This is the first of the PADI Speciality Courses that I did. I was accompanied by Dave and Louise. (Dave and I also took our wives along for the weekend)

Our instructors for the course were Bruce and Jen who are based in Mathry and run the West Wales Diving School. They were assisted by 2 Dive Masters, Rob on the first day and Mark on the second.

We all arrived on time and after a briefing by Bruce we drove to Porthgain where the first of our wrecks, the Baron Ardrossan was sunk, on August 21st 1898. It is quite broken and is in 6 to 9 metres of water.

On each of the dives I buddied Dave while Lou was with the DM or Bruce.

The first dive was an orientation dive as Bruce showed us around the wreck. Quite a good tour but we were quite disorientated by the end. However on the afternoon dive we had to map out the wreck. Lou and Bruce took the Port side and Dave and I took the Starboard. Apart from our lack of artistic talent the overall plan looked quite good??? Also saw some quite big wrasse during this dive.

After filling in our log books at the local pub, Dave and Marie went back to their campsite near Fishguard, while Louise Bev and I went to our Hotel, The Square and Compass.

The next morning after another pre dive briefing from Bruce we set off for Abercastle, where the Leysian, our second wreck, had sunk on February 20th 1917. The wreckage is spread over quite a large area and is in 12 meters of water.

The first thing that we noticed was that the sea was quite a bit rougher that the previous day, and as soon as we descended we found that due to lots of plankton the viz was down to about one metre.

Nevertheless we were shown around the wreck site by Bruce although it was difficult to take everything in due to the viz. Near the end of the dive Dave managed to get himself tangled in some lines attached to lobster pots (twice!!).

On the second dive we were supposed to reel out from the propshaft to the winch and then to the boiler. Dave and I got separated but we eventually got together again and we went to the boiler for me to do my penetration exercise. Apparently while we were separated Dave again got tangled up. I think he must have some inclination towards bondage.

We didn’t find this to be a very enjoyable dive as it was quite stressful, however we both learned quite a lot.

That was the end of the course and we all went back to the pub in Mathry to complete the paperwork.

The 3 of us all enjoyed the course and would recommend Bruce and Jen to anyone considering diving in Pembrokeshire.

Pics below show Dave, Louise, and the beach at Abercastle.