Hi everyone
I thought someone out there might be interested in a brief history of scallop diving (in Guernsey) as told by me. Actually it’s not as narcissistic as it seems, as there are lessons to be learnt by all.
About 40 years ago there existed huge beds of scallops around Guernsey’s coasts. We used to occasionally catch them on our long lines intended for ray. They were so thick on the bottom that the snood line with its baited hook would contact an open feeding scallop, which would then snap shut. As you pulled in the main line the snood slid through the scallop and then the hook caught on the shell and up it came. Sometimes in a good area (bad for us) we caught scallops every 4th or 5th hook. Then we started diving.
We used single skin neoprene suits hand made by us with the help of a local dressmaker who imported the material. Tanks were 1800psi steel spiro’s and reg’s Royal Minstral twin hoses or if you were lucky the new 2 stage single hose Snark 2. Lucky being when the bloody thing didn’t explode on you at 60 ft.
Diving in 50 ft we filled 2 hessian coal sacks with scallops in 10 minutes. Hardest bit was pulling the things up and into the boat. Good beds had one scallop per square foot. We got about 1shilling and sixpence (pre decimal English pounds) per scallop. Remember that back then £20 per week was a good wage. We were going to be rich. News spread.
There were very few divers but lots of conventional fishermen. One of them bought a dredger. Within a month there were up to 20 dredgers working less than a mile from harbour. The biggest 50 ft, towing 8 dredges and with a 5 man crew shovelling scallops through power riddlers to size them. On shore gangs shucked the catch. Sea Fisheries said, “No problem, there are scallops down to 600ft on the edge of the continental shelf. This is a minimum 20-year sustainable fishery”. Despite finding further stocks of the smaller queen scallop in deeper water within 8 months it was a bust. You couldn’t give a dredger away. Nothing to catch so no value. Incidentally this is the same Sea Fisheries who say slaughtering breeding bass by the 100-ton wont harm stocks (another thread).
So what about us divers? I can still see the seabed now. Ploughed field crossed with a desert. However, Sea Fisheries were right about one thing, there were scallops out deep, too deep even for dredgers. Gradually they recolonised the barren waste and we were waiting. Now we had 8mm nylon lined wet suits, new larger tanks and non-exploding reg’s. It would never be the same but the dredgers were gone. The single remaining one (to this day) banned to deeper waters. We worked the shallows. More people started diving. We went deeper. We got the new SOS mechanical deco meters, known as bendy meters for good reason. More divers. Go deeper. The first bends. The first paralysed diver. The first dead diver. People were getting bent weekly. The local government is so concerned they buy a de(re)compression chamber to try to save the idiots who are not surviving the heli trip to the navy chamber in Portsmouth.
30 years on the scallop is only available in commercial quantities in deep water. 4 or 5 more or less full time divers work 50 metres 300 days a year. Recently, one of them with over 40 years experience was 50% paralysed for 3 weeks but made a 90% recovery and now doesn’t dive. Another is 80% deaf and dives part time. Another had brain damage but still dives. At least 5 others have died and a similar number are disabled to some degree. The rest of us pulled back and stick to non-commercial quantities in the shallows (Under 30 metres).
I’m not sure what you’ll take away from this ramble but take my word for it, greed can drive you to take chances you shouldn’t. This year I’ve sold my commercial fishing licence, so hopefully Old man Dave will become Very Old Man Dave one day.
