Isle of Man 22-23 May - two legs good, three legs better!

The weekend started early on Friday morning – some had earlier starts than others VRSAC had two different passages across to the island – the early starters aboard the good ship Bryher, captained by Admiral Dewhurst, others took the more leisurely Seacat from Liverpool. The motley crew aboard Blackbeard’s yacht had the last laugh as they had a good run beating their expected travel time down from 12 to 8 hours allowing them time for a curry then down the local for a couple of pints. All this and Clive was able to keep facebookers updated as he mapped the progress downloading from his blackberry (giving up the ciggies, I guess he had to do something with his hands!)

The high energy dive sites of the Isle of Man are richly fed by the currents that race around the Island. These tides can be very fast and thus it is important to dive them on slack water otherwise divers can find themselves in either Scotland or Ireland! Time and tide wait for no man and thus Ariel was pained to realise that he couldn’t have a lie in – Saturday morning started with a 7.30 pick up! We loaded to the boat Endeavour and headed off towards the Calf of Man to our first site – Bay Fine. This was a site I hadn’t dived before, a magnificent wall covered in deadmens fingers. Alice and I caught sight of the full length of a ling in a long fissure. Steve found an octopus, others had splendid first dives as wrasse and pollock swam around us. We reboarded the diveboat very easily on a lift system – no climbing ladders for us and hot teas and coffees were very quickly made available for us

The next dive was at the highly charged Buroo. This was probably my favourite dive of the weekend. This is right on the tip of the Calf of Man were the currents sweep nutrient rich seas. John Sweetman and I descended through comb jellies to a carpet of oatenpipe hydroids in full bloom. Gulleys were pasted with deadmens fingers, jewel anemones, Devonshire cup corals and other cnidarians. A stunning sight to behold! Unfortunately I had a problem with my suit inflate and had to abort the dive early and only managed 23 minutes, but what a 23 minutes! Getting back on the boat one of the locals who joined us had actually seen a basking shark underwater. We weren’t sure whether to believe him or not – his buddy hadn’t seen it (how can you miss a fish the size of a whale?) and although he had a camera with him, he didn’t take a photo (ok he had a macro lens on, but he could have snapped its eye)

Saturday evening, we went our separate ways, I met up with my Uncle who now lives on the island and the boys went for a curry. When we met up Sunday morning it appeared that the curry was lying heavy. Dave George had tripled his antacid dosage and it wasn’t yet 8 o’clock! We loaded the Endeavour again and headed out for the Fairy Caves. I had a rare chance to dive with Ariel and we enjoyed going in and out of the caves. Large boulders flanked the outside of the caves as Pollock and wrasse weaved their way in and out of the kelp forests. Inside, we were treated to vertical walls covered in hydroids, anemones, red seaweeds, urchins, red and yellow sponges. The whole scheme was a 1970’s wallpaper at its most garish!

All to quickly the last dive approached – The Clan McMaster in the Sound of Calf. I dived with Alice again and we caught a brief glimpse of the wreck before we were taken by the express train that was a drift, taking us over carpets of bryozaon, anemones and hydroids. We were swept into kelp at 5m and thus ended the dive all too early. As we surface, a horde of seals dived straight into the waters around us, thus giving us the perfect ending to a most enjoyable dive!

The weekend was going to end at the Indian, the only eating establishment open on the Island on a Sunday evening, but the lads had curried themselves out – instead, we gathered a Chinese takeaway and some beers and it was back to Captain Dewhurst’s boat, via the magnificent rowing skills of first mate Alice. A pleasurable evening was had as we watched the sun setting over Port St Mary

A marvelous weekend of diving was had by all. Good weather and pleasant company was enjoyed by all and I hope that it isn’t too long before we return to this my favourite dive location

Porth Ysgaden ~ 3rd May 2010

The planned Bank holiday weekend trip to Largs in Scotland was rearranged due to lack of numbers to become a very well attended one day trip to Porth Ysgaden on the Llyn Penninsular in North Wales. Diving just on the Saturday which lived up to far better weather than had been predicted by the weathermen!

Under cloudy skies but on a slight sea surface we motored out on both Ribs to Maen Melt, about a 40 minute trip from Porth Ysgaden, to dive the rocks and gulley’s there. Arrived just on slack water which is an essential to dive this location and were rewarded with 2 to 3 meter visibility and bright waters down to the 21 meter deep sea bed. Lots of spider crabs, sponges, dead men’s fingers and an unusually large number of Nudi Branches! Andy and Dave H even found an ivory chip, a remnant of the wreck of the Lucy!

Returning from Maen Melt the skies cleared somewhat to give some good sunshine. Ernie and Paul dropped into the bay at Porth Ysgaden and during lunch Dave G & John dropped on to the reef for a drift dive which was 'nothing to write home about' by all accounts.

A second full team dive on the reef towards the back end of the afternoon however gave much better results. Three pairs of divers dropped fairly shallow (15 meters) and closer in to the shore and covered by one of the RIBs didn’t move a great deal. Ernie and Alice covered by the other RIB dropped in to deeper water in a couple of knots of drifting water back towards Maen melt and had an excellent dive, again in only a couple of meters visibility, covering over half a mile in 30 minutes or so but encountering dog fish, Red Gurnard, Crabs of many varieties, etc. It has to be said that there was excited chat all round on both boats as to how good the dive had been on the return to shore.

A beautiful sunset wrapped up another great day’s diving!

Many thanks to Dave G for organising :-)

DH