Following the weekend storm, the viz was surprisingly good, so was the turnout, nine in all, ten with Mike as shore cover. It was going to be a great opportunity for the Sport’s Diver trainees to practice their newly gained navigation skills as they were going to be paired up with one another and given the task of navigating the bay. Andrew led Nia and Pete R led Brett and since all 4 were present at the end of the dive, we’ll tick that one off as a success. Meanwhile Dewi and Gwyn shook off some of their winter rustiness by keeping things simple and having a dive round the bay. Irfon, Pete and David went further afield and opted to explore the topography that is to the west of the bay, and impressive it was too. Life was plentiful, with an array of fish and critters on display, a welcomed change from the gloom of the quarries. Some of us then opted for further off-gassing at the Lion. An enjoyable evening.
Irfon.
Meeting point- Castelmarch @ 9am
A promising start of beautiful sun shine, clear blue sky and calm waters with a view to the horizon–what more can divers ask for. We headed down to the Warren with a plan of some gentle dives off and around ‘North Coastal area of the Peninsular’ but keeping the plan fairly flexible depending what the water had to offer. The Dive group consisted of: David J & Brett, Andrew S & Gywn, Peter J & Julie, later followed by Mike D, John & Wyn who joined us for an afternoon dive.
1st Dive at Hells Mouth-exposed reef and bed rock approximately 15-17 meters depth.
Vis a good 6 meters with an abundance of Kelp for those Kelp loving aquatics. Lots of places to explore but given the water temperature many creatures were hiding under the boulders or in crevices. We did see some dog fish, ballan wrasse, lime fish, spider & edible crabs and a few tiddlers.
We then headed for a lovely quiet place for lunch and a change of suit for those who are lucky enough to have luxury secondary dive clothing.
There we were met by the trio who joined us for the second dive.
2nd Dive around Maen Gwenorwy approx’ upto 10-12 metres depth.
Again good vis, very calm and lovely sunshine with a little chill in the air.
Everyone chose a place to dive with David & Brett choosing a location close to the rock and approx’ 3-5 meters deep. This I believe was down to Brett who was taking advantage of checking his pots!!! They did eventually wonder out to the blue towards scallop bay.
Peter & Julie explored the Kelp and reef which displayed some colourful outcrops, whilst Andrew and Gwyn headed for a location with depth and slight drift for a more challenging dive.
Mike remained at the helm whilst Wyn & John negotiated a dive with the scallops which turned out to be successful.
To cap the day a good refresher for my boat-handling skills.
Considering it has been almost twelve months since diving with you guys (due to unforeseen commitments at home) it was great to see you all and I had a great day out.
Hope you all enjoyed the day.
Julie.
Early start 8:30 a.m. at Pendre with five divers attending Mike, John, Gwyn, Irfon and Andrew. The planned dive at Segontium had to be slightly revised due to the promise of strong south-westerly’s.
So plan B, reef just off Porthysgaden, slight hitch on launch as the trailer got a bit stuck, after sliding Sea Wasp off the trailer and beaching her we then realised the tide was still going out after a small panic Sea Wasp was afloat.
After 5-10 minutes out in the boat we arrived at the site just north-east of Porthysgaden a rocky feature with depth’s veering from 20 to 9 Meters. Mike & John were the first down half way through the dive a lift bag appeared so we thought either lobsters or scallops but no it was a large aluminum trough thanks Mike.
After a 45-minute dive Mike & John reported about 2 meter visibility and plenty of life and John saw two Octopi. Second wave consisting of Irfon and a slightly green Gwyn & Andrew, due to the increase in wave activity thanks to the increasing winds. Unfortunately Gwyn didn’t get his dive, Irfon and Andrew had a 46-minute dive reporting again with about 2 meter visibility but plenty of life with sea urchins, starfish, dead man’s fingers a slipping bull huss, cat sharks, spider crabs and a lobster not bad considering the visibility well worth a second visit with better vis.
On returning to Porthysgaden the recovery went without a hitch.
Andrew.
After the uncertanty of the weather for this dive we could not have chose a better day, there was four of us diving me Dewi. Brett and Nia, launching from Porth Ysgaden. It turned out to be a day of small calamities with Brett and Nia forgetting there masks, Dewi admitted he needed a refresher class in tide planning having worked it out two hours late, so a couple of drifts were planned with me and Brett entering the water first, having listened to Brett telling me how experianced i looked having seen me diving Dorathea i rolled of the boat without fins shattering all his allusions ,once fins were donned in water we preceded with dive. Dewi and nia faired better and entered the water without incident but some fun was had getting Nia back in the boat. second dive didnt go without incident as me and Brett be came separated i ascended under a DSMB while i assumed Brett would now be putting is up, back in the boat Dewi and nia had found Brett’s DSMB floating in the sea with no sign of Brett, but we could hear cursing and expletives under water im sure has Brett surfaced the air was blue thinking he had lost is DSMB, alls well that ends well.
Vis was not to gd but we manage to see abundant see life including an octopus, good day was had by all late finish for me and a smack in the face from my bungie blacking my eye. cutting my nose but hay ho no pain no gain.
Kirk
The sea was calm for the 1st Wednesday boat dive of the year at Porth Ysgaden. The 1st Dive of the day was attended by David, Dewi Kirk & Andrew with the Boat launch going without incident.
The plan was for David & Andrew to go in the first wave and Kirk & Dewi to go second.
David & Andrew went in with SMB diploid on surface both having a pleasant but fast drift with visibility at about 2 meters but with plenty of life to be seen such as: Starfish, Sea Urchins, Scallop, Dead Man’s Fingers, Gurnards, Dragonet, Dab, Bull Huss, Cat Sharks, Spider Crabs and a Lobster.
