Floodlight Sonata - 22/12/2018

When Beethoven wrote his Moonlight Sonata, it was probably beyond even his imagination that it would be whizzing round my head when around 207 years later I was diving the Breda at night, floodlit with the Barrman. I mean, he had an impressive imagination, but I'm prepared to wager that he never composed it as a soundtrack to something of that ilk. In fairness, it was probably the Barrman that tipped it over the edge of probability.

We had agreed we wanted to do it some time ago, along with StewPatz and his good lady. At the time of booking we didn't know what the weather would do. As it was we were blessed with flat seas, low wind and moonlight. 

In the end the Barrman and I headed in and swam around the deck of the Breda. It was very relaxing, with lots of fish.

Going South - Part 5 Fast and the Furious - 11/05/2018

We had been given options by the cruise director.

1. An extra day in fury shoals spotting dolphins (we had seen them briefly on the surface the day before)
2. An extra day in Daedalus spotting sharks

The group chose the first option. I'm not sure it was the right choice, they never saw dolphins, but that's democracy for you. What we did get was some of the most magnificent coral reefs I've ever seen.

The Playground and Claudio were beautiful dives providing some stunning coral vistas. However, it was Claudio that had us having fun fighting against a current after navigating the reef. The Battle for Sataya East had obviously weakened a number of our group. As we settled in the shelter. I saw the Kingmaker push on by. I joined him and together we made it.

The Kingmaker was particularly pleased for us to be one of the few buddy pairs that made it back to the boat.

The evening brought us to Abu Galawa Soraya. It was a nice dive also with a spectacular coral amphitheatre and small wreck. It was one of the few dives that I've done that I wish I had a twinset on to make it last longer. It was genuinely spectacular.

Masked puffer

Nudibranch

American wreck

Corals and fish

Blue Spotted Ray

Red Sea Anemone fish

Going South - Part 1

With both the Kingmaker and I turning 40 in the last six months we had decided that we would do a red sea liveaboard to celebrate. We had settled on heading south to Rocky, Zabargad & St Johns on board MY Blue Horizon. A few folk got wind of our  trip and decided to join us including:

• The Gandalf of the Internet
• Pushme Poolme
• The Big Easy

We were set.

When we arrived we were told that the itinery would have to change as the Egyptian military has revoked the boats permission to go to Rocky and Zabargad. As such the new plan was:

Port Ghalib - St Johns - Fury Shoals - Daedalus - Elphinstone - Port Ghalib

I wasn't that fussed - the addition of Daedalus meant I'd have an improved chance of seeing my first hamnmerhead shark and that was one of the primary reasons my trip.

Once on the boat our little group was given an additional diver to even up the numbers. She was experienced, but hadn't dived in a while. I'd like to think we made her welcome. We started with a couple of 60 minute check dives that threw up a couple of nudibranchs in between the boat steaming down to St John's to start our adventures.

The Big Easy

Kingmaker

Unidentified nudibranch

Gandalf of the Internet

Chromodoris Strigata

The only crown of thorns

The first moray

The first turtle

Bahamarama -15/04/2018

OK, I've been a bit remiss. I've done a lot of dives and not blogged. Now it seems I'm playing catch up. So let me bring you up to speed.

1. I qualified as a ScotSAC dive instructor
2. I bought a new camera and I've been using it.
3. I'm approaching 500 dives.
4. I went to the Bahamas.

So you're now up to speed.

Yeah, the Bahamas. Like many people I had seen the adverts in dive magazines with beautiful pictures of sharks in azure waters with glossy writing advertising Stuart Cove's aquatic adventures. I wanted to see the sharks for myself. So when the opportunity arose thanks to a cheap flight flight from Scotland to Miami and another cheap flight across to Nassau the game was on.

I ended up doing six dives with Stuart Cove's, they were pretty pricey averaging about $75 per dive. That was 4 reef 'n' wreck dives, one 'natural' encounter swimming with sharks before they were fed and a shark feed.

Let's cut a long story short, the coral and reefs and fish life in the Bahamas were distinctly average. However, they have sharks (Caribbean and Nurse), lots of sharks. And that's why I went. And speaking to the other divers that's why they were there too.

So from that perspective it was pretty good, but given I bought a new camera I'll let you judge for yourself.

Flamingo Tongue

Porthole

King of the Castle - 07/04/2016

With what the Americans call Spring Break upon us my wife and I have headed for the Tropic of Capricorn and the tropical island of Mauritius. Before arriving I had contacted a local dive company called Just Diving led by a keen underwater photographer Olivier Fayolle. It turned out to be a great choice.

On this the first day I went diving alone and after a flash of my ScotSAC Master diver card was immediately accepted into the fold as an official Dive Ninja which meant that we were going to a more advanced site - Kingfish Castle.

We loaded onto the small Just Diving boat and headed out through the lagoon to the channel that exists between Mauritius and Coin de Mire Island.

By the time we hit the site the swell was up at around 2.5m (3m in my head) and as someone who isn't a huge fan of boats I was starting to feel nervous. I shouldn't have though. I've done this stuff before and survived....and enjoyed it.

