Freesteel Blog » Weekend away at Bull Bay

Weekend away at Bull Bay

Tuesday, February 19th, 2013 at 8:52 am Written by:

With clear weather and no caving planned, I got a chance to sneak in some kayak diving out of Bull Bay. Now that I have money from having a job, I said, Why don’t we stay in a hotel, rather than try to camp or go to a B&B? It was, after all, February. In Anglesey. The Bull Bay Hotel overlooks Bull Bay and cost only £70 for one night for the two of us. We got lucky. Especially with the meal on Saturday night.

After a whole morning of faffing, we got off in time for an evening dive at Y Cochran Rock half a km from the beach at dusk.

It’s a small reef in 8m of water very close to the cliffs with a surprising amount of life. Basically, this rock here. It was also very silty. Becka got cold in the 7 degree C water. I surfaced and got my new waterproof caving torch that’s supposed to be mounted to a helmet and went back for more. It cut the clag like ice and really brought out the colour from the murk. I’d go back to this site again.

Dive number 2 was on the wreck of the Pansy just off the headland out from the beach where the overfalls normally play. Slack water was scheduled for 7am which, as the beach was 20 yards away from the hotel, meant we were willing to get up before dawn to do it with the promise of a big breakfast afterwards. The cargo ships were still parked in Liverpool Bay from the night before.



Then all the other photos from underwater were completely blurry until we came up again after a 15 minute dive to 8 metres. We did find some very little remains of the wreck. The life on the rocks in this high current area was rich in colour and variety, including purple nudibranchs. The fish were off on their winter holidays. Here is my torch mounting made from a log and some snoopy loops.

After a lazy morning, we finally pushed out on the boats to Porth Wen to the West along the coast with its picturesque derelict brickworks.

I dithered about diving along the wall near Bull Bay when the echo sounder showed a deep drop off on the east corner of Porth Wen where it was a little more sheltered, so we anchored the boats there and had a very murky dive among silty boulders. A prawn was sitting on one of them, which cheered us up. Everywhere is a home to something.

Then we packed up and went to Bill’s for tea.

Meanwhile, other stuff has been going on unreported. Like an annoying survey trip last Saturday down North End Pot. Here is a rotten wooden door used to pin back the boulders in part of the entrance shaft.

This was followed immediately by a trip to the Chism Trail in Rift where I was not please by the overhanging traverse line. I was not supposed to be doing it, and I don’t like such rope work. Becka, of course, couldn’t see the problem. “I thought you didn’t like going down big pitches,” she said. “This is only going round the top.”

Funnily enough, it’s the top of big pitches where I have the problem. And I thought you didn’t like finding spiders in the bath tub. This one is only in the bed.

The dig on Sunday to Large was called off due to rain and general disorganization. But that was okay because there we went on another dig in ODB on Wednesday night where we dug as much as we could in the time allotted. This was how the end looked when we left.

We didn’t get home till 2 in the morning.

1 Comment

  • 1. Freesteel&hellip replies at 7th March 2013, 12:08 pm :

    […] about 14 spare diving masks. I don’t know how that happened. The ones we took out to Bull Bay last month weren’t even any good (mine was split in the nose), so I guess we keep buying them to replace […]

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