Well the intention was to launch at Aberdaron and dive Bardsey!!!!!! Everything in place till Terry phoned Sat 1700 informing me that the clutch on the tractor was no more, dejavu! So it was to Plan B. Porth Yscaden Andrew, Dewi, John and myself towing the club boat, leaving the forlorn Sparrowhawk in my yard where it seems to have spent most of the year!
The dive – The conditions were excellent sunny with a calm sea, we decided to dive The Gwenvine! The shot was prepared with some practice at bowlines! Unfortunately the 25m line was selected instead of 35m on a spring tide in 22m. Hmmm.
Fortune was with us as we got a direct hit on the wreck, Andrew on the helm, Big Boy Dewi on the shot, John watching the sauna, sorry the sonar.
Dewi and Andrew went first, we were joined by another boat who used our shot, (will speak) John and I followed the vis was 30m (will speak) I had a weight problem, self inflicted, (will speak). Lunch Towyn beach, nice. Second dive: Dewi, Andrew, John dived as a 3. on a gentle drift. Whilst I sorted my weight out. Lack of practise!!! (will speak, buy me a pint).
A brill day.
See you all in the winter!!!!
Mike.
I note that this is only the second report posted for the month, which says all you need to know about how the diving’s been of late. This weekend was no exception, after days of strong southerlies the wind was forecast to drop off completely on Sunday, which it did, but the sea was brown. On top of that there was a massive Spring tide. Most of you seemed to be aware of this as only Peter & Irfon called in. By then we had taken the decision to try for Monday when, true to form, the wind was due to pick up strongly, from the north, as the day went on, which it did! The plan was to get away from the south coast madness and head out from Porth Colmon to the quiet of Bardsey, if possible. By then Melanie had been in touch and Irfon had had to drop out, but we still had the magic number of 4. That is until we met up at Pendre, when Andrew announced that he had chest problems and couldn’t dive, but he saved the day by saying that he would cox for us. Porth Colmon was browner than I’ve ever seen it and the sea beyond wasn’t much better. Undeterred, we launched and headed out of the bay, stopping only for Andrew to embarrass us by advising the coastguard that “we were in a little yellow dinghy going to dive Bardsey”. There was a definite long pause before we were asked if he would like to clarify a few points!! The sea state was reasonable so off we set to have a look at the north face of the island. Although we arrived at about high water the tide was still racing through the Sound to the north, but the north face appeared to be slack on our check buoy, so we decided on a not too deep dive down from the buoy and back. However, by the time we had kitted up and were ready to drop in there was a strong rip running east-west, the opposite direction to the usual back eddy, which would either have taken us into the nearby bay or, more likely, would have wrapped us around Maen Bigail or beyond! So, we aborted, dekitted, and had another think. Melanie suggested that we tried the bay by the jetty, so we headed off though the maelstrom that was the NE corner of the island. The east face was also running strongly enough to put us off trying any of the sheltered bays, but the north side of the harbour was fine so we dropped in and managed a quite decent, largely current free, dive in variable viz. of 3-4 metres, although I was later informed that I had initially led them round in a circle before heading out along the rock face!! With only a single wave, lunch was a very long relaxing rest on the island, except for those who got bored and went off to swim with the seals, only to find that bull seals don’t take to intruders and don’t scare easily! The second dive was again in largely slack water on the east side of lighthouse point but the viz. was notably poorer and I soon managed to shake them off and thus did the textbook thing of surfacing, leaving Peter and Melanie to enjoy the kelp for another half hour or so. Being on the leeward side of the island we were sheltered from the worst of the ever strengthening wind, so only really came face to face with it as we entered the Sound. The corner was an impressive chop, as was the entire north coast of the island but the sea state in the Sound itself was not too bad, until we came to the mass of angry white water at Braich y Pwll. It was enough, it seemed, to stop the walkers on the headland until we were through it. Andrew did an excellent job as cox’n and we were back in Porth Colmon in good time. Peter then found out that it doesn’t do the take the turn onto the road too tightly and, as with the rest of the day, had to revert to Plan B, C or D. It wasn’t the greatest day’s diving but it was still an excellent day out, and it was especially good to get out to Bardsey so early in the season!!!
David
Photos by Andrew
