Landlocked Mermaid

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...

This weekend just past was spent diving! So instead of Marine Creature of the Month, you are getting all the details!  We stayed at Tyn Ros again, with aim to dive Abersoch and Porth Ysgaden. The rough plan was for two dives on Saturday and one on Sunday. There was a wreck dive, low tide dive, and drift dive on the cards. However, they were all subject to weather conditions. Suffice to say, things did not go exactly to plan. But that's life for you. There are loads of these sorts of pictures at Tyn Ros. On the Saturday, we headed down to Abersoch to gear up and get in the water. There was a bit of a breeze, but due to positioning along the coastline the sea was in better conditions at Abersoch than at Porth Ysgaden. The word "lumpy" was used to describe the other side. We got into the water a little later than planned. After the boats had been launched, it became apparent that we'd need to leave it an hour or so to get the best out of the water. So we...

This weekend saw my first sea dive, in the Porth Ysgaden bay. No, I don't know if I've been saying it right, so I can't tell you how it's said. I normally just resort to "somewhere very Welsh". Naturally, before hitting the water, I needed to get some gear. Over the last couple weeks, my partner and I have paid our local dive shop, ScubaTeks, a number of visits. You may have seen on my instagram me testing some of this in Lake Dearnford. BCD, regs, fins, gloves, mask and weight pouches. We now have 90% of the stuff we need to dive, with many thanks to ScubaTeks and their very helpful staff. We were well looked after and got the gear best suited for our skill and needs. Once we were all kitted up, we were ready! (Aside from a few things the club so kindly let us borrow.) Porth Ysgaden is deep into Wales. We stayed at campsite near Abersoch the night before. The gentlemen who owned the campsite has been diving for a long time. There were picture...

In case you missed it, I have been learning to dive since March with Shrewsbury Sub Aqua Club , a branch of BSAC , at Shrewsbury Quarry Swimming Pool. In a rash vest I bought especially. So why do I want to learn to dive? Well, I am a self proclaimed mermaid and what kind of mermaid can't explore the deep? It's more than that, though. I have always loved swimming, despite swimming slower than a Greenland Shark, and have always wished I could see what lies beneath the water. Underwater nature documentaries were always my favourite, as they are a window into that world. But I want to go through that window and see for myself! So, I have learned how to scuba dive. I chose to learn with Shrewsbury Sub Aqua Club as they are my local BSAC branch and I felt like I was in good hands learning with BSAC. The combination of theory, practical and 8 nice long weeks to learn it all over seemed like the right fit for me. And I didn't need to take massive amounts of time off...