What's the Point? - 29/09/2014

The Zookeeper, the Mermaid, the Money Monster and I had planned to go to Gortien Point, but at the last gasp we changed our minds and headed to Anchor Point.

The Money Monster, a new character in my blogging adventure, is a rebreather diver and as a native french speaker - every bit the Jacques Cousteau of Glasgow's south side.

The site was ideal as the Money Monster had brought his temporary ward, Bertie the Labrador.

We did two dives the first to the right of the site and a second to the left for some fluffy photography, Although, it was only me and the Mermaid as the Zookeeper had a drysuit leak and the Money Monster had a cell error while preparing for dive two.

The vis was a pretty consistent 3-4m, which meant there was enough life to keep us interested. Including:

• sunstars
• seven armed starfish
• dogfish
• nudibranchs

Still experimenting with macros, I'll leave the pictures to do the talking. :)

Closed Anemone

Dogfish

Sunstar

Bloody Henry

Plumose Anemone

Feather stars

Lion's Mane

Nudibranchs

Hermit Crab

Nudibranch Eggs

Seven Armed Starfish

Featherstar

Bertie Playing

The Poseidon's Parlour Seal of Approval - 26/09/2014

Yesterday I meandered down to the Farne Islands, England with Ace Divers. A few chums had been booked on the trip for quite sometime, but I heldoff until I saw the weather report. It's a risky approach in terms of availability, but I've never  regretted not being there when the weather is poor.

My buddy for the day was the Zookeeper, with the occassional appearance from Alky-Fras who was solo diving but hanging around us every so often.

If any of you have never been there before the Farne Islands are group of islands of the North East coast of England. In diving terms they are notable for two things:

• a selection of over 40 shipwrecks
• a colony of over 6,000 grey seals

Our diving for the day was focused on the seals.

I've dived here before on a couple of occassions and it was that I first met the Zookeeper last year. So I was pretty familiar with what was going to happen. :)  Due to tides, we dived the same spot twice but had quite different experiences.

The first dive averaged about 6m and it took us about 15 mintes before we had our first close encounter, but when it happened it happened in the usual style - fin nibbling. I was busy filming one nibbling the Zookeeper when I felt a tug on my own. I looked round to see two, one on each fin, like a pair of comedy seal skin slippers.

From then on in it was seal interaction gold. I was diving a 15l tank (thanks Campbell) so even after an hour underwater I still had 150 bar left!

After lunch and a cup of tea I was  ready for a more scenic dive, but most of the people wanted more seals - can you ever have enough?

The tide was in so the dive site had changed somewhat. Most people hung around the main seal entry exit point, but we went off on a wee adventure. We found some nice stuff too:

• an octopus
• a bloody henry or two
• millions of nudibranchs
• more seals
• loads of common lobsters
• squaties etc

Ahter my experimentation with macros last week I started trying to photograph the nudibranchs. As I did I felt a mouth round my head. Sadly, the Zookeepers camera battery had died, but it seems I was wearing a seal like a top hat. We stayed down for 58 minutes.

Nobody on the boat was seasick largely thanks to Stugeron.

The Zookeeper is excited

Scorpiofish 

Nudibranch

This One Goes to 11 - 24/09/2014

For those of you who have never seen Spinal Tap there is a glorious moment when rock legend Nigel Tufnel explains how his amp goes to eleven. It is an amazing scene. Well this week I'm going to take it to 15. 15l that is. 

As I'm boat diving at the Farne Islands, I thought I'd try out out a bigger tank. So I'm borrowing one of Campbell's. I'll let you know how I get on. In the meantime, enjoy the scene!

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

Cloud Cuckoo Land - 18/09/2014

For the benefit of my international readers, Scotland, where I live, is a having a referendum to decide whether we should leave the United Kingdom. It has been said that those who want to leave the UK are living on "Cloud Cuckoo Land". Today, to escape the relentless referendum chatter, Gill, the Announcer and I headed north to the Highlands and Loch Leven to dive a site known as The Slates.

The drive to the site is pretty epic taking you through some of Scotland's finest scenery such as Glen Coe, but it takes about 2 hours from Glasgow. So given the additional effort we really hoped the visibility and life would be good. 

