6 divers phoned in – Brett, Nia, Andrew, Mike, Dewi and Laura. The plan was set for a 08:30 meet at Porth Colmon however not long after arriving we realised that we’d be risking it to launch with so little water so off we went to Porth Ysgaden. Luckily it was quiet there so we launched and managed to find a place to park the cars and trailer with very little bother.
1st stop was west to ‘Penrhyn Bay’. Mike and Andrew were first in swiftly followed by Brett and Nia. Although Nia was decidedly lighter getting back on board both pairs reported a lovely dive with very impressive topography. Mike and Andrew spotted a couple of huge conger eels and Brett and Nia saw a sponge crab and lots of candy stripe worms. Laura and Dewi were last to go in after Nia coming to Laura’s rescue by lending her fins. A lifespan of 30 dives for a pair of jet fins must be a record?! Laura and Dewi had a great dive and although unsuccesful in the ‘find Nia’s weight belt mission’ did manage to find the arch and enjoyed an impressive swim through.
After lunch and a cylinder swap over in the sunshine at Porth Ysgaden we headed out for the second dive at ‘PD cracker’. Another great dive with lots to see in and amongst the reef and gullies at around 18-20m. Plenty of fish including wrasse, bib, pollack. Lots of sea hares, dead mans fingers and anemones of all kinds. One crayfish was spotted. With slack long gone by the time Laura and Dewi got in after a bit of an explore of the reef it was very much a drift dive. Vis was probably around the 8m mark.
On return to Porth Ysgaden we took the RIB for walkies around the bay for a while whilst Dewi got changed before coming to the conclusion that there wasn’t enough water to get the boat on the trailer and so we headed back to Porth Colmon to recover the boat for the day.
Laura
We had good numbers with 7 divers, the pairings were as follows: Brett with Nia, David with Gwenno and Andrew with Keiron and Mike. As usual the obligatory …I forgot started with David forgetting his fins but Mike to the rescue with a spare set. But to top the …I forgot of I forgot’s were Brett and Nia with forgetting ALL of Nia’s SCUBA kit and you guessed it the conversation between Brett to Nia was basically …I thought you put it in! then the reply …I thought you put it in!! you can guess the rest, so Brett and Nia were on shore cover.
David took Gwenno for her first dive of the year and I took Keiron for a lesson with Mike volunteering to be the assistant as we were doing AS ascent as donor and recipient.
Keiron completed the exercise after some minor tweaking and Mike wasn’t too bad considering how long it was since he last did an exercise, not a bad idea for all divers to practice on rescue skills me thinks.
David and Gwenno had a good dive with Gwenno very happy to be back under the water.
Andrew
The plan was to launch at Castellmarch and make the long trip over to Carreg Ddu for the second dive in the early afternoon. As there were only four divers I phoned Andrew to confirm that he would meet Gwenno and I at Pendre to pick up the rib only to be told that Brett was thinking of offering his Top Cat if the numbers were low, which was indeed the case. So with Mike making up the fivesome we headed out of the Rheol for a first dive on the ridge. Good viz., lots of fish, a few crustaceans and a very noticeable mass of squid eggs which all divers, including Mike, I think, got to see. After a quick stop at the Rheol to change cylinders I thought that it was getting a bit late to catch slack on Carreg Ddu so we tried the Gull Islands instead but as it was still running there we continued on to a totally slack Carreg Ddu, where Mike and Andrew enjoyed an excellent dive which remained slack throughout. The only blip was Mike losing a pod, thought to have been dislodged by kelp, during their safety stop. I was concerned that the current would pick up suddenly during our dive, if Gwenno, Brett and I were to follow them in there, as we have seen it do in the past. So we elected to check out the tunnel near Pen y Cil. It was still slack and being protected from the current by the point we deemed it worth a try. The plan was to swim through the cave and back and then follow the cliff face back towards the point which is exactly what we managed, staying in slack water throughout. Again there were lots of fish but very few crustaceans although Brett did come across a big daddy lobster at the turn round point in the cave. Many thanks to Brett for an excellent day’s diving.
