Porthkerris News Archive 2007

END OF YEAR ROUND UP 2007

18 December 07

The Christmas Dive on 22 Dec has been cancelled due to the weather. We have horrible easterly winds at the moment. It is intended to do a New Year dive instead, weather permitting, date to be advised, so watch this space.

December 2007

Now we reach the end of the year, almost. The Christmas Dive will take place, weather permitting, on 22 Dec, with mince pies and Mulled wine afterwards. Last years event was a great success with wonderful weather on the day. Check the web site news before hand because this is where we will announce it won't be taking place if the weather does not play ball! And judging by the weather we've had recently, I wouldn't bet either way about how it will be on the day.

The boats are getting booked up for next year already, so get in early to avoid disappointment.

Nothing else we can say about November. Tthe weather has been so awful there has been very little diving this month.

November 2007
October has continued to be very good for the weather and is fairly warm at the moment. This month we have done courses in Open Water, Advanced OW, Rescue, Nitrox and Emergency First Response (EFR). We can continue to do courses until the end of the year, so if you are interested, give us a call.

Celtic Cat came out of the water this month, but we are still running the RIB regularly. We can run with a minimum of 2 divers so call for availability.

We are running the Christmas Dive on Drawna Rock again this year, on 22 Dec. Let us know if you are coming so we have an idea of numbers (wouldn't want anyone to miss out on their Mulled Wine or Mince Pie!).

We still have plenty of Porthkerris T Shirts and tops which will make nice stocking fillers for Christmas, give Jo a call on 01326 280620.

The new web site has now gone live. More pictures will be added to the gallery shortly.

October 2007
September has been a really good month for the weather, and we are still quite busy at the moment.  We have done quite a few different courses this month.  Most of you who have visited this year will know Dave.  He passed his Instructor's Exams this month and so has now qualified as an OWSI, so congratulations to him.  He is off to Thailand soon, and hopefully will be back with us next year as an Instructor. 

This month has given us several more sunfish during the early part of the month, and twice this month Andy has had a large pod of Dolphin on the Manacles and in Falmouth Bay.  There has also been reports of "George" the Dolphin who is well known in the Portland area.  He seems to think he is a human and likes to make friends.  We heard that he spent one day recently following the Harbour Master at Falmouth around in his boat! 

Celtic Cat will be taken out of the water shortly for the season, but will continue to run rib charters and courses to the end of the year, weather permitting. Due to the success of last years Christmas Shore Dive, it is intended to run it again, date to be advised..

Don’t forget, 2008 Tide Tables are now out.  Send us an SAE and we’ll put one in the post.

Christmas is coming, get your pressies early.  We have Porthkerris T Shirts and tops in various sizes and colours.  If you are interested, give Jo a call on 01326 280620.

15th September 2007
Tide Tables for 2008 are now available. Send us a Stamped Addressed Envelope (SAE) and we will send you one by return of post. Get your tide tables and bookings in for 2008 to avoid disappointment. The address is at the bottom of the page.

8th September 2007
As September starts, we are in the middle of our well deserved late summer.  It is beautiful with clear blue sky, hardly any wind and Neap Tides, absolutely perfect for diving.   

We have the well known Dive Writer and Photographer, Gavin Parsons, with us at the moment.  He has been waiting ages to find a Sunfish and was quite excited to hear they have been a regular visitor to the Manacles over the last couple of months. 

However, he had the ultimate  photographers nightmare today, the photo opportunity you have been waiting for, but passed you by.  Mike kindly put him down on the wreck of the City of Ghent first so he got a bit of time to himself before the other divers arrived. 

However, while Gavin was enjoying some quality time on the wreck the rest of the divers were in snorkelling and photographing the  Sunfish he had been waiting for, boy was he mad.  But he is here for a few more days, so there is time yet. 

There have been reports over the last couple of days of 40+ Basking Sharks in the Lands End area, but they haven't yet ventured up our way. 

However, Andy and his divers got a wonderful and rare spectacle today while out on the Rib, a pod of about 50 dolphins.  He said he has seen the odd few, but nothing like they saw today, he was thrilled by it. 

This fantastic weather looks set to stay for a little while, so come on down while the going's good!

