wreck

Log This Dive

PORTHKERRY

Porthkerry is a properly chunky wreck, a great dive if you ask us, lying in a pretty exposed spot off Portland. She was a steamship, built in Sunderland, and went down in 1917 after hitting a mine. You can still see the scale of her, 85 metres long, broken but upright on the seabed at 45 metres. We love dropping onto the stern, where the triple expansion engine and those two big boilers are still very much intact. The prop shaft stretches out, a clear pathway through the gloom. You’ll find squat lobsters tucked into every crevice and conger eels peering from the deeper recesses. The visibility here can be… challenging, so pick your day carefully, ideally with slack tide and calm seas. It’s a dive for those comfortable with deeper wrecks and a bit of current, but she rewards the effort. You get a real sense of history here, the metalwork cloaked in dead man's fingers and anemones. Our favourite part is navigating the broken midships section, feeling the sheer size of the vessel even in its current state.