Dive one saw as kit up and head round the point before exiting next to where we had parked the car. The first dive had great visibility, but more importantly loads of fish. I was sure I had spotted female cuckoo wrasse and spent the rest of the dive looking for a male as I'd never seen one. Rock cooks, goldsinnys, corkwing and ballan wrasse. Throw in a few cod and it felt like we had entered an aquarium. The Announcer and I exited  delighted by what we'd seen. Gill on the other hand was a bit blasé - apparently there wasn't enough "sunk stuff".

After some lunch, The Announcer and I headed in for a second dive, leaving Gill to read her book in peace. We retraced our first dive briefly as I knew I'd dropped a clip on the first. After finding the clip we headed off in the opposite direction. Then it all happened.

First up I saw a large fish in the distance as I approached I realised it was a male cuckoo wrasse. Neither myself or The Announcer had ever seen one. It was sadly a bit skittish, but my camera caught a few glimpses of one of Scotland's most beautiful fish.

Then The Announcer had another first, a large gurnard. We emerged very pleased, believing that Cloud Cuckoo Land actually exists and may well be a better place.

I voted Yes.

Common sunstar

Female cuckoo wrasse

Male cuckoo wrasse

Male cuckoo wrasse

Scallop

Fish

Gurnard

Common sunstar

Northern sunstar

Dab and finger

Lost Quarry - 12/09/2014

Tonight my local ScotSAC club had decided to meet at Pilmuir Quarry, NewtonMearns (their training site) as the local swimming pool was still closed due to a technical problem. Meanwhile my own weekend diving plans had been thrown into disarray due to a short notice work trip to Amsterdam. So, tonight was my only chance to get wet this weekend.

My buddies for the evening were two newly qualified divers with 33 dives between them - Chris & Dougie

We chatted about our plan - dive out towards the sunken boat (heading 150 degrees) then hug the quarry wall back to the platform. Easy huh? That's what I said to Marion just before I plopped into the water.

For those who've never dived the quarry, the visibility can (in my experience) range from around 5m to less than 1m all in the same dive. I'd say this averaged around 1-2m. 

On the way out I began to get feeling I was off course and signalled 'up' to the guys for a look about. I couldn't believe it. I was literally 2m from the boat an couldn't see it. We then headed back down the shot before making a leisurely return keeping the quarry wall on our right shoulders.

This was a nice way to spend a Friday evening.

Chris

Reaching the wreck

Pipe

Weeds

More weeds

Wee fish

Using the loo

Nice Bucket Challenge - 31/08/2014

With the Zookeeper and the Announcer away to the Sound of Mull and TDFKAMF's suit in for repair, it fell to a pitying wife to ensure that I could have a dive this weekend.

The first question Gill.I.Am asks about any site is "what stuff's been sunk there?" Yip, she likes 'sunk stuff'. So it was with interest that she'd read my recent posts about St Catherine's sunken speedboat. Moreover, today's site choice also required easy 'into sea run' due to Gill filming her alternative ice bucket challenge.

In short, this meant that I visited Seal Reef, St Catherine's, Loch Fyne for the third time in 11 days.

At the site today were a selection of people from my diving past and present including:

• 4 members of my local ScotSAC club (including Wednesday's buddy Campbell who was now bandaged after a gardening incident)
• 1 former PADI instructor of mine and his buddy
• 3 members of Clydebank ScotSAC

Despite the volume of different groups, the site had quite a cordial feel to it. So, Gill and I kitted up and headed in. With the visibility initially around 2m I missed the speedboat, turned and came back to find it at 20m. Gill later, mentioned she was surprised to see it emerge from the gloom, as she thought I'd given up trying to find it. I think she liked it. My own difficulty finding it in low vis made me think that it could be worth buoying as it's a site often used by scub-newbs who may appreciate a surface guide. 

By the time we got out the water almost everyone had packed up and headed off. Which suited Gill fine as she was still to her glory run into the sea sans drysuit. She did, we had lunch and then headed back. 

Exploring wreck 1

Exploring wreck 2

Exploring wreck 3

Anemones

Whelk