This particular day’s diving was too good to be omitted from the record, so here is my best attempt to recall the events of an excellent dive day a month ago.
Firstly, the weather was excellent for once, the tide was a brilliant neap and there was a consequent very good turnout of nine divers, with Simon organizing and Irfon marshalling. The plan was to dive Caswenan but as that site is restricted to Dive Leaders and above, and there were three Sports Divers in the party, the first dive was moved to the north face of Bardsey. Irfon renewed his diving partnership with Simon while I led Julie and Dave H. Although the viz. was limited to 4-5 metres this site has always been well worthwhile and this time was no exception. There were a surprising number of lobsters and the odd big conger, and by turning round at 35 metres, still well short of the seabed, good depth experience was achieved. Mickey and John decided to check out Chris Holden’s route to the horse brass wreck, further to the east of the same north face, even though they had already located it on a previous dive, and were surprisingly disappointed when they missed the wreck, claiming that they had been sent the wrong way, i.e left instead of right, from the entry point!!! There must be a moral in there somewhere. Wyn and Peter kept to the original plan and dived Caswenan together with the Saddleworth Club who were having difficulty shotting the rock. Lunch was a very pleasant interlude on the island.
The afternoon dives were expected to be gentle drifts around lighthouse point. Simon sat it out, blaming his Saturday night takeaway, so Julie joined Irfon for what turned into a very fast drift along the east side of the point before being spat out around the corner on the west side. Dave H. & I followed exactly the same route, putting up an SMB not a second too soon, so another good experience dive for both pairs. The other two pairs chickened out and decided to dive further offshore and were rewarded with sightings of crayfish.
So for the first time since the early part of the season, excepting of course Peter’s much maligned exploration of Devil’s Ridge, we enjoyed a full day at our local Mecca, and returned well contented with our day’s diving.
David J.
A beautiful Sunday morning with one of the largest springs of the year had all 8 divers itching to get into the water. Both boats launched off the Warren, many thanks to Wyn and his family for taking time out of their day to ferry us, and we head out towards Hells Mouth for the first dive. Wyn had been reading and the author had generously supplied some co-ordinates to share the wonderful dive. Wyn and Dave H jumped in first from our boat and Duke and John went in off the second. I can’t use the words that were used to describe the dive so I’ll justsay it was not good and very sandy. Hopefully Wyn will be using the book as tinder for the winter months! Taking on board the bad reviews, Peter and I moved inshore. The current dragged us back out and we ended up with a similar dive. Maybe move in a little closer next time. Irfon and Julie dived off the other side of the rock and reported the best dive of the morning.
It was back to Abersoch beach to change cylinders, have some lunch and drop Irfon and John off before heading back out to sea. Wyn decided on heading out to Sarn Badrig Causeway. An excellent dive in the afternoon! All 3 groups reported
a really good drift, with Pete and me coming up just off the coast of Ireland. Pete and I found a huge anchor chain that we followed for about 100m. I could see the excited in Pete as he anticipated being dragged onto a new wreck before a disappointing chain came to an end.
It was fantastic how we raced over the rocky beds before hitting a sandy section where we would slow down to a finning speed before hitting another rocky bed and accelerating once again. An excellent choice for a second dive, especially with it being one of the largest springs this year. Oh, did I mention that we dived the Causeway in one of the largest springs? Wyn, as requested:
I can print one of these off if you want…
Rich S
After grumblings of ‘we never dive on the south coast on Wednesday evenings anymore’ from a few members of the club, I was very keen to stick to the dive programme and venture out of Criccieth. Therefore on Tuesday evening at six-thirty I sat down with the phone in one hand a pen in the other, awaiting a flourish of interest. At seven-twenty-five, Wyn phoned in and his immediate reaction was “what, you’re not going to the south coast are you??” Just in-case there would be a last minute rush of interest, I dug my heels in and stayed with the plan. So much for trying to please others.
Wyn, myself, David and Carol met just before dusk by the castle. The idea was to go in just after high water and finish the dive off as a night dive. The viz was good at about 4-5m and there was plenty to see from juvenile cuttlefish, large wrasses, dogfish, shoals of Pollock and the usual crabs and lobsters. Both pairings had very pleasant bimbles, with no current and very little swell, Wyn however did find that he needs to have a look at his neck seal as it didn’t seal and filled his wellies with water.
We even had time for a beer or two at the ‘Feathers’ at Llanystumdwy on the way home.
Irfon
Another Wednesday following an awful storm, but at least the forecast was good for the day. Even so there were white caps along the north coast and as we were coming off big spring tides not a lot was expected. Nevertheless, after yet another washed out Sunday, five hardy souls met up at the Straits early in the evening.
Irfon took Peter for his initiation at the Normal College site, while Wyn & I got ready to take Robin for his first dive there. As it happened Wyn was in for something of an evening. Firstly it seemed that he had a duff O ring in his cylinder valve, but after much effort it turned out that it was the regs that were playing up and none of us had a ring spanner big enough to fix the problem. So Robin & I set off a bit late, straight down the slope and into the center of the channel in amazingly good viz. of 5 metres or more, making it back to the shelter of the Bangor side just before the current started running. The sealife was as prolific and varied as usual even to the extent of congers moving about.
As expected, Wyn was conscientiously perfoming shore cover but it turned out that he hadn’t long been on the shore, preferring instead to spend most of the time, after stowing his kit back in my car, trying to close the back door window, even phoning Carol to find out how to do it. At least he had a few sandwiches and a flask to keep him going, but even that caught him out when we then went on to Antelope for their incredible Wednesday night curry offer. This site has kept us in business this summer and may prove to be diveable on occasion in the winter.
David J.