Poseidon's Parlour: Route 66

Tonight myself, the Zookeeper and Fast Ed had decided to dive from Conger Alley all the way down the road to the entry point for Twin Piers in Loch Long. It was a brilliant night for diving - flat calm sea, the tide was out and was returning in the direction we were heading.

We parked the cars at Twin Piers and kitted up before walking the 400m to Conger Alley.

We dived down to the reef, maxing out at a reasonable 22m, and began working our way up the reef.

As regular reader will know, I dived this site three times back in January. Each time was quite a different experience but it has always provided either seal or conger eel encounters with other smaller critters for company. Today I was hoping to see an octopus. Laura had spotted and pointed one out to me on a previous dive, but I hadn't seen one before and between the rocks couldn't even figure out what I was meant to be looking at.

Our first encounter was a relatively shy conger eel who was not prepared to be coaxed out. We spent a fair bit of time trying and at 22m this meant that I was using more air than I was planning to at this depth.

As we worked our way up the reef it was then my turn to spot something. At first I thought it was a large cuttlefish, then it dawned on me what I was looking for. I signalled Laura and as I looked back it had darted back into a crack between the rocks. There was no doubt I had just spotted a curled or lesser octopus.

Continuing on we found a second, larger conger eel that was also far more active in its hole.The Zookeeper gave me a horse mussel, which I presumed was for sacrificial purposes. I sliced it open with my Scubapro Mako and tossed it towards the conger hole. The conger obviously appreciated the 'amuse bouche' because it was sucked in without a second thought.

We then continued up and off the reef to towards Twin Piers. My air had been heavily depleted. I already had serious doubts about making it the 400m. Still the tide was with us, and even if we failed the surface swim would be a laugh. Ed naturally had bucket loads of air and the Zookeeper wouldn't be too far behind me.

At one point I signalled to Ed to say I only had 40 bar and he signalled back with two fingers. I was sure he'd have more than 20 bar. Afterall, he dives on a 300 psi 12 litre tank as opposed to the 232 that I use.

In the end, I surfaced with a hefty 10 bar after 66 minutes. We were still 200m away from the piers, but the sun was out - as was a rainbow - and it was time for a carry-on as we completed the route. Then the blog title came to me, Route 66. Now, haven't I heard that somewhere before?