Poseidon's Parlour: Ray of Hope

Tonight Jester, legendary vintage clothing blogger Frocktasia, Mad Marx and I had raced the spring showers to St Catherines, Loch Fyne for an evening plunge. Our plan as always was to go down find stuff and come back, but Mad Marx was desiring to break his depth record of 31.2m and get a little more experience of being south of 30. Or, to put it in Mad Marx speak, go beyond the Thunderdome. Meanwhile coughing fits had meant that Frocktasia was just planning on providing some shore cover.

Now, I had been here at St Catherines just a couple of days before and the site had been entirely unimpressive, but tonight as we kitted up I had the feeling that it was going to be good. The others will testify to this fact. I had a little ray of hope that I'd see some good, if not unusual. My assumption was that I'd perhaps see some dogfish, cuttlefish or some other more fun regular. What I saw even surprised me even more than Jester's line in witty bants*.

We kitted up, buddy checked and headed in. It was at 10m and about two minutes into the dive when something unusual appeared. I almost passed over the top of it at first - its camouflage was very nearly perfect, but I've seen its cousin, the cuckoo ray, before. So tonight, a glimmer of recognition occurred in me before I realised I was looking at a Thornback Ray.

I've met divers who've seen them here before, but not recently or often. I grabbed my camera and couldn't get it to work. As it swam away I switched to video mode, hoping to grab a few frames. I got it - it happened.

Then we went on to the meat of the dive - a little bounce down to 35m and slow journey back. Success for Mad Marx who broke his own personal depth record.

On the way back up, Jester felt like he was at the Playboy Mansion as we spotted nudi after nudi and...... easter eggs!

My hope was rewarded.