Wednesday 9th of August 2023
Wednesday evening dive took place, once again, at Porth Ysgaden.
The weather report was not too promising but six divers and a dedicated shore cover (plus dog handler) arrived. Thanks Mike and Vi.
The conditions were better than expected with viz a good 5+ mts. Lots of fish, but no crustaceans.
Sea bass shoals just on the limit of visibility with lots of smaller fish including ballan wrasse, corkwing, pollack, 2 spotted gobies, dragonets, sand/common gobies etc. There was a rescue mission in the tradition of David, of various small fish in a home made pot attached to the shore which were not of edible size including a tadpole fish, small ballan wrasse, corkwing wrasse etc. All divers (Dewi and Sioned, Andrew and Guy and Melanie and Kieron) had a good dive and got back before any sea fog rolled in from the other side.
Melanie.
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Thursday 10th of August 2023
Timbo & Half Tide Rocks.
Some impromptu good weather saw an opportunity for a Thursday boat dive, meeting at Pendre for 9am where the boat was prepped and loaded ready for the day. Confirmed divers were Lowri, Guy, Melanie Andrew & Dewi. With Lowri having afternoon work commitments she was to be collected from the SCYC jetty in Abersoch whilst the remainder launched from Pwllheli.
On arrival at Pwllheli it was discovered that the board holding the jockey engine had a structural failure therefore had to be taken off the boat altogether.
The boat was successfully launched and the Uber Rib made its way to SCYC to pick up the awaiting Lowri. The plan was to complete the AS ascents with Lowri and Guy instructed by Andrew and Melanie whilst Dewi provided dedicated cox for the morning.
Slack water scheduled for 11am on half tide rocks and it was decided to deploy a shot in the interests of safety given the potential boat traffic and the tasks in hand. All four divers entered together with the pairings of Guy / Andrew and Lowri / Melanie. The shot proved to be invaluable for surface cover especially when the area was visited by a troop of jet skiers, and it was Cleary visible when all exercises were completed with normal diving resumed.
Both pairs remained on the reef and the wreck of the Timbo for a dive of between 48 – 50 minutes respectively and on surfacing Melanie announced that she had spotted the anchor midway through her dive but only had the one SMB so therefore could not deploy at the time and was unable to re-trace her steps at the end of the dive. Another missed opportunity.
We dropped Lowri off at SCYC in plenty of time for the afternoon start of shift, the rest of us took lunch on a bustling Abersoch beach and were then treated with an Ice Cream by Guy from the family cafe.
We contemplated what to do for the second dive and given that we were on a very good Neap tide decided to return to Half Tide rocks the assess the state of the tide and go anchor hunting. To our surprise it was relatively slack even though we were mid-tide. Given that Melanie had indicated that the anchor was located south East of the Timbo boiler. A quick search of the area located the boiler which was quickly marked.
Andrew & Guy entered first and landed right on the boiler, they were entertained by some inquisitive seals who were attracted to Guy’s yellow fins. The brief given by Melanie proved invaluable and the sea search by Andrew Anchors and Guy was indeed successful when the shore cover noticed the two blobs on the surface. The anchor was in exceptional condition and clearly had not been down for long.
Melanie and Dewi then got in again landed right on the boiler, with no anchor to find a leisurely 62 minute dive was had, with an abundance of life to be seen, numerous Conger eels, some very large lobsters, edible crabs but no seals and a very large what looked like a possible Bull Huss lurking under a rock with some prawns.
Altogether a productive day, Congrats to Guy for completing his Sport Diver and Lowri only having the Distance line exercise before qualifying.
Good team work saw Guy and AA ( Andrew Anchors) salvage yet another Anchor.
Dewi.
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Wednesday 16th August.
Given a brief spell of good weather the opportunity arose for a boat dive on the Wednesday, only a small amount of interest was generated and those confirmed as Mike, John, Melanie, Sianed, Andrew and Dewi, with a meeting time at Pendre scheduled for 8.30am.
