Clair de Lune - 09/02/2017

Sometimes, on a clear night, it can seem as though you are living in perpetual twilight. This can be especially true on those evenings when the lochs are bathed in the "clair de lune". 

Tonight saw the Kingmaker dive for the first time since he last dived with me on the El Minya in January 2016. In fact, his last coldwater dive was even further back in 2015. He chose St Catherine's as his site to do a nice tropical check dive. I say tropical - I mean, of course, baltic, but the poor chap didn't want to hear it. He stubbornly refused to believe that the water would be anything less than 13c. Oh well.

We kitted up, checked everything was in working order and headed in. The vis wasn't great but we eventually found the boat and made our way to the reef where we spotted a million nudibranchs. At one point I swam into a large cloud of silt that hadn't emanated from either of us. It made feel that we weren't alone in the water - I suspected a seal, a ninja seal.

As we emerged, Jester was waiting for to join us on the second dive. The Kingmaker was sufficiently cold by that time to know that he didn't to go again. The bellwether being the fact that when he slunk off for a pee he could barely find his 'chap' - a challenge at the best of times I'm told.

So off I went again, doing the same dive with Jester. Again we struggled to find the boat, but instead found the legendary St Cat's firework anemone. I reckon I could find it again too. Nudibranchs and butterfish were the order of the day yet again. 

On this dive Jester too thought he spotted a seal in the distance and that was without me mentioning what I had seen on the first dive.

We emerged onto the beach with the loch bathed in moonlight. Had I not been with Jester and the Kingmaker it could have been quite romantic. It is, afterall, the season for it!

Who Framed Fast Ed? - 03/04/2014

Fast Ed has been travelling the globe as part of his role as an International Weegie* of Mystery. So, when he thought that Laura's van trouble was going to scupper his chances of a first dive in a few weeks he was gutted. However, like a sexy scuba diving Jessica Rabbit, I stepped forward and went with Ed to the A-Frames.

By the time I arrived Ed had mostly kitted up, so I raced to catch up. At one stage I realised I'd left my 3Kg pony counter weight at home, but Ed had two spare 2Kg shot pouches that I stuffed into a BCD pocket. It was strange though, it just wasn't what I'm used to. As such, by the time we entered the choppy water I was feeling a bit uneasy and unbalanced.

Dropping down to about 10m I took a few moments to adjust my straps and let myself get comfortable, before heading out to the A-Frames. We did three of the Frames, at one point (23.4m) disturbing a small group of scallops, some of whom leapt for joy at our presence.

The return swim was very pleasant spotting a couple of butterfish, a small flat fish and a big pinkish fish that I never snapped and have yet to identify.

Colour clusters

Square go

Worms

Butterfish

Flat fish

* Weegie is a derogatory term used by some people to describe the inhabitants of Glasgow. An abbreviation of Glaswegian, it has now been somewhat taken to our hearts and is used as a term of endearment.

Be Thankful and Rest -23/02/2014

Grant kitting up for dive two

I had agreed to go diving on Sunday with Laura and Grant. Our plan was to go to the A-Frames, Finnart for two dives - it's a great novice site. I had initially thought about driving over the Rest And Be Thankful to St Catherines and Loch Fyne, but had heard that the local dive school, with whom I learnt to dive, were heading there. Upon arrival at Finnart we found the car park jam packed and scuba divers bobbing around like flotsam and jetsam. So we continued around the loch to Conger Alley, a suitable site for the whole group (Fast Ed, Big Mack & Sergeant Chris subsequently joined our plans although Big Mack was suffering from bad food the night before and decided to provide some shore cover).

Once parked, I noticed a couple of people messing about with dive kit across the road. A quick conversation revealed that one of them worked for Aberdeen Watersports and they were down diving the site for the first time. I gave them some pointers and left them to themselves. Afterwards, I heard they had a great dive including a seal encounter at around 20m.

The first dive was a relatively sedate affair down to about 17m with little life about. We later heard about the seal and, as regular readers will know, that always scares the life away from a reef. 

After a sandwich and a bit of Ed-baiting we headed in for our second dive (19m). It started well with the discovery of a small lumpsucker. As neither Laura or myself had seen one before we had no idea what it was, I guessed wrongly at John Dory. On the dive I also found a nice little butterfish and a well camouflaged, large edible crab that surprised Grant somewhat (yes, I heard him squeal - very manly). However, it was Grant that was to emerge from the sea the hero after finding a bungee finstrap that Ed had lost on the first dive.

On route home I found out the Rest And Be Thankful had been closed at midday as a result of a landslide (they're quite common up there). So all in all conger Alley was a good choice as we got to go home, be thankful and rest after two decent dives.
I'm afraid I took no pictures, as I forgot my camera, but I've sneakily pealed some off Facebook so you can have something to look at. Most of them are surface antics.

Laura self portrait in pre-dive rain

  

Pre-dive contemplation

Fast Ed & Sergeant Chris

Yippee ki yay mother lumpsucker! 

I'm not sure what he's doing...you decide