Wednesday 29 March 2017

Another Dive on the Wall - 27/03/2017

Whenever I do certain dives I have certain tunes going round in my head. Tonight diving at Anchor Point with Jester and Kingmaker was one such time. 

I've dived here a few times, and only once would I say I'd really enjoyed the dive and that was last year. Even then I'd never really done so well in terms of exploring the wall, always tending to head too far north to catch the wall at depth.

When I suggested it as a location I wasn't sure Kingmaker was convinced of my assertion that it was only 15-20 minutes by St Catherines - he actually tested me on the way home and it was pretty much 20 minutes.

Anyway, after my alleged poor navigation last Monday this week the pressure was on Kingmaker to deliver. I could sense he was feeling it too. Why not Jester for lead diver I hear you ask. Good question, I suspect it's because he's a lazy wee bandit!

We went in and headed down hitting around 25m  at low tide. Still in a silt bed, Kingmaker was floundering then, by luck, he found it. He whirled in celebration. I offered a congratulatory high five.

The wall was covered in life, but unfortunately many of the anemones were closed, but we managed to spot some nice bloody Henry starfish, devonshire cup corals and an excellent little nudibranch which when I first saw I almost mistook for a sea squirt.

All in all it was just another dive on the wall

Despite the pleasant surface weather the water remained cold at just 4.4c.

All photos care of Jester,

Devonshire Cup Coral

Greater Spotted Frewbowski

Nudibranch

Bloody Henry

Monday 27 March 2017

The Shallows - 26/03/2017

ScotSAC has a similar structure to PADI. Where PADI has an Openwater diver, ScotSAC has a Branch Diver. While at each level ScotSAC divers have a longer training time, they also tend to have a richer set of competencies but  a greater number of restrictions in the early stage. For example Branch Divers are required to dive with someone more qualified ScotSAC diver (a sport diver or master diver) when not out with an instructor training.

This is a good thing and it means inexperienced divers shouldn't find themselves in positions where they are putting themselves in any significant danger and will always have a more experienced buddy in the early stages.

Today I had volunteered to dive with one such diver in my club. He was restricted to 15m as a Branch Diver. I had suggested Twin Piers:

  1. As a site he had never dived
  2. A site where there are some cool things to see within the depth range
We arrived at the site in the midst of the three days of Scottish summer sunshine and bumped into a few of our Kilmarnock ScotSAC cousins. We chatted and got a vis report. It wasn't good.

They were right, I abandoned my plan to try and find the old truck axle and instead lead us down into the dark but relatively clear area around 15m.

On the first dive we did OK, spotting the small wreckage of a the barge, a lobster and a conger eel. 

The second dive was to be a little shorter largely so that I could get way with using just the one tank. By the time we re-entered the water the tide had gone out and the visibility had improved. It meant we had a nice wee descent through the big pier to the truck axle and by the time we were on the reef the we could see around 5m below us.

It was an almost perfect day for it and it meant a new diver could get another couple of dives under his belt and another 1hr 25 minutes logged underwater in the shallows.







Detours in the Dark - 20/03/2017

When the Gandalf of the Internet and Kingmaker turn up in what feels like GotI's mobile command vehicle, you know your going to have a little fun.

When we got to the A-Frames, our chosen sight for the evening, I was nominated as the dive guide.  I made a bold promise which in the relatively poor vis seemed to be a little optimistic given that for the first 14m you were unable to see much beyond a metre. So instead we ambled  aimlessly for about 35 minutes into an area where we rarely go.

The result was that we saw a clutch of young catsharks and a free swimming baby conger eel - which caused GotI to exclaim through his rebreather.

With no real idea of where we were, we took stock and swam back towards our entry point. As we did we found a couple of the a-frames. The frames, that if we'd hit them in the zero vis earlier in the dive all my promises would have been fulfilled.

As it was GotI was delighted, he'd never seen a free swimming baby conger eel. The Kingmaker was typically nonchalant - to be honest he's gotten grumpy in his old age, I'm not sure what impresses him these days. I think he liked my selfie surprise.

