Cork SAC Weblog

A clear night on Saturday of this weekend allowed us a fine view of the Space Shuttle splitting from its rocket on the way to rendezvous with the Space Station. We watched it from the West Cork village of Allihies after a fine day’s diving.

Below water conditions were a little more murky, with a lot of plankton around to spoil the viz. We weren’t complaining though, since these brought basking sharks in record numbers to hoover them up. We spotted plenty of these on the surface, and some of us were lucky enough to encounter one while diving.

Tall tales of basking sharks breaching were avidly discussed in the pub, but were dismissed by the more knowledgeable locals, who asserted that the creature seen leaving the water a few metres from our RIB was most likely a pilot whale, many of which had also been spotted in the sound between the mainland and Dursey Island.

Smaller forms of life were also abundant. Large shoals of mackerel entertained our divers on their safety stops. On Sunday morning’s dive, I came across what looked very like a cleaning station, with larger fish hanging around to be preened by the smaller more colourful cuckoo wrasse.

Inbhear Sceine dive club once again organised a very successful regional dive weekend, where over sixty divers gathered together in Cahersiveen to dive and socialise.

Plenty of basking sharks were around, and these played a merry game of cat-and-mouse with some of our divers, who managed to overcome their fear of snorkelling, at least temporarily, in order to see these impressive creatures up-close.

We were very fortunate overall with the weather. Some of our divers were lucky enough to get off early enough on Friday to get down for an evening dive, where the vis was reportedly spectacular. On Saturday, the rain finally arrived on our way back from our second dive, then departed again by Sunday morning, when we headed off for the Skelligs.

A very pleasant, if cold, dive accompanied the predictably breathtaking scenery. We pulled the boats just before the rain came back again, and headed back to base more than satisfied with the weekend’s diving.

Easter weekend the club went down to Kilcrohane for our first dive weekend away of the season. Easter was particularly early this year, so cold, rain and wind were always going to be on the agenda. We were able to put our brand new custom-built Excalibur RIB out on the water nonetheless. This was the culmination of a lot of effort by members of the club in fundraising, chasing up Sports Capital funding, drawing up detailed specs, inspecting the building process and test-driving and running-in, so we were very happy to see her used for her intended purpose.

The boat was built by Gael Force Ventures in Carrigaline to our own specification. From the beginning, members had a very definite idea of what they wanted to see in their new RIB. Having a large space for kitting up was a very big consideration. Having a slightly larger RIB than the previous ones we’ve used meant that, with a little extra thought put into the design, we could have a space large enough for two pairs of divers to don their gear and complete their buddy checks in comfort at the same time. Secure storage space for bottles, hand-holds for rough weather and ease of entry for divers were also very important considerations.

When it came to engine size, enough power to get up on the plane with ten fully-laden divers was the minimum criterion. That had to be balanced with economy, ease-of-maintenance, and the need to be forgiving to inexperienced coxswains. In the end, we settled for a 175 horsepower Suzuki 4-stroke. A large capacity fuel tank will help to minimise delay and spillage from messing around with extra fuel containers.

As the build progressed members were on hand to inspect how things were going and provide feedback to the rest of the club. As the plans materialised, Jim, our equipments officer, was able to carry the opinions of the club members back to the boat builders and fine-tune the specification. Decisions were made on the ideal dimensions of the A-Frame, fitting of the O2 bottles etc, even as the workers put the finishing touches to the fibreglass hull.

Time will tell if our new boat lives up to all our expectations. With a bit of luck, we’ll get the good weather soon to let her show her full potential, but if the weather stays a little choppy, well she should be able to cope with that too. We’ll be having a little ceremony before the end of the month to welcome her officially to the club and show our appreciation to everybody, in the club and out, who made this possible.

Just a quick note on the blog to let people know that I have booked the NMCI pool and a training room there.
Crossover pool training will begin (and hopefully finish) on January 19th 9:00Am to 10:30Am, crossover lectures 11AM to 2PM the same day. This session will be for people with existing qualifications from a different certification agency only, there will be no beginners at this session.
Any people who contacted us in 2007, expressing an interest in joining Cork Sub Aqua Club will have been sent an invite to a Club Open Night Thursday, January 10th.8pm. Soho Bar, Grand Parade, Cork. They will also have been sent the details of the required medical test. We will have a better idea of numbers and grades after the Open Night.
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The Ling rocks are a group of submerged pinnacles only 10 kilometers or so offshore from Oysterhaven near Cork City. Popular with divers and anglers, they should be dived at slack water. Also being so far offshore they require light or northerly winds and a calm sea. The shallowest of the pinnacles has depths of 25 meters even at a neap high tide, but some of the pinnacles have shallowest depths as deep as 33 to 40 meters. You will find several marks on both of the Cork club boats’ GPS for the Lings. The marks above (N51 36.847 W08 19.191) are for the shallowest pinnacle, and are also the marks that Seamus uses. I have dived the Lings with Daunt SAC, and they dive a different slightly deeper pinnacle, near the mark called ‘Lings 4′ on both Cork GPS units.

