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