Sep 07
August has been a very good month. It looked like summer had finally arrived with a flourish for the bank holiday weekend, and it looks like staying with us for a little while longer. The beginning of the month saw the Basking Sharks still with us, and a few lucky people were able to get in the water with them, although during the season we did not get the abundance of them in the Falmouth Bay and Manacles area that we did last year. But, Mike could not ever remember them being here this late in the year, so that was good. There have been quite a few Sunfish around during this season, with 2 divers getting a sighting under the water, which was a real treat. There have been reports of Portuguese Man of War being found in the Lands End/Penzance area, but nothing seen here at Porthkerris. The bank holiday weekend could not have been better, apart from the delays for people travelling down. The weather was fantastic and the boats were fully booked all weekend, with 5 ribs trips on one day. Andy decided he was fed up with wearing a dry suit or shorts on the Sunday and decided to change his dress, literally.

The visibility during the month has been varied, but there has still been plenty of people on the water, with nothing blown out. On 21st Aug there was the TV programme “Ultimate Wild Water” with the BBC News presenter Kate Silverton. This saw Kate undergoing the challenges of rock climbing, white water rafting, kayaking, coasteering and free diving, with the ultimate goal of taking on a trip off Wales through some very difficult water see here The free diving part of her training, which was shown, took part from Celtic Cat on the wreck of the Rock Island Bridge in the Helford River, with instruction by the Free diving Champion Hannah Stacey, see more about Hannah, click here. As we move into September we have been promised an Indian Summer so the weather is still very good. There are plenty of boat spaces available during the month.

21 Aug 07
The weather is looking good for the bank holiday weekend and we still have a few spaces available. 3 on our hard boat Celtic Cat on Sunday and a few spaces available on the Rib.
Give us a call on 01326 280620 or email "info@porthkkerris.com"

13 Aug 07
Yesterdays Basking Shark trip (Sun 12/8) found 2 sharks, one large and one smaller one, 2 Sunfish and some Dolphins. Some of the people on the boat were able to get in the water with one of the sharks. A couple of people got a good head on shot of the shark as it came towards them, but unfortunately for one of the girls her camera took fright when faced with the shark and it hid behind its lens!, i.e it didn't work. She was gutted. Possibly the only time she will ever get head on to a Basking Shark and the camera doesn't work. But I guess most photographers can say "been there, done it, got the T Shirt!!!". There was also a report this week by a local fisherman that he unexpectedly (gave him a bit of a fright) caught a large Thresher Shark on the Manacles on his Mackeral feathers. Fortunately, the hook size was way smaller than the sharks mouth and it dropped off before it could get too near his boat.

7 Aug 07
Cornish Sea Salt comes to Porthkerris. While you were passing the time on your surface interval or walking around at Porthkerris, you may have noticed big lorries coming and going to the far end past the shore dive area. They are involved with the building of the sea salt factory for Cornish Sea Salt. Read more about it here. The Basking Sharks are still around. Mike says he can't remember when they have stayed this late before, possibly another thing affected by the weird summer this year.

Aug 07
Not a lot we can say for July as the weather has been so terrible again, it’s almost been wetter above the water below it! We would say nearly the end of the Summer, but it has hardly begun yet (we hope)! Despite the weather, there have been reports of some very good diving during July. Visibility has been varied throughout the month, and as we got to the end, it has dropped again. But, those pesky Baskers are back. There has been 3 seen this last week on the Manacles, including one off the beach and one off the back of Drawna Rock yesterday (Wed). There have also been reports lots, between 30 - 60 around Lands End in the last couple of days, so we are hoping they are going to push their way towards us. The diving reports this month have been very good, and 2 people got to see a Sunfish under the water. Although they are seen most years, you only normally get to see them on the surface. disappointment. Cornwall in the Autumn is beautiful, especially with good weather.

30 July 07
The Baskers are at it again, teasing us!! There have been sightings of up to 30 over the weekend at Sennen Cove, which is not far away. There were 2 sighted in our area on Sunday, a small one from Porthkerris beach and another larger one on the Manacles by Andy in his boat. Then on Monday, there was a different one sighted by the rib while taking 2 lucky students out for AOW. This was their first basking shark sighting and they were thrilled to be able to snorkel with it for about 5 minutes. In addition to this, they were astounded by the beautiful anenomes on their dive on Vase

