Deep & Done - 30/06/2018

When Chairman G asked me to take him deep, I decided to return to the site of my own Scotsac Deep Diving course. We kitted up and headed down to 37m and generally speaking had a pretty pleasant dive.

We chatted, had some bants with some other divers on the site then after a couple of hours we did our buddy check and headed back in. As we entered the water, the explosion happened as Chairman G's HP hose blew. We took it as a sign to abort the dive!

Down With The Deep - 27/01/2018

As part of the Barrman's drive to get ready for diving Scapa Flow he's looking to get his Landlady up to ScotSAC Master Diver. As such, we headed to Hangman's Reef where he and the Landlady would clock up another plus 30m dive while Walker Texas Ranger and I took the opportunity to explore the site.

The guide suggests going to the left, however, I'd heard that if you dive to the right you can reach the southern tip of the Caves. To me it seemed worth the effort of exploration given that I'd only been here once before when doing my 50m qualification. 

The weather was pretty horrid. So we kitted up and headed to equally horrific visibility. In the early stages it was less than a metre, but we persisted and were rewarded as it grew to around 4m. More than adequate for our needs.

We swam along to the right passing dogfish and firework anemones eventually reaching rock formations that certainly resembled the Caves. We turned and headed back using the complete lack of visibility to assure us we were almost home. We were right.

The Landlady reckoned that was enough for the day, given the weather and left the three of us to dive the suggested guide route. In all honesty, it was pretty similar but the rock formations were a little closer than those to the right. and as we ascended we found the old anchor. It was pretty impressive.

I found myself liking the site and will definitely explore deeper (40m) on my next dive there.

Rollercoasters - 04/02/2017

Ronan Keating once sang that life was a rollercoaster. I hated that song. Diving today also seemed like a bit of a rollercoaster. I had finally decided to finish my ScotSAC Master Diver qualification - a process that I began about 4 years ago. 

Crossing over from PADI Recue Diver was a relatively simply process that included:

• 4  lectures
• Underwater Kit removal
• Expedition organiser
• 2 assisted ascents from 20m
• 2 assisted ascents from 30m

However, finding time to do it on a day when the club had instructors available proved more challenging. Getting time to do the 30m ascents proved particularly challenging. So with the bit beneath my teeth at the start of the year I arranged with the Barrman to organise a day of Master Diving training.

My willing instructor was Andy. Our plan for the two dives was to signal out of air, ascend from 30m to 6m at a nice slow rate. hold a safety stop and then descend straight back down and make our way back to the shore - twice.

The first dive saw me being the recipient of the donated air. I hate breathing off someone elses octopus. Unless of course it was a real emergency in which case I'd be more than happy to do it!!

We went down passing a lovely cushion star on the way down. Once at thirty odd metres I gave the signal and up we went. Now I had forgotten to turn off the deep stops on my computer so we spent a couple of minutes at 15m before continuing up to 6m. Then it was straight back down to make out way back to the shore,

The surface interval was delightful as the American made us bacon rolls.I had two.

The buddy check, saw us highlight how my regulator wasn't really optimal for sharing without a strange kink in the hose. I'll need to swap that over for future dives.

2 hours later we were back in repeating the exercise only this time I was donating....down, up, down, up. I emerged a ScotSAC Master Diver.

Celebrating a masterly dive

The Battle For Pilmuir Quarry - 01/03/2015

Scotland is awash with ancient battle sites where clans genuinely clashed in the bloodiest of fashions. However, today Pilmuir Quarry was the scene of a battle of a different type. We had originally planned to dive Seal Reef, St Catherines, but storms and inclement weather meant that the club had decided to dive their Pilmuir Quarry. 

I had arrived already in my drysuit (the site is 5 minutes from the house) and was planning to dive with Claire to do one of my required skills for the ScotSAC Master Diver rating. Today it was full kit removal and swim at 10m. I wasn't worried about this, but some of the guys on the surface had mentioned that they'd taken a few attempts to do it - a bit like a driving test. As a result, I was starting to feel some nerves.

As we went in the water Claire and I dropped down and swam out. The vis was pretty good, but the temperature was cold. Claire's computer registered 2c while my own registered a tropical 4c. Once in a suitable space Claire signalled for me to demonstrate the skill. I removed the kit, swam with it in front of me, then rekitted once I done it for sufficient time. Putting the kit back on was a bit of a struggle with numbing fingers but I'd succeeded. Box number 1 ticked.

When we got back to the entry point we found the rest of the group mulling about having not dived. Victims of the Battle of Pilmuir Quarry, as the cold wreaked havoc on the regulators - particularly those with Scubapro regs which, despite being cold water rated, don't seem to actually like the cold. My Mares Abyss Navy and Claire's Apeks regs fought valiantly and won.

I never took the camera underwater, but I took a few surface pictures to show the flooded car park, the hail and the ice on the surface. They say, in Scotland, that  March either comes in like a lion and out like lamb or vice-versa. Here's hoping that's us done with the lion.

Ice on the quarry

 

Flooded car park