I decided to return to a spot that I haven't dived for a while. When I first started spearing it was one of my regular haunts even though I never had much luck there (apart from spider crabs) but it is a stunning location.
It was a crisp clear day, the sun was out but the promise of cold was in the air as I got changed and hiked down to the beach earning some curious looks from walkers out enjoying the weather.
There were a couple of characteristics about this bay that stuck in my mind, firstly that there was always deep gullies out of my reach that I thought must have been FILLED with all the fish I'd failed to find, there were after all always fishermen here casting off from the rocks. Secondly I remember finding a cave and I wanted to try and revisit it.
It had been a sunny day with clear vis and from the surface I had seen a large spider crab at the bottom of a hole in the rocks. I remember diving for it and thinking it was right at the limit of my abilities, when I reached to grab it I glanced up and saw a cave ahead of me, light glinting at the far side. I shot back up to the surface my mind filled with images of giant conger eels.
Today the visibility was nothing like as good but I knew the area fairly well and struck out round the headland with confidence. I had to duck close to the rocks and under some Anglers Lines, asking of course before hand, earning a few glares for my trouble. Anglers don't generally have much time for Spearos which is a shame. I always try to stay out of their way and am more than happy to let them know what fish I've seen around and where if they only ask.
I did some warm up dives and began to explore. It immediately became apparent how much I have improved since the last time I dived here. I found myself quickly lying on the seabed at the bottom of the gullies I had always eyed in the past. The deepest one was only 11 or 12 meters. Unfortunately the huge fish I had always imagined lurking down there were proving elusive.
I was on the way back when found the cave. I quickly dived down to the entrance and realised that it wasn't that deep and that it was also much wider than I remembered. I checked the exit as well, it's important if your going to swim a cave to make sure it's safe first. A good test is to swim down to the entrance look in, then swim up and around/over it to the exit and look in, if you can do that (and the cave is wide enough) then you can be fairly sure you can make it. But be careful and always dive with a buddy!
I had done some diving through underwater obstacles an Chepstow with the free-divers so felt much more confident and after a calming breathe up made my attempt. After the initial excitement almost disappointingly easy and I went back through a few times, taking the time to hang around in the cave. It was really fun, there's just something eerie about being in an enclosed space underwater and it was really rewarding to see how much more confident I was underwater compared to a few years ago.
As usual I had a great time, despite the poor vis and the lack of fish!
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