Shore dive and barby!!
The club had a very busy bank holiday weekend with a dive on Sunday followed by the shore dive and beach barbecue on Monday.
The weather had been terrible for the last 2-3 weeks almost non stop rain. The forecast for the weekend was for bright sunshine. and that is exactly what we got !!
The plan was to meet at Newhaven West beach for 10.00am to catch the 11.30 high water. The timings had been hastily rearranged, as when we booked the beach, and the sunshine, we forgot to put out order in for tides!! The dive at Newhaven basically involves following the harbour wall on the seaward side. Whilst the dive is relatively shallow it is very interesting as there are a lot of rocks and large concrete blocks scattered around, which obviously attract the fish and other marine life
The day was a tremendous success on every level. There were 26 divers in the water several of whom were making their first UK dive. In addition we had another 25 family and friends who came along. A total of 51 people attended the barbecue which we were very pleased about.
As usual Andrea and David excelled themselves with the catering, and everyone ate as much as they wanted. (In most cases too much). The barbecue included the usual burgers and chicken but we also had chicken kebabs, koftas, fish kebabs, and a range of salads. Excellent food. Unfortunately the barbecue also attracted several wasps who, since they couldn't have the meat, decided to eat one or two of us!!! Particularly Denise who was stung on the inside of her lip. (Don't ask how). Her lip swelled up quite badly and it was pointed out that Leslie Ash had paid a lot of money to get a fat lip like that.
The diving too was excellent. The visibility was around 5m but that was obviously dependent on who's fins you were following !!! With so many divers in the sea at the same time it was inevitable that we would stir it up a bit. Nevertheless we could avoid each other and we all had good dives. Various things were spotted including large congers, several lobsters, shoals of pouting and a few wrasse and pollack thrown in
Have a look at the pictures below |
