There are two lakes at the site, one for powerboating and one for quieter activities (such as diving!).  Parking is right up against the water and for the entire day we were the only two divers there . The smaller lake isn’t huge but an ok size for a smaller number of divers. There’s toilets at the site but not much else, although there’s a burger van a short drive back to the entrance to the site and a place you can buy junk food just around the corner.

The lakes were created as they were dug out for rock to build the heads of the valleys road and have naturally filled up over time, due to that there’s no fish life although plenty of plants. Adding some fish would be quite nice and would draw in some additional money from fishermen, although there were some kids fishing the bigger lake so I guess that there’s probably some in there.

The water was very clear with a good 5-6m visibility, although if you knocked the bottom lots of suspended matter was sent upwards and took a while to settle. The suspended matter was much preferrable to the black dust knocked up if you find a patch without plants. I did this to test what it was like but forgot to take some video to demonstrate

  

We were told that the max depth was 12m with the lake sloping down in 2m steps but we reached a max of 10.8metres. After about 20 minutes (+ 1 golf ball) we both got a bit bored of the site but pushed the dive to 40 minutes. The second dive we went in with a plan and did several run times with stops at 9m, 6m, and 3m both up and down.

In summary, a good cheap site at £5, not much depth but good for practice. I wouldn’t go for a pleasure dive, there needs to be a purpose, maybe if the site develops a few objects would go in but I don’t know what the owners plans are there!

Diving Rheola Lakes, Glynneath – 2nd August 2008

The drive down from Cardiff was interesting due to the amount of fog and I had to crawl the car through Bristol. Upon reaching the dive site we saw that the water was in the same state as many people from around the country had been the previous night…. steaming ;)

So why had a small hardy bunch gathered in the middle of Somerset on a freezing December morning? Well its the age old story of getting dressed up as father christmas and jumping into cold water to raise money for charity. Every year members of YD work hard and selflessly to raise money for various charities and this year it was the turn of the RNLI, appreciated by many divers in the UK.

During the dive the Santas were joined by a christmas fairy, a snowman, and a pagan viking (celebrating the Winter Solstice). It doesn’t exactly sound like the most seraphic underwater scene but it was the good kind of strange being surrounded by such a group of people underwater. One of the nice things is that the group was diving everything from single tanks to twinsets and rebreathers. We all came from different diving backgrounds PADI, BSAC, TDI, IANTD, GUE but we were all there to have a bit of winter diving fun as one big underwater group :)

 

A chilly first dive of around 45 minutes took us over to the rear end of an aeroplane fusilage where everyone posted for festive underwater christmas photos. Floating inside an aeroplane fusilage, underwater, hearing two guys singing “We’re walking in the air” has to count as one of the most surreal experiences of my life! Maybe narcosis does take significant effect at less than 30 metres as I spent most of the dive smiling or laughing mask filling with water all the time :)

We finished on a boat wreck which had been festively decorated by staff at Vobster Quay. Those who turned up to keep watch on the surface later told the group how people had exited the water looking confused asking “Umm did anyone else see all the father christmas’ underwater?”.

 

On surfacing all involved took readily to a nice hot cup of tea, some some mince pies, and pulling christmas crackers. Those celebrating the winter solstice were soon offering people a small cup of meade to warm the soul after a cold dive, another welcome addition to the day.

Later we were joined by an enthusitastic young journalist who wanted to come along for a dive to experience the group of Santas. “Crazy“ I thought, but we had a spare Santa outfit, so as soon as we could feel our extremities then once again it was time to jump in. We obtained some interesting video footage for the BBC which included several santas disappearing into in long dark tunnel and some very festive rebreather divers.

Upon exiting the water maybe a little of the enthusiasm was lost but there were definate smiles from our new friend. Everybody should dive with a group of Santas!

 

Overall the whole group had a fun enjoyable day despite the temperatures, and we certainly managed to spread a little of that Christmas magic for everyone at the site that day. I’d like to thank Tim from Vobster Quay for the use of their facilities and donating £5 for every scuba diving Santa, Gareth Lock from “Images of Life” for his excellent underwater photography skills, everyone who took part today, and also everyone that has donated money for the event. Donations can be collected until the mid-Feburary 2008 via our JustGiving page: http://www.justgiving.com/ScubaSantas/.

See you next year!

