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| Buddy check |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Laura taking pictures |
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| Scorpion Fish |
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| Corkwing Wrasse |
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| Stuff |
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| Save our urchins! |
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