Plans Are Nothing, Planning Is Everything - 27/02/2014

Buddy check

Kitting up

I'm sure it was Dwight Eisenhower who said that "plans are nothing, planning is everything". Well our plan had been to dive Craggen (or Fisherman's Point as it is also called) on Loch Long. The site, which none of us had ever dived, has a boulder reef from 20m down to 32m that we though was worth having a look at. We followed the map and instructions down to the entry point only to be thwarted by low tide. It would seem the site can only be dived at a state of high tide. Otherwise the entry would be difficult and the exit nigh on impossible. So with our dreams of exploration dashed we headed back to the A-Frames.

Laura & Oil Terminal

The kit up felt more like an episode of Oprah or Dr Phil, with some of the boys having a prolonged group therapy session - diving can be like that. Once kitted however, Laura & I double teamed Pat G to dive as a three and Fast Ed and Sergeant Chris teamed up.

Entering the water there seemed to be a current gently taking us up to ward the head of the loch, which was good as there was a huge oil tanker moored in the oppposite direction which underwater made a lot of noise.

Descending rapidly through the thermocline we headed north to the big frame, at 11m I started to feel a strong down current that continued throughout the dive making the return to the surface more work than I expected. At the frame we saw the usual bloom of peacock worms - they never fail to impress me.

Moving from frame to frame we had an excellent carry-on underwater, with me starting a kind of Charlotte's Web for seas urchins, with my new political slogan "Don't eat my gonads." Never a truer word has been spoken in jest.

By this stage we had lost Chris & Ed, but we were pretty sure they'd be OK - Chris had a compass and was trained to use it by the finest military corp in the world (Dad's Army)!

Further on I found a disgarded toilet which provided some comical photographic opportunities - you can tell really interesting sea life was at a premium tonight. :)

As we started fighting the current to make our ascent, we started to encounter some better life in the shallows. Including scorpion fish, colourful wrasse and flounders. Yet another decent dive hitting 21.3m for 41minutes, which given the cold (my computer logged 6c) was probably about 5 minutes too long.



Laura taking pictures

Scorpion Fish

Corkwing Wrasse

Stuff

Save our urchins!

My Little Pony - 24/02/2014

My little pony

As you know I've tried out a few pony configurations over the last few months. I can confirm that I've settled for now on left-hand-side-upside-down-side-mount.

However, my current pony reg set up has the 2nd stage and a pressure gauge coming up to clip at my left hand shoulder. I've found this annoying as the gauge and the reg combine to restrict my head movement in the water. So after a little thought I went into Aquatron yesterday and bought a little button pressure gauge (£20) for the pony 1st stage.

My thinking is that in the emergency when I'm using the pony, I probably won't need immediate access to how much air it has in it as, if I'm using it, I'm out of air anyway. Therefore other than pre-dive check do I need a full sized pressure gauge. Probably not.

So, I've made the switch and added my Mares Mission One to my main reg and ditched my old Mares Mission 3 with lost compass, so that saves even more space. On the downside I've lost my mechanical depth gauge. That's sure to ire the DIRers amongst my diving buds, but I'll rectify that soon.

Current Set up - Scubapro R395 2nd stage plus Mares Mission 1

Set up with mini gauge

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

Twin Fears – 20/02/2014



As mentioned earlier my main fear was that we’d see nothing on this dive and Laura would be able to gloat that she provides the ‘animal magic’on our dives. However, in Poseidon’s Parlour there are fears, of which we do not speak. These fears haunt the minds of many divers. One such fear is hideously bad visibility.

 



Swimming crab

Entering the water at Twin Piers first, Andrea and I noticed that as we rinsed our masks the water was, at best, murky. As the others (Big Mac, Fast Ed, Merry L & Pat – Sergeant Chris was there, but had forgotton his weight belt and gallantly offered to provide surface cover rather than stuff his BCD with scrounged lead) entered the water I had a quick dunk under to check out the visibility, it was tolerable 2-3m, the result of the storm the night before.

Progressing the dive we encountered some mid water velvet swimming crabs and a nice looking dogfish before hitting the reef at around 15m. Splitting off in search of congers and the like, Andrea and I enjoyed a relatively pleasant dive, but Poseidon’s currents were about to wreak havoc upon the dive.

