4th September Porth Ysgaden:
With a turnout of 5 divers, Andrew with Sianed and Melanie, David with Cai.
Andrew and Sianed started the OD 003 training and Sianed successfully completing her CBL and Tow plus mask clearing, thanks Melanie for being an obliging body. We had a dive time of 51min and a max depth of 6.7 meters. David and Cai completed OD 001 and started OD 002 and they had a dive time of 48min and a max depth of 7.5 meters. The vis was about 4 meters, pretty good considering the high south easterly wind which made the south coast a no go and the water temperature was 16.4c but it felt warmer.
Andrew.
Sunday 25th September
Four interested parties phoned in Friday evening. As usual my better half took the calls as I was with Chris. While there Dewi turned up and told me he was unavailable to tow as he was going with the caravan. So, with the information in hand and seeing a failing and varying wind throughout the day I thought I would play safe and take the cat out for the day, I WhatsApp the other members as the boat was now full. David, Andrew, Mike, and John Write were team for the day. Sunday morning David phoned me to say his covid jab was giving him issues so was going to give it a miss on a precautionary measure. As Mel had WhatsApp for a buddy for a shore dive, I phoned her and offered a space on the boat. The meet was for ten am. Well, everyone was on time including David who had my diver coxswain ticket, ten years in the making 🧐 So after a safety brief we launched and set off. The Teams were Andrew, Mel and myself, and mike and John. The first dive was the trio and I picked a cobble reef in the bay. We started at around sixteen metres and max depth of twenty-one metres. On reaching twenty metres I got Andrew’s attention and did my twenty-metre mask clearing and then got on with the dive. In truth not much life in regards fish, a decent Huss, small conger and quite a number of cork-wing wrasse. Ross corals and Sea urchins everywhere as well as orange sponges. But not forgetting supper that was collected for Chris. Mike and John wanted a supper dive, so I dropped them into the black hole. Their mission was completed and managed twenty-four metres. The second dive was the ridge, well that was the plan anyway a thirty-minute dive off the ridge. We descended to the bottom at fourteen metres to beautiful golden sand bottom. So, we headed off to what I thought was the edge of the reef. Needless to say, we never found the reef, so I guess I won’t be doing any navigation lessons any time soon 😂🤣 Well again not much life but thousands of Sand eels everywhere as we went over sand. Well Andrew put the blob up at twenty-five minutes. Well, the dive plan got dragged out a little because it was what I would call a Moorish dive you just want to carry on and eventually surfaced after forty-three minutes. Mike and John also dived the ridge but found it. They stayed shallow as Mike was low on air. The day ended with a hot drink and shortbread on the beach.
Thanks for the company.
Brett.
Wedenesday 28th September 2022.
Despite two days of gusty northerly wind and the tide being all wrong a few were up for a night dive at Criccieth. There were five divers, Andrew, Guy, Keiron, Jake and me with Mike making it possible by doing shore cover. When we got there just before 7pm there was little wind and the sea was flat calm. However, the tide was out beyond the end of the pier but it was clearly coming in fast so by the time we went in it was almost dark and some were able to take the short cut right on to the reef, where a big bull huss was found having a rest. What would, during daylight hiours, normally be a sandy desert with little life instead had an awful lot of creatures out and about. Those spotted, or reported by others, included huge prawns, assorted crabs, a full grown male dragonet with fins displayed as well as a dowdy mature female, weaver fish, sand gobies, transparent looking sand smelt, a fiesty small lobster out in the open, tiny flatfish and some full grown dab, a big squid, gurnard and red mullet. Dives were of the order of 40 minutes to depths of as much as 4.6 metres. As some of these fish are rarely seen by day it was well worth the effort and hopefully it will not be the only night dive of the season. Many thanks again to Mike for staying with us on a night when it was warmer in the water than out, especially felt if you were in shorts or a wet suit!
David.
