Dive Reports– 18th & 19th May 2024
Saturday’s Report.
I decided to add an extra dive into the weekend and opted for an evening dive at Porth Ysgaden to welcome our two new members, Ian and Emma. We met at Porth Ysgaden at 6 pm, and upon arriving, we were greeted with a bit of a breeze, sea mist, and a swell. Despite the conditions, the visibility looked okay. We chose to go out on the left side of the bay for safety. Although the visibility was only 3 to 4 meters, we saw a lot of interesting marine life, including Brown crabs, Spider crabs, Velvet crabs, Ballan and Corkwing wrasse, Dragonet, Small-spotted Catsharks (Dogfish), Sea hares, and many more. Our dive time was 68 minutes with a maximum depth of 7.6 meters. Ian and Emma enjoyed the dive and were looking forward to Sunday’s dive.
Sunday’s Report.
The club is making a second attempt at a weekend boat dive after last weekend’s mishaps. With that in mind, Mike offered to bring his boat out for its first outing of the season to provide mutual boat support for everyone. Dewi and I met at Pendre at 8 am to prepare the boat and head to Pwllheli slipway. Mike, Emma and Ian were waiting, and David arrived shortly after. We set off to the first dive site at the Bombing Triangle off Half Tide Rock in glorious sunshine only to arrive on site surrounded by a thick sea mist.
Using the coordinates on my phone we found a blip on the sonar and dropped the shot; the first pair were Andrew and Mike as the guinea pigs. As we descended the shot it became apparent the shot was “bang on target” at 20 meters Mike and I were impressed with the size of the structure and the life on it, and after going around and returning to the start the plan was to go on a bearing of 245 degrees to Half Tide Rock. On deployment off the DSMB, we set off but some how Mike had acquired a hitchhiking spider crab on his right shoulder. Along the way we came across a Pogge fish and one Greater Pipefish that became quite attracted to Mike. As Mike was running low on air we decided to come up from at this point of 13 meters and with a dive time of 44 minutes, and on surfacing we were greeted by clear skies and sunshine.
The second wave were Ian and Emma who wanted to dive the triangle, after dropping them in we headed off to drop Dewi and David on the Timbo’s boiler, where Mike stayed in Sparrowhawk watching over them and I returned to the Bombing Triangle to cover Ian and Emma. On seeing their DSMB I lifted the shot which was made easy by Ian and Emma, partially inflating the lift bag on the shot. After recovering Ian and Emma who had both enjoyed their dive, we headed to Half Tide Rock to wait for David and Dewi to Surface. Mike picked up David, and we picked up Dewi they both had a good dive after being dropped off on the boiler and having close encounters with seals.
We headed off to Porth Ceiriad beach for lunch, Ian and Emma had brought a supply of pork pies, sausage rolls and chicken bites, some bribery going on me thinks. After lunch, we headed off for the second dive site. After we did some recognisance last year, Dewi had put a mark in the GPS as Andrew’s Wreck, the speculation was it might be a Catalina flying boat that had sunk in that area. After dropping the shot Andrew and Mike were the guinea pigs again, when we arrived at the shot, we could see something beyond the shot, so I moved the shot toward it, to find a petrified structure comprised of the unknown and large chains. We followed in the direction of the chains to find a very large anchor, this was definitely not a Catalina. We continued looking around seeing lots of different objects and plenty of life, and a second anchor. Our dive time was 37 minutes with a maximum depth of 23.4 meters. On our report of the dive, everyone was eager to do the second dive on the now reclassified as the unknown wreck. After recovering Ian and Emma and shortly afterwards David and Dewi we spotted a small pod of Dolphins as a bonus before we headed back to Pwllheli. Recovery of both of the boats went well, David followed Mike to his house to put Sparrowhawk to bed and Dewi, Andrew, Ian and Emma went to Pendre to do the same with Seawasp.
Thanks to all, on a great day diving and adding two new dive sites for the club.
Andrew.
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Dive Report 25th -27th May 2024
With the weather forecast for Sunday and Monday looking decidely iffy, and with the wind having blown hard from the north for several days the initial plan was to make the most of the seemingly excellent viz. on the south coast with a high water shore dive at Gimblet Rock early on Saturday morning.
There were only three expressions of interest so the two pairings of Dewi & Anna and me & Lowri met up in the carpark at 9am with high water on a biggish Spring tide due at about 9.45. For possibly the first time ever there were more doing shore than diving with Carol and my sister Ellie joined by one of Dewi’s daughters and family and thus Mike found himself surplus to requirements for once.
It was a bit choppier than on Friday but the viz. was unaffected and was in Dewi’s estimation at least 8-10 metres. I agreed as it was actually about as good as I have ever seen it there. Lowri led our dive which was simply going to be South out and North back. Good thinking it turned out as there was a notable current running from left to right which was clearly estimable as the numerous jelly fish were all heading somewhat rapidly in that direction. So we tacked off to the left. At the start of the shingle bed there were some scallops including a few small queen scallops which did us the honour of dancing away. From then on there was always something of interest although the highlight, a couple of large greater pipefish and a smaller snake pipefish were all encountered on the way back. We turned back after 20 minutes partly because Lowri, who started with only 160 bar, was at her turn round pressure and because I was concerned that as the tide had clearly turned before we started the dive the current would get ever stronger, which it did. The return journey, passing a couple of waifs and strays early on, was initially fine but then we hit the expected stronger current and so ended up swimming into it quite hard while angling towards the shore. Lowri did an excellent job of navigating and brought us in about 30 metres down the beach in exactly the prime spot.
So a shortish but very enjoyable dive, which proved to be the sum total of the weekend’s diving except for Brett and particularly Andrew terrorizing a seal in the Rheol on Saturday evening, incidently in quite poor viz. With the blow on Sunday continueing into Monday plans for another dive on Monday were abandoned.
Many thanks to all the shore cover. Too much to expect a repeat any time soon!
David
