Sunday 17 July 2011

The weekend did not start off as planned, with us setting off an hour late.  Luckily Rachel and Paul, skipper and B&B owner. were okay about late check-in. Once settled in we met the rest of the divers, we had only knew one of the other divers before the trip.

The first day showed how the weekend was going to be, rain but with calm seas.  The dives were scenic drift dives, with cracking visibilty which was easily 15-20m!  Over the two days we did dives through swim throughs, furtled in kelp and through rocks.

We saw
  • big lobsters
  • squat lobsters
  • edible crabs
  • velvet swimming crabs
  • hermit crabs from large to minute
  • shrimps
  • loads of different types of brittle stars
  • star fish
  • sun stars
  • urchins
  • flat fish
  • wrasse
  • butter fish
  • blenny
  • ling
  • wolf fish
  • loads of dead man's fingers
  • soft corals
  • beds of anemones
To name a few of the things we saw.

A big thank you to Richard for organising and inviting us on his club trip.

Friday 22 April 2011

All at sea!

My first UK sea dive this year was today at Trefor Pier.

It was definitely a good day to go, so I thought, and so did the other divers who were there in force.

There were at least two clubs diving. We had decided to do one dive (we needed to be home early) so we waited until the majority had done their first dive and dived in their surface interval.

The life below the pier seems to be less than the last time we dived there, whether it was because it is earlier in the year or the lack of free food from the fishermen who can no longer fish there I am not sure.

We did see a butter fish, a large flat fish, lots of small velvet swimming crabs, some shrimps, small edible crabs and some friendly wrasse.

We had a good dive, a good day out in the sunshine and met some familiar faces.

Oh... and John was on open circuit on his twinset so his rebreather had the day off and missed the 5.5m dive!

Sunday 10 April 2011

The mist is eerie...

Looking out over Scapa Flow this morning the islands are hovering above the mist.  Giving an eerie feeling of days gone by.  The sun is now burning off the mist and the Sunday boaters are out on the flat calm Flow.

Yes we have made the 500 mile trip up to Orkney to do some work that is needed on the boat.  Sadly we decided not to bring the dive gear and regretting it now the sea is flat calm but this would have distracted us (John really) from the work needing to be done on the boat.

The work will be complete this afternoon and we are on our way back home tomorrow, thanking Dawn and Garry for their generous hospitality.

Thursday 31 March 2011

Trips

With the unusual good weather has set me thinking about UK trips.

So far I only have two trips booked, Lochaline in Aug and Shetland in 2012!

John has come home tonight asking would I be interested in a trip in early July to Swanage.

We do have some long weekends planned to work on the boat in Orkney but are still looking at other possible long weekend trips.

I am also planning some one day diving in Wales and Anglesey ... so watch this space!

Monday 28 March 2011

This week I have realised that this year I will have been a PADI Professional for 10 years.

During that time my diving has taken me to some wonderful places, seen some beautiful dive sites, swum with some magnificent creatures and met some memorable people.