Trefor & Porth Ysgaden

[Arfie]

On Sunday we packed Secondopsmans Mahoooosive van, picked Endoman up and headed off on the four hour drive to Trefor Peir for Endomans first salt dip of the year and Secondopsmans first salt dip EVER along with the first salt dip for my new Seaskin suit.

High tide was about 3pm and unbelievably we were early so had a walk about and looked at the peir, fortunately the gates were locked cos on looking at the peir and all the supports that have fallen since last year I'm not sure it could have taken our combined weight. We even had chance to have a sit around relaxing and moaning about people with motorised surfboards and jetskis before sweating, sorry kitting up.

In we get for about 2:15pm and spend about 15 mins bimbling along the wall before descending. WOW, the clearest viz I've seen there, must have been over 10m. We had a nice steady bimble up the right hand side, then back down the left taking loads of pics.

Saw orange pipefish, scorpionfish, crabs, wrasse, a prawn and many others I can't remember as I've not looked at the pics yet. Saldy I've flooded my camera when rinsing kit this morning so I can't get my pics to check everything, but I know Endoman has some great pics which I'm sure he'll post. Oddly there was a lack of spider crabs (which will cheer Kirstie up!) which were the dominant life last time I went.

All in all a nice relaxed 50 min dive in 12C and 10m viz

Then we headed off to Porth Ysgadens a small natural harbour about 15 miles away. There were a few boats being dragged out and a few divers being dragged out too. So start kitting up, I found tht part of my BCD has broken (the plastic bit that connects the cummerband assembly to the backplate has snapped), but I reckoned I could dive with it anyway

Then we have to walk down the very steep road to the water which is lovely in arctics and a drysuit in the sunshine.

Into the sea and it's not getting any deeper, finally it gets to above waist height and eventually we descend. THUD theres the bottom, I never saw it there is close to zero viz. It's at this point I remember that the viz is shit when the tide is going out I did my AOW in these conditions. The only way to keep Endoman and Secondopsman in view was to be so close to them that they kept kicking me. It took 3 minutes for me to call the dive and surface with a 2.7m max depth. Endoman swore he saw a fish, we didn't and he didn't get a picture, so it's not allowed.

Get out, kit off, BBQ lit, food eaten in the lovely evening sun, pack up and go home.

So Trefor was lovely, Porth Ysgaden was the worst dive I've had in the UK, not helped by me finding my BCD was broken.

If I can get my pics off, I'll post some later and hopefully the others will post theirs.

Arfie

[Cyprian]

I'm sorry to hear that you had a poor dive at Porthysgaden, if you had stuck with it a little longer and ventured out along the reef and out of the bay, then I'm sure you would have had an enjoyable dive. We were out of Porthdinllaen yesterday, diving a wreck a mile or so off the point, the viz was very poor as the plankton has arrived, but still plenty of life and an enjoyable dive. Glad to hear that the viz is holding out at Trefor as we have a club dive there on Wednesday with seven trainee ocean divers in tow - it should be a good experience for them.
Hwyl
Irfon

[Arfie]

I'm not great on fish ID .... yet.

Myself and Endoman had got this fella trapped, he even briefly spit out and caught his weed.



Scorpion?



Loads of orange pipefish, none of whome sat still enough for me to photograph, so I got their cousin







You aint seen me, right?






They'll have to do you until Endoman pops up with the good ones.

Arfie

[witchieblackcat]

It seems like the world and his wife were at Trefor yesterday including me. I've never seen it so crowded.
The viz was excellent. Here are a couple of pictures...

[Arfie]

Aye, twas a touch busy, especially when someone parked a huge silver van near the steps

I was looking for that octopus, didn't find it though

Being as I couldn't get a decent pic of a pipefish, I got a video.



And is this a sole?



Arfie

[witchieblackcat]

You were the generous chaps that opened my supposedly-dry suit afterwards.

We spent ages with the Octopus. He was about halfway down just to the sea side of the massive bit of fallen pier.

Nice videos. Looks like the pipefish that we were looking at right at the end of the pier where the Tompot was nibbling him. Did you see the lobster down there too? Quite a big one but totally wedged into the rubble at the end.

Not sure about the flatfish. It's one of a plaice, sole or dab. Plaice have brown spots like this chap:

[endoman]

I'll post some pics later when I get back from work,

[Arfie]

You were the generous chaps that opened my supposedly-dry suit afterwards.

Ah, the one with his suit on backwards with the zip at the back?

We spent ages with the Octopus. He was about halfway down just to the sea side of the massive bit of fallen pier.

Bugger, I was messing about tormenting another scorpion there and didn't even get a decent shot.

Nice videos. Looks like the pipefish that we were looking at right at the end of the pier where the Tompot was nibbling him.

No this one was near the other end towards the end of the dive.

Did you see the lobster down there too? Quite a big one but totally wedged into the rubble at the end.

Bugger, Bugger, Bugger - Can you guess?

Oh I saw about 3 tompot blennys all together, but could I hell as like get the camera near them

Arfie

[endoman]

Just a few as I took about 50 and have a little work to do with camera focussing yet, but some not too bad,

There was a fish at Porth Ysgaden, a scorpion type on the bottom, but it was poor vis and we didn't want to go out in the bay so a wise call.

At the start of the pier.



Scorpion and baby crab



Bigger crab



Starfish, these are easy, they keep still :-)



Pipe fish



Nice colours, just a shame the wrasse moved



Are you watching me? Arfie in video mode,



Now if only some one could move it a little closer, 4 hours is a long time for a 50 minute and a 4 minute dive. The barbecue at Porth Ysgaden was good though, and the fresh Mackerel we were given has stayed put so I must have cooked it ok :-)

[Cyprian]

Fantastic shots Endoman, the viz really was good, eventhough the site was packed out as it sounds, hope it holds for tomorrow night for our club dive.
Irfon