Diving For Dollars - 07/12/2014

I remember watching The Running Man and recall the film featuring a TV show called Climbing for Dollars. The premise of the game show was somewhat distopian to say the least. However, yesterday TDFKAMF and I headed out to the A-Frames to try and find a few lost items. 

• a macro lens for TDFKAMFF's camera
• my missing torch
• 2kg of shot weight lost by the dive school that were there

In essence we were diving for dollars!

So as to make this all a more honest read I'll reveal now that we found nothing. Nada! Not a thing! Zilch! However, we never had an untimely demise like the participant in Climbing for Dollars.

We did however have a nice 56 minute dive around the big frame and the wreckage. I saw nothing of any great excitement, but the whole experience was pleasurable enough if a little cold. When I say cold I mean freaking freezing! I've no idea how the thermometers on my dive computers work, but I can assure you they are not accurate.

TDFKAMF was trying out a strobe and video light set up from Sealife and we both agreed the best bit was the video light. It all once again made me think I need to get a Sea Dragon 2000.

Wee fish

Sea loch anemone

Celtic feather star

Black Torch Down - 04/11/2014

When Soul II Soul released Back to Life I'm not entirely sure they were singing about diving from an Egyptian live-aboard then returning to Scotland to dive in the cool winter waters. However, that is the reality that faced the Zookeeper and I tonight.

My regular Mares Abyss Navy  reg is in for servicing so I nabbed my wife's regulator and subbed on the 2nd stage of my pony (she has a fitted mouth piece). Of course, this meant ditching the pony and rebalancing my weight. All just a lot of hassle.

Diving at the A-Frames, I suggested a different dive at this site to the Zookeeper, Out usual plan is to dive north on to the big frame head down to the deeper frame before coming back along the other frames. However, today we were diving down to the big frame before heading off to the right where we'd hopefully find some conger eels, cuttlefish and lobster amongst the wreckage.

As we reached the big frame, I realised I'd droppped my backup torch, a Subgear SP30. This was not good news as my Mares EOS is rechargable and only had about 50 minutes of life on the current charge. We spent the rest of the dive retracing steps to find it until the juice ran out of my main torch. This was to no avail. Here's hoping one of my pals can find in the coming weeks. A case of Black Torch Down.

I reckon the dive has cost me about £1.50 for every minute we stayed down. However, I realised in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter, as on the way home a BMW driver nearly smashed into me in a fit of aggression with another driver. If it hadn't of been for my evasive action I'd have lost more than a torch.

Quite literally chillin'

Sea squirts

Macropodia rostrata

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

The Loch Long Road to Recovery - 27/04/2014

Panoramic view of A-Frames entry and 29 Steps

Today I had time to sneak in a cheeky dive between spending time with Gill and playing funky bass at church in the evening. As such, Mr Fallsoveralot accompanied me on a dive at the A-Frames, Loch Long. 

As regular West of Scotland divers will know, visibility in Loch Long has been terrible in recent weeks. The cause of this may well be seasonal, but the deterioration also coincides with a series of blasts further up the loch where the UK keeps its nuclear arsenal. As such, Facebook pages and newsgroups have been awash with poor visibility reports including one of my own! We decided with no credible reports in recent weeks we'd take the plunge.

The site was slowly clearing of people by the time we arrived, and a few discussions revealed that at least three BSAC branches had been training. Moreover, my local dive shop, Aquatron, were also running a PADI Openwater course less than 100 yards along the shore. As such I feared that visibility would be poor.

As we entered the water we descended through the halocline with visibility of around 5m. We reached the first A-Frame with visibility of around 4m. Moving from frame to frame as we reached the 3rd frame we passed through a cloud of what I think was our own silt being swept out by the current which reduced visibility to less then 50cm. However, staying close to Mr Fallsoveralot we finned for around 10m and eventually emerged from the cloud and back into some decent viz.

As we returned to shallower water the visibility improved to around 7m.

I never took my camera on the dive, but Grant did. I spotted some nice sea cucumbers amongst the usual selection of critters. Moreover, Mr Fallsoveralot never fell over once. I put it down to him using a dumpy 12l cylinder for the first time.

Sea Cucumber (taken by Grant)

Bruce Willis Ruins All Films - 26/03/2014

On Sunday I offered to go diving with a friend of a friend, however by the time he got my message he had booked on a RHIB. As such I never went diving. However, my acquaintance's experience would be quite different.

He (Diver 1) was to dive with another diver (Diver 2). They kitted up and headed for their target wreck on the RHIB, a token buddy check - they were afterall experienced divers - and down they went to over 30m. On the return the second diver was starting to feel very 'floaty' and, while trying to deploy a DSMB, rocketed to the surface. Leaving Diver 1 at the bottom of the ocean and having to ascend safely on their own.

Meanwhile on the surface helicopters were scrambled, the coast guard was called and hospitals were put on standby. Another 'bent' diver was to be assisted at great cost to the taxpayer. The reason? At least one of the divers failed to do a proper check with their buddy and had forgotten to put on their weight belt. 

Diver 2, also an acquaintance, is out of the woods and back home recovering thankfully.

This is why we buddy check. Not because we don't trust one another to put their kit on, but rather because we do trust one another to ensure that we're going into the water safely.
As for the title of this post, that's how I remember it - I was taught it at my very first SCUBA pool session.

• Bruce   = Buoyancy  - check BCD and drysuit
• Willis    = Weights    - right hand release weight belt and integrated into BCD
• Ruins    = Releases - BCD straps / weight clips on BCD
• All         = Air             - have I got air? Is it switched on?  Check my pony too.
• Films    = Final OK   - mask, fins, etc

Finally, if my buddy refuses to do a buddy check it's simple - I'm not diving. Instead I'll go watch Bruce Willis ruin a perfectly good movie.