Anglesey Sept 25 Trip Report
Just before term started the new 25/26 exec snuck away for a weekend trip to Anglesey Island in North Wales, a great chance to get to know each other better and to learn how a club trip is run. Our Training/Octopush officer Teo was sadly unable to attend, so our outgoing Push Captain Dylan took her place. The following is a trip report written by Club secretary Charlie, who completed Ocean Diver with WUSAC as a fresher in Nov 24.
Day 1 – Friday
As is customary, we set off early on Friday morning, loading up the cars and starting the three and a half hour trip to our first dive site (Porth Eilian), accompanied by an interesting mixture of noughties pop and sea shanties.
We arrived a bit before noon, and the first wave (Thomas and Dylan) went under, leaving the rest of us in the rainy Welsh weather. This site was around 4m deep in parts with some beautiful kelpy reefs. We saw plenty of sea anemones, some crabs and even found ourselves some kit room treasure however we didn’t see many fish.
After our dive we made our way to the shop and then our accommodation afterwards. On this drive, it did not take us long to develop a disdain for the 20mph zones randomly dotted around the island seemingly without reason. When we finally arrived, all of us showered and got changed before going to the kitchen to make dinner. Dylan, Erin, and I spent some time cooking a pork chilli and rice for dinner and lunch the day after.
We ate and then made our way to our next dive site at Bull Bay; we got there just before sunset and started to kit up. Thomas, Erin and I went in as the first wave however shortly after we entered, Thomas managed to lose his mouthpiece and had to return to shore. Erin and I continued the rest of the dive on our own. Bull Bay was one of the deepest sites we dived all weekend with a max depth of around 6m and it lead to us seeing a sleeping catshark, lots of little fish, and two lobsters (not quite 5ft sadly). The second wave were mostly kitted up when we returned, and they were lucky enough to see a squid on their dive. After a brief battle with some flood defences we returned to the accommodation and promptly knocked out as soon as we got into our beds.
Day 2 – Saturday
We woke up just before 8 and made our way to Rhoscolyn to try and get in the water for slack. Once we got there, we encountered some Bangor Uni Sub Aqua Club members who told us where would be best to dive at that site. The first wave (Ronan, Erin, and Dylan) went in around 9:45. They saw quite a few catsharks on their dive, Ronan even got to play with one. I was in the second wave with Thomas and we did a shorter dive than the others as my cylinders were a bit lighter than theirs. We went down to around 3m deep and saw some more crabs and small fish. No kit room treasure here sadly.
We returned to the accommodation, and chose to spend the afternoon relaxing before another night dive. We had the incredible idea to have a takeaway for dinner, we chose a Chinese x fish and chip shop. I went with Ronan, Thomas and Erin, ready to speak Chinese to the workers and maybe get myself some free food. I was mildly disappointed to discover that there was only one Chinese person working there and they weren’t on shift that day. After a long search for a working cash machine and Thomas getting lost with Ronan, we managed to buy our dinner (I did eventually manage to get us some free food) and head back. After we began eating, we soon realised why the chinese chip shop was so empty. We spent most of that meal laughing at the concoction of sauces and unique flavours they each had.
After we had recharged a bit, we made our way to Porth Dafarch for the final night dive. Dylan and I buddied up as Erin and Ronan made their way down to the water to begin their dive. We were surprised at just how far we could see the torches from shore and how powerful they were. When it was time for our dive with Thomas, we decided on who would stay on which side of him (we definitely didn’t swap from time to time). The visibility was good, and we entered a gulley near the surface, turning around when it started to tighten a bit. We followed an old telegram pipe until Dylan spotted a big lobster that tried to pick a fight with Thomas. We left it alone and started swimming back towards shore where we saw some big flatfish and I saw a few baby jellyfish floating around.
Day 3 – Sunday
We checked out of our room at 10am and made our way to the final site of the weekend, Porth y Post. I didn’t dive this site due to an injury however Erin took her camera down for the first time, she got a video of a crab and a great photo of Thomas too. They went down to around 6.5m deep and saw some little crabs, pipefish, and a couple of jellyfish.
The second wave (Ronan and Dylan) saw a lobster but mostly kelp. The weather changed while they were under so they put up a worm DSMB, getting them some laughs and compliments from the nearby kayakers. The surface was nice and sunny all day long, the wind picked up slightly as the day went on however it didn’t cause any big issues.
When it was time to leave, Ronan and I set off before the others, meeting at McDonalds to celebrate a successful weekend. After we ate and grabbed some snacks for the long drive home, and set off again to the dulcet tones of Stan Rogers and Lady Gaga. On the drive home, we rejoiced in the lack of 20mph zones on the motorway. We got back to the kitroom around 6/7pm with only some traffic on the M6.
Overall the weekend was great fun and I learnt a lot, refreshing my skills from Ocean Diver and learning some new ones like torch signals. Overall cost came to ~£80, including Accom, fuel, fills, kit and some of the food. We run these trips at least once a term if not more, and any (drysuit) qualified diver can attend!
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