Adventures in Macro - 21/09/2014

I take snaps, but I'm not desperately into photography. So while diving with TDFKAMF today a chance surface conversation mentioning macros got me messing about with the "Super Macro" setting on my Sealife DC1400.

The site was St Catherine's, Seal Reef, Loch Fyne. We headed in pretty late in the day and dropped down to the 20m before heading across to the reef. Sadly the visibility was pretty poor - 1-3m at best.

The highlights of the dive were:

• A nice pipefish
• Lion's mane jellyfish
• Some nice big fish around the wee speedboat

However, I spent a fair bit of time trying to take pictures of wee things like sea squirts with this new magical setting I've discovered. The results can be seen below. Pretty poor I'd say, but I'll get better and have since discovered there is a new firmware update. 

Pipefish

Macro Sqaut Lobster

Lion's Mane Jellyfish

Macro Sea Squirt

Macro Sea Squirt

Macro Anemone

Campbell's Cream of Fyne - 27/08/2014

Unusually (for a Wednesday), I set off after work to meet Campbell for a dive at St Catherines 2 (Seal Reef). In all honesty, my preference would have been for a different site (my last dive was here), but we had never dived together so a mutually familiar site was probably a good idea.

Campbell is one of the instructors at Eastwood Divers, my local ScotSAC club. He's on a mission to get a few more dives under his belt, so that he can celebrate his 600th dive in the Red Sea at the end of September. I was available to dive with him tonight and, like any ship in storm, I was an acceptable port! 

In the car up Campbell seemed surprised to hear that the site had a small, wrecked speedboat at around 20m. As a result, I offered to guide him down before heading to the reef.

While kitting up I discovered that my tank had only been filled to 170 bar which was a bit rubbish, but I still reckoned I could safely squeeze at least 40 minutes out of that. Campbell was fine with that. It could have been awkward otherwise!

We started well, passing a nice dogfish en route to the wreck where another dogfish was hiding in the buoyancy tank. From there we headed over to the reef to look for critters. Amongst the usual fayre we found a large 'smiling' scorpion fish. My highlight came at the very end of the dive when we almost bumped into a drifting lion's mane jellyfish. I went in close for some pictures, but Campbell, who's allergic to the sting, wisely kept his distance.

Anyway, despite the air shortage I mustered about 47 minutes and a max depth of 23m. A decent dive all round.

Sea toad

Common sea urchin

Green sea urchin

Scorpion fish

Starfish on pointed rock

Lion's mane jellyfish

The Lion's King - 03/06/2014

The Usual Suspects

The Mermaid had asked the Zookeeper and I if we wanted to dive on Tuesday. Naturally, with pleasing weather and some flexi-time from work I was unlikely to say no. As per usual we met at the Sealife centre and headed north from there.

Our destination was to be Drishaig Reef, Loch Fyne a site that none of us had ever dived. The dive guide made it seem quite a sedate affair (it was) but we were hoping for Firework Anemones and maybe some other interesting critters.

As always when diving with the potent combination of the Zookeeper and the Mermaid you have to keep your wits about you - you never know when you're going to get snapped. As such, I kept my trademark look - Smoulder™ - on at all times. I can be seen Smouldering™ in almost every shot. It's safe to say that antics weren't in short supply.

We kitted up in a relatively midgie free environment  entered the water and headed straight down to 29 metres turned left and pottered about. Firework anemones by the bucket load. It's a great site if you want photograph them. Moving back to the shallows, there was the usual assortment of life including dabs, squat lobsters and brittle stars. 

Team Biff (1)

Team Biff (2)

The dive highlight for me was as we reached around 5m at the end of the dive. The sunlight streaming down into the seaweed made it seem almost tropical, then as I looked up I saw something I haven't seen since my earliest days of diving - even then, back in those days I was too scared to approach it - a lion's mane jellyfish. It wasn't a massive one, but it's tentacles were easily 2m in length. I swam around it being careful not to get stung. It was beautiful. 

Heading in at Drishaig

Once out of the water we quickly dekitted as the midgies were massing and we jumped in cars back towards Conger Alley on Loch Long. We wanted to see if we could find the octopus again and the Zookeeper had some old squid for luring out the the conger eels.

Once there we encountered the full wrath of the Highland Midge -  it was unpleasant - so quickly kitted up and entered the water. The visibility was very poor and not a patch on the 5-7m we had encountered at Loch Fyne. I estimate that in the first 10m it was probably less than 1m. However, by the time we reached our destination (20m) although it was pitch black, the visibility was around 4m or as far as your torch could penetrate. It was also noticeably colder. 

We lured out a conger and took some pics before setting off in search of Paul the Octopus. We found him lurking in his usual place. I never took any pictures, but the Zookeeper force fed him a camera lens - it doesn't pay to be shy in this game.

At this stage the Mermaid of Kilmarnock signalled that she was four minutes from deco. We safely headed up, and out, to the waiting ravenous horde and bolted to McDs for a late night hot chocolate.

Another hour and half of diving in the bag.

Firework Anemone 1

Firework Anemone 2

Firework Anemone 3

Firework Anemone 4

Safety Stop

Lion's Mane 1

Lion's Mane 2

Seaweed

Bloody Henry

Sea Cucumber

Filming

Lured out

Octopus by Laura