A Midge Too Far - 22/05/2014

brutal ˈbruːt(ə)l/ adjective: savagely violent.

People often talk about 'the brutality of war'. I don't want to offend anyone or trivialise the concept, but yesterday's dive was brutal. Not because of the cold, the visibility, the depth or a strong current. Nope, none of these things. It was an enemy far more insidious. An enemy who lured us out before attempting to destroy us. I'm talking, of course, of the Highland Midge.

Midgies as we call them locally, are voracious little predators who last night were swarming in their thousands. Kitting up at Anchor Point, Loch Fyne was so unpleasant I did everything with my hood and gloves on just to minimise their opportunity to feast on my tasty blood.

Laura had to kit up twice because of a hose issue, so while it was rectified I swam out into the loch and waited for her to return with the correct gear - it was horrific. I genuinely felt sorry for her having to spend more time than was necessary on the shore.

To the dive then, well as Anchor Point is a fair bit further away from Glasgow we had agreed we'd do one long dive with the possibility of a second on the way home (the midgies put pay to that idea). As you know if you are a regular reader, I've dived here before. Last time was a bit rubbish, although a fun day. Today the visibility was only slightly better ranging from 2-4 metres at different points.

We headed out on a heading of 320 degrees until we hit our desired depth of 23m and began to work our way back and forward along the reef. Interesting life was at a premium. A few goldsinny, a flatfish, the odd scallop, crabs, squat lobsters. From our perspective it wasn't great, although the underwater topography was quite interesting.

We knew exiting the water was going to be grim. I dekitted and packed up the car in my drysuit, hood, gloves and mask. Only whipping them off at the last moment, before diving into the car and speeding off with the windows down in an attempt to suck the midgies out the car. It worked.

Knowing that the Mermaid of Dundonald (Avril) was heading to St Cats with K-Pep her dive buddy, we stopped there for five minutes to see if we could meet them. They hadn't arrived yet.

As we drove the rest of the way home I saw a brown flash in the distance. It was Avril. We stopped on the road (it's not a busy road) chatted for a bit, warned them of their pending doom and then sped off back to civilisation.

If you want to learn more about midgies or work out if they are going to bad or not. You can use the Midge Forecast website (midgeforecast.co.uk) - it's not entirely accurate however.

Burrowing common star

Bloody Henry

Partial Urchin Eclipse

Camo Crab

Sea squirt illuminated

Saturday Night Dive Fever - 8/2/2013

With credits to Laura for today's blog title, this Saturday saw us do a day dive at Conger Alley, BBQ and then a night dive at Twin Piers. We had quite an ensemble cast: me, Laura, Fast Ed, Avril, Marba, Pat G and big Alan J.

For those unaware, Twin Piers and Conger are separated by just a few hundreds and are walkable fully kitted. Today we wondered if it was also possible to do it as a swimming safety stop, but in the end we opted to just dive them separately.

Kitting up at Conger first we headed in and descended to the bottom of the reef. I logged 31.0m (my second deepest dive ever) before heading back up reef towards Monty, the resident conger that Laura, Avril and I photographed the previous week.

In order to satiate Ed and Laura's desire for underwater conger carnage, I whipped out my knife and cracked open a horse muscle in order to lure the conger out. However, it got caught in some anemones and I lacked the courage to use my fingers to move it closer to Monty's lair. It wouldn't have mattered too much regardless as I'd have been unable photograph the experience as I'd left my camera in the car.

Between dives we moved the cars down the road to Twin Piers and we set up for a BBQ in the pouring rain. Despite my initial internalised pessimism it was actually pretty successful. I had a tasty roll and sausage and a fairly meaty cheeseburger. In fact, I consumed so much that I was able to drop a couple of kilos off my weight belt. Special shout out to Avril for her BBQing efforts and to Laura and Marba for pretending to help.

On the second dive (night) the divergence of dive experience varied considerably among the group but most of us had a great encounter with an inquisitive Beryl the Seal, though little else in terms of sea life as is the case when she's about. I took my camera in and for the first time managed to get a photo of her. 

Edible crab

Sea urchin

Beryl the Seal

Anemones and urchins

Baby scorpion fish

Le Retour à la Ruelle de Conger - 30/01/14

So after last week's misadventure we returned to Conger Alley. This week I was accompanied by Laura and West Coast Divers own, Avril Keith, AKA The Mermaid of Kilmarnock.

Avril is a legend in West of Scotland dive circles, it's like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon - except Avril can be gotten to in two every time. If you live, or dive on the West Coast of Scotland Avril's West Coast Divers page on Facebook is a great place to find buddies and chat.

As always, there was new kit on display with Avril proudly displaying her new 7mm Waterproof H1 Hood purchased ex-ante from Glasgow's oldest dive locker, Aquatron. Now, concerning this hood, I'd just like to say I think it's the best on the market. I myself have two. If you're cold water diving it's an essential piece of kit and it's safe to say that the Swedish know a thing or two about cold water.

I was also test driving a new toy, a 12l cylinder borrowed from my local ScotSAC branch. I haven't dived with a 12l cylinder in Scotland in about a year and I forgot how heavy they are compared to my cheeky 10l cylinders. However, it did help with my side mounted pony which can be awkward with my little 10s - February may see a purchase.

The following should go without saying in every dive report from now on.

• We had quality banter that descended into the gutter, rapidly.
• We ate sweets, lots of sweets.
• We did a buddy check - it's important, and even though I don't mention it doesn't mean it doesn't get done.

Entering the water we quickly dropped below the thermocline (5-7m), made sure everyone was OK and headed down just past 20m to the reef for which Conger Alley is famous. Once there the plan was to find stuff and hope Beryl the Seal turns up (she didn't).

At the reef we slowly worked our way up to the top at about 10m. En route we found:

• Octopus
• Conger Eels
• Loads of Wrasse - Corkwing, Goldsinny etc
• Weird Worms (you can tell my naturalist skills are limited)

In short this was a nice, relaxing, hassle free dive with two eagle-eye buddies who pointed out lots of cool stuff that I couldn't see even with a torch pointed on it.  :) Good times.

Weird tentacled worm creature

Big conger eel