Nerves of Steel - 04/08/2018

I always hate training. I get nervous performing even the most basic of tasks. As an instructor I thought I'd get over those nerves as all I'm doing is demonstrating and watching other perform the skills I've mastered over the years. However, I've come to realise that I now I get a little nervous for the student. I genuinely want them to succeed. Each move they make in a lift or sweep search or whatever skills - I'm rooting for them.

This weekend at Caolasnacon brought me three dives assessing four skills:

• Sweep search
• Aqualung removal
• Compass course
• 15m rescue lift

The Landlady was doing all the hardwork. I was just watching, nervously willing her to succeed. She did. I feel, because she's done it right. She went out and got over a hundred dives under her belt before attempting the skills. It seems to me that people skip the experience step between moving up the levels. It's the experience that makes the difference imho.

The wall itself was the same dark wall I'd experienced earlier in the year, but beneath the brown layer on the surface, it was dark but crystal clear. Fish had returned to it; ling, cuckoo wrasse, ballan wrasse, cod.

The good visibility also helped highlight the immensity of the wall. It's not the biggest, but at points it plunges almost 25m on a sheer drop. Really rather spectacular.

I also managed to sneak in a night dive. It was pretty good to be back in the dark.

Northern Promise (2) - 18/08/2017

In our messaging group the Kingmaker and I had offered Midge & Miss Hayes something a little bit special for our second day of diving. However, Miss Hayes with one eye on the rather miserable looking weather and probably the slightly sinister look of the Kingmaker decided that diving wasn't for her today and rocketed off her an old friend who lives in the area.

They were excited, their campsite had afforded them stunning views of Loch Leven and the drive through Glencoe had tipped their scenery sensors into overload. The Kingmaker and I knew our first choice of the Kentallen Wall was going be a winner....once the weather cleared up.

We waited, sipping tea, for the stair rod rain to stop in the Holly Tree Hotel. When it did we moved fast. So fast, in fact, that I forgot to fasten my crotch strap on my wing. Once corrected the Kingmaker threw the navigational responsibilities my way, absolving himself of any blame should the dive end up a disaster. I'll tell you now, I nailed the navigation bringing us along underwater right back to the slip. I took the plaudits.

The dive itself was great. There were loads of cuckoo wrasse and scallops all set against the back drop of the submerged Great Glen Fault. The visibility was cracking - easily exceeding 10m - but it was on the return that I really made the dive by spotting thornback ray nestling in the sand. I had been redeemed. Where I failed at Drishaig I had succeeded today.

I emerged from the water a hero.

Our second dive at the Slates was never going to be as good, but even the depth adverse Midge was starting to get a taste for it popping down to 34m and spotting scorpion fish. We had him. 

He'll be back to Scotland - he promised....

Kentallen Wall

Penetrating the Lady Isabella Barque (1) - 08/05/2016

Trail Island at Little Cumbrae

With the offer of joining K-Pep on his RHIB for the day and an almost perfect weather forecast, Jester and I headed down to Largs for a couple of  RHIB dives. Now, I've dived of a RHIB before, but never in Scotland and never in my drysuit - neither had Jester. Add to that that I'm no great fan of boats having suffered from seasickness many times and I am therefore not shamed to say that I was a little nervous.

As we blasted out from Largs to the island of Little Cumbrae I could see the Hunterston Bubble, something which had been on my Scottish to do list for some time. The bubble is caused by super heated sea water being pumped out from the nearby nuclear power station and has peaked my interest since I first saw it on Google maps when they began publishing satellite images.   

Honesty in diving is always the best policy, and K-Pep took us to Trail Island for a scenic, pick-your-own-depth, easy  wall dive. Once kitted up and in the water I felt my usual diving mojo flooding back. As we started down the tiered Inca like terracing we saw a lot of our usual favourites, but in huge quantities:

• Devonshire cup corals
• nudibranchs
• cushion stars
• a cuckoo wrasse hiding (hiding because Jester had chased it into a hole)

It was great. We surfaced as cocky, experienced, Scottish RHIB divers. While we chatted and watched a seal, K-Pep enjoyed some sub-aqua quiet time before we headed to for our rendezvous with the Lady Isabella Barque.

Cushion star

Sea Squirts

A very bloody henry

Nudibranch

Nudibranch

Oysters & Cristal - 29/07/2015

With the Mermaid camping with JoeLe up on Loch Linnhe, the Zoekeeper and I decided to trundle up and join them for a dive on the Kentallan Wall. Loch Linnhe itself forms part of the Scotland's Great Glen fault line and the wall is part of a deep canyon that seems to run up the fault line. 

We met up at the campsite and headed to the entry at the Holly Tree Hotel. Where the water was calm and the tide was on a gentle flood. We spent some time constructing ridiculous fourway selfies before finally kitting up and entering the water.

Straight away JoeLe was having some difficulty so he abandoned the dive, but the three of us continued out. Surface swimming about 40m from the end of the pier to the point where the bottom was beginning to disappear. At that point we dropped in over 10m of water and continued the swim to the wall underwater. After a further swim we got to the edge.

Before choosing to tumble down the verticle drop our first significant find was a large Janolus Cristatus - the crystal tipped nudibranch. It's quite spectacular - the Cristal of nudibranchs.

