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"West Wales BBQ 14th July 2007"
It was a wet and windy night when nine intrepid Diving-Dragons left South Wales to travel to Hasguard Cross to set up base camp for the weekend social. Little did the hardy forerunners know that fate had intervened and they did not have to sleep under canvas – unless your name was Tim who somewhere along the line lost the plot. The kindly guardian of Hasguard Cross offered 2 x 8 berth caravans for same price as camping – no contest unless your name was Tim. After choosing pits and a couple of bottles of beer it was decided not to meet up with the POSH Pair (Chris & Chrissie bunked up snugly in a Farm House) at the St Brides pub, but walk ten yards to the club house on site. Food & more beer flowed freely – our warm felt thanks go to Ian who stood up at the end of the evening and kindly bought the whole forward party a round, by this time POSH pair had turned up as had Luke. On Saturday morning a strange thing appeared in the sky. Men, women and children cowered in its ferocity, the sun turned up, a very rare event this year. Steve L woke asking if anyone else felt the earth move during the night as it caused him to fall out of bed and crack his eyelid on bedside cabinet. This might have also explained the reason why Tony W decided to sit bolt upright at 4.30 shouting the odds at Nigel who at the time was deep in the land of nod. Breakfast was taken in West Wales Divers whilst the rest of the divers gradually joined us. Buddies had previously been sorted and paired up to move to St Brides. Two shore dives were planned for the day, however not everyone managed them. Luke carried out a weight check, finding he needed more sent his dad off to get a couple of k, this sorted he proceeded to try to dive but couldn’t figure why only one fin was working - the other had decided to part company whilst Luke was sorting out his weight. Steve P, Dave G, Dave W, James and I (Nige) decided to do a marathon surface swim to the left side of the bay to get away from the crowd, Deploying the SMB before diving was fun as it needed to be taken into consideration when trying to submerge. On reaching the heady depth of 2.5m I noticed James still on the surface. Having tried to get down a couple of times James decided to call a halt to the dive, I passed the SMB to Steve signalling that I would be pairing up with James. Everyone else reported a good dive. Thanks to Lukes’ Dad Rob for doing surface cover. During lunch Steve P for some unknown reason decided to lock his keys in the car (DOH). As the rear window was slightly open Steve was able to squeeze an arm through to reach the door handle (with a bit of string) – good thing these modern cars have dead locks on them as this would have been the end of this ditty. Much cursing and suggestions were given, Dave G offered his help to climb in through the window, instead Chrissie was unceremoniously manhandled through the window to get into the boot to get to the keys – which Chris Parks then noticed were in Steve Parsons back pocket – don’t ask me why Chris was looking at Steve’s backside but I have heard that they are good buddies. Thankfully the second dive of the day took place without a hitch, Luke had got a set of fins from WWD and by the time he was ready to get into the water another diver had located his lost fin in the shallows. Over 25 people and one horrid girl attended the BBQ in the evening, only once were we asked to turn the music down. Thanks to Elin, Tina & Chrissie for organising food & nibbles. One of the most enjoyable socials and a definite for next year. !written by Nigel (Uncle Albert) Gee |