SHEEPHAVEN divers had a busy week of diving last week, with dives on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday morning.
Wednesday’s diving was at St John Point, where Kevin Boylan welcomed the first day of July by leading a sequence of two dives at one of the most highly rated shore dives in the country.
At that location divers can step into a choice of sites that are a comfortable 20 metres, but with deeper depths available if required.
St Johns contains some unique marine life for the Donegal coast due to its limestone features, of particular note there are Sea Fans, which look like little Christmas trees.
Thursday diving was an evening shore-dive at Portnablagh, while Saturday mornings dive was a boat-dive from Mevagh to Melmore Head.
It is a while since Sheephaven divers were able to do a boat dive and they got an absolute cracker for the first time out, following the ebbing spring tide out from Raveny Island towards Melmore headland.
In addition to observing a variant and abundant marine ecosystem the divers also got to do a wreck dive on the remains of the little trawler that has lasted another winter of Atlantic storms.
Sunday mornings trainees dive and snorkel was conducted in Portnablagh before the forecasted gale came rolling in with westerly winds reaching 100kph later in the day.
But before that the in-water conditions were really good, with at least 10 metres of horizontal visibility and 12 degrees Celsius.
The divers got over 30 minutes bottom time with a maximum depth of 10 metres, while the free-divers took full advantage of the conditions to get deeper and longer one-breath dives.
Of particular interest to the free-divers was the Long-Reef that runs parallel to the Perches that protect Portnablagh harbour, which at a depth of 8 metres makes for an excellent location for a sequence of free-dives.
A great week of summer diving in Donegal.
