Sunday 12th September 2021
An early weekend morning with no breeze and flat sea, Dewi, David and myself met at Pendre to pick up the boat for 7:30am and for Mike to be at Porth Colmon for 8:00am.
We launched the boat and headed off to a new dive site near the Tripods designated as (AS-BG Reef) for the first dive, shortly after arriving we had a brief encounter with a Risso’s Dolphin. The first dive was to be a single wave of 3 as Dewi’s back was playing up. David, Mike and myself went under at 8:53, unfortunately the vis was very poor and at 20+ metres also it was very dark. The new dive site does have potential with many deep gullies. Unfortunately, the gullies, lack of vis and the darkness meant I lost my buddies or they lost me? Either way I stopped my dive and did the normal routine of looking for my buddies and after a couple of minutes I ended my dive and deploying my DSMB and returning to the surface. I was first up with a dive time of 25 minutes and a max depth of 24 metres with poor dark vis of 2 metres, David and Mike had a dive time of 35 minute and a max depth of 28 metres.
We headed off to Porth Oer for a spot of lunch before heading off for our second dive at Braich y Noddfa with Dewi and me buddying up this time.
After my 2-hour surface interval, Dewi and I were first down and with better vis but not great, the topography was breath-taking with pillars overhangs, swim throughs sadly a bit too tight for comfort and with lots of fish and an orange thing. Dewi and I had a dive time of 45 minutes and a max depth of 19 metres with an OK vis of 3 metres. David and Mike went in together but didn’t surface together with Mike up first with a dive time of 21 minutes and a max depth of 16 metres then David surfaced 15 minutes later reporting poor vis and a dive time of 36 minutes and a max depth of 20 metres.
Fortunately, both dives were slack water dives. We finished our days diving at 13:03. With all divers safely aboard, we headed back to Porth Colmon. Recovering the boat which went without a hitch for a change and then all back to Pendre.
All in all, a good day with an early start and an early finish. Thanks to everyone and especially to Dewi for the towing, launching and recovery.
Andrew.