Lloyd Watkin

See more pictures here: Scuba Santas 2007

Anyway, we booked into the Mount Batten Centre, and true to form headed for the nearest pub. The bar in the MBC was shut so we headed around to the Mount Batten Hotel around the corner. Result for Lloyd is that they’ve got Doom Bar there, so I was happy to set up camp there for the evening :D Eventually the other guys from YD arrived and we did the introductions and grabbed some food. We later headed back to the MBC bar (and a chat with the lovely barmaid ;)) for a few more before retiring to our rooms.

We awoke to this stunning view in the morning from the room window, sea flat calm, things were looking good for the dives :) General faffing took place, ropes off, and we were heading to sea. Cat and I went through each others gear quickly so where we knew where everything was and quickly discussed our normal diving practises (such as how I can use my torch to hammer nails into wood!).

Anyway, onto the diving, first dive was on the The Persier, funny that really, every time I’m in Plymouth I tell you! Anyway, Cat had said she wasn’t a huge fan of wrecks so I was determined to find her some nice life on the wreck. Lots of swimming around only really threw up one lobster, not huge, and no point grabbing him today. Apparently I missed the conger at the start of the dive but at least ‘we’ found one :) Was hoping to see the John Dory that’s been hanging around on the wreck for the last few weeks, but we didn’t see it, others did :( 30 minutes on 32% saw us dipping into deco so we shot off a dsmb and up we went.

Next dive was a *sigh* reef, hehe! Jumped in and did Hillsea Rocks. Nice dive, but a fair bit of water movement going on down there. Lots of fish, although apart from one big edible crab not much in the way of exciting stuff. Bit of a leak in my drysuit, got pretty cold but we did about an hour in the end.

Arriving back at the MBC we dropped the cylinders in at inDeep diving, changed ready to go straight out for some more Doom Bar ;) Later on we caught the Water Ferry over to the Barbican for a nice meal, alcohol, and talking bollocks.

Back on board for another day of diving, I had a chance for a chat with Pete the skipper, friendly guy, knowledgable, and knows how to drop a shot ;) It was decided we’d do this wreck as a deco dive so Cat could tick some boxes for something BSAC related. Personally I think my crazyness was starting to rub off on her ;) First dive of the day was on the Rosehill. Lots of congers on this wreck, including a huge bugger pointed out by Cat. Found a nice little hole to scramble into, managed to get through to the otherside. Noticed Cat wasn’t coming so I slipped over the top of the wreck and jumped her from behind while she was still looking for me in the hole :D So we did about 36minutes on the bottom which gave us about 15 minutes of deco (according to the Suuntos) but no deco to do if you look at the tables, so wasn’t really a ‘proper’ deco dive!

Next dive was on the good old James Eagan Layne, now I say good old, I’ve only done it once before this dive so I can’t really call it that can I? Anyway, we went down on the stern line and had a nice little dive basically heading into the superstructure and working our way along to the front. Unfortunately my pride and joy torch developed a fault in the umbillical cable, mildly annoying, and it meant that I didn’t go into as many deep dark holes as I usually would :( Definately need a better backup torch! Thinking about it while I was down there I should of gone for a hunt for my old dive knife, but it wasn’t to be! Still getting to the bow we worked our way up each ‘layer’ doing a nice slow ascent. Up the line to do a hang at 5m(ish) with the current starting to pick up.

Headed off for another pint of Doom Bar before saying goodbye to the guys and heading back to the ‘diff. All in all nice couple of days diving. The viz was awesome all weekend, on a couple of dives we left the line a good 10m off the wreck and drifted down. I also know where I’m going for beers next time I’m down in Plymouth ;) As a bonus Cat didn’t explode when she used nitrox, or went over 30m’s……result!

Left Cardiff at around 7am with old man taylor (Simon). We hadn’t been to Vobster in a good year or so and were a bit lost. We lost faith in the GPS even though it pretty much guided us to the door (except the road signs are only from the opposite direction). One highlight for a drive down was driving through the middle of the Bristol hot air balloon festival.

