Diving with Sunfish Charters - Brixham August 31, 2007
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving , add a commentI have been a member of Sunfish Charters yahoo group for well over a year but have not had the opportunity till now to dive with Mike and his brightly coloured rib. The plan was initially to do the Bretagne and Orestone Ledges but the wreck was changed with our consultation a few days before the weekend when an extra 8 divers booked on giving us the full compliment for the boat, so with a ropes off time of 9.15am we were set.
Mike moors Sunfish in Brixham Marina and so we got their early with the car and the kit to get a decent parking space near to the lifeboat station with a short walk with a trolley to the marina and onto Mike’s berth. Lisa and I then wandered back to Mum & Dad’s place to drop off the dog that we had taken for a walk, have a small breakfast and then headed back down to the marina to meet up with the others. We arrived as everyone else was loaded up so even though we were the closest in distance we were the last on the boat - oops sorry. (more…)
Snorkelling off Swanpool beach, Falmouth August 12, 2007
Posted by Mark Gilmour in : General, snorkelling , 3commentsJust got back from a week with the family camping in Cornwall. This is the first time I have been down to Cornwall in the last 3 years were I haven’t taken my dive kit along. Did however take the wetsuits, masks and fins for all the family. It would be wrong otherwise!!!
We had a thoroughly enjoyable week based out of the campsite Summer Valley near Truro, enjoying some of the numerous non-diving activities that one can get up too, body-boarding, chilling on the sandy beaches, cycling, visiting the sights and tourist spots, etc etc. A fuller account of our week away is on our family blog, but for this blog I would like to make mention of the surprise gem of a hours long snorkel I had on Swanpool beach in Falmouth.
After playing on the beach with the children for a while, I donned my mask and snorkel and headed off along the rocky edge of the bay out towards the headland. The sandy seabed gradually gave way to submerged rocks of the headland, the maximum depth I swam out was about 5m but the rocks and kelp beds reminded me of the shallower areas of the manacles and drawna reef just around the headland. As a result I encountered a fair amount of similar marine life, including large wrasse and a huge spider crab wrapped around the swaying kelp, hanging on for all he’s worth. I was very surprised to see such a large crab so shallow, but there was no way of dislodging him from his perch. All this within a few metres of the shoreline.
So even though no diving during the week, that hour or so of snorkelling in surprisingly good visibility considering it is a sandy beach and lots of people were in the water, did go some way to appeasing the need to go diving whilst in Cornwall. No need to fret about not diving though as we’ll be diving at the bank holiday weekend. This time from Brixham, we are going to try sunfish charters and try the Bretagne. Watch this space for the report.
