So not quite the Resurgam (again)

[Ian@1904]

It is a tad late and have just returned from the 240 mile drive.

First time to dive with Elfyn.

A few obseravtions for now:
Amlwch closes around lunchtime on Saturdays.
The chip shop closes at 9pm Saturday
Skippers with years of experience once in a while miss shotting a wreck
Elfyn cooks a mean bacon buttie and very good tea.
Don't believe weather forecasts-with hindsight we could have made the Resurgam
The Dakota is a great rummage dive
Steves dive club will steal anything not nailed down-pony snatchers
Wales has a special type of ultra wet rain-for saturdays

Elfyn
See I am being kind to you. We all have bad days.
Thanks for a great time. I think Cath wants another visit.

[Neil M]

Originally Posted by Ian@1904

with hindsight we could have made the Resurgam

oh thats cruel....

[jamesp]

you mean you did not make the resurgam, and failed to overnight in Eire?
THAT was an interesting trip!

[Angleseyskipper]

Originally Posted by Ian@1904

It is a tad late and have just returned from the 240 mile drive.

First time to dive with Elfyn.

A few obseravtions for now:
Amlwch closes around lunchtime on Saturdays.
The chip shop closes at 9pm Saturday
Skippers with years of experience once in a while miss shotting a wreck
Elfyn cooks a mean bacon buttie and very good tea.
Don't believe weather forecasts-with hindsight we could have made the Resurgam
The Dakota is a great rummage dive
Steves dive club will steal anything not nailed down-pony snatchers
Wales has a special type of ultra wet rain-for saturdays

Elfyn
See I am being kind to you. We all have bad days.
Thanks for a great time. I think Cath wants another visit.

no worries ian you don't have to be "kind" with me as its me first missed wreck in over 9 years as a charter skipper and is not a "once in a while thing " i put me money were me mouth is as you,ve seen , no wreck on the end of the shot no fee for the dive, its whats i've always said if it happened .
i should have put you on something closer to home but being a wreckie meself i tried to put you on something decent after doing an 8hr fishing charter .
That ended late as you know due to a slow off load making your evening dive a bit tight for the slack which we missed .
i hold me hands up i cut it too fine and paid the price for having to rush the job, not something i'll be repeating in the future

As for the forecast i have to work with what was given it was giving spot on for both days until staurday nights change, you guys were allready down i was not willing to let the rest waste a fortune in fuel to come down and not dive with the one that was showing.
its tough but we have to make decisions on the weather info we have to hand.
yes we could have made Resurgam on the day but the forecast said otherwise and the licence holder had to be onboard.

if you had all been at home i would have cancelled the night before on the outlook for the day and been gutted looking at a flat sea which it ended up as.
It was good to meet ya all , we had a bit of viz on the sundays fall back wreck dives and everyone seemed well switched on making my life easy.
elfyn

[Ian@1904]

After a smooth trip along the A5 and some window shopping in Betsey Coed we arrive around lunchtime in Amlwch. Think Royston Vassey and you will understand. Cathy and I went for a wander on foot and had the feeling that everyone was watching us. Shops were boarded up up, barred and generally closed, on a saturday lunchtime. The cafes were shut. If this was a one horse town the horse would have webbed hooves and serious buck teeth.

