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 Soul - 22/04/2018

Having a campervan has made diving more pleasant in a number of ways:

• Between dives I can take refuge from the elements in the van and cook up a tasty treat and a cup of tea
• If meeting friends I don't have to rush up to sites at the crack of dawn - I can arrive the night before sleepover
• I can go to more rural spots and not have to worry about getting back

This weekend I was teaming up with me ol' Yorkshire mucker Josh. He was wanting to dive "some deep Scottish walls". I felt I could oblige combining my campervan and his desire to test out a new tent.

So I assembled a plan:

• Day 1 - Dive Trail Island with K-Pep in the Firth of Clyde
• Day 2 - Dive Kentallan Wall & the Slates
• Day 3 - Dive Lochaline Wall in the Sound of Mull

I asked Jester if he wanted to come, then I asked my buddy (Wylie Fox) for an upcoming trip to Scapa Flow. They both agreed. The team was set.

Trail Island saw Jester, Josh and I all diving off K-Peps much loved RHIB Jenny. As we set of from Largs we realised we had nailed it - the weather was perfect. We rolled off the RHIB and headed down to 30m the point where the sea bed disappears into the abyss. I led us over the wall and down to a casual 34m and along the wall. We bumped into a few nudibranchs (flabellina pedata, flabellina lineata) and the odd candy striped flatworm. It was going well from a nudi perspective and josh had nailed his first Scottish wall. I'd been wearing a hire drysuit that wasnt that dry so I sat out a 2nd dive on the Lady Isabella Barque in preference for drying out in the sun.

From there it was the drive north to our overnight stop at Caolasnacon for our overnight stop.

The following morning we were joined by the Barrman & the Landlady for Kentallan Wall. I had dived Kentallan wall a couple of weeks before and wasn't expecting too much life. Sadly, for us I was right. It was a decent dive, but it was cold and my undersuit was still little on the damp side. As such, I decided against doing the Slates in preference for letting my undersuit dry.

Afterwards four us headed to Lochaline to set up camp for the night. The dive the next day would be memorable.

I'd never dived the Lochaline Wall. The only other time I'd been there was when I dived in the Sound of Mull years ago, but missed out because I'd arrived late.

Wylie Fox was the expert and we'd just follow her lead. So, the next morning, we kitted up and entered the water one hour before slack. We swam for a bit in the shallows then plunged down toward 46m. ~The bottom was still nowhere in site. So with the discretion being the better part of valour we turned and zig-zagged back up the wall before the tide turned and dragged us out. 

The wall was covered in life. We emerged agreeing that it was perhaps the best shore dive we've done in Scotland (Kintyre excepted). From there we began the long trek home and the even longer drive for Josh who had nourished his diving soul away from the English quarries.

Flabellina lineata

Flabellina lineata

Flabellina pedata

Cushionstar

Northern Sunstar

More flabellinas

Caolasnacon & the Valley of the Frozen Winds - 11/02/2018

It's a beautiful place in summer or in winter and probably has to be one of the best located campsites in Scotland. Caolasnacon (pronounced Cowel-na-cone). It is also home to a dive site. Despite planning a whole weekend around Caolasnacon for March/April 2018, I had never dived here. I had camped here once and dived a number of the nearby sites, but never dived it.

Today, despite the cold, blizzards, and howling wind, today was going to be that day. More than this however, it was also going to be Jester's 300th dive.We were joined by the Wylie Fox and Haylie (the dog).

We kitted up and made our way down to the water and began swimming out. with none of us having ever dived here it fell to me (unfairly) to lead our merry band to the wall. I had expected to be under impressed. But once we found the wall it was actually quite spectacular. A little lifeless, which was to be expected at this time of the year.

We surfaced just before the hour mark and emerged to a blizzard that might of compromised our ability to get the van and car out of the campsite.

Fortunately, we made it up the road with little trouble and made it to the security of the Clachaig Inn for a spot of lunch before heading through the snow back to Glasgow.

To The Point - 11/02/2017

Nearby Loch Linnhe

It was an act of kindness that took me to the Slates on a wintery Saturday. With a new diver in the club interested in diving near Fort William. I had offered to meet her for a dive. It was cold and Gill.I.Am and I had agreed to take the van to the Linnhe Lochside Holidays, for and electrical hookup (to keep warm!). I then went with Sarah to Loch Leven to dive.

