Skomer

At last, UBUC have resurrected our annual Skomer trip! 20 or so people spend a whole (or part of) a week down in Pembrokeshire, Wales, diving around Skomer Island.

Day 1

After arriving on the Friday night and setting up camp (with only a few cars getting lost on the way), Saturday morning (6am wake up!) involved a lot of heavy lifting to get the boats and kit into the water. Thankfully we managed to get it done with minimal faff, and so by around 10:30am we were ready to go.

The first dive of the day had a few people diving the Lucy, a deep (30-40m) wreck, with the others diving close by at Rye Rocks, a relatively relaxed dive site starting off at 6m and dropping to 40m. I dived the Lucy with Tim in the morning, and to be honest I spent more time worrying that everything was alright, that I didn’t really manage to enjoy the dive! Perhaps it was the narcosis. It was deep, dark (definitely need a torch), and the current was quite strong. Tim also decided he’d go in it, at which point I stubbornly refused to and stayed outside until he re-appeared.

Afterwards, Tim decided it would be a good idea for us to swim through a tunnel that goes through part of the headland. So (nearly all of us) bailed off the boat, and went for a swim (with just snorkels on). Turns out this probably wasn’t one of Tim’s best ideas (as he admitted later). It was very choppy, with big waves crashing down on us. A mask was lost, a snorkel was lost, and many feared for their life.

Anyway, after the excitement in the morning, we came back, sat around having lunch for quite a long time, and then took the boats out again to dive North Cliffs (Northcastle Point, to be exact). It was pretty choppy getting out, with some big troughs. It’s best to drop divers off here by driving parallel to the island, not to drive straight in and then reverse out. It was a nice relaxing dive, my buddy had a few issues with his kit, but we still saw lots of life (crabs, lobsters, wrasse etc) and hardly any current.

Back at the campsite, we spent all of the evening pumping cylinders (Neil and Tom did a grand job). I found my £12 stove from Go Outdoors was pretty pathetic until I realised that if I pushed the gas canister in (by hand) it made it much better. It was a very windy night, which was annoying when trying to cook and even more annoying listening to the tent flap about whilst trying to sleep. Hey ho, at least it had been a lovely day!

Day 2

Dive 1 – Wooltack Point

Dive 2 – Rye Rocks / Lucy

Dive 3 – Rye Rocks

Day 3

Dive 1 – North Cliffs

Dive 2 – Called due to bad sea conditions

Day 4

Dive 1 – Wooltack Point

Dive 2 – South Tusker

Day 5

Dive 1 – North Cliffs

Dive 2 – Dead Eye Wreck

Day 6

Dive 1 – Black Stones

Dive 2 – Garland Stone called, dived Dead Eye Wreck instead

Day 7

Dive 1 – Payne’s Rock