At First Glance - 29/08/2018

I noticed while out for a walk with Gill - a quite unremarkable slipway. Clearly, rarely used. There was no dive guide on Finstrokes, or any other site for that matter. I had hoped it would be a decent training site. What we saw was in the end quite surprising. 

I'd taken Jester to see the site to see if he thought it was worth a dive. It was night and the weather was a bit miserable but he thought it was it too. So, we kitted up buddy checked and headed along the slipper rocks.

We descended through a halocline to about 3m and followed the slope down on a reasonable straight line using a compass*. 

We passed a few fish before spotting our first langoustine at around 7m, our first firework anemone at 10m and then many more. We swam out for around 30 minutes, both of us hoping for a ray sighting. A catshark hunting a langoustine, a sea mouse, more firework anemones.

Then as we started back towards the entry exit point we saw one. A lovely big thornback ray. Back on the surface we emerged entirely satisfied before heading off to find some food..

 

* It was dark and night time. I learnt the lesson a long time ago that in such situations on unfamiliar sites a compass is a thoroughly decent bit of kit to have on your person.

Last of the Summer Wine - 26/08/2018

Despite being a bank holiday somewhere in the world, but not Scotland, it certainly felt as though Jester and I were enjoying the last of the summer wine at St Catherine's. What had promised to be a very pleasant turned out to be pretty wet and miserable. To the extent that we decided one long 1hr+ dive to 38m and then on Gill.I.Am's request we headed for lunch at the old Inverbeg Hotel.

The dive was quite unspectacular but for a couple of scorpion fish. I paused briefly to take a couple of snaps.

Dude, What Do You Bench? - 19/08/2018

Recovery

So after our last epic failure lifting the anchor Jester and I returned to have another go. This time we were joined by the Wylie Fox & the Wee Barra.

We were working on a two dive strategy:

Dive 1 - Locate and buoy anchor, survey

Dive 2 - Controlled Lift

This time we had two LOMO 70lb lift bags with dump valves and a further 25kg bag borrowed from a friend.

We planned to fill one bag at the top of the anchor and partially fill the second at the same place until the anchor was neutrally buoyant. Then we'd control the lift by dumping air from the full bag. Meanwhile we'd attach the second bag to the chain attached to anchor. It would all be attached using a 23kn screw gate carabiner. The Wee Barra would be charged with reeling in the marker SMB. 

We began and to our surprise it worked perfectly. Our only problem was at the shore where the lift bags no longer shared the combined 100kg weight.

Up, Up and Away - 12/08/2018

When I was asked about doing a seabed survey for the Long Long Jetty Association I immediately hatched a plan. My plan involved getting ScotSAC Master Diver trainees to do sweep searches, noting anything they could see.

They did a sterling job, and I managed to create a map that puts the Jetty Association's mind at rest as to any potential problems they might encounter in their quest to reintroduce boat visitors to Arrochar.

However, someone had also mentioned that there was lost 50kg boat mooring that had been accidentally dropped in water that was a little too deep. We were asked if we could find it and potentially recover it. This appealed to Jester and I. We haven't enjoyed a good adventure like this in a while. So armed with a lift bag, we left the trainees to enjoy a dive by themselves as we then attempted to lift the anchor.

The anchor had been located by Jester on a previous dive and marked with an SMB. We then headed over to the anchor with a my £5 lift bag from ebay. We connected it up and started filling. The bag worryingly had no dump and as it began to lift we had no way to slow it. Our only choice was to swim away from the danger of anything coming back down. 

I looked aup and saw the bag hit the surface with a jar and our lifting rig broke lose of the anchor causing the anchor to fall back down. thankfully we had exercised the no one underneath rule.

I came to the surface only to see my lifting bag floating away down the loch. I never recovered it, but I did see it in the middle of the loch a few miles down the loch.

We returned to shore a little wiser with a plan....

Our Map

Floating Away

Nerves of Steel - 04/08/2018

I always hate training. I get nervous performing even the most basic of tasks. As an instructor I thought I'd get over those nerves as all I'm doing is demonstrating and watching other perform the skills I've mastered over the years. However, I've come to realise that I now I get a little nervous for the student. I genuinely want them to succeed. Each move they make in a lift or sweep search or whatever skills - I'm rooting for them.

