Llanberis - Diving and Caching

Decided to head to Llanberis for the weekend. The plan was to go diving on the Saturday at Dorothea and on the Sunday at Vivian dive centre.

On the Friday evening after setting up camp it was decided a change of plan was needed. Roy, the other diver and my buddy for the weekend hadn't dived for some time and not since his dry suit had been back to the shop for a repair to a leak. I had just got my regulators back from service so we decided to go to Vivian on the Saturday and just spend the Sunday wandering around Llanberis. This turned out to be the best decision as when Roy had his leak repaired the inflator valve had been replaced but had a different connector for the hose. We were able to borrow one from John at the dive centre. Then once in the water my primary reg was breathing wet all the time, this was because the diaphragm on the front had slipped and was allowing water in as I breathed. So after 29 minutes we surfaced and call it a day on the diving front.

It was back to the campsite then to pick Roy's other half up and a trip into Carnarfon. I had taken my GPSr with me and so decided to introduce them both to Geocaching. First stop was a cache on the path alongside Lake Padarn, Things me Dad told me. No1 - The Haunted Track. Parking just of the road we walked along to a gap in the wall where some steps took you down to the path and an old railway tunnel. We walked to the other end and then walked back through the tunnel using the hint to find the cache. The cache was located with the use of a head torch that I had in the car. I picked up a nomad geocoin and signed the log before replacing the cache just before some muggles entered the tunnel at the far end. It was then back to the car and into Caernarfon and some shopping. While in Caernarfon we had time to find one cache. It was on the other side of the marina from the castle and easy to get to via a swing bridge from town centre. After a short walk along a path we soon arrived at Coastal Castles Cache No.8 Big and Brash. There had been a number of DNF's on this and I'm not to surprised. The plant life was very over grown and hiding the hint very well but the cache was soon found. Signed the log and dropped in Finnegan Home again TB. It was then back to the car in time to avoid a parking ticket and back to the campsite for a bar-b-q. I spent the Sunday around the Lake and will post in a separate blog.

Grommits Grand Day Out

Thursday 11th June saw me meet up with The Syllogiser for this new series of caches put out by 1Grommit. We were nearly a hour late starting due to the M61 being closed to allow the air ambulance to land for an accident just before Chorley. Arrived to meet Don in Aldi at Bamber Bridge to grab some of the offers and then we set of for our first section. Parking at the junction of Jackson's Bank Road and Bezza Lane. We headed from there to cache GGDO21 and worked our way round to GGDO25 before bypassing the main village of Balderstone and dropping down to GGDO15 and heading back around to GGDO20 and the cars

The paths were very overgrown in parts (see photo) and the need for a map is required. Lucky for us we had two print outs from memory map, a pda with memory map and an OS map of the West Pennine Moors. This still didn't stop the situation of someone heading in the wrong direction because they had selected the wrong cache, the last one in fact to navigate to. After this technical problem it was onwards again arriving back at the cars 12 caches later. We then moved the cars around to the church in Balderstone and had a spot of lunch there. After taking on food and fluids it was off again to the start of the series and GGDO1. We had 14 caches ahead of us, 13 traditional and 1 unknown. So after 13 more caches we had completed the loop in two sections and had all the numbers to find GGDO Final. If you have had the privilege to meet The Syllogiser you will know that he doesn't talk that much, sorry that wrong. Anyway Don took the opportunity and the fact that we had different ideas on how to make our way to the final that he asked a local man doing some DIY for directions. It took Don about 10 minutes to run through the basics of memory map before we could set of for the final cache.

Because of the way we had done the series we were right next to the area the final was hidden in and it only took us about 5 minutes to make our way there and find the cache. At first we overshoot GZ but using the hint the cache was in hand in no time at all. Sat down to write the log and drop and retrieve so TB's and enjoy the sound of the wilderness with no sounds of the 20th century around. This is a great series, very hard going and difficult if you didn't have a map with you but as more people do it over the weeks i'm sure cachers trails will appear.

Eight Acre Lake

Last weekend was an chance to get in the water again, the first time since may bank holiday and the trip to Eyemouth. I could of gone to Scotland for the weekend but decided that as I was on early's on the Friday before and the Monday after that I would be too tried to get out of bed for work. Instead I opted for a puddle dive. I put a post on the DiveLife forum but got on reply until a regular puddle diving buddy gave me a bell asking where I was think of going. Over the next day we decided to give Eight Acre Lake a bash. It would be 4 years since we last dived there and it had changed hands in that time and reports from the dive forums was that the viz was better than before. With the car loaded it was a matter of a trip down the M62 to North Cave. Eight Acre is the result of quarrying for sand and clay and has a maximum depth 14 metres.
The only item that is under the water from the last visit is a pipe that sits in 4 metres of water. The new owners have added a lynx helicopter and two boats plus some training platforms. The viz on the surface was crystal clear but over by the helicopter in 12 metres you could only see about 1 metre. The good thing about this site is that as its only small the water temp had risen with the hot weather that we have had and on the surface it was 16 degrees C dropping to 13 at the bottom.
Registration forms filled in and photos taken for the membership cards it was time to get the kit together and head for the water. I had put my kit together the night before as i had been changing some hoses and needed to check they were OK. With my drysuit on and twinset on my back Andy (My buddy) and I set off for one of the jetty entries and a giant st raid into the water. Once in the wet stuff we dropped down and headed over to one of the boats. Andy had left the map and bearing chart in the car but on arriving at the first boat I found one half covered in the silt so grabbed it and stuffed it in my drysuit pocket. This was going to be very helpful later on. We then made our way to the second wreck and from there used the bearing chart to find the way to the helicopter. After a look around the helicopter we headed to the the pipe but forgot it was in the shallow water and on hitting the wall from 10 to 3 metres. After swimming along the wall for a couple of minutes we headed up to the 3 metre shelf and swam back in the direction we had come from and found the pipe. After taking a swim through it we headed back to the exit point and out of the water.
It was now time for a spot of lunch and a drink before a second dive. Once we were ready to head back in we just decided to use the gravel entrance in front of the car and walk into the water. We headed back over to the pipe and from there took a compass bearing of 180 degrees or due south. This should of took us to the helicopter but things don't always go to plan and missed it completely and instead stumbled across one of the wrecks. The navigation then went from bad to worst as instead of finding our way out were we wanted to head for we hit the training area on the other side of the quarry and then back to were we started.
All in all in was a good days diving and it was a good try out of my kit ready for the trip to North Wales next weekend.