Le Retour à la Ruelle de Conger - 30/01/14

So after last week's misadventure we returned to Conger Alley. This week I was accompanied by Laura and West Coast Divers own, Avril Keith, AKA The Mermaid of Kilmarnock.

Avril is a legend in West of Scotland dive circles, it's like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon - except Avril can be gotten to in two every time. If you live, or dive on the West Coast of Scotland Avril's West Coast Divers page on Facebook is a great place to find buddies and chat.

As always, there was new kit on display with Avril proudly displaying her new 7mm Waterproof H1 Hood purchased ex-ante from Glasgow's oldest dive locker, Aquatron. Now, concerning this hood, I'd just like to say I think it's the best on the market. I myself have two. If you're cold water diving it's an essential piece of kit and it's safe to say that the Swedish know a thing or two about cold water.

I was also test driving a new toy, a 12l cylinder borrowed from my local ScotSAC branch. I haven't dived with a 12l cylinder in Scotland in about a year and I forgot how heavy they are compared to my cheeky 10l cylinders. However, it did help with my side mounted pony which can be awkward with my little 10s - February may see a purchase.

The following should go without saying in every dive report from now on.

• We had quality banter that descended into the gutter, rapidly.
• We ate sweets, lots of sweets.
• We did a buddy check - it's important, and even though I don't mention it doesn't mean it doesn't get done.

Entering the water we quickly dropped below the thermocline (5-7m), made sure everyone was OK and headed down just past 20m to the reef for which Conger Alley is famous. Once there the plan was to find stuff and hope Beryl the Seal turns up (she didn't).

At the reef we slowly worked our way up to the top at about 10m. En route we found:

• Octopus
• Conger Eels
• Loads of Wrasse - Corkwing, Goldsinny etc
• Weird Worms (you can tell my naturalist skills are limited)

In short this was a nice, relaxing, hassle free dive with two eagle-eye buddies who pointed out lots of cool stuff that I couldn't see even with a torch pointed on it.  :) Good times.

Weird tentacled worm creature

Big conger eel

Just Another Dive :/

So after exploring Conger Alley on Sunday we visited again at night (23^rd January), hoping for more conger eel action than we had last time.

Myself, Laura & Fast Eddie followed the same route, rapidly descending through the thermocline and down to about 24m on the reef. I should point out that Laura was test driving a new undersuit. Upon arrival at the reef I instantly spotted Beryl the Seal who frequents these parts, though it seems I failed to communicate this with my two buddies who all thought I was asking them if they were OK.

Now, seals in general are pretty friendly and Beryl herself has been known to ‘assist’ divers on a safety stop to the surface. However, I challenge anyone who has never encountered a six foot long seal in the dark not burn through their air supply pretty darn quick.  With this in mind I led our merry band up to around 15m to allow for a longer a seal encounter.  Once there, the fun began!

Fast Eddie (who has never encountered a seal at anytime) caught his first glimpse at this point. I know this because his torch turned into an excited searchlight. Fortunately, I had briefed him beforehand. The briefing went as follows:

• If the viz all of a sudden goes to pot there is a seal in the water
• Beryl is fast, you’ll catch a glimpse of her and think ‘what the hell was that’
• Beryl is big, about the same size as you
• You’re drysuit may not remain dry

Turning my attention to Laura who was prevented from dumping air from her drysuit by her new undersuit,  and was signalling she had a problem and 100 bar in between grabbing rocks. Being the gentleman buddy I am, I dumped all the air I could from my suit and BCD to make myself negatively buoyant and offered my hand to keep Laura from champagne corking to the surface.

Heading home at pace, Fast Eddie realised, as I struggled to keep Laura down, Laura’s rock collecting wasn’t a geological survey and grabbed her by the straps on the other side. Beryl’s curiosity however became more intense and she used the opportunity to make a number of very close passes including one between Laura’s flailing legs. Suffice to say we all made it quite safely to the surface.

The highlight of my evening was at the surface when the conversation went like this:

Fast Eddie: You weren’t kidding about the size of Beryl.
Me: No.

All in all just another dive in Posiedon’s Parlour 

Our Sunday Best (19/01/2014)

Every so often my hectic social life permits me go out and dive at the weekend. This weekend was one such weekend. Myself, Laura and Andrea were accompanied by Sergeant Chris and Fast Eddie. Taking advantage of a rare daytime dive we opted for a nearby site that we had never dived – Conger Alley.The Finstrokes dive guide can be found here.

Conger Alley is at the top of Loch Long, across the water from the pleasant village of Arrochar and just a couple of hundred yards from Twin Piers. It’s a pretty easy and safe dive site regularly used by clubs for training, so it’s a wonder I’ve never dived it before.

