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....
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| Floating Away |
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