Dewi & Kirk then went for their dive with SMB diploid on surface both went down together but within minutes Kirks head popped up by Dewi’s SMB then was gone again. Shortly afterwards Kirks DSMB popped up, then they both went their own ways, after 30 minutes Kirk surfaced but on realising that Dewi had not he decided to go down again after a total of 45 minutes Dewi and then Kirk surfaced, reporting similar visibility.
On the 2nd dive of the day we were joined by Brett, Nia, Peter R, Steven L and Irfon as shore cover. Kirk had to leave to pick up his son and Dewi kindly volunteered to be dedicated coxs, the pairings where David & Steven, Brett & Peter, Andrew & Nia. David & Steven where dropped off in about 6 meters at Porth Ysgaden B. We then went out to get about 17 meters. Divers then went down with SMB’s diploid, the visibility was about 2 meters, on Andrew & Nia’s decent and throughout the dive Nia held on the SMB line very securely for all of the dive there was a variety of life in till about 20 meters then just nothing but millions of Brittle Star’s. Both pairs getting about 30 minute dives, on arriving back at Porth Ysgaden Brett went for the trailer to retrieve Sea Wasp as Dewi had to go to work which left us the task of the retrieval as David & Irfon looked down on us from the car park, with a bit of head scratching and instructions shouted by Irfon “Much appreciated by the way”…. We eventually did it, a good time was had by all!!
Andrew.
Picked the boat up boat at 7:45, Wyn had already kitted the boat out and put the bung in! Arived at Porth Ysgadan at 8:10. The buddy pairings were John & Andrew,Peter James & myself. We headed out looking for a reef, tripods I think!!!We came across a mark which came up from 20 metres to 14 metres so it was decided this was the spot. Fist pair in was Andrew & John followed By Peter & myself. Everyone was in by 9:46. When I arrived at the bottom the first thing to greet me was a scollop. I decided to leave supper detail until later in the dive. We drifted over many scallops, or in my case crawled as I was stuck to the seabed with a very strong gravity pull! We got going and came across a brittlestar bed with a few scallops and a couple of octopus’s. That summed up the first dive. Everyone was out by 10:25. We picked up Gwyn and set course for Maen Mellt. Gwyn joined Pete and myself. Everyone was in by 13:30. Kelp was the first thing to greet us which quickly gave way to clear rock and some big wrasse, this is where the dive plan kind of went astray as I went chasing wrasse and pollock, shortly after this we realised Pete had obviously stuck to the diveplan.Pete joined us and we carried on. We saw many ballan wrasse, cuckoo wrasse,pollock and conger. A few lost pots were seen, Gwyn had a interesting buddy technique hovered above me throughout most of the dive,my own personal guardian angel!!!!!!!!!! Everyone out by 2 p.m. Back at Pendre the boat was cleaned and the builge pumps were fixed by Pete. Good day had by all. Many thanks to Wyn the coxon.
Brett
It has taken exactly 2 months since the theory sessions but at long last the first group of trainee boat handlers, namely Brett & Nia, were on the water for the sheltered water lessons. The session was planned for the afternoon prior to an early evening dive on the Gwenfaen, so with a bit of a south-westerly blow forecast we chose to launch from Morfa Nefyn. Unfortunately, I had not checked the beach out, so found the lower area devoid of sand and now made up of cobbles and boulders, while the upper reaches were very soft dry sandy gravel, making both launching and recovery difficult. At that time it was hot and sunny, so before heading out we dropped in for a cool off, but Nia hadn’t closed Brett’s dry suit zip so he got a little bit damp. Perhaps I should have been a bit more sympathetic, but that was difficult when it was all Nia’s fault!! So we chugged out with Hugh’s old maxim of “time spent in reconnaisance is seldom wasted” very much in mind, and the wind freshening rapidly. The boat handling went well, with some of Brett’s bad habits becoming clear. It’s seemingly very difficult to approach a jetty or buoy on the port side when all you’ve done for years is make starboard side approaches. Nia was not too happy with the speedy exercises, especially the zig-zag manoeuvre.
We met up with the evening shift of John Wright, Peter James, Tony Robertson & Andrew at 4pm and headed out on a decidedly bumpy sea. Cox’n Peter located the wreck on the first pass but had forgotten to ask the crew to have the shot ready to deploy, so many passes later the shot was dropped, seemingly in the vicinity. John, Brett and Andrew were first in, so with it still running slightly cox’n Peter dropped them upstream but a bit too close to the buoy so Brett was swept past and thus learnt that it doesn’t do to fight a current. We hauled him back on board to recover before joining Peter and Nia, while John and Andrew enjoyed a long dive in good viz. Needless to say the deployment of the second group of divers was spot on although Brett very nearly missed the buoy again as his octopus wedged fast to a handhold on the boat tube as he dropped in, securing him nicely to the side of the boat until Tony realized what had happened and released him. The threesome also enjoyed their bimble around the wreck. The last pair of Tony and I actually got the best of the slack water as it occurred well after the time of high water Port Dinllaen. It was only after kitting up that Tony let on that he was diving on a 10 litre cylinder, so a shortish dive was expected, but as I got rather wet initially, with the diver’s senior kitting-up assistant, Peter, having failed to instigate the obligatory check that pee zips be securely fastened before entering the water, a short dive was somewhat welcome. The dive turned out to be even shorter than expected with Tony putting all previous air gluggers to shame, so we were leaving the bottom after only 12 minutes, having covered just one side of the wreck, with Tony already on 50 bar. Fortunately, the dive was not long enough to warrant a safety stop! Hopefully, Tony will be on twin 18’s for his next outing. Recovery of the rib at high water proved to be as difficult as expected with Brett having to use ropes to tow the lightened rib off the beach. So, until the character of the beach improves we’ll have to launch elsewhere.
David
