1,646 Days Later - 26/11/2018

It's been over 4 years since I last saw one. I hadn't thought about the fact I hadn't seen one in years, but when I saw it I was relieved.

Myself, Jester and the Big Easy headed out in my packed car to St Catherine's (for my 116th dive there) and curiously enough the Big Easy's first ever Scottish night dive.

We kitted up, with all of us testing out some kind of new toy. I was test driving my new Mares XR Heat Vest. I feel as a gentleman of a certain age I deserved to be able to enjoy the finer things in life.

We headed down, and as I swam towards the site's little speed boat I heard the Big Easy laughing into his rebreather. I turned and saw the flashing of Jester's camera. They had found something, something unusual. I approached. 

I recognised it straight away. I had seen one 1,646 days earlier at a secret site the Zookeeper and I explored - a cuckoo ray. It was a special memory for me, as it would become for both my buddies, who, prior to this dive, had never seen one.

We spent the rest of the time looking for a little cuttlefish which I had told the Big Easy were 99.9% guaranteed. We never found one. 

Oh, and the vest - even on medium heat - was toastie!

Cuckoo Ray

Cushion star

Spiny Squat Lobster and Spider Crab

Discovering Boulder Beach - 25/05/2014

On a previous trip to Loch Fyne I had noticed small peninsula and a place to park by the road. I pointed it out to Laura and suggested we return to explore the site. Once home, I did some research to see if I could find information about the site. I found nothing, not a thing. The site, described by us as Boulder Beach, shall remain secret right now - that said it's probably been dived hundreds of times.

The Zookeeper and I headed at a 90 degree angle to the shore and immediately swam straight down beyond 20m. On the way down we encountered our first dogfish of the day. We then turned 90 degrees to the left. The topography was somewhat dull seabed, but there was plenty of life. As we turned again to go up to 15m  I spotted the tail of a ray, which turned out to be a cuckoo ray -  not a thornback ray as we thought. (Thanks to Andrew Sinclair for the insight).

Swimming back at 15m we completed a square, but continued past out entry point in order to dive an angled figure of 8. Just as well, as we encountered some of the most interesting topography and a sea mouse!

This was a decent dive with an extraordinary encounter with a beautiful ray. We'll be back at this site for more exploration.

Sea Cucumber

Cuckoo Ray

Sea Mouse

Scallop

The Zookeeper on Safety Stop