As a very famous person said, what is lost is lost and what is found is rubbish.
And so it turned out to be true. Without our talisman Herr Nicola on the boat this week the numbers were well down from the bumper turn out seven days earlier, but a happy if slightly depleted Band of Brothers and Sisters set forth on a mission that was worth more than just the enjoyment of diving. Could we recover that which had been lost? Sadly it turned out that we could not, but great fun was had by all. Viz was good and it was fantastic to see a return to diving with the Club from our friend Suzanne Gendron.
Keilem and Victor led the first wave and came back enthusing about the dive site having found the wreck of the old barge and explored one of the inlets into the island discovering that there was a swim through or a swim under, a large rock, which lead into a small cavern. As they described it going into the crack was a great deal of fun. Other divers having a slightly delayed start owing to the faff of sidemount diving also enjoyed a great dive on this lovely dive site.
Some buddy pairs preferred to go deeper exploring the depths around 14 or 15 m. The visibility was surprisingly good in the depths and some deeper reefs were found, with a large number of damselfish swirling around. Unfortunately large amounts of metal were not found. A big difference from last week was that the cooler water started match shallower, around 6 metres rather than the 10 or so metres that we saw last week. Perhaps autumn is starting early for the diving?
Again around the shallows and close to the wreck of the old barge there was a large numbers of cornet fish and painted sweet lips which if you are calm and relaxed seemed to enjoy coming quite close to you as they have a close look and check out what you are doing. There were patches of hard and soft coral and a great deal of colour on the reef. A few old pieces of fishing net and some old entangled remains of ghost nets were recovered mainly from some of the patches of hard coral, but the focus of the second dive was to pick up as much plastic rubbish as possible.
Setting forth on the important mission of the day we started the 2nd dive mesh bags in our hands trying our very best to pick up all the plastic that we could find. Which surprisingly proved to be quite elusive, but never being deterred by a small setback we tried our best and scoured all the nooks and crannies of the dive site. Thanks to a passing team of kayakers we saw that there was a gap between a small island and the main island of Wang Chau. The dive through that narrow channel proved to be a great deal of fun. Riding the surge backwards and forwards we found a few pieces of plastic and the odd large tin and a great number of rather surprised fish who scuttled out of our way.
There were a few finds of larger plastic objects such as the edging around a speedboat and also the plastic covering from a kitchen strip light. Keilem very kindly lead the sorting and the measuring of these recovered objects so that all of the finds could be properly and scientifically recorded.
Returning to the pier bang on time at 4:15 p.m. We only had to wait for the vans who were stuck in traffic before departing back our separate ways. Thank you very much to all the divers who came together to make this a great day out. See you soon on the next dive. Roll on September.
