Wendy Northway
The British weather thwarted our
intended trip to Ysgaden – this will be the second year on the trot that I have
missed out on my favourite Welsh dive site.
Enough bemoaning and back to the blog.
Our backup plan would be old faithful – Capernwray. One by one, my numbers for the Lleyn
Peninsular dwindled as I communicated the new location, but one name persisted
– Dan. Dan had finished his pool
training some months back and was gagging to get his head under the water and
put all his hard work to use. He’d tried
for a few weekends previously but for one reason or another, he didn’t manage
to dive. This weekend, wild horses
wouldn’t keep him away.
Dan and family eagerly arrived at
the entrance gates as the lark was rising.
We quickly went up to the office to register, just in time as other
enthusiastic first timers joined the queue.
I gave Dan and his father an overview of the quarry from the café then
we went back to the vehicles to kit up.
There were only 3 divers – me, Ariel and Dan. Ariel opted to lead the dive and instruct Dan
for his first drill. We had a couple of
kit malfunctions (all good learning points!) – the hose on Dan’s jacket burst,
which led to a few hiccups as Ariel tried to get a new one, then just as Dan
finally got into his dry suit, he couldn’t do up the zip.
Dan’s father showed immense
restraint as I piped up that I had seen a discarded candle on the floor. What must have gone through his head ‘what
does she think she’s going to do? Light
a candle and pray to the god of mechanical closures!’ No, it acted as emergency lubricant!
Once zipped in and ready to roll,
we headed off to the water’s edge. The
pool looked very inviting, and for all our faffing about it was still early -
there were few divers in there yet to stir up the bottom and we could see the
large trout swimming about. Tentatively
adding weights to Dan, we adjusted his weight and once happy, we set off to the
platforms. Dan executed his tasks with confidence
and ease – mask clearing and DV removal, not at all perturbed by the trout that
flitted about in front of him. Once
these were out the way we headed towards the horses. Buoyancy control was good as he finned
effortlessly around the Red Devil. We
headed back to the shallows and spent a few moments watching the fish then up
and out.
After replenishing our cylinders
and tums, we headed out for a second dive.
This time we did a massive step entry from the jetty, descended and
followed the contours round to the 6m platform on the left hand side. More drills were carried out for OO2, this
time without quite so many fish. Once
completed to Ariel’s satisfaction we headed off to the Cessna on the 12m stage. Dan had a slight problem with his ears but I
showed him how to ascend a tad then slowly descend which relieved the
problem. Heading back to base passing
the African Queen we made our way around the contours and surfaced in the
shallows. Awesome was Dan’s expression
for this.
It was still early so I asked if
Dan was up for a third dive. I don’t
think I got all my words out before he started kitting up! This final dive would be purely
pleasure. Ariel handed over the
navigation gauntlet to me and instructed me to ‘find the Dive Bell!’ No pressure there then, as there is no
bearing listed for this! Having dived
Capers more times than I care to remember, what could possibly go wrong! OK – headed out to the helicopter platform
with a mid water swim – third dive of the day we didn’t want to go
progressively deeper. I also didn’t want
to have to explain to my DO why I took a novice to 18m on his 3rd OW
dive. Finding the platform we then
headed towards the dive bell. Finning
over the undulating terrain I felt all eyes on me – would I find the target
with a bull’s eye or would it be the black outer ring? Suddenly I saw it loom in the distance; I
cocked a snook in Ariel’s direction and confidently led my student to the
delights of the saturation chamber and carried on back to the horses and
home. For one last time, we settled and
watched the fish go by – the pint sized brown trout aggregated together in
small mobs whilst the larger rainbow variety skimmed passed us in loose gangs.
Contented with today’s
proceedings, we returned to the cars and the shore crowd – Dan’s family and
friends had turned out to watch him – such dedication given the rain. It was a very successful and rewarding
day. Dan completed 2 drills and his
enjoyment made gave me much satisfaction – it’s times like this that make being
an instructor worthwhile. We waved them
goodbye whist we nipped up to the café for a bowl of chips and a slice of
chocolate and banana cake. Well we had
to somehow occupy ourselves as the cylinders were being filled!
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