Dog(fish) Days - 04/06/2016

With the football season a thing of the past (for a few weeks anyway) I returned to Saturday diving. The Something for the Weekend Crew had decided to head to the disputed Dogfish Reef. I've been there twice in two years because of the issues around car parking. However, today's trip was to be eventful and fruitful. 

We parked respectfully at the back of the car park and kitted up. As I headed across and down to the shore I heard a voice shouting at me, I turned and went to meet the guy striding across. His name was Mark and he was the owner of the boatyard and of the car park. We chatted. He explained about the behaviour of groups of divers he encountered.I understood his annoyance. In the end I think we reached a memorandum of understanding. It's worth following the points below if you want to dive here.

1. Call him in advance or pop into the boat yard before you start your day, a bit like with Frank at the Tearooms
2. Don't turn up en masse - keep it to small groups
3. Get changed discreetly - the neighbours don't want to see your junk or half naked torso
4. Clear your rubbish - littering is a crime!
5. Keep the noise down

In short, don't be a dick. I'd say that goes at almost every dive site, but I seem to encounter residents who have experienced the worst of divers everywhere I go.

As for the diving, it was decent enough, but the remnants of slight cold meant that by 18m my ears were screaming and while I slowly got down to 32m, I really wasn't that desperate to do it all again for the same selections of wrasse, dogfish, sunstars and strawberry worms. Captain Al wasn't too keen either so we cleared up the BBQ and let the Merry Maker, Hagrid and Stevo enjoy the water.

On another note, Mark is looking to start a dive charter business around here, look out for it in the near future.

Gnome action

Bloody Henry

Common Sunstar

Captain Al

Freaky Friday - 27/03/2015

After a week of reading scare-monger stories about Dogfish Reef and the Quarry at Furnace on a certain social media story relating to the ongoing dispute with a crazy guy, we decided that we'd head to Dogfish Reef to reclaim the space.

Myself, Captain Al, Jester and Stew all headed there. We arrived at the site after some Starbucks japery. We kitted up under the watchful gaze of the crazy resident and his wife and headed in. No hassle, no threats - just watchful gazes.

We entered the water at low tide, which was ideal as it allowed two of our party to legitimately head down to the gnome garden at the end of the mat (27m) before heading back up the reef. 

I'd promised Stew dogfish, but what he actually got was a strange proliferation of cushion stars. Oh well, them's the breaks.

After some chat we headed round to St Cat's where three of us executed a fantastic buddy separation procedure in a silt cloud as we all headed off in different directions. Not the best of dives to be honest.

The Crazies - 09/11/2014

I hadn't really planned on diving this weekend, but in an unusual combination of buddies today I dived with K-Pep and TDFKAMF. We met up with no idea of where we were heading only knowing we wanted to take our chances with Loch Fyne. In the end we plumped for the hotly disputed  Los Furnace (pronounced fur-nach-ay). Although, most divers simply call it Dogfish Reef.

"Hotly disputed?" I hear you ask. Yip, there is a crazy guy who lives next to the dive site who has been enraged by various groups of divers and fishermen - I suspect quite rightly. As a result, he has taken it upon himself to be the private guardian of the public car park blocking it off from everyone. "How do you know he's crazy?" Well, for one, he's got a flagpole erected in his garden. I mean, who puts a flagpole in their garden? Exactly, crazy folks. Secondly, he was animatedly bouncing around his window watching us like any normal crazy person would. Finally, when he did come out he had pretend conversations on his mobile phone. Exactly what you'd expect from a crazy person or indeed, an extra from The Crazies.

We arrived later in the day, taking considerable advantage of the improving weather and arrived in the late afternoon. Meaning our second dive would be a night dive. While kitting up I realised that I'd forgotten my thermal leggings - this was going to be cold.

Dive one was a plop down to 30m to the gnome garden before working our way back up. In all honesty other than a lot of cod and nudibranchs in the shallows there wasn't much happening. As a result, I only took a few pictures (below).

By the time the second dive came about I 'd decided I wasn't taking my camera in. In fact, as the chaps will testify, I wasn't even that keen on putting myself back in. However, I bravely struggled on. Thankfully, I did.

The second dive (a night dive) was a far more life filled affair. (They always are aren't they?) The site lived up to its name with a fairly impressive large female dogfish, two conger eels including one, which I almost rammed head first, which was a good 30cm outside of its hole. It was behaving far more like a garden eel if you've ever seen one. Add to that a nice sunstar and a wee scorpionfish and I'd say it was a much better dive. Curse my poor camera decision making!! At some point, I'll maybe share K-Pep's photos as he took a camera in and got a cracking shot of the curious conger.

For those who are wondering, yes it was cold. 9c with half an undersuit isn't too much fun. Some would say I'm crazy.

Cod

Sea Squirts

Bloody Henry

Nudibranch

After dive one

From Wrasse-ia with Love - 17/04/2014

Frewbowski, The Zookeeper & The Announcer

Andrea, Laura and myself went to Furness to dive Dogfish Reef, Loch Fyne. Laura (henceforth known as the Zookeeper) hadn't dived the site in years and Andrea (to be known as the Announcer) had never dived here.As for me, I haven't dived there since March 2013 when I set my depth record of 32.8m while doing my PADI Deep Diver Speciality. It was the last bit of PADI training I did.

Tonight was to be a more sedate affair with our plan to go down to around 20m. We had agreed, however, that should we something deeper, but within our depth limits, we'd go down to investigate. :)

Before going in Laura was up to some photographic high jinks. Naturally, I was happy to participate.

The Zookeeper, The Announcer & Frewbowski

We began the dive at low tide which meant a troublesome stagger over the rocky entry. Once everyone had safely entered, we dropped down to 22m. As we swam along I noticed an outline out the corner of my eye. It was slightly gnome-ish. Signalling to the others I dropped down to discover the legendary Dogfish Reef Gnome Garden. Now gnomes divide divers. I quite like them as long as they tastefully placed. This particular 'garden' is a bit haphazard for my tastes, but not everyone has my artistic eye for detail.

Once we'd all taken some snaps we headed off back up the rocky reef to search for sea life. First up was a nice common sunstar, but then the fish started appearing. Schools of pollock, corkwing wrase, ballan wrasse, goldsinny, leopard gobies. In fact, it was the most fish diverse dive I've had in Scottish waters. If it weren't so green and cold in the water I'd have thought I was somewhere tropical.

We maxed out at around 26.5m and had a very pleasant 40+ minutes.

Shrimp

Spiny star

Goldsinny

The Announcer and The Zookeeper

Zookeeper

Announcer

Sunstar

Big creepy gnome

Little gnomes