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| Otter Ferry |
After an evening camped out near the Oyster Catcher on the shores of Loch Fyne, Gill.I.Am and I headed to St Catherines to meet with the Kingmaker, the Announcer, Jester and Captain Al - who was insistent that after a considerable SCUBA lay off this didn't constitute a SCUBA refresher course.
The weather had been patchy at best, but we knew the sun was trying to breakthrough the fog and that ultimately the day would be as pleasant as the evening before. Which, by any definition, produced a beautiful sunset and a mild-ish September night ideal for van life.
The arrival at St Cats was a gloomy affair, but one ultimately lightened by the presence of the Kingmakers little 3 month old Collie pup, Misty - a name that for me always conjures images of scorned stalkers trying to kill reasonable people as a result of Clint Eastwood's 1971 classic, Play Misty for Me.
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| Misty |
However, this little Misty's worst offence would be to lick Gill.I.Am' mug, eat some stolen grapes and chew on seaweed.
To add further intrigue to the day Jester had brought some masks and kit from LOMO, the watersports company for which he works. The hope was that we could get some natty pictures of it being modelled. However, given the collection of faces involved our chances of success were only ever going to be 50/50 - and I'll say no more about that.
Our first dive was leisurely and limited to the 30m 'shallows'. I buddied Captain Al in the event that after his lay off he was feeling a little rusty, but in the end it was all OK and the dive yielded a nice scorpion fish and a lobster amongst the teeming reef life.
However, disaster struck as I left the water and dekitted. I must have twisted and pinched a nerve in my back, leading to pins and needles in my legs. As a precaution, the Kingmaker called his better half - an A&E consultant - who reassured me that given our dive profile, easy ascent, safety stops etc it was unlikely to be a bend and more likely to be a pinching prolapsed disc of some sort. Either way I was under doctors orders not to dive again.
As a result, I got to be official photographer, enjoy my litle BBQ, the sunshine and Misty. A pretty sweet deal I think.
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| Fin modelling |
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| Blue Steel |
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| Fog, before it worsened. |
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| Official Captain Al |
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