A number of keen divers made the trek down to West Bay on 5th September for what was some of the most amazing diving weather of the year!
On both days the water was glassy and the sun shining, and it was a great day for some of our more recent trainees to complete their first ever hard boat dive. Although Steve thought the great weather might lead some divers to have unrealistic expectations about future weather on dive trips.
The semi drysuit divers seemed to cope with the warm sunny weather where as all us dry suit divers were huddled in the one bit of shade on deck, a very unusual occurrence on a UK diving trip, but welcomed all the same.
Unfortunately we had the usual kit malfunctions and with the help of the wonderful skipper Slim, from West Bay Diving, we were able to beg borrow and steal enough kit to cover the bits that some left behind! I won’t point fingers at anyone
We managed to do two great dives on the Baygitano and the vis was very kind to us. Michal managed to pick up a number of nice scallops on the dive. We also did two drift dives that were interesting and also practiced DSMB deployment in the open water.
We stayed at the Parkhaven caravan park, which was a new experience for some, but actually the location could not have been better as it was a short walk away from the harbour and plenty of room to dry and store gear.
We did learn however that in West Bay, you need to book tables at all the restaurants, otherwise you end up having to queue for ages at one of the fish and chip huts that ultimately run out of food before you get to the front of the line. Fortunately, some of us did find a shop that was fully stocked otherwise, there would have been a number of very hungry divers roaming the streets of West Bay!
All in all a very successful and lovely trip and one that I know that we hope to repeat next year!
