretty good going when your target is a round tube.

The sub lies around 20 miles off shore and is in about 30 metres of water. It is virtually intact and sits upright on the bottom. We estimated that it is around 120 Feet/35 metres long. The conning tower, propellers, rudder, hydroplanes and net cutters are all there and easy to see.

As we descended the shotline I spotted the sub when I was at around 20 metres, it was so impressive when it loomed into sight that Rob heard me yell 'Whoa'! From there on it was one of the most intense dives I've everdone - I just didn't know which way to look - I was grinning so widely it was difficult to keep the DV in! We estimated that the visibility was around 8 metres, so it was very easy to get an idea of the scale of the sub.

Once we were within 5 metres or so of the sub we let go of the shot line and made our way down to the prow and then in front of it. We swam along the starboard side, where we found a bow shaped structure protecting a hydrofoil within it. Next we swam on to the stern to see the props. We then made our way back along the upper port side, taking the opportunity to poke a torch in through a hole to look at the space within, and finished with a look at the conning tower.

In front of the conning tower was a ladder-like structure fixed horizontally to the deck, and a rail ran around it. There was a large net with a pole embedded in it wrapped around the upper part of the tower, and Rob used this to attach his delayed SMB reel to. All too soon, it was time to leave. We started the ascent to the surface, and I thought about the men who would have been trapped inside the sub when it went down. I felt sad and yet exhilarated at the same time.

There was lots of sealife on the wreck - Rob found an abandoned lobster pot with a couple of fair sized lobsters within it near to the conning tower, and since they were too big to get out he used his knife to hack them an emergency escape route and allow them to return to freedom (despite the gruff exterior Rob can be very soft-hearted). The whole sub is encrusted with tiny mussels, white plumose anemones and dead man's fingers, so much so, that it was very difficult to see any metal at all. Clouds of bib accompanied us as we swam around, keeping just out of range of our torches.

We got back to the boat to find Dave and Wilf in a high state of anticipation - there had been threats of removal of body parts without anaesthesia if we overran our dive time! Dave was diving using Ermintrude, his rebreather, and was buddied by Wilf Tanser who had come along to make up numbers. Dave had planned to spend quite a while looking at the props to see if he could find a number stamped on them which would help identify the sub, but he would have had to have removed about a ton of anemones to do so!

It would really great to find out more about this sub and it's history. I borrowed a book about submarines from a friend, the closest we were able to find was a mine-laying U-boat. I also combed the wreck book for U-boats off Suffolk and Norfolk, but haven't been able to find any at the correct coordinates. It would be nice to put a name (or number) to it and report it to the appropriate authority so that the families of those on board would know where it was.

I think that we should dive this again as it is the best wreck I've seen off this coast. Unfortunately, with the approaching Spring Tides and forecast bad weather, tomorrow is likely to be the last day it will be possible to do it this year. The plan is to go and dive it again tomorrow if the weather is good enough, this time taking a video camera to capture as many details as possible to help in the identification. If we manage to get out there and film it we could have a viewing in the pub one night - anyone keen on this??

I hope that this report has inspired everyone to make sure that they are ready, willing and able to get out there and dive it this time next year - when the vis, tides and weather are right you have to get out there and make the most of them!

Tracey Skirrow