We met up at the port area about threeish and was impressed that a landy can carry four big lads, and four sets of dive gear. Shame that entering wales causes sat nav systems to go into error mode, but hey you have entered a different universe. Elfyn was having a bad day having taken anglers out with a child. Not a good idea. So Elfyn was a little stressed. So were we, it is a long drop say 20+ feet at low tide from harbour to boat. Kit loading was slow. anyway out to the wreck we go. Time was running short,
Elfyn finds the wreck, drops the shot but fails to hook in, and again, and again. Elfyn is by now worried about what I will write on YD. Attempt 4 and I am thinking that he has been to the Dover school of wreck shotting. Anyway with tide starting run we all drop in. Cathy and I do a slowish ascent as we are swimming against the current and use quite a bit of gas getting down-nearly 100 in Cathy's case. Viz is pants as the first two divers have kicked the bottom up, searching for the wreck. They thumb the dive, we thumb the dive. Steve determined to the end, goes for a drift and allegedly finds baby octopus(jammy git) and other wildlife. Back on board and Elfyn is now muttering about first time in ten years. It took three of us to calm him down, and a few beers when on land but eventually the stress eased.
We all stayed in the static caravan, clean, nice, shame the TV did not pick up a signal. There is very little entertainment in Anglesey. It turned out the the indian and chinese were only takeout, so we skipped showering-we all minged by Sunday afternoon. The indian was empty so we headed for the chip shop, that was closing, at 9pm FFS. However the food was excellent. It is a long time since F&C has left me with chips on the plate.
Sunday saw light breeze and hints of a nice day diving. The forecast was not good for lunchtime so we had to abandon hopes of diving the Resurgam especially as the licence holder did not want to come out to play. So off to the SS Mona, about 28m. Lovely dive; flatfish city, conger, lobster, anemonies. Cathy, who is new to sea diving went from "really keen" to "need a torch like Ian's". Ha, another Greenforce convert. I did some line laying to try and locate the second bit of wreckage, but ended up doing some
light bondage with Cathy instead. Plenty of light and 4-6 m of viz, We did about 40 minutes.
Second dive was the Dakota, just outside the harbour. Fab rummage dive with plenty to look at, found scorpion fish, butter fish and well as the usual conger, lobster wrasse etc. Cathy's keenness went up a new level and talked about arranging some club dives. We did about 40 mins max depth of 19m lovely viz 7m in places. First class rummage dive.
Loading the kit we ascertained that we were down by a cylinder, it was buried in a silver landy. Some people simply have no shame, divers eh, rich ones at that....I know I know mistakes happen. Decent drive home, arrive 9is, kitwashed by 9.30. Currently feeling tired. Tonite is packing for sunny climes, wetsuit diving whatever that is.

Elfyn mate, great diving, thanks for the diving and the bacon butties, and the excellent tea

[Steve S]

Hi All,

first and foremost I want to thank Elfyn for a great weekend, he was as he always is a great skipper/laugh/storyteller I have never had a bad day with him and this time we even had decent viz [more on that later] by North Wallian standards.

Elfyn is caught between a rock and a hard place, nobody has a right to dive the Resurgem so he is really cashing in favours with CADW to dive it, and if the guy concerned says it's a no go then there is no appeal.

Anyway on with the story myself and 3 Heanor SAC DIWexplorers set off at a respectable time of 11am for the journey westwards hoping that this time we were going to be smiled upon by the weather/wreck gods.
After an uneventful journey we arrived at Amlwch port at 15.45 for a 16.00 meet, result, we sorted the gear out met up with Ian and his unfeasibly good looking club member Cath.
Unfortunately the fishing charter was late in, and presumably to full of beer and fish to get their stuff off in a timely fashion so we were delayed getting out.
Elfyn shotted the wreck several times but the slack had clearly gone so we sent "team stupid" in water first to tie in the shot followed by "team good looking" and Ian and finally "team old bas*ards" I was in the latter despite being neither old nor a bas*ard, but needs must, the current was ripping so a tight grip was in order, we caught up with teams stupid and good looking at the bottom who elected to return up the shot.

Team old bas*ard then became team stupid and we set off on a brisk drift the viz at 30m was probably 4+ metres once you had made it through the bloom and jellies, we saw a few dogfish, crabs and pollack and to my delight a baby octopus which is now identified by the signal of trying to turn around to get a better look, then doing a current assisted barrel roll and burying your buddy in the sand as he comes to your aid thinking some kind of fit has taken hold after 30mins we thumbed it.

Back on the surface Elfyn was in the wheelhouse doing a Micheal bentine's potty time impression, clearly gutted that he had had a career first

Back to port and off to John Hulmes caravan in Anglesey's monsoon season, as usual I only had sandals and shorts [note to self, jerk] then off to the chippy who were mortified at our coach load of orders when they were trying to close.

a few tinnies and tall stories later we were joined by Elfyn who gave us the bad news that due to a crap forecast Mike had called it, I rung Neil M to save him a wasted journey but Elfyn gave us the option of a morning dive if the weather allowed, or a return home with tail's firmly between legs and a refund, we choose to sleep on it.

Morning came and the wind had not come in yet so buoyed, we set off to the boat and loaded for a 2 dives, possibly. I yorped a greeting to Terry who was off with a fishing charter and out of character he was smoking.

"The Mona" no not Elfyn but our first dive, a reall small twin screwed brigantine covered in life with 6 or 7m viz. on the brief Elfyn said he can tell how good a persons buoyancy is by the amount of anemone slime on them, teams oldbas*ard and stupid were clear but unfortunately team good looking's DO let them down
I kid you not the wreck reminded me of a smaller version of the Mull wrecks a fantastic dive 30m for 40 mins, spirits on the boat were much lifted.

