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Penzance - Easter 2003
Friday 18th - Monday 21st April.
Some 37 divers attended with their partners. This included 4 Ocean Divers.
JF was unable to attend for personal reasons and responsibility was delegated to PD and KD. A planning meeting was held in the clubhouse on Weds 16th and Dive Marshals and Deputies were appointed for the weekend.
True to form, the weather was wonderfully peaceful and sunny until Thursday, with the weather forecast for the weekend being atrocious with very strong East and North-Easterly winds. On Friday the actual wind was strong Easterly but had a lot of South in it over a big SW Atlantic swell, so the whole coast was out including Sennen. We struggled to find a dive site, with most clubs abandoning, but decided to run over to the Lizard and look at Mullion Cove - the SW swell was slopping big rollers all round the harbour. We noted some over hopeful university trainees paddling into the brown murk - thankfully they abandoned once the water reached waist height. At the last minute we had a brainwave to launch at Porthleven - and oh joy! we met Mike and Giles from Porthkerris on the slipway and they assured us we could find shelter behind Mullion Island. The sea state and distance made a quick turnaround impossible but we still managed 3 waves of divers.
Again true to form, The Chairman dinged the prop getting out of Porthleven harbour, Steve Ashton applied the rubber hammer remedy (to the prop) as usual. On Saturday the wind was from the NE as forecast so we launched from Penzance at 09.00 hrs. The first wave of Ocean divers was picked up at Lamorna where they were able to dive safely in the bay. The second wave were able to dive on the Inner and Outer Bucks with excellent viz reported. By 13.00hrs the wind turned to SE, and with a big ground sea and a falling tide so Phil the Boatman decided to drop his divers in the surf and return to Penzance where we were able to dive Low Lee Ledges ands the Primrose.
Having struggled for the last two days we decided to have some easier diving on Sunday and spent the day diving in Mounts Bay on the Alice Marie and the Primrose. The water was still, with very good viz. and everyone reported excellent dives. There were few divers alive on Monday morning after a great night at the camp site, but we still managed one wave on the Hellopes which is a large wreck in about 35mtrs.
There was a big shift to camping this year with only 14 divers in B&B. This fragmented the group somewhat but with excellent dive marshalling by all concerned a good level of coordination was achieved. Katz organised most of us to go over to the campsite on Saturday night and we had a tremendous social gathering. Needless to say in keeping with club traditions we drank all the Doom Bar! Much was achieved over the weekend, with new Dive Marshalls coming forward, up and coming Boat Handlers getting much valuable experience and those Ocean Divers who attended having their first wreck dive.
The Rib performed well and only used £104.12 in fuel.
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