Poseidon's Parlour: It's Bisque-ness Time

Last night we saw loads of lobsters in Loch Long - enough to make a bisque, if you're that way inclined. Today, we decided to go to Conger Alley and Twin Piers hoping to see more and enjoy the current good visibility at that end of the loch.

Our cast today included Cpt Al, the Announcer, the Zookeeper and Gill.I.Am. Gill had only dived Conger Alley once before (with me and in poor visibility) and had never done Twin Piers. I promised her a conger eel, something she had never seen. So, today was going to be a day of firsts for her.

Encountering Cpt Al on the motorway we all arrived on site at the same time. Kitting up the four of us headed into the water. Initially, the visibility was pretty good (6m), then we dipped below a halocline and the visibility rocketed to something in excess of 10m.

As we went down there were visible signs of seal activity (unexplained silt clouds), but no signs of the seal itself. Immediately, as we hit the reef we encountered our first conger eel of the day. It was a little camera shy, but we managed to coax it out. :)

As we continued the dive Gill and I found a massive lobster. At the same time I heard the rattle of the Zookeeper's rattle, she too had found a lobster round the other side of the same rock.

Approaching the surface there were loads wrasse and pollock all swimming about. It felt like we were in a fish tank. I know, that's not possible in Loch Long. Is it?

After the dive we surfaced to find the Announcer nonchalantly drinking tea on the surface. So we dekitted and headed down to Twin Piers. Cpt Al was feeling tired and decided not to do a second dive but very sacrificially gave us the pleasure of his company as we BBQd up some rolls & sausage and burgers. He's very giving that way. Nothing to do with the prospect of a roll & sausage. Nope, nothing at all. :D

Gazebo & BBQ fun

BBQ done and gazebo down, we substitute Cpt Al for the Announcer and headed in to Twin Piers. Now, I've said before Gill.I.Am likes to see stuff that's been sunk. I thought she'd like the myriad of wreckage that can be spotted on this site. So we went in and headed down to the remnants of the barge where we spotted a rather nice scorpion fish.

We had a nice swim around the reef, finding more congers etc., before heading back. As we emerged from the water after 54 minute Gill had broken her dive duration record. Not bad for a girl who told me a few months ago she didn't like dives longer than 30 minutes.