We eventually arrived at 9am got in, met everyone and listened in on the DIR intro talk. Basically giving us the why’s and how’s of DIR and a run down of what we’d be doing over the weekend. After that it was time to get the gear. Leaving for the top car park we did a bit of asking and managed to sneak the van down the hill.  As there were three of us on singles we were put in our own little evil threesome for the weekend. First dive Myself, Simon, and Ben were doing a dive with Garf concentrating on trim, bouyancy, and fin strokes. We were to be filmed by Wilbo, or were we??? After a cuppa we were taken through the DIR gear config, all makes pretty good sense. A second dive with GLOC this time concentrating on bouyancy, and holding stops in 3m increments.

Anyway, all packed up, and a ever decreasingly sized convoy headed upto GLOC’s for a BBQ and more talks. Julie sorted out food so many thanks to her there.  Howard arrived half way through and the gas management talk began, an interesting piece on minimum gas. After this we headed into the living room for the video debrief, much laughter ensued ;)

Everyone went to bed leaving me and Howard chatting and finishing off beers in the kitchen. I though he seemed alright but clearly the photos taken not 5 minutes later seem to prove he’d had enough. I won’t post it again or I’ll have to add an adult filter to my website :)

Next morning Ben hit the twinset with GLOC so Simon and I were being groomed by Howard. The first hour we simply chatted through the gear and Howard made several adjustments to my harness and we rearranged/dropped some weight from my gear. We discussed several bits of our gear setups and went for a dive. Must say diving was completely different from Saturday much more comfortable in the water. Stops held with no trouble. I’ve always dived using my drysuit for bouyancy, that’s how I was taught, but always willing to learn I switched to using the wing and just squirting a little bit of air into the drysuit to stop my knackers from getting knackered ;) Much nicer and much happier in the water this way, why I didn’t ever switch before I’ll never know!

Next dive Howard was reminded that he’d said he’d dive in Simon’s BCD and splits so Simon could take up a go on a single wing. Simon dropped down for a quick weight test and a little swim while we were waiting to drop down as a group. I didn’t think it was possible to see someone decide they’re going to change their diving and equipment that quickly, but you could see it happen within seconds! Dive with Howard was fun, had a play with his scooter, and didn’t get bent! Also clipped on a stage for a quick swim around to see how it felt.

Out from the dive to unpack and listen to Simon tell everyone how amazing using the wing was :D If only Phil from diving niknaks had hung around one more day he’d have got a copy of Simon’s credit card!

Had a really good weekend and would really like to thank the guys for organising the weekend. It was really interesting, we learnt lots, and had a great time all at once. One thing I’d say about everyone there is how willing they were to answer questions and discuss points, to the degree of disappearing off to the car and returning to pull a second stage apart to show how it was all put together.

I’d definately recommend anyone to go along and give these weekends a try well worth it.

Other reports and some pictures on YD

There are more photos in my gallery: Diving Plymouth on Endeavour – July 2007

An early start from old man Taylor (Simon) and myself after a late night watching several episodes of Family Guy :) My first time on Endeavour which is a nice big boat, free parking nearby which was a bonus too. Simon and I shunted the gear onto the boat before saying hello to everyone and grabbing a few winks on the way out to the dive site. The weather was hot and sunny with only a few clouds in the sky, the sea was flat calm, much better than the weather predicted earlier on the week :) 

Dive 1: Persier: Always seem to end up on this wreck on a weekend away, but it’s a good dive. Came across a strange looking fish which people later tell me was a John Dory. Nice dive did a few swim throughs. Ready to launch the dsmb my reel literally falls apart on the bottom. We launch Simon’s but in that time have added a bit more deco than we’d planned. Still back on the boat only 5 minutes later than planned :$

Dive 2: J.E.L. (James Eagan Layne): First time I’ve done this dive and must say I really enjoyed it. Spent the first couple of minutes following a dog fish along the bottom. Came across a huge lobster and spent five minutes with Simon, “you grab it”, “bugger that, YOU grab it!” and so on. Eventually we realised there was no point as neither of us had a bag. Pointed out the lobby to Keith, who is seen back on board with his dinner (after it attacked Noel’s fin). Swam around to the stern before entering through a room where the propellar shaft was. A bit of a squeeze to get through. Upon exiting checked to see if Simon was ok, he’d got half way though decided it was too much squeeze and hit reverse gear. Swam back around to meet him. With 15 minutes deco showing we headed for the surface.