As we reached around 20 minutes the tide had brought all of our silt onto the reef just before we all congregated around some of the larger conger friendly rocks. The resulting silt storm was horrendous.

I lay still counting torches and strobes with my own light blocked by my palm - it always amazes me what you can see in the dark without your torch. Attempting to read my computer I estimated my visibility at less than 40cm. I saw a number of the party ascending before discovering Andrea and Pat for a very relaxing 5m swimming safety stop home.

Regardless of the visibility disaster I still had fun. I didn’t take many photos – what’s the point in bad viz? However, I still saw some young scorpion fish, a coiled conger, wee swimming crabs and had a bit of fun in the murk.

Let it be known that I’m not afraid of the dark. J

Plumose Anemone



Blue Mussel Colony



What, No Laura? - 20/02/2014

So tonight I'm going diving with the Thursday Night Dive Crew, but Laura isn't coming. That in itself isn't cause for an awful lot of sadness, worry or disappointment. In fact, my worry is more that if we don't have some cool sea life interactions then Laura will claim to be the one with the animal mojo. This is simply unacceptable. :D

Given that it is not impossible, just highly unlikely, I think I'm just going to tell her we saw this....

To learn more about the awesome Porbeagle click on the picture.

Bicentennial Woman - 13/02/2014

Tonight was Laura's 200th logged dive. To celebrate myself, Laura, Andrea, Fast Ed, Pat G and Sergeant Chris all left Glasgow a little earlier to do two dives at the A-Frames. As regular readers will know you can expect to see:

• Peacock worms
• Scorpion fish
• Pipe fish
• Wrasse
• Cod
• Lobsters 
• Crabs

Leading the dive down to the large frame at around 20m, I decided to make a trip along the other frames. I've rarely done this, instead we prefer to spend my time at around 10-15m were most of the life is, but tonight was to be different.

Once at frame 2 we were joined by a 7th celebrating diver - Beryl the Seal!! Now, I've never seen her this far down the loch, so it was a pleasant surprise for Laura's 200th. Amongst the group neither Pat, Andrea or Chris had ever encountered Bezza ( I feel I can call her that as we've gotten so close over the last few weeks). I'm told Andrea screamed upon seeing her in the water, though I never heard her. I did see her frantic torch flashing however.

Laura and I immediately executed Plan Beryl - ascend to 15m to conserve air and prolong the seal encounter - which was done with military precision much to the delight of Sergeant Chris. What followed were a number of very pleasant interactions with our big pal.

After the dive Andrea had to get home for an early start and Laura had a leaking drysuit so decided to call it quits, but the boys all agreed that it would be nice to go in, repeat the same dive, hoping for more seal action, but it was not to be. In fact, the best bit of life I found was a large scallop.

In short, this dynamite little night diving session with its unusual seal encounter will live long in the memory and was a fitting marker for Laura's 200th logged dive.

Peacock worms

Peacock worms

Beryl

Scallop

Sea loch anemones

Peacock worms

My Credit Card Just Took a Tanking

So, the deed is done. I finally bought a 12 litre cylinder. I opted for Faber given it was about £100 cheaper than a Scubapro one.

Aquatron, my local dive shop price matched the best online price (Aquanauts) and then took another £9 off because the tank was 6 month old stock.

So that was £150 in total. I've seen secondhand tanks go for that on eBay and gumtree, and you don't even know what kind of condition they're in. Seemed fair to me and I could have the tank there and then.

That's the house gone from zero tanks to 4 in 8 months...Gill will be pleased. :/

Saturday Night Dive Fever - 8/2/2013

With credits to Laura for today's blog title, this Saturday saw us do a day dive at Conger Alley, BBQ and then a night dive at Twin Piers. We had quite an ensemble cast: me, Laura, Fast Ed, Avril, Marba, Pat G and big Alan J.

For those unaware, Twin Piers and Conger are separated by just a few hundreds and are walkable fully kitted. Today we wondered if it was also possible to do it as a swimming safety stop, but in the end we opted to just dive them separately.

