Diving in Deep Wales

This bank holiday weekend I ventured to Deep Wales for a dive weekend with Shrewsbury Sub Aqua Club. We stayed at Tyn Ros again, using it as our base camp for dives at Abersoch and Porth Ysgaden. The plan was two dives on Saturday and Sunday, and one on Monday. Thanks to real life and work, Monday was never on the cards for me and my partner. But Saturday and Sunday were fair game for us!

The club boats @ Porth Ysgaden

The plan for Saturday was two dives from Porth Ysgaden: one over Big Rock and the other on the other side of the bay. Unfortunately, the sea had a different plan for me.

On the first dive, we were supposed to descend the shot line on Big Rock. Being in a semi-dry (read, two wetsuits functioning as), I was slated to go in the water last, so I spent the least amount of time cold and wet on the boat. By the time I went in the water, the current was really running fast. It wasn't slow for the other divers, particularly, either. After rolling off the boat, I realised I had a bit too little air in my BCD, I was supposed to grab the shot line. I did not. I was trying to get more air in my jacket and in the couple of seconds I took scrabbling to find my inflator hose I had already drifted some way. We tried to fin to the shot line which quickly fell out of view. My buddy, Bob, called us to stop. It was pointless as the line drifted further and further from us.

Before we decided to just descend or not, the boat came over and told us to grab hold. We were going to be towed back to the shot line. Being towed is hard. Trying to grip onto someone and the boat with clumsy gloves is difficult enough, but then the pull on your arm hurts. Also, I mistakenly took out my regs. My hyperventilate button is very sensitive at the moment and my regs honk. Like really loudly. It is off putting and it does not help to calm my breathing at all. While you can sort of get away with removing regs in the pool, the bottom and/or surface are never that far away, it is really silly to do it in the sea. You'll see why later.

We got towed back to the shot line, which felt like it was ages away. One of the divers on the boat was trying to grab the buoy from the surface and hand it over to me, so that I could grab the line. Unfortunately, the line was on the underside of the buoy and on the other side. So when I was told to let go and grab it, I still couldn't even see the shot line, let alone grab it. When I let go, with my regs half in my mouth, I was immediately swept up by the current. The waves pushed me under my buddy and the boat. Essentially, I keel-hauled myself. Thankfully, someone grabbed me at the other end.

By this point, I was teetering on hyperventilating again. My buddy told the boat that we would abandon the shot, it was never going to happen. They moved away to give us some space. On the surface, Bob checked that I was still ok to dive. At that point, I was. The scary reality of what just happened had not hit me yet. I was just breathing funny. Therefore, I was just trying to get my breathing under control so that we could drop down and enjoy a dive that might have been near Big Rock, but probably not.

I definitely did not have my regs in at this point either. Remember how I said this was dumb? You know how the sea has waves? Can you guess what happened? Yep, I took a lung-full of water. Started to cough. Wheezed a little, even. That is when Bob aborted the dive.

I spent a good ten minutes in the water and didn't even make it under. I only know this because of the time stamp on my camera. Yeah, I got this dive on film. 

After the first dive, we had some time to kill before the tides were favourable again. We munched a little lunch, picked through the details of everyone's dives, generally chilled out. Or if you're me? Got inside your own head. I went to sit in the van because I needed a little shelter from the breeze. Wetsuits are hard enough to put on when dry, let alone when sopping, so I only half pull them down between dives and put on some dry tops. It sort of works, but we had a three-ish hour window, so I started to feel the chill. I should not be left alone, because this is when I go over details in my head, make them worse, and get myself in a knot.

I managed to convince myself that I did not want to dive again that day. Except, I knew I would be seriously pissed off with myself if I didn't.

There are not many places to hide and have a wobble in the coastal car park. My buddy eventually found my partner trying to convince me that I was not a bad diver. He, too, reiterated this and said it was an unfortunate set of circumstances. And that there were plenty of options for me, so I didn't have to bail on the next dive. We could dive with an extra buddy for some more support. Or I could just go on the boat and see how I feel when I get out there.

I was scared that I'd got too in my head about it all and that I'd just cause similar problems for myself.

But I worked up to deciding to go on the boat again and see how I feel, when the club's Dive Officer found me. He suggested that we do a bay dive instead. Ease myself back into the water, as it were. This sounded like the perfect middle ground.

We grabbed my kit off the boat and set up for a bay dive. Turned my camera on, kitted up, buddy check, waddle into the water. It took a little while for me to descend under the surface - I was more buoyant that I should have been. I also found I was forever twisting to the right because I was over-weighted on that side. It was only later I realise one of my weight pouches was not in its pocket causing that under-weighting one my left side. However, I over came that and got on with enjoying the ocean again.

The dive was a lovely, gentle pootle around the bay. It was exactly what I needed. We saw fish, spider crabs, another type of crab which I have only ever heard referred to as an "edible crab", and my camera picked up a jellyfish which I did not spot at the time. We were diving over all the kelp and seaweed. It was amazing to watch it just swaying with the tide. Sometimes you could see the seabed through the leaves and it was something of an optical illusion trying to figure out which bit was actually moving. It was all quite hypnotic. Others in the club say that makes them feel seasick. I don't know if it was the tablets or the way my seasickness manifests, but it did not affect me at all.

I really enjoyed my first bay dive and was very grateful to Mark (DO) for taking me in. 

I got some footage of this dive but it was the camera's first outing so the position is too high and needs a bit of fine tuning. Mostly it framed either the hose from my regs, my mask, or something off to the distance. Definitely nothing that I saw and actively tried to aim my camera at. But hey, it works and the quality of the film itself is good. I look forward to reconfiguring and getting some more impressive shots next time.

