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Abercastle July 20th
mo - 7/22/2008 6:42 AM
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Category: Travel
Comments: 0
Abercastle July 20th The day started with blue sky and just the faintest breeze, with my dive kit loaded I set of on the 90 mile trip at 7.30am, I was to meet Ann at Abercastle at 9.30am, at around 8.30am the wind started to increase in strength, not a good sign, arriving at the dive site it was apparent the we would not be diving that day, wind was gusting to around 25 miles per hour, Ann arrived a short time later took one look at the conditions and with disappointment in her voice declared, well that’s it no diving today, minutes later Bruce from West Wales Diving School arrived on site towing a Rib, took one look at the conditions and said with a smile Pont-Clais will be good to dive lets go.

Around twenty minutes later we where putting the Rib in the water at Pont-Clais. We set off shortly after 10.30am, we were heading out to sea, around 15 minutes later we arrived at a sit the Bruce called Clais lagoon, the anchor was set together with a shot-line. Entering the water we had around six meters of Vis, and the marine life was fantastic, heading along a wall at around 15 meters, there were large urchins clinging to the rock, soft corals, sponges, Snakelock Anemones, Dalia Anemone, in the myriad of rocks on the sea bed we encountered Starfish, Urchins, Feather Stars, Sea Cucumbers, Velvet Swimming Crabs, Spider Crab and Lobster.

Swimming in the kelp we encountered Ballan Wrasse and Pollock, we spent 48 blissful minutes, exploring is area, before returning to the Rib, returning to shore we replenish our air supplies and had lunch before heading back out for our second dive, we chose to dive around 40m from our first location where the top of the reef is just 2m from the surface at low tide, to the south side of the reef a wall drops 12m to the sea floor, heading east along the wall we found a small swim-though which was home to more Lobster, large prawns and squat lobster, there was so much to see that the 57 minute dive flashed by in no time.

This was a fantastic days diving, only made possible by the local knowledge of Bruce form the West Wales Diving School, and a big thank you to Ann my dive buddy