The sea started to pick up so we headed back to dive the Dakota on slack which would be a first for me the brief was, head to the air lift part, de-kit and get the Cognac that has eluded the CCR wearers at least that is how I interpreted it
For those who have never dived her she is the wreck that has kept Elfyn and Terry in fags and hair gel for years and is a fantastic rummage dive with crockery and bottles everywhere, spurred by the info' of oil paintings rolled up in lead tubes I spent a good while trying to get something similar out but to no avail. after 60 mins we thumbed it unfortunately the old bas*ard part of our team still doesn't know how to work his D9 so we had 15 mins of deco from 18m obviously some hidden Bernard manning conservatism setting

Back to port and unloaded the boat with no help from team good lookings DO tried to steal a pony and when rumbled, said our goodbyes and set off for home listening to the 2nd half of the match on 5 live, a great end to a great weekend, oh and the new inversion stand works a treat

Thanks to Elfyn, John, Ian and Cath and to my lot for not screwing up I look forward to the next one.

Safe diving,
Steve

P.S. I'll post some pics later

[Ian@1904]

Originally Posted by Steve S

Back to port and unloaded the boat with no help from team good lookings DO

I carried all my own kit up and someone else fins. BTW Kit carrying is all part of the Assistant Dive Marshall experience for newly qualified Sports Divers. If you can't lift your kit don't take it on board.
Pics are at home must delete photos from card prior to going to sunny zone. Although the prospect of seeing silver thongs is a tad scary.

[Cathfish]

Quote [..."The Mona" no not Elfyn but our first dive, a reall small twin screwed brigantine covered in life with 6 or 7m viz. on the brief Elfyn said he can tell how good a persons buoyancy is by the amount of anemone slime on them, teams oldbas*ard and stupid were clear but unfortunately team good looking's DO let them down ]

I think it was Ian's attempt to incorporate training exercise in untangling-your-buddy-once-they've-tied-themselves-into-knots-with-their-line that resulted in the slime pickup! (Have to defend my DO, else a) threat of nasty ratings on YD and I don't have 50 posts yet so can't retaliate and b) no more dive trips for me!)

Had an fab time and was well chuffed with both dives on Sun so thanks Elfyn. Cannot recommend a dive boat with such excellent butties and mugs of tea too highly. (When not fuelled by lager, plenty of tea required to keep me going). Turns out that the Dakota was dive number 50 for me - hurrah! - bring on the next 50.....!

Good to meet the boys from Derbyshire - even if they did try to pinch my pony (foiled by one of their own though, so slightly bungled attempt!). Would recommend the company, the skipper, the caravan and the wrecks but not the rain or the night-life in Almwych!

Cath

[Cathfish]

Hmmm..... not sure how much longer you can play the 'all part of the training for newly qualified sports divers' card Ian ..... I'm only a little bit gullible!

[Steve S]

Originally Posted by Cathfish

Quote [..."The Mona" no not Elfyn but our first dive, a reall small twin screwed brigantine covered in life with 6 or 7m viz. on the brief Elfyn said he can tell how good a persons buoyancy is by the amount of anemone slime on them, teams oldbas*ard and stupid were clear but unfortunately team good looking's DO let them down ]

I think it was Ian's attempt to incorporate training exercise in untangling-your-buddy-once-they've-tied-themselves-into-knots-with-their-line that resulted in the slime pickup! (Have to defend my DO, else a) threat of nasty ratings on YD and I don't have 50 posts yet so can't retaliate and b) no more dive trips for me!)

Had an fab time and was well chuffed with both dives on Sun so thanks Elfyn. Cannot recommend a dive boat with such excellent butties and mugs of tea too highly. (When not fuelled by lager, plenty of tea required to keep me going). Turns out that the Dakota was dive number 50 for me - hurrah! - bring on the next 50.....!

Good to meet the boys from Derbyshire - even if they did try to pinch my pony (foiled by one of their own though, so slightly bungled attempt!). Would recommend the company, the skipper, the caravan and the wrecks but not the rain or the night-life in Almwych!

Cath

Hi Cath,

Don't worry about the rep and your welcome on our trips anytime

A good wreck for your 50th and not all DO's are bondage crazed megalomaniacs with buoyancy control issues

Safe diving,
Steve