We had agreed that we'd head round the point until Sarah got to 100 bar and then from there we'd either turn back or continue round depending on which was quicker. As it was, it was quicker to continue round the point. 

Even though there was a pleasant assortment of sunstars, brittle stars and bloody henry's, there wasn't much life, it was cold - very cold, but the visibility was good in the loch. This bode well for my next dive the following day and the true point of my trip - Caolasnacon.

Quint & the Seapen Graveyard

I had considered diving the the Old Cemetery 1 and 2 for sometime. However, something always came up and I never got round to it. So, when I got a message last week from my old dive instructor asking me if I wanted to go dive. I told him about my plan to head to Loch Leven camp with my new van and awning before heading to the Old Cemetery for a couple of dives. He seemed game.

The Old Cemetery has two dive sites - Cemetery 1 to the right and Cemetery 2 - to the left. Based on the guide there is the potential for all kinds of camping fun and shenanigans. However, times have changed. Parking in the lay-by is now restricted to three hours. Probably, judging by the number of beer bottles around the site, because of antisocial behaviour. Still, three hours was enough for us.

Quint and I kitted up and choose the easiest access to the beach we could find which coincidentally turned out to be the entry point for Cemetery 1, but given we wanted to do the second dive it meant that we were required to go down and turn right. 

It is probably true to say we spent too long going down and not enough time swimming left. We seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time looking at seapens standing on the seabed like a continuation of the cemetery on the surface. 

However, we eventually hit the wall we were looking for - it bottoms out at about 20m, so don't go too deep! Once there I saw an octopus, nudibranchs and a nice collection of seastars. We returned via the wreck of a little wooden skiff.

Feeling we had seen pretty much all there was to see in the area we headed back round the loch to the Slates for something a little, well, erm, deeper. 😃

Quint & I

Loch Leven

Testing the camper

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

Double Trouble - 28/06/2017

Double Trouble is, simultaneously, perhaps one of the worst Elvis movies and also the title of another terrible movie from the 1990s, but that doesn't deter me from using it as a blog title to describe my first dive on my new twin set.

My buddies were Captain Al and Jester and we had chosen the Slates because I had agreed to show the site to a group of divers from Scuba Leeds on their annual pilgrimage to the west coast sea lochs (or "locks" as they call them 😃 ). My plan had been to dive my first dive with a 15l tank and then have a shallow splash with the twins before heading down the road.

In the end Captain Al advised me to get a bit of time with them to start to get used to them before doing any formal training. So, I jerry rigged up a regset that was a representation of a Hogarthian/DIR twinset regulator set and set about testing my system before doing any formal training in it. I've been using the Rectotec blog as background reading as well as discussing it with more experienced technical divers.

PLEASE NOTE: I am a relatively experienced diver with experienced buddies, I do not recommend this kind of ad hoc experimentation for inexperienced divers!

For those interested in the geekier side of it I dived:

• manifolded twin faber 12l
• Scubapro horseshoe wing
• Steel backplate
• jerry rigged regulators

Anyway, once kitted up I realised that I'd need to make some adjustments as I couldn't  reach my knobs on the dive, so that meant that in reality I was really just getting used to diving the wing with what was in effect a single cylinder.

The result was that I wasn't really into taking many photographs, but the weather, light and visibility were all so good that I took a few snaps.

Dive one saw us spend the best part of an hour at around 15-20m spotting ling, cuckoo wrasse, dogfish, nudibranchs and sunstars. 

The first thing I noticed is that the dump valves weren't effective given their position, and to get the best out of the hose dump I really had to be in a fairly upright position. It meant that on this dive there were a few minor buoyancy issues on this dive. Which, by the time we shallow dived the bay on dive two I had rectified, despite breathing the twinset down to just 40 bar ( a common tipping point or so I'm told).

Anyway, decent little learning experience with fine buddies.

Dogfish / Catshark

Common Sunstar

Flabellina Lineata

Northern Sunstar

Northern Exposure - Part 4 - 01/05/2017

With the end of the bank holiday weekend upon us Freeflow Bob, the Barrman and I headed back down south to the Slates where we were going to meet Jester. The original plan had been for two dives but a general unwillingness both from our reluctant shore cover and a couple of our divers meant that we called it after one lengthy 61 minute dive. A 61 minute dive that proved to be yet another record breaker for Freeflow Bob.