Selfie surprise


Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man - 16/03/2017

You know summer is on the way certain creatures return to summer by the coast. Specifically, pink spotted sea cucumbers. Tonight's dive with Jester and the Barrman 

was confirmation of that. 

Arriving at twilight, we kitted up and headed, as is sometimes the case the loch had receded into the distance which meant that the bottom of the reef was within reach of those limited to just 30m.


The dive was a pretty calm affair, much more so than abuse ridden journey to the site.


There wasn't anything unusual until we reached the bottom of the reef and started to spot the sea cucumbers. They were still quite small, but they were back. Coming up the reef I spotted a few nudis pointed them out to the Barrman who was wondering what we were looking for. Then, he spotted his first nudibranch.

A sense of pride overwhelmed me, my mask began to fill up with tears of nudi joy. It was a beautiful moment as yet another diver entered the water a nudi virgin and emerged all the man he will ever be. OK, so I'm exaggerating but in a relatively pleasant, but normal dive it was a highlight.

Wednesday 8 March 2017

Midletters From America - 06/03/2017

Last Friday was the annual safety lecture at my ScotSAC dive club. At the meeting I was asked by one diver if I had ever dived the Strachur War Memorial. My answer was no, but it got me thinking, why haven't I dived this site?

So last night as Jester and I met up at Costa I asked him if he fancied a new dive site. He shrugged in his usual noncommittal way. So I asked again, this time showing him the Midletters dive guide on Finstrokes. He was up for it.

We arrived at the site on a splendid evening and began kitting up. Our presence attracted the attention of a local who was made more curious by the fact that we were about to dive in the dark. We chatted - he was pleasant old fellow - and then he headed in to sit by the fire thinking us to be a little crazy.

Our dive plan was simple head straight down to 30m and then zig-zag back up.

We headed in. It was a long shallow decent  that without a compass could prove to be a little disorientating to a new diver or, indeed, someone with exactly 367 dives under his belt. On the way down I saw a few firsts (it's unusual these days in Loch Fyne).
  • gutter worms
  • razor clams
  • Loligo Vulgaris - European Squid
I couldn't get Jester's attention to photograph them largely because he was busy with a very compliant (almost to the point I thought it might be dead) cat shark.

After 29 minutes of pretty much constant finning we reached a depth of 18m. I realised the dive plan was out the window so we turned and headed back. Not because I feared a shortage of air, but because I knew the cold would start to get the better of me on the way back if we continued down much longer.

As we swam back, the featureless bottom meant that navigation without a compass was difficult, but as long as the depth gauge kept falling I knew we were going in the 'correct' direction. As we approached our safety stop at 5m we both noticed that the shore was much steeper than where we entered the water. This meant that we were somewhat off course.

We surfaced facing a caravan that neither of us recognised. We scanned in the dark for the reflective surface of the speed signs we were parked next to and knew we had surfaced halfway to America or about 100m from the entry. Ooops.

With limited life I wouldn't hurry back, but for newbies who can work a compass it's a pretty easy, shallow dive. The surface part of the sight is quite pleasant too. Did I mention......dive with a compass.


Loligo Vulgaris - European Squid by Jester




Tuesday 7 March 2017

Deep is the New Shallow - 02/03/2017

It's a rare dive when Jester doesn't take his camera. So when he decided to liberate himself from the lens it came as a surprise to me. We had decided to do our little deep run at St Catherine's. Normally this run can take you easily down to 40m and a little beyond, but an unusually low tide meant that it would quite shallow at just over 30m.  We kitted up, buddy checked and headed down.

We saw a collection of unsurprising life - all obviously unphotographed. Then as we began our return journey we found loads of flabellina lineata nudibranchs.

"That's not unusual I here you cry!" However, they were at depths ranging from 30m all the way up to 10m. Which is highly unusual for the site as they are normally clustered around 10-15m.

It would seem deep is the new shallow!