Kitting up in daylight was an unusually pleasant experience, although the traffic passed a little too close for comfort on occassions. With everything set we headed into the flat-calm water in daylight. Feeling a little over confident I’d left my trusty Mares EOS 10R torch back at the house – this was daylight diving, how dark could it get?

Dropping through the thermocline at about 6m, we headed N.NE down to 24m. By the time we hit 17m I had never been so glad to have put my secondary torch onto a retractor clip. It was pitch black, although the visibility was excellent.

Working our way back up the reef we found a particularly large scorpion fish, loads of wrasse and some really large edible crabs along with the usual stuff that we take for granted. Sadly, no conger eels, but perhaps when we return for a night dive we’ll strike conger gold.

Our safety stop was represented by a cold swim back at 5m assisted by the outgoing tide. As such, I overshot the entry/exit point by about 20m.

  

Twilight exit

Scorpion fish

Dead man's finger

Concerning Buddies

Let me start by saying that I’m easy when it comes to dive buddies I’ll dive with almost anyone so long as they have a valid cert and they’re diving safely within their limits. I’m ambivalent to the issuing agency.

My wife - Gillian - dives, but getting her into the water of Scotland is far harder than the Carribean or Red Sea where she has proven that she’s a cracking wee diver. She does occassionally dive here in Scotland, but getting her to forego a roller derby training session is tough. As such since October, I’ve dived with 9 buddies, but most often with Laura.

Since first meeting Laura (a PADI Divemaster no less) on a dive trip to the Farne Islands she’s become my de facto buddy.

Naturally, we pimp ourselves out to other dive buddies (it is, afterall, an open buddy relationship), but underwater we like the same things - easy going, hassle free dives teeming with life.

Laura and scallop

A-Frames a frame for aw' that!

Sorry for the Burns reference, but we're nearing that time of year when we celebrate his poetry here in Scotland. This Thursday's dive (16th January) was at the A-Frames. For those of you that don't dive on the west coast of Scotland, this is midway along Loch Long at the Finnart oil terminal. Click here for the Finstrokes guide

As a dive site it can be prone to poor visibility and a small amount of boat traffic, but on the whole it's a great site where there is always something to see. It's much maligned by divers as boring, but it's actually a spectacular site and on a good day or night in my case there are few better dives in the Scottish fjords.

Laura and I chose this as the venue as a number of people were doing their first night dive with us (a unique mix of ScotSAC and PADI divers living in harmony). Add to that the fact I was test driving a new pony configuration then it's safe to say a familiar site is always a good thing in such cases.

Diving to around 20m to what we call the 'big frame'  we saw loads of great stuff including peacock worms, scorpion fish, pipe fish, and toad crabs along with all the usual West of Scotland stuff.

Five divers went into the water, five emerged safely. All enthused about the quality of the viz, the life and of course, my navigation of the group. ;)

For those interested, I swear by the reliability of my wrist mounted Suunto SK-7 compass - even when surrounded by ferrous metals! 40 bangers well spent in my view!

Toad Crab

Pretty Urchin on Frame

Peacock Worms

Scorpion Fish

Thursday Night Dive - 9th January, 2014

So last Thursday's dive to Loch Long's Twin Piers was a conger-fest. I have no good photo's as my camera was set to dive in blue water, which ultimately meant they were all the wrong colour, but rest assured, the eels came out to play.

It was my usual Thursday night buddy Laura who partnered me and we were accompanied by Andrea, Alistair and Edgar. I'll introduce them all properly in due course - it would be rude not to.

It was cold, particularly above 7m, with my computer recording a dishonestly warm 6c, but as we went deeper (around 20m) it warmed up to a toasty 11c. Thankfully I had my favourite Fourth Element Arctics and my number one 5/7mm Waterproof hood. On the downside I need new gloves.

This was the only decent photo I took.  I think they are the egg sacks of Dog Whelks which are relatively common at this time of year.

Welcome to Poseidon's Parlour

So, it’s the start of 2014 and I’ve not yet done my first dive of the year. I have decided to write a wee bit about my diving experiences this year.

Let me start by telling you a few things about myself:

• I live in Glasgow on the west coast of Scotland
• I’m 36 years old (which looks impressively middle aged when I write it)
• I have been diving since October 2011 and I have done just over 80 dives to the end of 2013
• I learned to dive with PADI in Scotland and got my Master Scuba Diver Rating before joining my local ScotSAC branch – with whom I’m yet to do any training
• I have done a little bit of diving in Cuba, Mexico and Egypt (12 dives). The rest have either been in Scotland or the North of England
• Every dive has been fun or an important learning experience or both
• I consider myself a competent novice.

Tonight is my first dive of 2014 – I love diving at night.