On the preceding Saturday the weather was forecast to blow up on Wednesday from the South. By Monday it was still due to blow up, but from the NW. As it happened, after a bit of a breeze on Tuesday night and early on Wednesday the afternoon and evening were windless!! The wonders of the weather forecast!! Hope that explains why we actually dived on Tuesday evening. The forecast for that day was spot on with the wind picking up (from the NW) and it clouding over dramatically. But as we had gone to Gimblet Rock the sea was calm and looking clear. The only negative was several fishermen along the shore. There were 6 divers, Melanie & Andrew, Dewi and Brett, and Nia and me, with Mike doing shore cover. All chose to enter the water close to the rock and head a bit to the east of south to avoid the fishing lines. Viz. was a good 6 to 8 metres, unless you happened to be following Dewi and Brett on the way back!, but it was a big Spring tide which was still rising. Consequently there was a strong back eddy running along the shore which made navigation interesting. Dewi & Brett found one of the sewage outfalls which was inhabited by several lobsters, one of note, while Melanie came across the biggest cuttle fish ever, which Andrew may have caught on his new camera. Nia and I must have just missed the outfall as we picked up Dewi and Brett shortly after turning round. Our highlight was a small flatfish, which was not a plaice but remains unidentified? There were pipefish and butterfish, lots of dragonets and numerous crabs, but very few scallops, and two fewer as Dewi couldn’t resist earning a few brownie points. It was Nia’s first dive for a long time, possibly since the Azores nearly 2 years ago, and it was like she had never been away, especially as it wasn’t the easiest of dives as there was a strong cross current on the way back.
David
The plan was to dive at Porth Ysgaden but due to the vis and wind direction it was changed to Gimblet Rock which meant a later start, meeting at the Gimblet Rock car park for 7.30pm. A good turnout for a Wednesday dive with a total of 6 divers with me volunteering for shore cover. The pairings were as follows: Melanie with Gwenno, Jake with Laura and Brett with you guessed it Nia. The conditions were great with blue skies and flat calm sea. The tide was out and rising which allowed us to see the upwelling from the outflow, so everyone took a bearing on it. It was Gwenno’s first dive of the season and she was a bit apprehensive but after a 33 min dive came out with a big smile and roughly were they went in. Brett and Nia returned after a 40 min dive to also roughly were they went in, then Jake and Laura returned after a 52 min dive but missing their entry point by a few metres, well I was beginning to think they were going for the slipway at the other side of the caravan site but Jake realised in time but still had a long swim on their backs. To my surprise nobody found the outflow but as the sea was so flat I was able to track all the diving peers throughout the dive and Brett and Nia were the closest. We headed off to the Vic for some well deserved refreshments.
Andrew
Decided To use my home turf and went for the Rheol. The pairings were: Jake and Mel, Brett and Will, Nia and Adrian, Andrew and Gwenno, Mickey did shore cover for us. The dives ranged from 43 minutes to 72 minutes. The Vis was a good 6 metres. Most of the pairings did very well on navigation, with Adrian getting top marks for not peeping and coming back into the channel. One pairing took the scenic route and did most of Hells Mouth, while the rest of us were being eaten alive by midges. There were reports of one or two Spider crabs (hundreds of the things), Ballen Wrasse, Corkwings, Tom Pots, a Pipe fish, Lobster and Jake and Mel saw some Bass on their travels. We retired to the gun room for scones and tea. Apart from the midges we had a good night.
Brett.
