Sheephaven divers were on call again last week to assist the Garten Swimmers in their inaugural mile-long swim across Lough Swilly, from Inch Island to Rathmullan – with the appropriate name of the Inch Mile.
The poor weather over the last few weeks had shown signs of abating and by Saturday morning the wind had settled and the rain held off, creating near-perfect conditions for the swimmers.
The 115 swimmers were transported across from Rathmullan to the start point at Inch Island pier on-board the Lough Swilly ferry, thanks to Dominic Sweeny the ferry operator and they stepped of the ramp into the 16 degrees Celsius water to await the count down for the race to begin.
Within the first 10 minutes the distance between the first and last swimmers had stretched out to over 150 metres and the first swimmer home was there in just over twenty minutes, while the last completed the crossing in a bit over an hour.
Similar to the Sheephaven swim by the Garten Swimmers earlier in July this was another very well run event, with plenty of safety cover provided by Kayaks, local boats, Sheephaven Divers and the RNLI.
Undoubtedly all the work in putting this together was extensive and always relies heavily on club members, but a few need special mentions – such as Karen Crawford, Paddy Bond and Keith Mc Clean.
These events provide a safe environment for the participants to conduct open water swims, but they also provide a buzz that pulls the local communities together to enjoy the great resources of the Donegal coastline and estuaries.
After the Garten Swim was over the Sheephaven divers present took full opportunity of the calm weather and travelled out to the mouth of the Swilly and dived the wreck of the Laurentic.
The divers arrived on site close to slack water and experienced the 35 metre plus dive in excellent in-water conditions, with little or no current, horizontal visibility of well over 10 metres and water temperatures of a very cosy 16 degrees Celsius.
Because of the good visibility the wreck came into view at 25 metres and later the divers were able to get to see the layout of the vessel from the ships rudder, propeller shafts, engines, boilers and on towards the bow, with anchor and windlass still in place.
Bottom dive times were dependant on air fills and dive grades, those diving on Nitrox 28% got over 20 minutes, while those on normal air had a no-decompression limit of much shorter than that, but carried out their appropriate decompression on any times thereafter.
The dive was able to be completed in one stick, thanks to Paddy Mc Gowan who provided dry coxswain duties on the day, which speeded the process up considerably.
Similarly all the towing of dive boats to be in place for Saturday relied on club members who gave up their time and indeed used their own vehicles, for which we are very appreciative of indeed.
The passage out brought sightings of a number of Porpoises, while on the way back the divers met an in-bound Tall Ship, the Lady of Avenel, which had previously left Oban on the west coast of Scotland for a trip to Lough Swilly.
She made a remarkable sight as she travelled up the Swilly, a sight that would have been frequently observed 150 years ago under the observation of the fortifications that still remain in place today.
Finally it was with sadness that Sheephaven club members heard of the passing of Patrick Valksborougs mother, Frances. Patrick had been a club member with Sheephaven SAC in the past and has kept in contact over the intervening years. Frances Valksbourg (nee Kelly) was a native of Creeslough Beg and after moving to Belgium lived a long life there, to have passed away on the 9th August in Nijlen. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam.