 

Diving in buddy pairs, Barrman & Jester and myself & ol' Freeflow. We limited the dive to around 15m. this proved to be a nice turn as neither myself nor Jester had ever navigated the point at this depth. It proved to be worth the effort.

 

The first nudibranch was a very pleasant sea lemon, before more followed, mostly flabellinas. It was a pleasant dive ending with a scorpionfish.

 

We all enjoyed it, but it was cold (4c). From there we kitted up and headed to the Clachaig Inn for the win.

Northern Exposure - Part 1 - 28/04/2017

With summer nearly upon us my club, Eastwood Sub Aqua Club, has planned a trip to Loch Sunart in the Scottish Highlands. Despite its relative close proximity (around 140km as the crow flies) it takes almost four hours to get there due to a combination of traffic, ferries and single track roads. As such, we took the opportunity to stop two thirds of the way up at The Slates, Loch Leven.

 

The Slates is one of my favourite dives and I was especially excited for two reasons:

1. I had finally managed to repair my camera
2. I was going to be the buddy of Campbell who was returning to diving after a medical break

We took our time and kitted up making sure the Chairman (Campbell's new nickname) was comfortable before checking kit and heading into the water. We were keeping it shallow (20m) and it really paid off with a nice catshark, pink spotted sea cucumbers, sunstars and a compliant ballan wrasse. The Chairman was performing admirably and seemed pretty comfortable, but as we started our ascent he signalled he was cold - not surprising, the bottom temperature was about 4c.

 

We surfaced and dekitted, where he decided to call it quits for the day. With a number of other divers also doing the same it meant that it fell to myself and the Barrman to restore the pride of club. We kitted up, buddy checked and headed down.

 

As we reached about 12m I looked right and spotted one of the most brazen octopus' I had ever seen. Sadly, the Barrman hadn't seen it and as I fiddled with camera I realised he was about to fin right over the to of it. I violently shook my torch but sadly it was too late to prevent a silt tsunami.

 

I kept my eye on the octopus and waited for the cloud to disperse as much as possible, but it was too late to great picture. I mean, I got a snap, but I was later accused of simply having photographed a red rock by a rather mean spirited Shiny.

 

We continued round enjoying the pleasant drift and admiring a lovely selection of Devonshire cup corals, before emerging cold and ready to enjoy the warmth of the cars up to our base for the weekend, Resipole.

Sunstar

Catshark

Sea Cucumber

Anemic Bloody Henry

Ballan Wrasse

Red rock - curled octopus

Devonshire Cup Coral

Sunstar

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.

I'm Gonna Hit The Brakes... He'll Fly Right On By - 23/03/2015

To celebrate his 100th dive I suggested the TDFKAMF would be allowed to change his name on my blog. He chose a slightly camp Top Gun reference - Jester. Jester is of course played by the legendary Michael Ironside, "Jester's" secret man crush. I am, however, not one to judge. So I'll leave it there.

Our original plan had been to photograph firework anemones at Drishaig, but with the weather looking pretty pleasant I suggested a blast up to Loch Leven for either the Slates or Manse Point. We plumped for the Slates as we had no idea of tide times and Manse Point had a recommendation for an hour before slack. As it was there was a strong current running.

Jester had never dived the site before. So, I told him what to expect. I explained how I'd never seen a dogfish here. What was the first thing he spotted? You guessed it - dogfish.  I lead us out along the point agauinst the current to give him an idea of what the wall side of the site was like before hitting the brakes and letting the current take us out into the flatter bay area of the site.

The water was a pretty cool 6/7c and the viz wasn't the best I'd had at the sight, but it was still a good 4-5m.

We encountered some pretty sweet life including:

• Pipefish
• Large Pollock (like proper Godzilla sized ones)
• Northern & Common sunstars

We finished in the shallows with me a bit disorientated (I'd left my compass in the car). We popped up from around 5m after a safety stop to find we had a 20m surface swim back to the shore, but given it was night and I was sans compass, that wasn't too bad.

Pipefish

Common Sunstar

Common Sunstar

Catshark

Common Sunstar

Bloody Henry and Brittle Star

Northern Sunstar

Smoking Mussel

Northern Sunstar

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