After getting back to port we all dropped the cylinders in for fills and grabbed a couple of beers in the Mount Batten Centre Bar. Afterwards we met up at the Boringdon Arms (which was good as that’s where we were staying :D) for food and beers. By 9.30pm everyone had left and Simon headed to bed leaving me to enjoy the band and the beers. I think I eventually crawled into bed just after midnight (think the band did about 5 encores :frown: ).

Next morning we awoke at 6.30am, I was partially hoping how gale force winds and rain so I could grab and extra few hours in bed. It wasn’t to be and the weather was perfect once again, maybe even better than the Saturday. A few minutes dozing and up we got to head back to the boat. Cylinders has to be picked up early as we had to be on board for 7.30am.

Dive 3: The Maine: What a dive this was. After bagging ourselves a lobby after five minutes we squeezed into another hole arriving in one of the holds. From that point on we spend almost the entire dive inside the wreck seeing the engines and various other parts. If I’d had more gas and some nitrox (was diving air all weekend) I would of blown off the second dive and used all my gas on the wreck. Simon agreed and said it was almost as good as diving wrecks in the flow :D

Dive 4: Scylla: A nice dive, lots of easy swim throughs. Dry suit inflator popped off on the way down. Got Simon to sort it but couldn’t quite get it on. I decided to try and do the dive without it, on the bottom it got quite painful, thankfully got it connected and continued my dive in comfort. This morning there’s a zip shaped mark across my back though :( Came across Jen in one of the corridors and heard a muffled “hello” :) At the end of the dive decided to give the spool a go as the line was packed. Let’s say I didn’t do the best job ever :$ so more practise needed on that.

More photos here: Diving Plymouth on Endeavour Photos

Waking up at 5.30am on friday morning we set out for the wonders of Weymouth. Two days diving with Smudge on Scimitar :D Crossing the severn bridge we were met by sun, overcast skies, and rain in an ever repeating loop. How would Weymouth turn out?

Arriving at the boat, the sky was overcast but there was warmth in the air. Equipment lugged on to the boat (with plenty of room as it was a weekday :)) Smudge gets the kettle on and it would be rude not to have a brew ;)

Stomach starts grumbling and with no delay Aquasnacks arrive to save the day (well morning, pasties later!). Went for the tsunami version with an extra bit of cake for Smudge (but he’d ordered his own too, D’Oh!). Nice big sandwich, awesome cake, bit of fruitand pizza slice. All good, Lloyd happy, Old Man Taylor happy, good stuff. Highly recommended, definately getting some next time too, here’s proof of customer satisfaction:

Anyway, so having had an early start with the great weather and a nice gentle rocking boat “Old Man Taylor” (now a member of the YD massive) and I decided to set up the gear and take a well needed nap:

First dive was the bow of the Black Hawk. Lots of rubbish in the water but viz was around about 3-4 metres. Nice dive lots to see, still getting used to the new wing so didn’t want anything stressful so all good. Tons of fish, at one point we were surrounded by a large shoal, really need to start learning fish names though :)

Seeing as we’ve only been venturing the way of Weymouth since January (looking for a change of scenery) Smudge offered us a harbour dive, well why not it’s all new to us! Did the landing craft and the bombarden unit. Smudge gave us an interesting bit of history so in we go. Viz was rubbish about 1m I’d guess. Got in through the engine roomy bit and had a look, then went searching for the white rope over to the other wreck. Couldn’t find the white rope, even after a couple of laps so we thought bugger it, went to the surface had a look and went back down swimming along the breakwater wall. Eventually found the wreck and had a look around before taking the white rope back to the landing craft and ascending. Getting out of the water ends my 200th dive so bit of a photo opportunity to prove I’m still alive:

and cups of yorkshire tea all around:

Arriving back in port we stop at the petrol pontoon to fill up (the boat and cylinders) and have an ice cream at old harbour divers. Off the boat we go for a nice cold beer and some talent spotting in the sun.

Cold beers down we head over to Portland the offspring blasting from the stereo and easily find the YMCA (thank you sat nav!). Old Man Taylor thinks he’s got to do the dance to allow him in for the night so we have a quick practice before going in the door. (Funny to see they had a copy of the village people ymca millennium mix on the desk). YMCA has nice comfy rooms in bunk beds, £17 per night, job done! http://www.portland.ymca.org.uk/

Showered and changed we decide to head to the pub for some cold beers, food, and talent spotting. Put the sat nav in walking mode to head for the breakwater hotel (as suggested by YD members). Sat Nav thinks it’s in the Grove but turns out it’s wrong and we head across the costal path to Castleton.