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There are few venues in Ireland where four dives would be possible despite force eight gales. Knightstown on Valentia Island was chosen for the October weekend because of various sheltered spots, but even so, suitable locations for diving were few.

We were joined by six or seven enthusiastic divers from NMCI SAC. They stayed relatively sober compared to the Cork bunch, but seemed to have enjoyed the weekend a lot.
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Fiona and I spent our honeymoon in Capetown and its environs, and although diving wasn’t the primary objective, we couldn’t pass by the opportunity to get under the water in some fashion. Our first dive was in the Two Oceans aquarium in the V&A Waterfront area, where we got to dive in the predator tank. Any qualified diver can do this for a small fee, and it seemed like an interesting way to get acquainted with the local marine megafauna. The tank is about 4 metres deep at its deepest and has the surface area approximately of a tennis court. It’s doughnut shaped with a modest anticlockwise current, and stocked with three sharks, a turtle, and various other fish including mantas and a shoal of yellowfin tuna. The sharks themselves didn’t seem to bothered by our presence, except for one of the smaller ones which approached us on a number of occasions, only to be dispatched by our divemaster’s high-tech shark-poking device (which looked suspiciously like half a broom handle).

Our first attempt to get under the open water was with a local expat Scotsman called Iain Robertson who operates out of Simon’s Town on the shores of False Bay. I was looking forward to seeing the famous Kelp Forests of this area. I’ve never been a huge fan of kelp, especially the short dense variety that thrives around the Irish coast, but the descriptions I’ve seen of the local algae seemed like a completely different matter. In the end, I was to be a little disappointed; a recent change to the licensing regulation for diving in this protected area led us to being caught without the requisite paperwork on the day, and we had to be content with a snorkel instead from the local Boulders beach - a spot frequented by a large colony of African penguins. The most I managed was a 3 metre duck dive, but I think I managed to get some sense of what the area had to offer.

Our last couple of nights in South Africa were spent in the small seaside town of Hermanus, where, following a day of whale-watching around Dyer’s Island,  we hooked up with a local dive operator - Scuba Africa - and finally managed to get a couple of proper open-water dives. The temperatures and viz here were comparable to what we get back home, but the amount of life and the colours reminded me more of tropical waters. Crayfish in particular were in plentiful supply, with every decent-sized crack in the reef providing shelter to anything up to eight or nine of them.

Apparently we were very lucky with the weather there. For the previous few weeks, strong winds and rain had led to a large number of cancelled dives, but on the day we arrived, the previous evenings winds had dissipated and we enjoyed a beautiful sunny day. On our second dive, we spotted a whale in the harbour. It would have been something else to be able to get into the water with her, but conservation regulation prevented the boat from getting too near. Instead, we were treated to a swimming display from a curious seal; a fitting end to our day’s diving and the last day of our holiday.

Start of the 2007 Sherkin Island to Baltimore Swim. Three Cork SAC members: Paul O’Brien, Mags Buckley, and Pat Monahan took part. Pat, in his first serious ocean swim, decided not to attempt the full distance (about 2Km) . Don, Clare, Steve and Dave provided boat cover.
This looked to be less grueling than the previous week’s Blackrock to Cobh swim.
John Kearney brought the participants out to Sherkin, and provided boat cover too. We had planned to dive later, but with good diving in prospect the following day, and anxious not to delay Don so that he would be towing after dark, we went for a walk at the beacon, and then a meal, instead of diving.

One of the swimmers passes the Irish Navy base at Haulbowline near the end of the Blackrock to Cobh swim, 30 September 2007. Most swimmers were in the river for about 3 hours, and each was covered by a kayak. There was one RIB to three kayaks. Cork SAC provided a RIB. Steve, Rene, and Dave took turns at driving and monitoring the swimmers. The fitness, hardiness and endurance of the swimmers is impressive. The kayakers must constantly check that their swimmers are not lapsing into a sort of semi-conscious autopilot due to hypothermia, by talking to them from time to time.
Later that day we had a dive at the wreck of the Celtic, near Roches Point.

A pleasant day out on a lake near Inchigeelagh Co. Cork providing boat Cover for the Cork 20 International Rally. Rene and Dave went along, Steve volunteered too but there wasn’t enough room on the boat. This is the second year we covered the event, and Mark kept us entertained again with stories, and commentary on the rally. For those who are interested in these things, French driver Sebastien Loeb won the event. We didn’t have to rescue anyone. If we did have to go into the lake, our first task would have been to wake up Rene, who managed to doze off despite the noise of the cars. The photograph shows one of the back markers (not Loeb). It was very considerate of him to move slowly enough to be photographed, and not startle the sheep.