SHEEPHAVEN divers had another busy week of diving last week, with two shore dives at St John Point on Wednesday morning, another shore dive on Thursday evening and boat dives on both Saturday and Sunday morning.
Kevin Boylan led the St Johns and Portnablagh dives, where good surface conditions were matched in the water with excellent visibility and warm temperatures, all of which allowed the divers to take full advantage of their dive times.
The recent return to boat dives has been very much welcomed indeed and last week the club took two boats to Rathmullan, which allowed club members to enjoy the dive sites that extend along Lough Swilly.
Saturday mornings dive to a site at the base of Knockalla Fort was led by John Joe Rowland, who also provided dry coxswain duties for his colleagues as they completed a 40 minute dive to a maximum depth of not quite 20 metres.
In-water visibility at less than five metres was not as good as earlier in the week; due in no small part to the plankton bloom that has brought mackerel into bay.
Water temperature was a very cosy 14 degrees Celsius – more than warm enough for the divers to dispense with dry-suits and revert to wet suits – and with a flooding tide the divers were gently pulled along with the current.
Sunday morning dive was also from Rathmullan with both boats in operation and once again was led by John Joe Rowland, also thanks to Paddy Mc Gowan for providing dry coxswain duties on-board one boat.
The dive was conducted as a trainee dive at Farmer Rock, which is on the eastern side of Lough Swilly north of Dunree Fort and provided much better in-water visibility at well over 10 meters than the previous days’ experience; it also has shelter to find a suitable dive site at the permissible depth for the trainee diving.
A fitting end to a good week of mid-summer scuba diving in Donegal waters.
Finally just a special word of thanks to everyone who organised dives, towed boats to the water or providing dry-coxswain duties, all of which is very much appreciated indeed.
