From Baltimore to Killary Fjord, Ireland

by Derek Brownjohn

October in Ireland, a time of year when the rugged coastline of the Emerald Isle is traditionally rainlashed and windswept. Jonathan, bereft of his loved one for a week, decided to cheer himself up by going diving. He organised a week's diving in Ireland for himself and a select group of friends - Ilona, myself and Simon D. Jane, a non-diving but more aesthetically pleasing replacement for Andy, the more usual member of the gang joined us for a purely above water tour.

The weather was, well, rainy and windy. Though to be fair it was reasonably dry and sunny at times, and the one day when it would have been too bad to stop us diving was fortuitously the day we were making the trip between our two bases for the week, Baltimore in Cork and Tullycross in Galway. The main drawback of the weather was that it had been much the same for the previous few weeks, which meant the vis was seriously reduced by the rough seas and rain water runoff. Nonetheless we had some excellent dives, to offset a couple of crap and/or over-exciting ones.

We flew to Cork from Stansted on the Saturday, and collected our hire-car for the week, a people carrier arranged for us by our local contact Aine who was due to join us for the second leg of the trip in Galway. It was a bit of a tight squeeze to fit 5 of us and 4 sets of dive kit in, but we managed and the driver having overcome his initial consternation at discovering the car was an automatic, eventually set off for Baltimore.

A couple of hours later, the driver having manfully ignored the jibes about the confusion between the speedo being in km/hour and the speed limit signs in miles/hour, we arrived in Baltimore and checked in with Aquaventures. We enjoyed an exceedingly pleasant 3 days at the dive centre, run by an Anglo-Dutch couple, Jerry and Rianne. They run a B&B on site, the feature being Rianne's wonderful breakfasts, porridge and kippers being the favourite, accompnanied by some truly delicious home made breads.

We had the advantage of being the only patrons while we were there, which also made the diving from the 8.5m RIB rather spacious and relaxing. Our hopes of getting out to the Fastnet Rock and the wreck of the Kowloon Bridge were dashed by the weather, but we still had some nice dives round Kedge Island, just outside Roaringwater Bay. One in particular which featured a wall with a stunning profusion and variety of anemones and an octopus with doppelganger, stands out in the memory.

Another which stood out for its brevity was on the leeward side of the paradoxically named Cape Clear Island. After a brief moment of excitment when I glimpsed an urchin, I decided 5 minutes of fumbling around at 20m in 6 inches of vis was enough and consultation with my buddies Jon & Simon produced a rapidly unanimous trio of thumbs up! Ilona, possibly suffering from non-work related stress, had not felt up to diving that day (good choice!) and had gone off walking with Jane.

Evenings in Baltimore were spent supping the local brew, and dining in the some superb eating establishments. One particular fish supper still makes my mouth water as I think of it.

It was thus with some regret that we said goodbye to Jerry and Rianne on the Tuesday and set off on the drive to Galway. We decided to take the scenic route, which that day was a somewhat ironic term because the rain tipped down all day so any views there might have been were obscured behing sheets of water. The weather and the long, winding roads meant the trip ended up taking some 11 hours! The boredom was eased by some word games along the way, the old favourite "truth or lie" producing some intriguing stories...

Tiredness was thus beginning to set in when we arrived in Tullycross late at night, having survived a spooky drive across the Connemara moors. Jon had earlier checked by phone with the landlady of our self catering cottage, and been informed that the key would be in the door. The cottage was located, right across the road from the pub, things are looking up! We'll blame tiredness anyway for Jon's investigation revealing no sign of a key in the door. We sent him into the pub in search of the landlady. Meanwhile Jane checked the back door, found the key and gained egress to greet Jon at the front door as he returned to report no further progress.

Wednesday morning we were up bright and early (ish!) for the drive to Scubadive West at Little Killary harbour. We arrived slightly later than scheduled because of some less than exemplary navigation, but fortunately we were the dive centre's only customers. Even Aine had decided she "might join us tomorrow", so once again we had the boat, Scubadive West's "Dive Taxi" coxed by Breffni, to just the four of us.

Both dives that day were quite memorable. The first was on a small wreck, the "Julia T", fairly intact and sitting upright in about 30m of water. We had probably the best vis of the week, but the dive was also somewhat exciting for the strong swell. At times we could do nothing other than cling onto the railing for dear life and hope it or our arms didn't get ripped off as we were flung back and forth across the wreck. The swell came and went in cycles and it was possible to find shelter in the holds and along the side of the hull. Ilona and I had just decided we'd seen enough and were making our way back to the bows to ascend the shot line when the swell reached its worst. Ilona was bodily thrown clear of the wreck, and by the time the swell had subsided enough for me to regain my senses there was no sign of her. After a brief wait to see if she'd reappear I made my way back up the shot at a rather quicker pace then is my normal wont, and was relieved when I reached the boat to be told by Breffni that there was a delayed SMB buoy up, and my dearest buddy duly surfaced a minute or so later.

The second dive was somewhat more pleasant, in the complete calm of the lee side of Inishbarna in the mouth of Killary Fjord. Here we were treated to a dive with conger eels. Congers everywhere you looked, congers which would come out and play like puppy dogs, almost as playful as the seals in the Farnes!

We did the conger dive again on the Friday when Jon armed himself with a couple of tins of mackerel and herring, though strangely the congers weren't quite as forthcoming and only occasionally showed any interest in the food. In between we did dives on Doonee Beacon and Inish which were pretty good too, and in decent vis would have been even better.

Aine never did turn up for the diving (presumably having been watching the weather!), but did join us for a meal on Friday night in Clifden, the nearest town of any size. We then made the return trip to Cork (via the faster roads!) on Saturday for the evening flight back. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable trip, and we liked Baltimore so much we're going back next year!

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