03/10/12 - Snorkel Sea Training - Old Head

3rd October 2012

Snorkelling - Old Head -Feidhlim Dignan

It was raining and the sea temperature was 13*C. There was poor visibility.

Today I was looking forward to using the skills that I had learnt in the pool and hoped I would see some sea life.
I wanted to prove to Feidhlim that I had understood everything that I had learnt from Weeman the day before and that I was able for this senior snorkeler course.

Everybody geared up before we went in.

We went through water hazards with Weeman & Feidhlim, things to look out for when snorkelling. e.g ropes under the water.

Feidhlim took the group that I was in and we did our forward and backward rolls, it is amazing how much harder it is to do them in the sea because with your wetsuit and the salt water you are much more buoyant and it is hard to make sure you don’t float to the surface when rolling.We did our entries at the steps of the pier, forward roll entry, backward roll entry, silent entry, and then we did our entries off the top of the pier, our feet first entries.

It was cool to get out in the sea snorkelling but it was unfortunate that the visibility was so poor. The main highlight for me today was that I was borrowing Stacy’s XCEL wetsuit and I was really nice and warm for the whole session.

I fallen in love with XCEL wetsuits! I have to save up for one!

I enjoyed this evening’s session even though the visibility was poor. I need to buy either flippers that I can wear my booties with or neoprene socks because my feet felt the cold.

Environmental interest of the day...

Today the visibility was very poor in the sea and we couldn’t see anything under the water. Today I learnt that when it rains, the fresh water mixes with the salt water and causes poor visibility which is why it was so bad today.