Swilly Rocks
The Sunday morning dive was to the Swilly Rocks, which lie on the western side of Lough Swilly between Fanad Head and Portsalon.
These two rocks are occasionally covered by water and are the location of two significant ship wrecks, the first in 1811 when HMS Saldanha struck the rocks and subsequently sank near to Ballymastocker Bay with the loss of all 253 on board.
The Saldanha was a significant Frigate rated warship of nearly 1,000 tons, over 44 metres long and armed with 36 guns. Her captain at the time of the sinking was William Pakenham, who was the brother-in- law of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington.
The second notable sinking associated with the Swilly Rocks was that of the SS Pandion a cargo steamer of some 2,000 tonnes in 1941. She was initially attacked out at sea and abandoned by her crew; she then drifted ashore until finally sinking on the Swilly Rocks.
While the divers did not find any significant remains of ship wreckage on Sunday they did observe a wide variety of marine life, in particular some very large flatfish including Plaice and a very rare sighting of a Dover Sole, which was worth the dive in its own right.
The Dover Sole, with the scientific name of Solea Solea, had its identification was confirmed by its trademark
designer stubble.
Sundays’ two boat dive party was led in a very competent and efficient manner by Kieran Mc Glynn to a depth of no greater than 18 metres and for dive times of 40 minutes.
The dive was conducted in one stick thanks to the expert coxswain duties of Brendan Proctor and his very capable assistant and grandson Ben. Clearly the apple didn’t fall far from the tree with Ben’s boat handling skills evident to all involved on Sunday morning. Once again water temperature was over 16 degrees Celsius but in-water visibility was much better at around 10 metres horizontally.
A feature of a dive from Rathmullan is the fantastic scenery all along Lough Swilly, but especially on the western shore from Portsalon back to Rathmullan with the Donegal mountains as a backdrop.
Thanks to Dave Mc Gloin for taking us to these two dive sites, which most of the dive party had never been on before and once again a very special thanks to Kieran Doherty who towed boats during the week even though he didn’t have the opportunity to dive himself.
Jiving
Sheephaven SAC activities started last week in Burtonport when Caroline Mc Gee got some divers out for an evenings’ jiving on Wednesday.
The evening was for a world record attempt for the most number of jivers dancing at the one time and while no records were broken it was still a great night’s entertainment.
The open air venue and the drizzle that came in from the sea didn’t make much difference as some of the divers couldn’t dance much before the conditions deteriorated.
Well done once again to Caroline and maybe next year there will be world record jivers included in Sheephaven SAC list of accolades, while all fund raising on the evening was donated to the local RNLI station.
Black Hole dive
However before the dancing there was a dive in the Black Hole at high water slack, led by Anne Boyle, with Kieran Doherty providing dry coxswain duties.
As always if this dive is done at the right time it can provide a great show of marine life, such as some very photogenic Tompot Blennies, Conger Eels, Dogfish, Lobster and Brown Crab and thankfully last Wednesday did not disappoint.
Sheephaven SAC’s weekend diving activities were conducted from Rathmullan, when club member Dave Mc Gloin brought us onto two sites not normally frequented by Sheephaven divers.
Rathmullen
The Saturday morning dive was led by Kevin Boylan and the divers were taken to a dive site upstream of Rathmullan pier, were they conducted a two stick, forty minute dive to a maximum depth of nearly 20 metres.
In-water visibility was limited to a few metres on the seabed, while the water temperature was a very warm 17 degrees Celsius.
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