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.
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.
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| Twilight exit |
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| Scorpion fish |
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| Dead man's finger |
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