Sunday 29 May 2016

Leeds Reunited - 29/05/2016

Regular readers may recall that I, along with some friends, went to Egypt where I met load of great diving folks. Well, this weekend the guys from Scuba Leeds were coming up to my patch for some shore diving. Being the friendly person I am, I offered to meet up with them and take them round some local sites.

In total there were around 12 of them which limited our options considerably. so the plans had to be ammended and condensed into a couple of dives at St Catherines (Saturday) and a couple at Finnart (Sunday) when I was joined by Jester.

Saturday started well with me teaching Josh from Leeds how to spot nudibranchs, while on a nice deep route around the reef. By the end of the day the score was 4 nudis to Josh and 6 to me with two seamice.

I'm not sure if it was the variety of life or the constant, reliable mediteranean West of Scotland weather, but I think a few of the Leeds people were starting to consider moving to Scotland and if the weather on the Sunday held up the deal would be done. As it was Poseidon was smiling on the Leeds divers and by the time we kitted up at Finnart on the Sunday people were rushing into the water to cool off.

The dive threw up a selection of sea lemons for Jester and I, while the surface interval threw up technical problems that meant I gave Jester my kit for the second dive. I didn't mind, I'd had a good weekend.


Seamouse

Northern sunstar

First nudi of the day

Josh's first nudis

Sea lemon

Sunday 15 May 2016

Wet 'n' Wildlife - 12/05/2016

After the weekend's heroics it was back to a more sedate shore dive with the Zookeeper and Jester. We piled everything into The Beast and headed west. In the end we lazily plumped for St Catherine's, which on a fine night is ideal for high jinks.

Having kitted up quickest, I was getting hot. I headed into the water and waited. The vis seemed promising, around 4m. Once all were ready we headed down. The Zookeeper thought I was narc'd when at the deepest point of our dive when I started knocking my malfunctioning camera off a rock. In fact, the memory card was malfunctioning. Naturally, banging it on a rock resolved the situation, though made me look crazy. Them's the breaks, but you get to enjoy a 2nd rate photograph of a northern/purple sunstar.

We worked our way back up nice and slowly seeing a few nice creatures en route.

As we surfaced, the discussion centred on those who emerged wet. Jester it seemed emerged cold and wet enough that he feared he'd lost an appendage while the Zookeeper was also had a wet bum. I felt relieved that I was dry. I smugly smiled internally.



Sunstar

Nudi

Scorpion fish

Nudi

Cushion star

Monday 9 May 2016

Penetrating the Lady Isabella Barque (2) - 08/05/2016

Now, you may recall in my previous post I explained how Jester and I were now cocky, experienced Scottish RHIB divers, well my cockiness was quite misplaced. As I prepared myself to meet the Lady Isabella Barque I rolled or, perhaps, slipped backwards into the water on what was one of the worst boat roll entries ever made. Even as I sank, I heard the gentle ribbing of K-Pep ringing in my ears.

Lady Isabella Barque was once a graceful sailed barque carrying a load of nickel ore, now she lies in the shallow waters off the southern tip of Little Cumbrae, I wasn't expecting much (I think K-Pep intentionally talked her down) but she was rather beautiful. As Jester and I moved round over her seaweed heaving ribs, we spotted sunstars, three varieties of nudibranchs, ballan wrasse and edible crabs. 

Nearing the end of the dive we finally found the remains of her narrow holds and, being a gentleman, I gently penetrated, popping my head in to have a look. There was little to see though.

After we had all dived her, we spoke of how much we'd all enjoyed the dive. The calm waters, on a point that is often exposed, made for a great second dive. As wrecks go she's incredibly shallow sloping from two to fifteen metres. Jester rated her in his top five dives. K-Pep, who'd last dived her 15 years ago, was also highly complimentary. It seems, that despite lying on the seabed for more than 100 years, the Lady Isabella still has her charms.

The blast home was a much more choppy affair and I regretted, my decision to partially remove my drysuit instantly as the spray soaked my face and shoulders. As compensation Mother Nature threw one last curve ball - a lone porpoise.

And with that, we returned to base.

Lady Isabella

Lady Isabella 
Candy striped flatworm

Nudibranch

Sunstar
Lady Isabella 
Lady Isabella
Candy striped flatworm




Penetrating the Lady Isabella Barque (1) - 08/05/2016

Trail Island at Little Cumbrae
With the offer of joining K-Pep on his RHIB for the day and an almost perfect weather forecast, Jester and I headed down to Largs for a couple of  RHIB dives. Now, I've dived of a RHIB before, but never in Scotland and never in my drysuit - neither had Jester. Add to that that I'm no great fan of boats having suffered from seasickness many times and I am therefore not shamed to say that I was a little nervous.

As we blasted out from Largs to the island of Little Cumbrae I could see the Hunterston Bubble, something which had been on my Scottish to do list for some time. The bubble is caused by super heated sea water being pumped out from the nearby nuclear power station and has peaked my interest since I first saw it on Google maps when they began publishing satellite images.   

Honesty in diving is always the best policy, and K-Pep took us to Trail Island for a scenic, pick-your-own-depth, easy  wall dive. Once kitted up and in the water I felt my usual diving mojo flooding back. As we started down the tiered Inca like terracing we saw a lot of our usual favourites, but in huge quantities:
  • Devonshire cup corals
  • nudibranchs
  • cushion stars
  • a cuckoo wrasse hiding (hiding because Jester had chased it into a hole)

It was great. We surfaced as cocky, experienced, Scottish RHIB divers. While we chatted and watched a seal, K-Pep enjoyed some sub-aqua quiet time before we headed to for our rendezvous with the Lady Isabella Barque.

Cushion star

Sea Squirts

A very bloody henry

Nudibranch

Nudibranch