Cheeky Bay Dive

September 21st-22nd, my partner and I joined Shrewsbury Sub Aqua Club for a dive trip to Porth Ysgaden. Most folk went up on the Friday night and enjoyed an early Saturday dive. Between general exhaustion, work commitments, and life we chose to join them later. If we'd have traveled down on the Friday night we'd have got there gone midnight. Add in the 6am start, it was just a recipe for a bad dive. I have enough of those and feel like I have ruined plenty dives by crying. So we decided to join them for the Saturday afternoon dive and stay for one on Sunday. As per usual, best laid plans and whatnot, but more on that later.

Saturday was beautiful for diving. The sea was calm, the sun was shining, and thanks to the autumnal breeze it was not too hot. Perfect conditions. The dive in the morning had been great by all accounts, there were even sightings of an octopus! Despite our sensible decision, I was a little jealous we missed it!

Bay view at Porth Ysgaden

The afternoon dive was slated as a bay dive in slack water - meaning between the tides when the current would be a small as possible. The aim was to start in the shallow bits of the bay and then pootle out to be picked up by the boat. These are actually my favourite kind of dives. As much as I enjoy dropping into the deeper waters, that initial plunge can take the breath away and disorientate! The gentle descent into the reef is nicer on the nerves and as mine are constantly frayed at the moment, I certainly appreciate the slow approach.

Plus, there so so much life at the 6m (19ft) shelf. It gets ample light and is an ideal temperature for life to flourish. We saw a multitude of fish, including wrasse, crayfish, and crabs; and so many different plants. At one point, my buddy and I drifted over the top of a kelp forest. It genuinely looked like an alien planet. It was glorious.

One of the club members was kind enough to lend me a torch during the dive, so we could proper look under nooks and crannys. Under a nice big rock is where we saw the crayfish, just chilling. I was keeping an eye out for nudibranch, but I don't think I saw any this time. Not that I mind, because there was still so much to see. When we passed over the kelp forest, I turned to my side and there was an almost big fish just eyeballing me through the leaves. That was pretty awesome. 

I really enjoyed this dive. It was just calm and chill. I had the right amount of weights on and was not constantly fighting my buoyancy. I mean, I still was at times, but not for the duration. I still rocketed off on the ascent, despite trying to prevent that. I will crack that one of these days! But, nevertheless, diving felt like it was beginning to be second nature to me. I am looking forward to more dives feeling like that.

And bonus? I removed a piece of litter from the sea! A prawn cocktail bag of crisps, which amused me more than it should have. I need to invest in a swag bag for litter, because it is very hard to make sure it has gone into the BCD pocket. Quite often when I pick the pool litter, it floats out before I have zipped the pocket back up!

One less bit of trash in our seas.

There was supposed to be another morning dive on Sunday, similar to the one on Saturday just a little bit later in the morning. Unfortunately, during the re-arranging of the cars so that the boat could be turned around, our van got stuck in the mud. This was on top of a stray cylinder having not been filled and our poor dive manager trying to corral various parties. That was when the dive got aborted. Roughly an hour of finding a big enough jack and bits of wood to place behind the wheel, we got the van out. But at least the tide wasn't coming in around this stuck car! 

Oops!

Aborting the dive did mean we had time for a cup of tea and coffee before cleaning up the campsite. And because we were leaving earlier, it meant we had time to explore a new bit of Wales. The fella and I stopped in Bala for some breakfast.

In October, we are supposed to be organising a dive weekend for the club. We suspect we'll be organising it for Porth Ysgaden, as it's the site we know best. Providing the guy who owns the campsite lets us come back!

Club camera man, Paul Bulmer, took some video of this weekend including the octopus! The video and more photos are on the SSAC facebook.

Listening to: Heart Eyes