Normandy on Loyal Watcher

[Clare Gledhill]

Context.

DIR UK did Donegal on Loyal Watcher the week before your trip so some reflections on the boat and the food may be worthwhile.

It is not red sea livaboard standard food - but it is OK. We were fed dinner the night we arrived, salmon and salad with new potatoes and desert. No complaints here. The vegetarian we had on board was catered for. One lunchtime there was no prepared food, just ham rolls which were left out for us but to be honest it was too damn rough for much else.

[aquaholic]

Originally Posted by Lou

And this is the reason - along with reports like Paul and Anke's - that I just fail to be able to justify the use of a UK liveaboard.

Lou,

don't get me wrong - I LOVE UK liveaboards.

Crawl out of bed, jump into undersuit, grab a coffee, get kitted up.. jump in, wake up as I hit the water - just great!

It allows for much more relaxed diving with a choice to dive or not to dive at a whim, and not having to worry about missing the boat etc. Usually the standard of food is excellent and worthwhile sitting on the boat for even if the diving is off.

The whole feel of that week on LW was wrong, in my opinion:
1. I had anticipated that we would leave port on the saturday night and travel across then - the weather was fine AFAIK. We stayed in port and had to have dinner at the local pub.

2. We only did one dive on the UK side on Sunday, with no option to do a late afternoon dive that day after arrival in Normandy - why?

3. I also hadn't quite realised that Watcher was too big to go into the local ports (my mistake, I didn't do enough research), but did sort of expect to spent some on land each evening - why else go to France? Darren was very reluctant to even put us ashore on the Monday.

4. All in all I got the feeling that they were skimping in all areas. I don't know if taking on Watcher turned out to be a bigger fish than they had intended to land, but if I am expected to pay full wack for a boat charter I expect full service.

It is a particular (and well known) 'problem' of south coast diving that SW gales limit the choice of dive sites. However, Darren at one point said we were going to Falmouth for the remainder of the trip and I would have been quite happy with that as I have never dived around there, so any site would have been new and worth at least one attempt. We could have don a bit more of a UK Southc Coast tour that week, even if it meant sitting in a different harbour that woudl have ment new terittory to me.

Equally I am sure there were dive sites off Dartmouth / Exmouth that must be divable ins a SW gale. It was the skippers choice to head home and sit on his mooring and I don't think that was in our best interest as the charterers for the week - and not worth the extra cost of a liveaboard. I can dive Plymouth breakwater from any day boat there more cheaply.

I guess I will limit my liveaboard trips to Scotland and abroad locations where there is a better choice of alternative sites. South coast will remain for me day boat diving territory.... as much as I hate the early starts...

Anke

[Paul Beal]

Originally Posted by Clare Gledhill

Context.

DIR UK did Donegal on Loyal Watcher the week before your trip so some reflections on the boat and the food may be worthwhile.

O.K, I did wonder as Darren mentioned a couple of names I recognised.

It is not red sea livaboard standard food - but it is OK.

Damn right it's not Red Sea. Sorry, it is not even O.K. There was absolutely nothing that was nutritious.

We were fed dinner the night we arrived, salmon and salad with new potatoes and desert. No complaints here. The vegetarian we had on board was catered for. One lunchtime there was no prepared food, just ham rolls which were left out for us but to be honest it was too damn rough for much else.

It seems that you were lucky. The words salad and new potatoes would have been very welcome! We were told in advance that there was no food when we arrived which was fair enough but it now seems it was another corner to cut.

Paul