Big Beryl - 05/03/2019

I was had convinced Jester and the Big Easy that Conger Alley would offer us a great location for a night dive. I can't explain why, I just felt it in my bones. The others were doubtful. 

We kitted up and headed in and down to 30m. There was little life about except for a large lobster that disappeared into the silt kicked up by one of my buddies. 

We had hit decompression after some time and started coming back up. It was then that we were joined by Beryl the resident seal. 

Now, I hadn't realised that the Big Easy was little phobic of seals. When he had mentioned it I genuinely thought he was joking. As such it came as surprise when one of my buddies became the tightest of buddies, no more than a couple of inches from me.

We continued up and Jester asked me using hand signals where were the nudibranchs I had promised him. Immediately we found them, all huddled on a rock - a variety of species too. I smugly took a snap and then followed Beryl on little fishing adventure.

As we returned to shore I was feeling satisfied and decided to briefly check for bio-luminescence. It was there. Genuinely, my luck was in. I should have bought a lottery ticket.

Smoke On The Water... -08/08/2017

Fire in the sky

As everyone knows when there's smoke on the water, there's fire in the sky. Tuesday was no exception as Jester, the Announcer joined me and some member of my dive club diving at St Cats, Loch Fyne.

For Jester and I it represented out third straight day diving. Tonight, to compensate for the moisture build up in our drysuits from not being able to dry them properly we were having a BBQ and a bonfire - the latter to be tended faithfully by the Jesterlings while papa bear went in for a couple of dives.

The weather had turned (for the better) and our only real fear were midgies. However, the bonfire would ensure that even they stayed away.

We kitted up, buddy checked and then descended. Almost immediately the Announcer and I saw what we think was a young, female John Dory, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera. As it was the Announcer was having some ear troubles so I spent the rest of the dive with one eye on her making sure that nothing went wrong.

Our second dive which took place after the above sunset was going to be a short one with Jester making do with the air in the remainder of his tank (with a pony for backup). However, it was nice to diving again in the inky blackness of night. On our way back up we both killed our torches and waved our hands firing up the sparkle of bioluminescence. 

Cuttlefish Boulevard of Broken Dreams - 08/10/2015

Tonight's post work adventure with the Zookeeper was a trip to Seal Reef, St Catherines. Upon arrival we met some of the guys from Clydebank Sub Aqua Club, they provided a nice backdrop for the dive. One of whom was leaving his newborn of a couple of days and wife in preference for an evening with a slightly motley crew of divers.

We went in and headed down. We were immediately joined by loads of small shrimp that fluttered around our torches like moths. As we made our way along to the reef it became clear that tonight was going to be mostly about Cuttlefish. I reached six before I stopped counting how many I'd seen.

Onto the reef we found two scorpion fish. Both of whom seemed delighted to be eating a torch-fuelled shrimp smorgasbord. We came up from the dive, glad theat we'd been of service to the scorpionfish.

At the surface the milky way was out and the water was filled with bioluminescence.

The 1st of Octopus - 01/10/2015

September ended with glorious weather, blood moons and lunar eclipses. October began no less spectacularly, from a scuba perspective. The Zookeeper and I headed to La Ruelle de Conger for a cheeky night dive. The skies were clear and the autumnal air was crisp. Ideal for diving in my opinion.

I was test driving my new Oceanic OCI in Scottish water for the first time and also a new Mares Eos 12RZ torch.

As we stood at the waters' edge looking out onto the moonlit darkness buddy checking, the Zookeeper asked the universe for a gift. Quite specifically, an octopus just hanging about in the open. We've seen one before here, twice, but its pretty uncommon and even more so to see them out in the open. However, one can ask!

We headed down, the Zookeeper didn't have her camera and I'd poorly fitted my Sealife  into the case so only three buttons were working. It wasn't going to be a photographic masterclass.

As we hit the reef at around 20m we spotted some of the usual life, dragonettes, the ubiquitous congers. Then as we swam over some rocks the Zookeepers torch went mental. I looked up and saw it. There, bold as brass, was a curled octopus sitting on top of a rock just chilling in the autumnal darkness,

As I mentioned previously my camera wasn't fully functioning. The problems I had were:

1. I couldn't switch off the flash
2. I couldn't change the focus settings
3. I could only switch from basic photography to video.

With this in mind I switched to video mode and began filming our little pal.

After the encounter we Hi-5'd before bobbing back slowly to the surface. We surfaced to discover the Milky Way glowing in the night sky and extraordinarily dense bioluminescence. We played in it for a few moments before declaring it the dive of the year thus far.

As for the kit, it all worked admirably. I love the variable beam of the Mares torch.