Northern Exposure - Part 3 - 30/04/2017



Diving Piste with lunge and kick.

Day 3 of our Highland adventure took us to the Laudale Slip. It was, for me, a perfect day for diving - bright, sunny, but with a cold wind. It meant that I would employ my "diving-piste" look.

 

In Scotland, it is the kind of day when your face gets burnt either by the wind or the sun - you never really know which element did the damage.

 

The surface marshall had already sorted buddy pairs and this meant that I would be once again diving with Ian, but this time we'd be part of a three with Claire  (who last appeared in my blog over two years ago).

 

As an instructor, Claire was able to extend Ian's range down to 20m and we agreed that we'd dive in the reverse V formation with Ian and Claire up top and me plodding along relatively self sufficiently at the back.

 

It worked a treat and I was really enjoying our little bimble which took us west to the main reef before heading back to a second reef east of the entry point and ultimately home.

 

Prior to the dive, we had agreed that Ian would put up an dSMB  as part of his Sport Diver training. As he began the skill I was a couple of metres below him and Claire. I watched as the SMB deployed and Ian moved up a couple of metres as a result of a little buoyant pull. I looked away for a few seconds, and then back and they were gone.

 

I waited a minute for them to reappear and then made my way topside, stopping for my safety stop and saw them on the surface safe and bobbing about 10m away.

 

A freeflow had occurred as a result of Ian using his octopus to inflate the SMB. He'd surfaced on Claire's octopus with zero air. Everyone was safe. Ian earned his new nickname Freeflow Bob.

 

The second dive saw Freeflow Bob and I head back in as a buddy pair. We pretty much did the same dive again only this time, as the tide was much lower, we glimpsed different parts of the reef. It was enough to give me the opportunity find a beautiful thornback ray - Freeflow Bob's first!

 

We surfaced, filled the tanks with the compressor and headed back round to base camp.

Freeflow Bob shows me where his freeflow occurred.

View West



View East

Northern Exposure - Part 2 - 29/04/2017

Camas Torsa

With all our divers now firmly ensconced at Resipole, Loch Sunart, our second day of diving took us to nearby Camas Torsa which translated from Gaelic means Thor's Bay. I'm not entirely sure of why its called that, but I suspect it may be because of the thunderous wind. That would certainly make sense.

However, that same wind gave the Barrman the opportunity to set up the new ESAC events shelter, as supplied by Cotswold Outdoor for a great price.

Having failed to pack my camera charger, it marked the end of my underwater photography, but I wasn't too bothered given I had never dived these sites before and preferred to focus on the basics of navigation.

 

My first dive was an exploratory one with the Chairman. We made our way down to 35m and found ourselves midway down a large wall. It reminded me a little of Anchor Point, but with less life.  My personal view was that it had been dredged by a scallop dredger in the last year or so decimating much of the soft coral life that should have been present.

 

That said we had a nice dive just exploring and enjoying the life that was there:

• Giant seapens
• Macropodia Rostrata
• Edible crabs
• Queen scallops

For my second dive on the site I teamed up with Ian (who has complained he doesn't have a nickname, that may change in my next blog...) Having already explored much of the site my focus was on giving Ian as good an experience as I could given the depth limitation. With that in mind I had said to the surface marshall that we'd be down for 50 minutes wit a plan to stay at 15m until we hit 100 bar and then return the same distance at 7-5m coming up with 50 bar.

 

As it was the current had increased and we drifted for 25m barely flicking a fin and so had to turn back at 25 minutes. The return journey didn't take too much longer, but it did take a bit more work as we headed into the current (most pronounced at the point).

 

As we surfaced I made a mental note not to rush back to this site, before celebrating Ian's longest ever dive - 54 minutes.

Camas Torsa Dive HQ