Anglesey - Dakota

[Justin Owen]

Just a quick one for y'all...!

With gale force south-westerlies forecast for yesterday, and the ribs now with cobwebs on, i was a little skeptical about us getting out... ChrisH (of underwater guide to north wales fame) had other ideas though and we met up down at bull bay in north wales planning to dive the dakota.

now, this is the wreck that nearly ended my diving career last year (zero viz, current, torch failure, caught up on part of the wreck ) so i was double skeptical!

anyhow, first wave went in a few minutes early and a few aborted due to current, a quick pick up and we put everyone back in... Chris and I went in on the second wave and had a fantastic dive, lots of bits of wreck, some big lobsters (one of which chris 'set' on me), shrimps, spider crabs etc etc, and a good 45 mins of pootling... went through a few gulleys and saw a few dog fish too before surfacing...

edit: forgot to mention, during surface interval while looking for the pansey, a pod of at least 6 dolphins went past the boats about 30m away, awesome sight! they are huge compared to porpoises, and were really breaking out of the water - smiles all round!

second dive we did right up near bull bay, site of a wreck called the pansey, but there next to nothing left of it... droppin off the side of the rib my self inflating smb caught on side of rib and ripped off, and for good measure landed in water... fortunately it went almost straight to bottom so was able to recover it, phew... a half hour pootle around and more crabs, shrimps and lots o little fishies, good honest fun!

vis was 3/4m on dakota, which was pretty good.

my faith has been slightly restored in north wales, now if we could only get some nice weather and get offshore to some of the bigger wrecks!