Cork Sub Aqua Club

Took up an offer for a couple of nights in Don & Mercy’s place in Kilcrohane this weekend. Haven’t had a dive since last June so I needed to get those snorkels out of the way. Besides, we still haven’t figured how to get baby, buggy and dive gear all in the car yet.

Saturday morning was bright and sunny. And crisp, definitely crisp. Not a day for climbing back into a wet semi-dry, so I just did the one from Dooneen Pier. I went first, while Fiona looked after Diarmaid. I swam around the small rock south of the pier and headed west towards the rocky bay. The tide was too low to swim through, but there was a nice little cave in the cliff face just to the left of the channel. When it came to Fiona’s turn the water was high enough to get through and she enjoyed her snorkel on the south side of the island.

Today was slightly less inviting, but I still managed to drag myself into the water. Headed left this time, into the cave and explored the bay beyond that and around the corner. Nice spot for doing a few duck dives – the water was pretty clear and I could see the bottom a few metres below; a nice mix of boulders and flat white sand.

Staying down for a third night so I might get my quota of snorkels out of the way. We’ll see what tomorrow’s like. Tapping this in slowly on my Hero in front of the warm fire. BTW, anybody looking at this on their mobile? Let me know what you think of the new mobile theme.

Cork Sub Aqua will hold an open night upstairs in Counihan’s Bar on 21st January. Members will be present to discuss our training plans for the year to come and answer any questions you may have concerning diving in Cork, conditions, training needs, club equipment, costs, or any other matters relating to diving.

Divers with existing diving qualifications are particularly welcome, as we will be doing crossover training early in the new year. If you have not dived before, please register your interest as soon as possible, because we will only be able to provide training for new divers if numbers justify it.

If you made an enquiry during the year about joining the club you should be contacted soon with more details. Enquiries can get overlooked sometimes though, so don’t hesitate to get in touch again.

Hope to see you there.

I hadn’t dived the Folia for several years, not because club dives on the Folia are especially rare, (there had been a few already in 2009), but because I just happened to be unavailable whenever one was arranged. So I was looking forward to this. My recollection was that the wreck is really quite impressive. She lies at a depth of 33 to 38 meters several miles off Ardmore Co Waterford, and is within sight of Youghal and Ardmore. Despite some imperfect visibility it was a very enjoyable dive.
The problem of photographing and describing a wreck the size of the Folia is a bit like describing and photographing the grand canyon. It is difficult to convey the impressive scale of a wreck in a series of photographs or words, especially if conditions on the dive were not especially favorable for photography. I would like to dive the wreck again with clearer viz, like I had the previous time I dived, and a fast wide lens. The Folia is one of those dives that people like to do many times because it is probably one of the largest wrecks at a non-decompression diving depth off the south coast. There is always something new to discover. OK the Kowloon Bridge was an order of magnitude larger, but since the bow section collapsed also an order of magnitude less fascinating.

Sometimes known as the Folio, her real name was Folia. Militarily speaking the U-Boat that sank her did a pretty good job by preventing a large cargo of artillery shell casings from reaching the Western Front. The deaths of seven of the crew was the sad price paid. Despite extensive salvage that has destroyed much of the superstructure aft of the boilers there are still many of the shell casings to be found. We saw evidence that salvage continues. In effect she is being turned into a habitat for marine life. There are lots of nooks and crannies on the wreck. This is a good place to see congers. As a consequence of being a cozy home for fish, it gets some anglers, so watch out for hooks and fishing line.

I used a 28% mix, and we had about a 20 minute bottom time with plenty of no-decompression limit to spare, partly due to a miscalculation on my part, we headed back to the shotline a tad early. Launching from Knockadoon was OK, but there were waves coming around the point which made retrieval a bit challenging. Thanks to Brian for towing and coxing, and to Helen for organizing the dive, also Joost for helping us drop the shotline on the correct spot.

For those interested in the history of the wreck there is an article on the Waterford County Museum webpage: http://www.waterfordcountymuseum.org/exhibit/web/Display/article/160/4/?lang=en

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Just a quick reminder that the quiz night is on Friday 16th October, 8.30pm in Douglas RFC  hall, St Columba’s Hall (AKA the Tinny Shed), All are welcome booked or turn up on the night. there is a bar for those who’s knowledge may need assistance

There will a raffles with prizes,

a first prize of €120 for the quiz winner.

€20 per table to enter, Teams of four.

Tables of 4  will be teamed up on the night if required.

Should be a laugh, see you there, friends & family and random punters welcome.

Now here’s something that looks pretty cool. I assume you could manage without the torpedoes (and sharks).

Any takers?

To simplify adding your photos to the blog, etc, I’ve introduced the tag ‘corkaquatic’. Here’s an example of an image gallery based on a flickr search for that tag. So far just flickr photos, but the plan is to expand to other services, so start tagging…

…you can tag your photos in a batch from the Organizr . E.g. select a group or set from the drop-down menu on the bottom left, and drag them into the main window, then select ‘AddTags’ from the menu at the top.

You can even tag other people’s photos for them. I’ve added photos from Joe and Donal here to illustrate.

The wine tasting event scheduled for August 14th has been cancelled, and will be reorganised for sometime in November. A few of us will head to Dennehy’s for pints instead.

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Two wine tasting evenings will be held over the next few weeks. The location is Meade’s Wine Bar on Oliver Plunkett Street, opposite Milano’s. Cost is €20 per person.

On Friday, August 14th at 8pm, Julian from Bubble Brothers will give a talk.

On Thursday, September 3rd it will be the turn of Barry from O’Donovan’s off-licence.

Please let us know if you are coming.

There will be a Table quiz on October 16th in Columba’s Hall, Douglas. Watch the calendar for more details.