Kitting up at Conger first we headed in and descended to the bottom of the reef. I logged 31.0m (my second deepest dive ever) before heading back up reef towards Monty, the resident conger that Laura, Avril and I photographed the previous week.

In order to satiate Ed and Laura's desire for underwater conger carnage, I whipped out my knife and cracked open a horse muscle in order to lure the conger out. However, it got caught in some anemones and I lacked the courage to use my fingers to move it closer to Monty's lair. It wouldn't have mattered too much regardless as I'd have been unable photograph the experience as I'd left my camera in the car.

Between dives we moved the cars down the road to Twin Piers and we set up for a BBQ in the pouring rain. Despite my initial internalised pessimism it was actually pretty successful. I had a tasty roll and sausage and a fairly meaty cheeseburger. In fact, I consumed so much that I was able to drop a couple of kilos off my weight belt. Special shout out to Avril for her BBQing efforts and to Laura and Marba for pretending to help.

On the second dive (night) the divergence of dive experience varied considerably among the group but most of us had a great encounter with an inquisitive Beryl the Seal, though little else in terms of sea life as is the case when she's about. I took my camera in and for the first time managed to get a photo of her. 

Edible crab

Sea urchin

Beryl the Seal

Anemones and urchins

Baby scorpion fish

You Dive and Learn and Dive Again - 6/2/2014

It is clear that the lure of Glen Douglas Road End, Loch Long as a dive site is unequivocal. The troop consisted of Me, Laura Ed, Sergeant Chris, Ally, Pat G & Grant. We were kind of like a platoon of crack Navy Seals, without any discernible skillset. As Ally and Pat were both ScotSAC divers from my club they buddied up, as did Chris and Ed, while Laura and I double teamed Grant and went in as a three.

Glen Douglas Road End (yes, the site is at the end of the road through Glen Douglas from Loch Lomond to Loch Long, though technically it's called Tulloch Road) is an interesting site in that it is home to cuttlefish, firework anemones and scorpion fish. In addition, it benefits from a number of fairly steep drop-offs so divers can get a lot of depth very quickly in a pretty safe environment. The only real downside to the site is access. There is no Finstrokes guide.

Accessing the site begins with kitting up, crossing the road, climbing over a crash barrier, slipping on the muddy slope, descending an almost sheer drop, then, depending on the state of the tide, staggering across a rocky riverbed and into the water. In short, to even the most experienced of divers it can be pretty stressful. Before inviting Grant, a 12 dive PADI AOW veteran, I should have considered this. Another site with easier access would have reduced the stress of entry on what would be a prima nocta dive and first experience away from the safety of an instructor*. Lesson 1 - respect inexperience.

Upon entry the G-man was having trouble with some of his kit and was struggling to descend, so Laura and I took a bit of time to help him into the water. Fortunately, I had sensibly stuck an extra kilo of shot in each of my BC pockets.  Regardless, we went in sometime after the rest of the Scooby Gang which was to prove handy later on. 

Now, I still like seeing starfish and crabs, however I've lost my initial wonder, but as we finally got Grant down and under the water I watched as he started to take an  interest in things I now take for granted:

• hermit crabs
• the stickiness of starfish
• velvet swimming crabs
• squat lobsters
• comb jellyfish
• a barnacle encrusted Buckfast bottle

I started looking for things that I wouldn't normally bother with. I picked up a squat lobster to give him a closer look, I shone my torch through the jellyfish, I looked for painted gobies. All of which were fascinating to the newbie eye. Lesson 2 - what seems dull and commonplace to me may be a marvel to someone else.

On exit, the other guys who had entered the water earlier had finished up were starting to wonder why we'd been gone so long, so our return navigation was aided by torches being shone one the surface. This was handy as topographically there isn't much to guide you at GDRE.

We never saw the cuttlefish or scorpion fish we were looking for, but the highlight was a magnificent Bloody Henry starfish. They're not particularly rare, you can see four in a dive or none in the next 20 dives, but regardless their magnificent purple hue still makes me smile.

Bloody Henry infused with orange light

Grant's first underwater photo

* I say, away from the experience of an instructor, in our midst we had qualified BSAC, ScotSAC and PADI Openwater instructors and a PADI Divemaster, but tonight they were just divers.