We rolled back - negative entry - and immediately I saw the large rock beneath surface pushing up the waves. We dropped down in a considerable surge to 32m and headed for the small cave where Olivier knew the Kingfish lived.

They were there. We admired them for a few minutes before working our way back to the boat pick up, watching a free swimming Moray on the way. However, it was the end of the dive that threw up the most interesting encounter. As we sat at around 6m doing our safety stop beneath us something was moving at around 20m. A shark, too far way to photograph I watched, it potter about, before continuing with its day. 

As I posted on Facebook after the encounter, 

"Today I saw a white tip reef shark, it hovered beneath us as we floated in the deep blue. We regarded one another before it went about its business. Sharks are extraordinary, we need to protect them."

From there it was back into the boat and off to Eden Reef, a very pleasant but relatively fluffy reef dive on the outer edge of the Mauritian lagoon. Here, the only thing that happened was that Olivier made me the subject of one of his photographs - an image I'll treasure.

Me

Starfish

School of fish

Kingfish

Beagles About - 18/09/2016

Beadle's About was a pretty crass TV show here in the UK during the eighties and nineties. Basically it's presenter would play stress inducing pranks on the public before coming in disguised to remove the tension and allowing hilarity to ensue. Today, our adventures on K-Peps RHIB were pretty similar for me. 

Jester and I had agreed to meet K-Pep for a dive out of Largs on his boat. Once we were there we decided on one of the Clyde's most famous wrecks - The Beagle.

The Beagle collided with another boat in 1865 only a year after her launch. Much of the structure has rotted away over the years, but you can definitely still make out the structure of the boat with most of the hull still intact. She lies upright in about 32m.

The day started well with a smooth ride across the channel to Great Cumbrae , but as we neared the wreck site the swell picked up. As Jester and I kitted up  a couple of Minke whales passed by the port side of the RHIB. It was surely a good sign, but when the handle on my tank broke any good feelings I'd picked up vanished - I was nervous.

I won't lie, whenever I do a new site I get a nervous tingle - it's part of the reason why I do it - but I'm also fairly confident that I don't like small boats, a swell and descents down a rope to nowhere. It's probably my trinity of bad conditions. As such, both Jester and I opted to leave the cameras on the boat. 

Then just as I was about to roll in, K-Pep said something. Something that inspired confidence and caused my nerves to dissipate. Here's what he said, "You'll come back laughing." I've been here loads of times and every time it has been true, I have come back laughing.

At that, I went to the line and dropped. I found myself at 20m before I realised Jester was 5m behind me and struggling to equalise. I waited a moment and then he was there. Down we went and we were on it. A wreck that has quietly sat here for 150 years waiting for me. It was recognisable as a boat. The hull was intact, the stern clearly visible. The point where the Napoli had pierced her hull could still be seen. The only difference was that today it was crawling with sea life:

• nudibranchs
• cod
• anemones
• cup corals

I wished for a moment I had my camera, then I remembered how I'd felt on the surface. 

We pottered about for 20 minutes before the spectre of deco began chasing us back up the line. As we did deep stops and safety stops we messed about chuckling to ourselves. Then, just like that, we were back on the RHIB laughing - just as K-Pep had said.

With the weather worsening and Stugeron not taking full effect on one of our party we headed back to the marina with a win tucked safely into our log books.

Afterwards we went into Nardini's and had an ice cream. When in Largs...

The size of his head

Nardini's

The Gambler - 11/06/16

In diving, as in life, I am relatively risk adverse. My modus operandi is to wait as long as possible before booking to ensure the conditions are as I like them. On occasion this approach means I miss out fully booked trips, but you can't miss what you never had.

After agreeing on Friday night to dive at St Abbs early on Saturday morning. Now, as regular readers will know, I'm great in the mornings. So it was brilliant when my buddy, the Bombay Bad Boy (BBB), agreed to drive. I'd never spent time with BBB before but he seemed like a decent fella and his chat was moderately amusing. It made the drive that much shorter. 

Diving from Eyemouth, the boat headed out to St Abbs Head and Peticowick for some boat dives around the area.  

Dive one saw BBB almost earn a different nickname - The Grim Reaper - as he found dead creature after dead creature. The highlight of his corpse-fest was a dead wolffish, but that find was top trumped by the guillemots dive bombing us during our safety stop.

Diving with a new buddy meant that we had been under for about an hour with both of us cold before we surfaced, neither willing to signal to the other. We chatted back on the boat and agreed that the 2nd dive would only be 30 minutes -a limit that would be too long for me. 

As I went to reduce drysuit squeeze on the second dive my valve stuck and began to over inflate my suit. I disconnected it and put the cap on but not before it sucked in a substantial quantity of cold, North Sea water. It was to be a long 30 minutes.

Back on the boat I explained my slightly erratic behaviour as we warmed up with tea and chocolate buttons. Still it was a good day -  with no sea sickness.

Anemone

Bloody Henry

Dead Wolffish

Guillemot

Anemone

BBB

Sunstar

HArbour friend

BBB's small roll