Cork Sub Aqua Club

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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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.

The village of Allihes was the location for the Cork SAC August week long diving holiday. The coastal village is overlooked by eroded hills and a worked out copper mine (top right). The houses are brightly painted. Strangely for a village with three pubs and and only one shop, there is also a disused methodist chapel that was used by the miners from 1812 to 1884 (bottom left). Abstinence has not been an enduring success here, least of all for the members of Cork SAC.
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Kris Hammerhead

Hammerhead

Seven Members of Cork SAC: Denis, Jim, Diarmuid, Helen, Anthony, Fiona and Dave made a trip to the Brothers Islands and Hurghada Egypt. to sample the diving there. We were joined by ten divers from the UK and one from South Africa.
We spent six days on the liveaboard: “Hurricane” and one day ashore. After a first day spent diving near Hurghada at the coral reef: Erg Abu Ramada, and it’s nearby pinnacle Gota Abu Ramada, we sailed overnight for the Brothers Islands. The two Brothers Islands are about half a mile from each other about nine hours boat trip south east from Hurghada. They both have spactular fringing reefs. The dives on both the Brothers Islands were very challenging, with strong currents and some choppy seas, but they were also very rewarding. On at least half the dives we saw sharks, mainly Hammerheads and Grey Reef Sharks, although the UK diver pictured going head to head with the hammerhead opposite, Kris, also saw a thresher shark.
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Ballinskelligs weekend June 2007. Clare drives the ‘garda’ boat with ‘Su’ in front and ‘ddy’ behind. (replacing the boat’s name with a crossword clue because I don’t want that kind of internet traffic) . One of the Declans looks a little concerned, the other enjoys his lollipop.
A wet and windy Saturday saw no diving, some went for a swim, others for a walk, and it was difficult to know who got wetter. Sunday was much better, and Monday glorious. But the sea had been churned up a bit, and was still too choppy for the Skelligs.
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The Aud lies at about 31 meters depth near the Cork Buoy at the entrance to Cork Harbour. She was a covert 1916 world war one German sponsored gun-running enterprise to the Irish Volunteers but she was discovered by the British navy. She was scuttled by her crew when she was being escorted to Cork. The remains of the wreck are very much scattered, and the boiler is pretty much the only intact part. A very entertaining dive, the bullets are everywhere, and look like gravel on the sea bed. Keep an eye out for congers and ling, but the anglers seem to know this place well so we didn’t see many fish.

It was a relatively early 8:30 AM start from Oysterhaven to make the one hour time window after low tide that is the best time to dive this wreck. The sea was flat calm on the way there but the forecast force 3-4 southwest winds had made it a little more choppy on the way back. The earliest down had less disturbed silt to deal with but even Laura and Eileen, the last two to dive, described the visilbility as fairly good. I would say 10 meters at the beginning but it was more disturbed near the boiler.
Thanks to Claire for coxing and for the chocolate and coconut chunks. Thanks to the O’Connell family for the loan of their boat.

Aud Bullets

Declan C diving the Aud

More Aud Bullets

Originally uploaded by riordan_david.