Another Bank Holiday weekend, and another miserable weather forecast, so it ended up with a few of the usual suspects (in fact the exact same group who were out at Easter) turning up at the North Wales Inland Diving Centre (NWIDC) for a bit of training. Irfon took Dilwyn for the first of his Sports Diver dives, trailing an SMB around and managing to get it snagged, while Peter took Andrew for the Dive Leader DO6 exercise, (Dive Leading & Rescue Skills Review no less), with yours truly providing a body. This involved the full mask clearing routine at 15 metres, where the temperature was a very chilly 6 degrees, and the AS ascents also from 15 metres. I can happily report that Andrew managed both tasks with aplomb (one for Mike to look up). I’m still not sure who got the better deal, Peter in having to demonstrate the mask clearing or me in having to go through the two lifts. With there being no viz. still on the North coast and the windy south coast being not a lot better, this might be a regular event in the coming weeks.
David
Yet another weekend of atrocious weather forecast so, with a dry window showing for Sunday afternoon, we offered a training dive at NWIDC for anyone at any level above OD who was interested and available. Only Andrew phoned in, with Peter having signed up by return e-mail. Dewi, the Dive Manager, was also up for it but dropped out when he saw the state of Sunday morning’s weather. He was also a bit concerned about reports from the previous week of a thermocline and 6 degrees at depth when in a semi-dry, even though I had told him that Peter thought that it was toasty!! So the three of us met up at 3pm at a very quiet quarry where the last of the morning divers were packing up. Andrew was going to do the CBL exercise of the DL course, with it being Peter’s turn to be the body. He always gets the cushy numbers! To test his DL skills, and all of our buoyancy skills, Andrew led us around the wall to the left of the platform, at 20m (plus or minus 10cm!!) I was pleased to find that my own buoyancy had returned to normal. Peter decided that he would test his by sitting directly above and behind the DL, causing Andrew to think that he had lost him. Having got us back to the causeway we found a bit of a platform at 15m for the CBL which was very controlled, to the extent that a real body might have had cause for complaint. The transition to, and initiation of, the 50m tow with a minute of rescue breaths was similarly casual, but it is highly likely that Andrew was conserving his energy for the tow, because by the end of it he was all in. Nearly as bad a state as when Peter led him off to check out that lump in the vicinity of the Cyprian last summer. He was allowed to recover on the platform before knackering himself again with the CPR exercise. As you might imagine the haul back up to the car park was particularly hard going.
David
A reasonable turnout at the West End of Pwllheli sea front on a fine evening, the first such Wednesday of the season in fact. Dewi took Josh to finish off the first OD lesson and to do the second lesson, while Andrew did the same with Jake, with David observing. Irfon & Adrian headed off for a jolly with Nia taking on the duties of shore cover. It was a rising Spring tide so a west to east current was expected. Instead what current there was appeared to be running east to west, and even offshore. But at least the viz. had improved to a cloudy 3 metres, while the sea temperature was amazingly high at 13 or14 degrees, depending who you listened to, up from 9 degrees 2 weeks earlier. Josh said that he had to open his neck seal as he was over-heating!! The exercises all went well, with the boys enjoying having the newly tested 10 litre cylinders back. Not a great deal of life, but enough to keep it interesting.
David
The tide was low and the north coast, which still appears to be murky, was open to the wind so the only place to go was Gimblet Rock. Although the forecast was excellent only Peter & Andrew phoned in to Irfon. I turned up on a lovely evening to give the dogs a walk, as I was still clogged with a summer cold, to find that Josh & Jake were also there, having forgotten to phone in but having worked out that this is where we were most likely to be. Of course, it was my fault for failing to check e-mails!! So Peter and Jake, followed shortly by Andrew and Josh, with Irfon hovering, headed off to locate the sewage outfall. It was so calm that Mike and myself could easily follow their progress all the way out, with both groups heading off by as much as about 15 degrees to the east and thus missing their target by a nautical mile. Their navigation on the way back wasn’t much better and in Peter’s case was notably awry. The highlights of the dive were viz. of over 4 metres, a very big thornback and a piece of scrap metal with two holes in it!! Still, they all seemed to have enjoyed it.
David
The Dive meeting was to be Aberdaron parking, with 6 turning out to enjoy a welcome Bank Holiday Dip.
The site was to be Garag Du as the main dive, and then look for a suitable site for the first dive.
Peter took responsibility for towing and launching the rib as Terry was not available to launch. The launch was quite straight forward, we took the kit down in my truck, and Pete took the boat. Quite tricky on high tide.
We set off and investigated the sound and decided to dive off Porth Felen .The pairings were Irfon and Adrian, Andrew myself and Melanie and Peter.
The vis was poor around a metre and a bit, but there was plenty to see and the topography was well worth the effort.
The second dive was even better with plenty of life to be seen, brown crabs,wrasse,leopard goby, and two lucky individuals saw one of those orange spinney things, but it was only a young one though but a good sign that they are still coming through. We also saw some wreckage off the East side.
We then went back to Aberdaron to retrieve the boat which we did without too much trouble, but I do think the local council could do much better.
A good day was had by all and we all had a good tan as well.
And to top it all Malcolm had done all the housework for Melanie’s return home, what a good hubby.
The boat is fully fuelled and ready to go.
Brett.
With a fresh north westerly forecasted, the old haunt seemed the logical place to dive, but what about the viz? Well it wasn’t good so it was no surprise that there were only three takers, namely Andrew, Adrian and Irfon. David, Brett and Nia provided an excellent shore cover to diver ratio of 1:1.
This was in fact our first outing in PorthYsgaden for the season, so the three, led by Irfon, gingerly left on the eastern side of the reef to see what the storms over the winter had done to the bay. All seemed well, the usual abundance of life was present, although very few wrasses, pollacks and open swimming fish were seen. I think that this is becoming the norm this year. We returned along the same route and managed to keep intact as a threesome throughout, quite an achievement considering the viz of about a meter or so.
Of course we couldn’t leave Tudweiliog without passing the Lion, so a few drinks and a chat was brought a close to the evening.
Irfon.
