Wreck 'n' roll star for a day

Drift and anchor fishing the sunken ‘Pom’ pays off with a superb catch for Nick Fisher

Today, I’m standing on the deck of my boat: 25 feet of moulded fibreglass, 11 miles due south of Chesil Beach, 10 miles west of Portland Bill. Straight ahead, all is simply sea and sky. Nothing in between. Not a single other boat, just two hues of blue as far as my eye can see. This is why I’ve fallen in love with sea fishing: the calm, the peace, the solace. The aching aloneness of this place. A place of such tranquillity and wonder. A place that touches a part of my soul nowhere else can reach. At least, nowhere on land.

My eye catches a black shape breaking the oily, smooth blue of the surface. It seems to wave at me, like a slowly drowning man wearing a black oven glove.

I know from experience that the flipping-flopping, wobbly, thrashing motion is that of a huge single dorsal fin belonging to a sunfish.

Often mistaken for the fin of a massive shark, sunfish that appear in the English Channel during the summer months are bizarre creatures that look like an unfinished project. Part seal, part shark, all very weird.

Whether or not their name is related to their almost ball-like body shape or their love of basking on the surface to catch a few rays, I’m not sure. But they are very visible fish when they’re around, especially on flat, calm days like today when their drowning-man waving action is the only ripple on an otherwise perfectly still, totally silent sea.

This place wasn’t always silent, however. Or calm. Or lovely. Even when the weather was kind. Exactly 102 years and one month ago to this day, this portion of the Channel was the scene of unspeakable horror. At 5.30 in the morning, as the sun rose on a beautiful spring day and a mirror flat sea, a deafening explosion rent the air, filling the sky and the sea with foam, diesel, blood and screams.