July 07
Halfway through the season already! June has seen some pretty horrendous weather although we have escaped the worst down here in Cornwall, and have been lucky to not have had any days blown out this year so far. The main problem has been the rain, not the wind, and July has not started much better, but it's not bad enough to stop our hardy, dedicated British divers! Celtic Cat is running pretty much most weekends, and the new lift is proving to be very popular with our divers, and the Rib is running several times a week and every weekend. Don't forget we can run the rib now with a minimum of 2 divers. Yorkshire Divers had a very good long weekend with us at the end of June. Mike managed to find the wreck of the Active for them which he's been trying to find for a while. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of it left, but the visibility was reported as being excellent, click here for Yorkshire Divers trip report and pictures. The last basking sharks we saw were in the first few days of June. It looks like it was a very sparse season, but we can but hope. Andy saw a pod of dolphins this last week on the Manacles, including a baby and he had a seal pop up next to him on the main beach when he was swimming back in from the Rib. On Tuesday 3 Jul, the BBC set up "Fish Cams" to film live from underwater at Drawna Rock and live clips were shown throughout the day on the BBC News and BBC News 24 presented by Sarah Mukherjee. This is part of of the "Save our Sea Life Campaign" and you can see more about it here and sign the pledge to Gordon Brown. The underwater filming worked out far better than could have been hoped for and the production team were helped by Andy in determining the best place to site the cameras.

19 June 07
The basking sharks seem to have gone again. We have had to cancel the last couple of trips as we didn't feel that there was fair chance of seeing them. If they re-appear, we will let everyone know as soon as possible. Either keep an eye on the web site, join the Porthkerris Groups or email Jo or Tamsin and ask to added to the Basking Shark email list.

4 June 07
The Basking Sharks are here. Celtic Cat saw 5 today while on a dive charter. Bookings are now being taken for Basking Shark trips. There are currently no spaces for the weekend

9/10 June but there is plenty of space during the week. Contact the office on 01326 280620 or email info@porthkerris.com.

June 07
The weather during May has continued to be changeable, but we have not yet had a day blown out. Celtic Cat and the Ribs are now running regularly and the new lift on the Cat is proving to be a popular diving comfort!! Don’t forget, we can now run the rib with a minimum of 2 people, so no more waiting for someone else to book. The early basking sharks arrived about the 3rd week of April, and then disappeared again like last year. 2 decent size Basking Sharks were seen by Andy in the Rib during the 3rd week of May, although there were no reports of any being seen anywhere else in the area. Also 2 customers were lucky enough to be on the beach early one morning and saw one breach, a real treat! The visibility has been varied coming up to the end of the month, so hopefully it won't be too long before the Baskers are back again. Andy also saw a pod of dolphins and a Minky whale on the Manacles this last week. The early May bank holiday provided some very good diving with the weather being quite good, and this last May bank holiday was good, apart from being windy and overcast on the Sunday. Quite a few people were brave enough to risk camping. We now have the BBQ built in the Galley area and it has been christened already. The Outdoor Britain team from the BBC visited us during May to film Hannah Stacey, the British women's freediving record holder, for a programme to be shown later in the year. Hannah was filmed doing her stuff on the Rock Island Bridge in the Helford River. The boats are getting booked up quite quickly, so book early to avoid disappointment. We have quite a few different courses running, so if you are interested, give us a call or email.

May 07
The season is now well underway. The university students had some good diving during April for their training weeks, and thanks to all those who came down. The weather during April has been changeable. It was great for the Easter bank holiday, but during the latter part of the month, we have had easterly winds, although not too strong though. Celtic Cat has been launched for the new season, and the brand new lift and kitting up benches have been tried out. From personal experience, (I got the first go on the lift), it is great, click here for pictures. The first basking sharks arrived about the 3rd week of April, with sporadic sightings around the area. However, the wind over the last 2 weeks hasn’t been good for shark spotting, but it was quite early, so we hope to have plenty more to come. The rib has been running regularly and some very good diving has been enjoyed. We can now take the rib with only 2 people, so no more waiting for someone else to book. The first people have stayed in the Porthkerris apartment, and they enjoyed a very comfortable stay. There are still dates available if you are looking for accommodation click here The early May bank holiday is approaching and we are crossing fingers for good weather. There are still places available on the Rib throughout the bank holiday weekends.

Basking Sharks
Although a little early, the plankton is blooming and the first Basking Sharks of the season have been reported, although we haven’t seen them yet. There have been sightings of one or two reported at Sennen near Lands End and Falmouth Bay. Don’t rush just yet though, we will wait until there are reasonable sightings before we take trips to see them, we want to give you the best possible chance for sightings. Last year the first arrivals were small ones and they were only around for about a week. They then disappeared and we thought that was it, but then came back about 2 weeks later with a vengeance, and they were everywhere. Keep an eye on the web site and we will post up to date news as sightings are reported.