David/Gwenno
The planned dive was to the Menai Straits and that was where I intended to go but Mike, working on Hugh’s old dictum of “time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted”, decided to take a run over on the preceding day to check out the viz. Hopefully Andrew will have tagged on the resulting photos which showed it to be somewhat murky, to say the least. So, even though the tide was far from ideal, the site was relocated to Porth Ysgaden for an early evening dive, just for a change. Seven turned out, only to find the bay looking remarkably similar to the Straits. Closer inspection by Inspector Clouseau of the Rhosfawr CID found that if you looked behind the compound wall it was seemingly OK further down the bay. Meanwhile Andrew and I, not having had the specialized training you see, had ventured over to Bai y Cychod, to find it gin clear but clearly very shallow with the tide out. But we decided to stick with the main bay. As Mike was planning to dive I used the Organizer’s prerogative to gallantly volunteer to do shore cover, turning down a number of less worthy offers I may add. So it was that Mike and Melanie, Andrew and Keiran, and Brett and Nia who set off. The viz. was indeed poor initially but cleared as expected after about 3m depth. I headed over to the opposite reef, taking advantage of the low tide to refresh myself on the layout of the channels through the reef, finding an excellent one at a higher level, which I must have forgotten existed. As I headed back it was something of a surprise to see Brett and Nia surfacing near the shore after less than 20 minutes. Turned out that Nia had got seasick due to the swell and moving seaweed, which most of us would recognize, but she was much worse than I’d ever seen and had to sit with her head between her knees for some considerable time, without feeling much better, so Brett took her home. She went straight to bed but managed to get up for a cuppa at 10pm and was fine thereafter. Had anyone been like that on the rib, after a deeper dive, we’d have been straight on to the chamber. The others continued their dives for another 20 to 30 minutes and all had good dives, with Andrew spotting a monster bass in the shallows at the end. Rumour hath it that some went on to the Lion but I went home for something to eat.
David
With the tractor still not available we decided to launch from Castellmarch for the first time this season. Bardsey and Caswenan were deemed a tad too far so we settled for a first dive on the ridge on the west side of Hell’s Mouth, followed by a hopefully slack water dive on the beautiful reefs to the SW of the Seagull Islands. There was a good neap tide and the weather forecast wasn’t too bad either. I drafted a plan and asked Jake to do the same, for his Dive Leader, and he came up with the exact same timings, which meant for a reasonably early start. We were in the water before 9am but found the wind and sea conditions to be somewhat worse than expected so Jake had a hard time coaxing us across Hell’s Mouth. It was the first time the new engine had been asked to take 6 divers with full kit for 2 dives but it got us up on the plane without complaint. With the wind from the NW it was at least sheltered and calm on the ridge. Andrew and Jake were first in, at a spot given to us by Brett ,who was out there fishing, with instruction to go north. Dive times were limited to 45 minutes with a buoy up after 35, due to the time lost in the slow crossing. They had an excellent dive, as is usual there, but when they were recovered we were slightly alarmed because there was no buoy from the second pair of Mike and John. So we headed off towards Pen ar Fynydd in search of them with eagle eyed Jake spotting them and their buoy almost off the point having gone in the complete opposite direction. No sensible explanation for this could be extracted from them!! Laura and I were doing SD training dive SO2 which involves Laura using an SMB throughout the dive. All went very well until we almost got tangled with a pot line right at the end of the dive. Then Laura’s computer decided to keep us down a bit longer than normal, so we had moans and groans about our dive time as soon as we surfaced. But as we hadn’t given ourselves a time limit it was all just a bit of subordination in the ranks!! After a quick pit stop in Aberdaron we were out to the Gull Islands. Brett was again on hand to give us guidance, dropping a string of pots exactly where he thought the best bit of reef was. As with so many dive sites it was beautiful topography but there was a dearth of life, as it is clearly densely potted by all the local fishermen. We did however spot a pair of huge brown crabs, presumably mating, under a ledge. Unfortunately the tide was still running out so we all drifted into deeper water towards the end of the dive, except of course Jake who is desperate to log more 25 m dives for his DL! Laura handled her first experience of deeper diving very well. The run home was on a better sea and with Castellmarch having smartened up their recovery operation, with different tractors for the sea and land and trailers kept on the beach, we were out of the water quicker than a dose of salts.
David / Jake