This weekend at Caolasnacon brought me three dives assessing four skills:

• Sweep search
• Aqualung removal
• Compass course
• 15m rescue lift

The Landlady was doing all the hardwork. I was just watching, nervously willing her to succeed. She did. I feel, because she's done it right. She went out and got over a hundred dives under her belt before attempting the skills. It seems to me that people skip the experience step between moving up the levels. It's the experience that makes the difference imho.

The wall itself was the same dark wall I'd experienced earlier in the year, but beneath the brown layer on the surface, it was dark but crystal clear. Fish had returned to it; ling, cuckoo wrasse, ballan wrasse, cod.

The good visibility also helped highlight the immensity of the wall. It's not the biggest, but at points it plunges almost 25m on a sheer drop. Really rather spectacular.

I also managed to sneak in a night dive. It was pretty good to be back in the dark.

Deep Learning - 22/07/2018

I like taking people down to where they've never been before. So after the wedding of two divers at Cairndow myself and the Chairman headed to Seal Reef to do a couple of 31m+ dives and attempt to sign off a couple of skills.

To help with the first skill a member of the Glasgow South Branch had agreed to be my victim. He was an unknown quantity and it didn't work out. So we abandoned that plan and just went for a nice dive to 34m.

At the surface interval we chatted, ate rolls and bacon before heading in again to complete the famous ScotSAC Master Diver Striptease or aqualung removal, swim and refit as it is more commonly called. Once that was nailed we headed down to 31m, u-turned and came back up.

That meant the Chairman had another few tasks ticked off on his journey to Master Diver.

Breda & Butter - 20/07/2018

When the Barrman suggested I could join him to dive the Breda I was happy to jump at the chance. I was off that week and happy to head to North Ledaig Caravan park with my campervan for some fun and games.

Just as we launched the Zodiac, another dive boat appeared at the wreck and troop of divers all jumped in. We hoped it wouldn't be too big a deal. It wasn't, we never saw any of the other divers at all.

It's a big ship, standing up right in around 30m of water, the deck was around 8m off the seabed and the seabed itself is littered with the detritus from the wreck. So, it's quite a nice profile to dive the seabed round the ship and then come up onto the deck and spend the rest of the dive there.

There were some nice highlights:

• a conger lurking amongst the wreckage
• an octopus who seemed to object to me clearing some discarded fishing lures
• nudibranchs
• the solid cargo of cement the ship was carrying

A little before we ended the dive I looked at my computer and noticed I had a couple of minutes of deco. I asked the Barrman what he had....well, he had lots. So we headed up my SMB to the surface where I swithered about leaving the Barrman to do his 15 minutes on his own. I didn't of course, that would be the sign that I'm a terrible buddy/human being, but I did still think about it.

I emerged from the water experiencing sinus squeeze brought on by my emerging wisdom teeth. For me diving was done for the day, but it was worth it. 

My Precious - 12/07/2018

When the club got an email from a young man who had lost his wedding ring wondering if we would be prepared to have a look for it, I was instantly reminded of the prologue to Lord of the Rings. The ring it seems had betrayed its owner and slipped off while he cooled off in the summer heat at the Falls of Falloch - a site that the Barrman and I would subsequently write the dive guide for.

Barrman and I arrived and kitted up assisted by Shaun and plunged into the depths. It was deeper than we expected at 8m, and once down it was much brighter. Although, distinctly brown/gold in hue. We looked around for 45 minutes. Finding a few bits and pieces and the critically endangered Anguilla Anguilla. Sadly, we never found the ring of power.

Fortunately, word of the ring went to a friend with an underwater metal detector and it was found one week later. :)

Learning to Teach - 08/07/2018

I'm still pretty new to the instructing thing, despite being a reasonably experienced diver. In some ways, I'm learning how to talk about diving all over again. There are things I take for granted. For example, going down to 30m isn't a big deal. Neither is going to 40m if I'm being honest. I forget that for others this isn't the case.

So when I took the Landlady and Freeflow Bob down to 30m to assisted ascents. I forgot that not everyone would be comfortable going from 0 to 30m in about 4 minutes. I shouldn't of been surprised when we reached the required depth and one diver wasn't comfortable.

We tried the ascent, it wasn't great, but we still had another attempt to get it right.

This time I tried a different approach, I was going to to go slower and deeper before bringing the student up to the required 30m for the ascent.  It worked a treat. All of a sudden the depth wasn't nearly such an issue. Afterall, we were already coming back into the 'shallows'.

So there you have it. You learn something new everyday.