April 2007
The 2007 season has begun with beautiful weather and excellent conditions for all those who have made the trip for the Easter weekend. Celtic Cat and both Ribs were coded by the MCA last week so they are raring to go for the new season. Although the weather for the Easter weekend has been great, leading up to it, it has been very windy with Easterly winds, so it did not allow us to get Celtic Cat back in the water in time for Easter. Our Rib Predator, with her popular skipper Andy, has been pretty much fully booked for the whole weekend, and some good diving with very good visibility has been enjoyed on both the wrecks and reefs. Lots of university students have been enjoying excellent conditions for their training. During March and April we have had or expect to have several Universities visiting to do their annual training. In March we saw Bristol and Cambridge and during April Imperial College, Oxford Brookes, Kings College London, Southampton and Oxford. The apartment at the house has hosted its first guests, click here to see details. We are glad to welcome Dave to the Porthkerris family. He is a Divemaster and along with taking escorted dives and assisting Andy with courses, he will be running “The Galley”, our own catering van. The Galley is now open and providing well needed refreshment to all our hungry divers click here. The big news is that the brand new double, yes double, man lift which has been fitted to Celtic Cat is finally ready. This makes Celtic Cat one of the biggest and best boats in the area, (with your top skipper Mike!!) as it is the only boat with a double lift. In addition to the lift, Celtic Cat has been fitted with additional kitting up benches on the outside deck which will allow you to put your cylinders on while sat down. This means in addition to your comfort! we are able to increase diver safety. There will be pictures hopefully on the next newsletter.

19 Mar 2007

2007 SEASON NEWS LETTER

Hello to all Porthkerris customers and friends, and welcome to the 2007 diving season. The weather finally seems to be on the turn and Spring is in the air! Let’s hope the weather is as kind to us this year as last. We have now begun setting up for the season, although a few hardy types have attempted to venture into the water already, in between the wind and rain and despite the milky visibility. As mentioned on the end of year round up, there has been some landscaping done in front of the galley to provide a seating area, and it is also intended to provide a BBQ pitch in the beach area which will be available by pre-booking. It is also intended to offer food for your groups by prior arrangement, e.g fish and chips, or curry or anything you would like which it is possible to provide. This will be prior arrangement with Jo for a price per head. The greater the numbers, the cheaper it will be. There was a very successful event last year for Newbury BSAC and their 25th Anniversary. We also still have camping, and a few electric hook up pitches. New for this year is the apartment at Porthkerris house available on a Bed and Breakfast basis, breakfast is provided, and you cook. It can accommodate up to 4 people, is self contained comprising of 2 twin bedrooms, a bathroom, sitting room with television, and a small kitchenette with fridge, freezer and cooking facilities. Provisions can be purchased from the shop in St Keverne village or from Helston. It is available by pre-booking. On the web site there is a new page on the giving names and contact numbers for local Bed and Breakfast accommodation, click here. You may remember a mention of the rescue of a seal from the beach at the end of last year. We have tracked her down at the Seal Sanctuary at Gweek and she is doing very well. Her name is Pudey and you can see more about her by clicking here. Work is in progress still to fit a nice new double lift to Celtic Cat. It is undergoing final adjustments and testing at the moment, so watch the web site news for more details and confirmation when it will be in action. The boats, both Celtic Cat and the Ribs are getting booked up quickly, so get your bookings in to avoid disappointment. Our season really kicks off at the end of March with the annual migration of universities, beginning with Cambridge and there will be universities with us just about throughout the whole of April. Andy is back with us again this year as our Staff Instructor and Rib skipper, with Mike running Celtic Cat. Tamsin and Jeremy are our brand new instructors and Tamsin will also be working in the office with Jo. There will be good food available throughout the year in the Galley, opening date yet to be confirmed. Looking forward to seeing you sometime during the year.

17 Jan 2007
Welcome to the New Year. No diving going on yet. The weather has been terrible lately, lots of strong winds and rain.

LIMITED OFFER - book your trip and pay the deposit by 31 Jan 07 and you get it at 2006 prices.

DIVEMASTERS WANTED - wanted for this year, Divemaster Internees.