Wendy Northway
Lesley arrived at mine and we loaded up the car. The plan was to meet in the National Trust
car park at 8.30 at Porth Dinllaen to load up the boat and await the friendly
man with a tractor to facilitate our launch.
Keeping a reasonable pace (Ariel, please note!) we overtook the Rib
being towed by Mark, the saw Andy S overtake us. No need to bust a gut I said to Lesley and we
plodded along. Arriving in the car park, we got to grips with assembling our
kit and eagerly awaited the others. Andy
first, yes he had overtaken us, but only so he could grab a McDo’s en
route. As the minutes ticked by we
wondered where the rest of the gang were, then JohnA tore into the car
park. Mark and Steve had turned too
early and headed off towards the beach.
Lesson number 1 – very soft sand and thus why we needed a man with a
tractor to launch us. Now we needed a
man with a tractor to rescue us from the sinking sand!
A quick phone call was made, we rearranged our launch time
to being ASAP then we started to kit up the boat in situ – what else was there
to do! When we sorted ourselves out, we
were finally reef bound in the general direction of Porth Ysgaden. I was very eagerly looking forward to this
dive. It is one of my all-time top ten
dives – a thrilling turbo charged drift dive over sponge and hydroid covered
mussel beds – bring it on baby!
I buddied up with Jamie first dive and we rolled over. Newly qualified Sport’s Diver Jamie meant
that I didn’t need to worry about going below 20m thus I also relaxed and
enjoyed a dive for the sheer pleasure of the experience – no
leading/instructing. I also left my
video and slate at home so I could indulge in just diving! Jamie made me chuckle. This was the initial outing of his new camera
and as we arrived at the sea bed, he proceeded to set up the appliance. No real stopping I’m afraid, this is a roller
coaster drift dive we’re on here! First sighting
was a large common spider crab. He
angrily bared his claws but we were long gone before he could make a move. I pointed out another and another and
another! The bed was crawling with
them. The reef was in full bloom – fine lacy
bryozoans – crisia and cellaria, cat sharks came and went and edible crabs with
the odd devil crab thrown in for good measure.
Jamie at this point had given up trying to frame critters in holes – he
had no time, it was a case of point and shoot!
We happened across a posse of boulders the size of my corsa in which a
gaggle of codlings were swirling around.
Several ballan wrasse flitted across and just as I thought the dive
couldn’t get any better, it did! The
reef at 20m blossomed with pale lilac volcano sponges, snow white didendum sea
squirts, sulphurous yellow boring sponges and the largest colonies I’d seen of
my favourite ascidian, botrylus schlosseri.
The clear posy like structures stood proud against the rocks in blues
and greens. Jamie was approaching 50 bar
therefore time to go.
Lunch time we popped into the bay at Porth Ysgaden and
enjoyed the last rays that this summer was giving us. We ate our sandwiches on the beach then
headed back out again.
This time I was buddied with Andy, again now qualified as a Sport’s
Diver and thus I could relax. As I
prepared to roll over the tubes, I asked what depth I was in. 27m Steve shouted. Lol I thought – very amusing. As we descended to 15m I thought I’d see the
bottom soon. At 20m I felt sure we the
seabed would be in view. At 25m I
realised that Steve wasn’t joking! We
were in 27m! Hey ho! Good job Andy was qualified! The drift was gentler this afternoon but it
still swept us away. This afternoon we
were treated to smaller stuff – small spindly sponge encrusted spider crabs
were the order of the day, vivid orange sun stars and then, is it? Yes it is – an octopus, just sitting on top
of the reef. ANDY! I shouted through my regulator. I managed to grip hold of the reef as he
caught up with me and was able to have a close look at the little fellow. We fought the current in order to get back
onto reef and a shallower depth but we were thwarted with no stop time – such
is the penalty one pays for depth on 2 successive dives and we had to quit with
loads of air to spare. Back on board
Mark and Lesley managed to stay together on their dive thanks to a buddy line,
and Steve also had Jamie attached so he could snap away merrily with his
camera. We headed back to the beach in
brught sunlight. The dying summer had
come up trumps providing us with a heady glow.
Many thanks to JohnA who cox’ed for us allowing for a smooth as silk
day.
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