Strong winds and poor viz seem to be the norm these days hence our very first Wednesday outing of the season would be a visit to the quarry. As a consequence, only five showed interest; namely Dilwyn, Phil, David, Andrew and Irfon.
David and Phil did their own thing by exploring the 40m pit and having a play with buoyancy. Andrew led Dilwyn for his Dive Leading (DO3) lesson, shadowed by Irfon who was baptising a few bits and bobs of new kit. All went well and all five returning at the same time to the platform.
We opted to de-brief at the Goat at Glandwyfach, Dilwyn did have another name for the establishment but I can’t possibly put this down in print!
Irfon.
Well a gorgeous day for a dive with 5 divers attending Peter, David, Irfon, Dilwyn and Andrew. We launched from Porth Colmon and we headed off to Bardsey in hope of finding a part of the sea that wasn’t murky sadly it wasn’t looking very good.
So on arriving on the west side of the island by the lighthouse we dropped Dilwyn & David in first to test the water so to speak, after a 28 minute dive they surfaced with the news we were expecting that the VIS was SH*!.
So with that in mind Andrew, Irfon and Peter took our sweet time kiting up in anticipation of a 1 meter vis dive oh joy, With myself leading the dive I managed to lose Irfon half way through, leaving Peter and Andrew to managed a 44 minute dive with a max depth of 16 dark gloomy meters, were I saw 1 edible + 1 blue velvet crab and a fish of some description I think.
After we were all safely aboard the wind had picked up a notch or two, we had lunch on a small beach on the west of Bardsey. After watching the lambs playing chase we decided not to have a second dive but to pack up and head back, but David had other plans it seems that he’d been counting the sheep and was fast a sleep on the beach the rest of us were on the boat ready to go but Irfon decided to go over and wake David up, we were going to take a vote on whether to wake him or let him sleep. The return to Porth Colmon was a bit rougher but all 5 divers had a lovely picnic shame about the diving it can only get better….we hope!!
Andrew.
With reduced visibility and a strong onshore breeze generating a decent surf, it proved to be a baptism of fire for the three young guns as they undertook their first sea dive, all of which they undertook in their strides.
The first step was to get them correctly weighted. Jake was in first, with a few extra deliveries from Mike we finally managed to ‘sink’ him to the ocean floor (at one point we thought that Dilwyn’s record was in jeopardy but Jake fell short by a few kgs). As the three had the same suits and kit we had a benchmark, so Tom and Josh were quickly weighted.
As the viz was poor and the swell was making life in the shallows difficult, it was decided to go for an experience dive rather than try and work our way through OO1. So Irfon took Josh, Andrew paired up with Tom and Jake took Mike for a dive. All had a decent dive spotting a plethora of fish, crustaceans and squidgies also Mike couldn’t resist demonstrating his hunter – gatherer instincts by collecting the odd scallop or two.
Not an Ideal start to the Wednesday evening dive programme but it was a confident one by the youngsters and hopefully their appetite was wetted for bigger and better things to come.
It was then off to the Vic so Mike could catch up with the rest of the World by plugging his laptop into the free Wi-Fi.
Irfon.