An hour later we arrived at the pub, hehe.

Sitting in the pub it’s apparent that we’re both quite sunburnt and there’s a red glow throughout the pub. Food there and a couple of cold beers and we get a taxi back up to the YMCA as there was a roudy female volleyball team staying there so we check the local pubs to see if they’re about. In one of the local pubs there’s a mod/ska cover guy dude singing classics from madness, buster blood vessel, and the specials. Old Man Taylor is loving it and shows me all the dances from his mod boy days.

Next morning after a good cooked breakfast at the YM we head back down to Weymouth for another days diving. Boats a bit more full today so we’re squeezed up in one corner (aka the naughty corner). First dive is to be the St. Dunstan (Divernet | Wreck Tours | Wreck Tour: 40, The St Dunstan). So we plop in, Simon (Old Man Taylor) says he has a clearing problem at 5metres. Do a quick bubble check, he’s ok so we head down to the bottom. Except, I got to the bottom waited a minute and Simon wasn’t with me, not a problem though. Swim off the line to find a dog fish but no wreck. Seems I swum in completely the opposite direction, and not quite far enough back to meet the wreck again.

I think to myself, Simon’s probably gone back up with ear trouble and I can’t find the wreck so I’ll pop up meet him and we’ll do the dive together with a nice slow decent. Couldn’t quite get the reel and dsmb out of my pocket, bugger, but that’s ok I’ll use my spool and backup smb. Idiot, the spool is stuck in the pocket too. Lesson learnt for next time, don’t keep them in the same place. Back to pocket, pull dsmb, all comes out nice and easy, double idiot! Blow bag, reach the surface, get on board the boat, Old Man Taylor has carried on his dive, fair enough. Still have plenty of air so I jump back in and carry on by myself. On the way down I feel my chest getting cold, I’d started dekitting on board and forgotten to plug the drysuit inflator host back in. So level myself out with the wing and take about 20 seconds to find the hose and plumb myself back in. Carry on down.

Lovely wreck, viz isn’t up to much but it’s ok. Have a look at the boilers and the gearing system, before squeezing in through the back for a closer look. Managed to see quite a bit of the wreck, including the biggest conger ever :shock:, loads of fish, but at 18 minutes bottom time ‘puter was saying I had 18 minutes of stops to do. Got caught in some fishing line but cut it easily enough (turns out a few people had). Blow the dsmb and up I go. Stuck in some stops at 12, 9, cleared the computer at 6 and added an additional couple at 3 to be sure. On board everyone is looking a bit bored (think they’d all done about 35 minute dives, but including my reentry and things I’d been a total of 1hr10mins ;))

Back on board Old Man Taylor is feeling guilty that I’d come back up to see if he was about. As he put it though, I knew you would of thought “fuck him” and carried on anyway so I did too. Discussed our dives, and it’s definately one we’d like to go back to and have more time on it (but this also means we’ll also have to be less tight fisted and buy some ‘trox!). This is followed by Old Man Taylor’s best pirate impression:

Smudge’s usual wonderful supply of pasties, chocolate bars, tea, and doughnuts keeps everyone on board nice and happy. Second dive is to be on the Gertrude (?). Viz was quite bad so we ignored the wreck and headed into the current to see if there was any food about. The area is covered in lots of big boulders covered in life, there was also lots of fish about. Current was doing strange things and one moment we’d be stuck in a lul and next moment flying over several boulders. Some of the fast drifts between the large boulders felt very star wars so was done with big smiles. On ascent I had a few minutes of stops to clear out so Simon ascended the dsmb line and got out, the boat coming back five minutes later to collect me.

Back in port we had to scarper as Mrs Old Man Taylor had a birthday party to get to and I had the missus coming over. All in all an awesome couple of days. Smudge and Scimitar were excellent as usual and I’ve found an excellent new service in the form of Aquasnacks.

Even got a shot of one of Mark’s divesigns but I took the photo from the other side of the boat and it’s a stealth one after all.

Now, hope that wasn’t too boring???? :rolleyes:

Photos can be seen in the gallery: Wreck Diving Weymouth 1st-2nd June 2007 Gallery