The Five Dive Weekend Part 2 - 15/06/2014

With three dives bagged the day before, today was to be a more sedate affair. Two dives with Mr Fallsoveralot (name change coming soon as he didn't fall once - yet again). Previously, he had expressed a desire to try out Drishaig Reef, Loch Fyne and as I hadn't dived Loch Long in a few weeks I fancied one there.

With my tanks filled at Aquatron, we headed up later in the morning. When we arrived at Drishaig there was a car there already. Our initial thought was that there must be other divers there but we soon learnt that they were fishermen. I went down and chatted and explained that he was wasting his time as there were hardly any fish in this bit of the loch, and told him of my dive plan so that I wouldn't get snagged in his line. He was really nice and really thankful for the information on the underwater terrain. When we got out the water he was gone.

We followed the same dive plan I've done the last few times at this site. Dive down to 30m turn right and swim to the right until you find the firework anemones and then slowly work your way up and back. It worked a treat. Grant was delighted to see, and photograph, the anemones. My own camera wasn't doing so well, as I'd cased it up in quite a humid environment and as I dived it condensed on the inside. Few pics were taken.

Once done we dekitted and headed for the Caves, Loch Long, but on arrival all the spaces were full with fishermen. So we headed round to the A-Frames. Rumours of poor visibility over the last few weeks had obviously discouraged people, as the place was empty.

We kitted up and headed in, attracting a lot of attention from Sunday drivers who were all keen to know what we were diving for. "Fun" was typically my answer.

The visibility was great around 5m, loads of great life and plenty of fish. Cuckoo Wrasse, Corkwing Wrasse, Cod, etc. Navigating from frame to frame was easy. We had a rare tear.

Though we surfaced quite far from the entry/exit point as my compass was literally spinning all over the place towards the end. Thus ended (from a diving perspective anyway) the Five Dive Weekend.

Mr Fallsoveralot

Celtic Feather Star

I loved this wee guy. See the video below.

Mr Fallsoveralot

Coiled Firework at Drishaig

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)