Dropping further we found more, a large conger, saw lots of large fish, sunstars etc. However, the main draw has to be the topography. I've heard a lot of talk about diving the fault line Iceland, but here I was swimming along the very same thing right here in Scotland. And the visibility was superb! It was easily 15m, perhaps more!

We returned to shore entirely underwater and surfaced to be greeted by a variety of people.  We dekitted and headed into the Holly Tree for a quite delicious meal - which included my first taste of oysters. My review can be read on yelp if you are really interested, but given they provide you with the parking it seems only right that they benefit from divers custom.

After lunch we headed to the Slates for an easy second. Which I'm glad of. For the second time I got up close and personal with the elusive male cuckoo wrasse,

Site Entry

A fourway selfie

Janolus Cristatus

Burrowing sunstar

Janolus Cristatus

Janolus Cristatus

Northern sunstar

Common Sunstar

Cuckoo Wrasse

Adventures in Roofing - 20/06/2015

With the promise of decent tide times and higher than 6mph winds versus a midge Forecast of 5 (the highest it gets), myself Jester and Dave Lee Arbuckle  headed up to Loch Leven with the intention to dive the Slates and Manse Point.

Now according to the Finstrokes guide, Manse Point should be dived at slack water and we had planned to be there by 7.30pm to dive it at that time. However, the traffic up the side of Loch Lomond and through Glen Coe was so bad that we couldn't do both dives. Instead we plumped for two at the Slates with a BBQ in between.

Dive one saw us enter at my usual exit point and exit where I'd normally enter. With the tide on a flood it was great as it meant that we a had a gentle current carrying us round the point. The visibility was good with a nice array of the usual critters. Including:

• Cuckoo wrasse
• Catsharks
• Sunstars (northern and common)
• Ballan wrasse

With the wind making for a nice midge- blasting breeze we started up the BBQ and enjoyed a feast of rolls 'n' sausage and burgers with cheese, spring onions and DLA's favourite chilli mayo. Apparently, it's the 'every meal' mayo of choice.

Dive two was meant to see us dive round the second point, pausing to photograph the wrecks of an old barge and rowing boat, but a muddle at the dive shop had meant that my second tank hadn't been filled and only had the 100 bar of air left from my previous dive with the tank. As such I plopped in with the guys for 5 minutes before exiting the water and leaving them to enjoy the rest of the dive. A bit of a wasted trip for me, but the guys had fun.

As we dekitted the wind died down and the Highland terrors descended en masse. We made a quick exit.

Slate-Ed - 17/10/2014

With both of us off work Fast Ed and I decided we'd north to the Slates, Loch Leven. This was Ed's first trip to the Slates since the fateful day in 2013 when we first met. Our plan was to dive the point in dive 1 and the bay in dive 2 at night. This was also Ed's first dive since being mounted and sexually assaulted by a seal the week before - he still bore the scars.

Diving round the point we saw lot's of fish. They included:

• Female cuckoo wrasse
• Ballan wrasse
• Rock cooks
• Mackerel
• Cod
• Bib
• Pollack

I even caught a glimpse of the male cuckoo wrasse, but it was towards the end of the dive and I couldn't chase it for a photo.  :(

The second dive (in the dark) saw a more varied selection of life, but it also saw me fill up my memory card (I'd forgotten to remove video from a previous dive). Fortunately Ed was able to photograph an excellent nudibranch, a scorpion fish and some other life too. I've not seen his snaps yet.

Seal stains

Lady cuckoo wrasse

Dead mans fingers

Feather star

Northern sunstar

Common sunstar

Cuttlefish

Cloud Cuckoo Land - 18/09/2014

For the benefit of my international readers, Scotland, where I live, is a having a referendum to decide whether we should leave the United Kingdom. It has been said that those who want to leave the UK are living on "Cloud Cuckoo Land". Today, to escape the relentless referendum chatter, Gill, the Announcer and I headed north to the Highlands and Loch Leven to dive a site known as The Slates.

The drive to the site is pretty epic taking you through some of Scotland's finest scenery such as Glen Coe, but it takes about 2 hours from Glasgow. So given the additional effort we really hoped the visibility and life would be good. 

Dive one saw as kit up and head round the point before exiting next to where we had parked the car. The first dive had great visibility, but more importantly loads of fish. I was sure I had spotted female cuckoo wrasse and spent the rest of the dive looking for a male as I'd never seen one. Rock cooks, goldsinnys, corkwing and ballan wrasse. Throw in a few cod and it felt like we had entered an aquarium. The Announcer and I exited  delighted by what we'd seen. Gill on the other hand was a bit blasé - apparently there wasn't enough "sunk stuff".

After some lunch, The Announcer and I headed in for a second dive, leaving Gill to read her book in peace. We retraced our first dive briefly as I knew I'd dropped a clip on the first. After finding the clip we headed off in the opposite direction. Then it all happened.

First up I saw a large fish in the distance as I approached I realised it was a male cuckoo wrasse. Neither myself or The Announcer had ever seen one. It was sadly a bit skittish, but my camera caught a few glimpses of one of Scotland's most beautiful fish.

Then The Announcer had another first, a large gurnard. We emerged very pleased, believing that Cloud Cuckoo Land actually exists and may well be a better place.

I voted Yes.

Common sunstar

Female cuckoo wrasse

Male cuckoo wrasse

Male cuckoo wrasse

Scallop

Fish

Gurnard

Common sunstar

Northern sunstar

Dab and finger