Landlocked Mermaid

Final Friday Top Five! Outdoor Water Activities Legit just chilling in a river. The water is my happy place, so in these trying times I thought it's be fun to look at my top five things to do at a body of water! Never mind that we are on lockdown and this might be legit torture! 5. Canoeing Me in a canoe last Earth Day   Best time to canoe? Well, when picking litter out of a canal for me, of course! I've never done a proper canoeing course because honestly the thought of purposely capsizing my boat freaked me the hell out. Naturally, I understand why they teach you it, it's so you can get back out of the boat. However, I have done canoeing and kayaking through school residentials and with my partner on adventure days. I always enjoy it and when my arms start to ache, I just like to chill and look for fish. Or mermaids. Or gindeylows if it is particularly weedy.   4. Stand Up Paddle Boarding An activity for everyone, pups included! Phot...

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 ...

Lately, my diving trips have been plagued by bad luck, bad buoyancy, and bad brain. Now, bad luck is beyond my control and I'm working on the bad brain already; so it's time I have a look at my buoyancy problems. Because when I fix the brain, I'm still not going to have successful dives if my buoyancy is all over the place.  Buoyancy is really important when diving. You wouldn't think so because you're trying to get below the water not stay on top! (Hahaha, I'm trying to be funny there.) But, once under, you don't want to be scraping along the seabed because that reduces visibility. Nor do you want to be floating up to the top because that gives you the bends. Which is bad. You want to be neutrally buoyant - resting in the water, neither sinking down nor floating up. I struggle with this. I am positively buoyant. This means I float. If I was negatively buoyant, I'd sink and have different problems. For me, the issue is getting under the water in...

Capernwray Over the last six months, Chris and I have been training for our Sport Diver course with Shrewsbury Sub Aqua and BSAC . The Sport Diver qualification means that we can dive up to 35m and lead less experienced divers. It takes the knowledge we learned on our Ocean Diver course and takes it to the next level, as you probably could have guessed! It began back in January with...  Ready to learn! BOOT CAMP Over the course of a weekend, back when it was faaarrrr too cold to dive in British waters without a drysuit, myself, Chris and about four or five others learned everything there was to know about Sport Diver theory. We covered six modules over the two days. It was very information intensive, but a good way to learn as we could discuss the more difficult bits with less of a time constraint than when we learned before the practical session.  The modules were taught by members of the club, sharing their expertise and experience which makes ...

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 boa...

Final Friday Top Five Fish I'd Like To See When Diving 5. Nudibranch Photo from Natural History Museum I almost feel like this answer is cheating, because I have seen nudibranchs while diving. I think. But I saw one type. A little brown blob which in the coming tide could have been flora or fauna, we didn't stay still long enough to really tell. There are over 3,000 types of nudibranch, so I would like to see more than just one "maybe" brown one.  4. Basking Sharks Photo from The Times Originally, I wasn't going to include sharks or big things on this list because we all know I want to see all the sharks. Even the terrifying goblin shark. But basking sharks swim in my waters which means I have an increased chance of seeing them - especially in comparison to goblin sharks which live in all the deep trenches. Basking sharks have a migration path which runs along the Welsh coast and these gentle giants are beautiful. They are a ...

A few months ago I started my Diving Bucket List . Since getting Fifty Places to Dive Before You Die (by Chris Santella) for my Birthday, I have been adding to this list. The book is compiled of sites reccomended by diving experts across the world. I've been dipping in and out of the book over the last month, and here are the dips I want to take! The Diving Bucket List Continued.. Channel Islands, CA Kelp forests. Photo from Horizon Charters   The kelp forests look amazing. And like you'd be diving around Finding Dory - follow the shells!   There are a few places on my America wishlist and California is one of them. So this would be two birds one stone for me! There is plenty of life around this area too, which is always a drawing point for me. Gotta see them fishies. Lord Howe Island, Australia Balls Pyramid. Photo from Outdoor Australia Quite often when I talk about diving abroad, people assume I want to go to the Great Barrier Reef in A...

It was the AGM last Tuesday for Shrewsbury Sub Aqua Club . Next month, I will have been diving (or rather learning how to) for a year. Where has the time gone?! Most of the meeting was about budgets and the business side of things. But part of the meeting was to decide the new committee members, vote on who'd volunteered, and finalise the new committee. There were a few positions changing this year. I was considering volunteering for them but without knowing what the positions entailed, I was a little hesitant. Instead, myself, my partner, and a fellow from our Ocean Diver course were offered the chance to be general members of the committee. This was confirmed at the AGM. I am very excited to be involved because it means I can learn a little more about the committee roles and what they do, so that next year I can make an informed decision about which I would like to volunteer for. Being a general committee member also means I can give back to the club which has given me a...

Happy New Year! I hope you all have a happy and healthy 2019, full of adventure and fun! While I get my new schedule and posts in order, I am going to take this one last opportunity to look back on 2018. I think it's been a good start to the blog and I'm looking forward to aiming for bigger and better things! I thought it'd be fun to list my top five viewed posts.   5. The Waterbike Collective (posted 20/7) This was when I discovered the Say Yes More initiative and the YesTribe . All thanks to my partner being their hero, I got to find out about their Waterbike mission to pick up a million pieces of river litter, Yestival, and hopefully more of their future projects. Hughie in action on the bike. 4. Finding My Fins: Porth Ysgaden (posted 24/7)  One of the biggest things I have done this year is learning how to dive. This was my first sea dive, off the beautiful Welsh coast with SSAC.  I am looking forward to going on more trips ...