An early morning call from Andrew saw him pull out and opting for an emergency appointment at the Dentist instead. We launched at Porth Colmon for about 9.15am and where on site at Maen Mellt in plenty of time for Slack. The pairings were to be Melanie, Sianed and Dewi going in first, this being Sianed’s first boat dive for about 12 months. All kitted up and buddy checks we were dropped off on the point, Sianed had some difficulty in getting down and needed some extra weight. We eventually got down but had drifted slightly off the reef – A short swim following the bearing brought us back to the reef which had an abundance of fish life, which was Red Sea esc if the visibility was better, a dive time 0f 30 minutes with a max depth of 16.7m was recorded.
Mike and John decided to do something similar and a slack dive re-visiting the Keel / Mast and stayed on the reef and returned to their starting point for the pick up by Sea Wasp.
Lunch was taken on Porthor amongst the numerous visitors with a number of sightings of a pod of Dolphins out to sea. Melanie, Sianed and Dewi decided to dive Pen y Bryn. En route we were entertained by a pod of 5 Risso dolphins who buzzed Sea Wasp backwards and forwards for upwards of an hour. We eventually got back into the water, enjoying a slack with about 3 – 4 meters of viz in and out of the gullies, plenty of Conger eels, edible crabs and prawns to be seen.
Mike and John decided to do a supper dive and picked their spot approx a 1 mile North east of Maen Mellt, They were dropped off in 20m of water and going down with a DSMB in readiness of the expected drift. Within 5 minutes a 2nd DSMB was sighted and it was clear from the surface that they were shifting. A short time later Mike surfaced stating he had never been on such a fast drift, John had to deploy his own DSMB as he couldn‘t keep up with Mike. On John‘s return to the boat he also made comment on the speed of the drift and both divers went home with nothing for supper.
On return to Porth Colmon we found that it was knee deep in rotting sea weed and it was going to be a struggle to recover the boat, it was decided that Melanie and Sianed would take the boat to Porth Ysgaden and we would recover from there. In all a good day, nice to get Sea Wasp out, due to our wonderful summer it hadn‘t been out since 28th June.
Dewi.
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Wednesday 23rd August 2023
The interchangeable weather makes Dive Managing a somewhat more complex task, with confirmation coming there was approx no viz in the Menai Straits a plan B was hatched with one eye keeping tracks of the weather. Expecting perhaps a handful of calls on the Tuesday night it was a real surprise to have received 13 callers especially given what the weather had thrown at us and indeed what it was promising. Given the amount of interest it was decided we were going diving rain or shine and the location was the Rheol were Brett reliably informed me that there was 1.5m of viz. A confirmation call went out to everyone on the Wednesday that it was on and to expect a low viz and low water dive.
We all met in the National trust car park and the pairings were as follows:-
Melanie / Lindsay.
Laura / Jarred.
Jake / Ana.
Brett / Enlli
Andrew / Keiron.
Dewi / Lowri
Mike was providing the assistance and shore cover.
It was bit of a task taking equipment and everybody down but we managed with Brett, Dewi and Mikes vehicles.
We all eventually got in 8pm ish, with all Trainee Sport Divers undergoing the distance line exercise and the remainder going for a dive. The viz was surprisingly better than anticipated. Was more or less the first night dive of the season. All divers returned safely to the Rheol by which time there was limited daylight. Transportation back up the car park for sorting out all the dive gear – all exercises were completed successfully.
Congratulation to Lowri for passing her Sports Diver training.
Dewi
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Monday 28th of August
After the disappointment of the previous day, four folk gathered by the old RNLI station in Pwllheli for an early evening dip.
The weather was calm (ish), the viz was good (ish), and boats and jet skis stayed away from us.
Lots of little critters were seen. Lindsay completed some drills towards Ocean Diver. Jared had a good dive with Andrew and saw lots of shellfish as well as the smaller critters.
Thanks to Mike for shore cover and carrying Lindsay’s ditched (deliberately) weight belt back over the sand dunes.
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Wednesday 30th of August
Eight of us dived at Cricieth for a night dive and the pairings were Andrew and Sianed, Laura and Lowri, Mike and Jake, Melanie and Gwenno. There was a ‘super blue moon’ that night which meant the tide was higher than usual. The maximum depth reached was 7.4 meters.
The visibility was not the best (about 2 meters) but plenty was seen – spidercrab, whitebait, prawns, lobsters, dogfish.
Gwenno.
