It was not a not so bright and energetic start on Saturday, as being the morning following the AGM, quite a large proportion of the group were a little tired and not quite up to scratch. However, after a good two hours plus of faffing, a terrifyingly loud pop noise (which was not in fact the boats puncturing, to our relief), and forgetting several peices of crucial equipment we were on our way down to Padstow.
Due to the inevitable extra faff which should have been anticipated, we barely made it in time to the Lobster Hatchery – so had a hasty look around to see the work that is done there. We saw the lobsters at each stage in the life cycle, including the larvae which are kept in a cone shaped tank whizzing round so they don’t eat each other and the juveniles ehich were only a few centimetres big and some of which didnt know “how to lobster,” just yet. Hutch from Harlyn Dive Centre was extremely helpful in advising us on where and how to release the lobsters so big thanks to him. That night we camped at Tregavone Farm, which I’d recommend for future trips to this area.
The morning brought a bit of sunshine and alarms at 6am, enough time to get the morning’s faff underway. Three hours later we were out on the water, heading out of the river mouth then west around the headland. On the first dive each buddy pair carried down a tray containing 200 baby lobsters, which we released (although some were pretty reluctant and took a little “persuasion”) and had to defend by scaring off any wrasse. At around 10-15m, we also found cuttlefish, pipefish, dogfish and hundreds of starfish and crabs, as well as an adult lobster. Due to tides, we wouldn’t have been able to get back into the harbour untill about 3pm, but this was no problem as fun was to be had exploring the coastline on our trusty boats (which amazingly had zero problems). We found some caves and also a couple of seals! For the second dive, we attempted, unsuccessfully, to find a wreck and also a lost fin. The vis wasn’t too bad, although if this trip was to run again I’d suggest going a few weeks earlier as there was an algal bloom at this time. Cheers guys for a great weekend!
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