With the tractor having been legal for a couple of weeks and light winds and a good neap tide there was no option other than launching from Aberdaron. The Club rib had broken down during Wednesday’s boat handling with a punctured hose on the steering ram and a second leaking screw connection but Harbour Marine had managed to repair it for the weekend. Mike’s boat was available so, with 6 divers expressing interest on Friday evening, we opted for 2 boats. Then Neil phoned in to say he planned to join us in his own rib. When one member dropped out and no one else came out of the woodwork we decided against using Mike’s rib. Brett brought the trailer down, with the launch going fine at low water. Carreg Ddu was the chosen first dive site with low water at 10am, so it was an early start with the first pairing of Mike and John in at 9.20am. David and Neil followed shortly afterwards but even though dive times were limited to 45 minutes it was almost 10.30am before Andrew and Laura got wet, with slack water holding throughout their dive. So we had over 2 hours of slack on either side of low water on a 7.4 metre tide. The viz. was good but with a lot of particles from the week’s wind still in suspension it was quite dark. There were masses of assorted wrasse and pollock but virtually no crustaceans. Our tally was a small brown crab, a small lobster and 2 red eyed crabs – on a site that used to be crowded with innumerable large crabs and lobsters. I reckon that Brett will be out of a job in a few years if the present rate of fishing continues. (On arrival at the dive site we had seen Steven dropping strings of pots at each corner of the rock!) The highlight was a huge bull huss hiding at 22 metres, which is where Andrew saw a big one on our previous visit to this site in July. Lunch was taken on shore on Bardsey where there is a new bench but it was as idyllic as ever. The second dive was at a slack Lighthouse point. Mike & John went deeper finding lovely gullies. David and Neil headed inshore for the point where they went to the east until the current picked up. David failed badly putting up his DSMB, getting the line tangled and ignoring the golden rule of letting go, and so managed a self inflicted fast ascent. He survived!! Andrew and Laura went in on the same east face back towards the harbour but picked up a fast current which took them round the point and so they concluded their dive along the west face. Bit of a thrill by both accounts. Mike, having already released one of Ernest’s pots off the point, now went down again west of Carreg yr Honwy to release another pot. It was only in shallow water but with it running a bit it was an impressive, if somewhat slightly nutty, spectacle. Our route back took us past Carreg Ddu which was now an impressive maelstrom. It was now well on towards high water, with the bit of beach that was left at Aberdaron being crowded with sunbathers, kayaks, et al!, so recovery of the rib had to be in line with the boards, but somehow we managed to get it onto the trailer, despite being swamped by a sudden series of big waves, and Mike and the tractor had no problem getting the boat off the beach.. All should have been fine then but Mike insisted that the handbrake was off in the up position. Consequently, David’s car, with it’s useless 4WD, only just managed to get up the hill past the bakery, weaving between the cars trying to get into an already overfull Aberdaron. For everyone’s information the brake on the trailer is off when the lever is flat.
Despite everything it was an excellent day’s diving.
David/Laura
9 divers met at the National Trust Porthdinllaen car park on a fairly chilly and showery Sunday morning. Ian Williams launched the club RIB and Mike launched his boat too. We had both boats in the water 9:15-9:30ish then we headed straight over to Nant Gwrtheyrn as we wanted to keep to a fairly strict timetable to make slack on the Slate Wreck at around 12:30. After making a few passes over the area it was decided to aim for a reef that appeared on the echo-sounder. Nia and Brett along with David and Jake went in first and their description of “Gimlet Rock on a bad day” and the rain closing in didn’t do much to enthuse the second wave! Andrew decided to opt out of the first dive of the day altogether but Dewi and Laura quite enjoyed the very dark dive and actually saw quite a bit having some time on the reef before a drift-lobster, lots of hermit crabs in big whelk shells, scallops and a spotted ray were seen. Mike and John were the last divers in and by this time the weather had really taken a turn for the worse. Thankfully following a quick lunch and toilet stop by the time we were heading out to the state wreck the sun was shining and stayed out for the afternoon. Nia & Brett, David & Jake, Dewi & Laura & Andrew all enjoyed a dive full of life on the slate wreck. Vis was around 5m, plenty to see – a mix of fish including loads of female cuckoo wrasse and tompots, congers with most having macro spider crabs(?) at the entrance of their holes, lots of crabs including some huge edibles. The current had really picked up by the time Dewi, Laura and Andrew we’re finishing their dive which resulted in an interesting ascent. Passing the shot on its way down at 10m and descending to 20m again wasn’t part of the plan! With slack well and truly over by the time Mike and John got their go they ended up drifting speedily West. At one point it looked as if they were going to get to Porth Ysgaden and when asked what they saw the answer was “one stone”!
A day of two halves- both with the weather and life/vis seen.