For actual, decent footage of this weekend's dives, check out Paul Bulmer's video. You even get to see my partner diving on his footage!

The next day, it looked like both dives were going to be rained off. We all slept through when the first dive was supposed to happen, anyway. The plan was to meet the DO in one of the nearby towns to see if there was an option. My partner and I decided to tag along, see a bit of different scenery. The four of us - myself, my partner, the Chairman, and the Club Secretary - went via Abersoch to survey the conditions on that side of the bay.

It was looking hopeful.

At this point, I was a little disappointed at the prospect of the day being rained/winded off, due to my unfortunate first dive the day before. I wanted to get back out and do a longer, deeper dive that I had been so looking forward to. 

Like I said, it looked hopeful. The wind was dropping, there were hints of blue skies, and the waters between the two islands just offshore looked nice and sheltered. We reported this to the DO and a dive for that afternoon was set. High tide wasn't for a few hours, so we had plenty of time to get back to camp and set up for the afternoon.

I was slated to dive first, with my buddy Bob again. It was because of someone needed to be able to drive the boat at all times. (But also, give me less time to freak myself out?) I was helped into my kit by Anna, the Club Secretary, and she did a wonderful job of helping me feel calm. I was in safe hands, though. And given some good tips on how to roll off the boat. Basically, go to the edge and let gravity do the rest. I made sure my BCD was properly inflated this time.

It is still very disorientating, entering the water upside down. Your brain is going, wtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtfwtf; your BCD is trying to float to the surface; and the rest of you is just caught up in the middle. I got the right way up though. There was no shot line to try and grab. We just had to get ourselves under the water.

You know how I am so in my head, right now? Yeah, I decided to stare down the waves as I deflated my BCD. Suffice to say, I did not deflate my BCD. I had my regs in (for once) so I could breathe, but the waves going over my face freaked me out a little. Bob had not got very far himself, he was under weighted, so we had to call the boat back anyway. I had already said it was too choppy for me; I was on the brink of aborting again. And then I got mad at myself.

I love diving. I had come all this way to dive. Once I am on the bottom I am fine. I was just being a dick and scaring myself. I wanted to dive.  The boat stayed to provide a little shelter and we tried to descend again. I wasn't deflating as much as I needed to. Some instinct or deep rooted desire to not bail again made me put my head under the water. And then I was fine.

Literally that was it. I just needed to stick my head in. Instead of stare at waves, just put myself in underwater mode. And we were away!

I had a little trouble equalising my ears, but when do I not? They refused to pop until we went a little higher, but then they just went. And after that point, I just let myself enjoy the dive. We started in a kelp-y area, which gave way to more sandy and rocky terrain.

And the life! So much life! There were sea stars in all of the colours, some even had smaller legs where they were regrowing. There were fish, some medium, some small. There was even one which skipped along the seabed. I saw all the same crabs as the day before, which is always incredible. There was a giant sea slug, which I thought was a plant at first. It was brown and purple, and hump on its back which made it look like a snail. I think it was this one.

I was so amazed at this sea slug, I could have stayed looking at that bad boy for hours. The tide was starting to run, so we had to leave it behind. We found a crab, hiding under a rock, shortly after. It was while looking at him, when something tugged at Bob's fins. He signalled for me to look (knowing exactly what was happening), to my surprise there was a seal following us. A seal! A real life puppy of the sea! And it stayed with us for most of the dive, just occasionally nipping at our fins or doing flips in front of us, like some real Endless Ocean diving!

It. Was. Incredible.

As the current was running, we deployed a DSMB (a surface marker), so that the boat would be able to find us. After that, we just drifted. Minimal finning, it was brilliant. It was all over too quickly. It was a choppy re-entry on the boat. My seasickness was flaring up a little, but I think that was because I didn't bother taking any tablets that morning, thinking the day was being called off. On the boat, I got to be lookout for the rest of our divers. They were difficult to spot for a few reasons: 1) the flags dotted around the island were the same colour as the DSMBs; 2) the waves were a little lumpy around the edge of the island; 3) it was getting progressively sunnier and more light reflected off the sea's surface, making it squint city.

We eventually found them further round than we had gone.

I am really glad I got over myself and went under the water. I would have hated myself, knowing I'd missed out on seals. And the more I dive, the better I will get. My hope is that someday I will be good enough (read: not a liability) to dive with my partner. I'd love to share these experiences with him.

This would be the bit where I show you some footage of this dive. Except, my camera was not on! Not for lack of trying. I thought I had turned it on and started filming on the boat. I cannot actually check this, as it is attached to my BCD. Turns out, I turned it on post-dive and it was just on and running, filming nothing. Until we got the kit back to camp to wash it. It got knocked on while it was being moved around. I didn't even get any decent footage of the cleaning, just a glimpse of people's arms and then the very pretty tree it was hung in front of.

I was gutted I didn't get the seal on camera. Or the slug for that matter!

Like I said, I need a better camera set up. Where it's placed at the moment is just too high and the fact that I cannot check it's filming without asking someone if they can see a small, flashing light is just not ideal. It  needs reworking.

Overall, I had a good time this weekend. It was nice to hang out with the other club members. We had a BBQ on Saturday night and went out for dinner in the next village over on Sunday. I had an amazing pizza. They do take out, which we found out this time, so I reckon we'll be using that pub a lot more on future trips! I'm glad we tagged along with the trip into town as well; it's a beautiful area and I'm enjoying seeing more of it.

One of these days, I will get over myself, and just enjoy the dive. Descent and all. Though, going under the boat was scary - I am not going to do that again in a hurry!

Listening to: Ashley Tisdale