As newly appointed social secretary came my first assignment !!!!!!!!!!
The evening was at the Poacher’s Restaurant in Criccieth. Everyone made their own way to the venue with a few of the THIRSTY ones meeting at the Lion for a quick pint first. It was a good turn out with twenty of us,we were set on two tables of ten in the restaurant. The starters came and so came the silent as everyone tucked in and the same when the mains came out, I think everyone really enjoyed their meal I know I certainly did.
Then came the raffles and the dud football card it was all just a bit of fun….but I must say all the prizes were won by ONE table, luck of the draw I guess!!!!!! Then just for fun Laura had printed some questions out of a children’s question and answer book as a little quiz;all good fun. David and Carol managed to get full house. Some of us departed and some went next door to the Prince to await our taxi.
I think a good night was had by all with a few of us being a bit worse for wear BUT naming no names!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Diolch Nia.
Thank you all for being willing victims!!!!!!
Irfon and myself attended the BSAC Buoyancy and Trim Workshop, starting off at the Royal Victoria Hotel for the presentation and then moving on to Vivian Dive Centre for the first training dive, which I found to be very interesting and informative. The exercise consisted going down on the 9 meter platform and stopping 2 meters off the platform and then doing helicopter turns then going inverted with my legs pointing upward it felt very weird, and then being asked to go to sleep which showed me that I had my tank to high as I started to nose dive, then a simulated wall dive then the dreaded stops at 12, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3,2, and 1 meters each stop had to be held horizontal for 2 minutes but the 1 meter was only for 30 seconds we then stopped for lunch and a debrief . On the second dive pretty much the same as the first but you seem to concentrate much more the instructor put a clothes peg on the shot line to mark of the veering depths that night I was seeing the bloody pegs in my sleep after the dive and debrief we were given the final results which to my very pleasant surprise I got a Gold Award and so did the other student with me, Irfon on the other hand had to go and get a Black Award well done Irfon we then surprise surprise went back to the Royal Victoria Hotel for refreshments, well worth the experience.
Andrew
The first sea dive of the year came about by the need for Brett & Nia to complete their Sports Diver training before the forthcoming trip to Loch Fyne and the spell of recent calm weather that was forecast to be replaced by easterly gales on Thursday. Their lesson was the CBL & Landing a Casualty with Andrew providing the body to be rescued and landed. With the wind already getting up from the east we elected for Porth Ysgadarn and were rewarded with a calm bay and a good 5 metres viz. Once we had practiced the tow and rescue breaths and Nia had sorted out a leaking mask Andrew led us out to find a suitable bit of sandy bed at 6 metres but had to be restrained as he took off after a couple of pollack. Following the instructor’s nightmare of a mini lift that went slightly awry Andrew was safely rescued in a reasonably controlled manner twice although Brett then did his best to drown him while administering rescue breaths. He was clearly enjoying the lesson though as he chose to extend the 25 metre long tow to about double that by failing to loop back to the SMB. Nia sensibly decided that if she had to tow someone it might as well be towards the shore, but as we had to retrace our fin strokes to recover the SMB it was in vain. We swam back in seeing a reasonable assortment of fish and myriads of hermit crabs to complete the exercise on the beach. Casualtys’ weightbelts were dropped before the poor casualty was dekitted and carried ashore twice, earning the well deserved nickname of “fat bastard” in the process, leaving the rest of us absolutely knackered by the end. Amazingly, we managed not to lose any kit and recovered sufficiently to fill a small trailer load of beach rubbish before enjoying a cuppa and debrief on what was a lovely sunny evening. May there be a few more during the season!!
David Jones
