The rest of the party consisted of a compliment from the newly formed 'South Wales Mixed Gas Divers' and a group doing a Trimix course. The planned dive on Saturday was to 55m with a bottom time of 5 mins, then back up to the 42 shelf ('Gnome garden') for a further 15mins to practice skills. We were glad to see that Neil the Gnome (see November trip report) has survived the hammers of Dorothea techie divers and is still in one piece (everything else has been reduced to fragments). We do however, think that someone became frustrated with his plastic form because he's been launched off the shelf and currently resides at 57 metres (ish).
Much of the afternoon was spent driving to the far side of Angelsey to get gas and then back to our accommodation for the night at Plasmenai watersports centre. After a quick shower we set off to the heaving metropolis that is Bangor for some essential nourishment! 10 pieces of chicken, 4 bags of chips and 5 pints of Guinness later we found ourselves in "The Octagon". This place is not for the faint hearted and a mental note was made to avoid it in future. "The Barrels" has a clientele that are slightly higher on the evolutionary ladder but are still worryingly hairy, don't want to ever go back here either. Other things to avoid in Bangor are donner kebabs from the town's only kebab shop and taxi drivers who charge you 20 quid for a 6 mile journey.
Early Sunday morning after a breakfast with very suspicious looking sausages we set off to a dark and blustery Angelsey to pick up the gas. It still amazes how a quick shake of the cylinder changes your mix from 60 to 80%! I think that this is the first time that I've spent more on gas over the course of a weekend that I have done on beer! Sunday's dive was to 50m with a bottom time of 15mins. The walls round the 42m spit are spectacular and we caught a tantalising glimpse of the entrance to the tunnel at 58m. This entrance is guarded by a luminous orange gnome for some reason! Back on dry land (soggy, muddy land is more accurate) whilst replacing vital life supporting nutrients with pot noodle we were accosted by a woman who didn't seem to speak or comprehend a word of English. After a lot of nodding & smiling we shook her off and hit the road. The drive home was only interupted by a minor panic attack trying to find an open petrol station in mid Wales at 5pm on a Sunday evening.
