Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man - 16/03/2017

You know summer is on the way certain creatures return to summer by the coast. Specifically, pink spotted sea cucumbers. Tonight's dive with Jester and the Barrman 

was confirmation of that. 

Arriving at twilight, we kitted up and headed, as is sometimes the case the loch had receded into the distance which meant that the bottom of the reef was within reach of those limited to just 30m.

The dive was a pretty calm affair, much more so than abuse ridden journey to the site.

There wasn't anything unusual until we reached the bottom of the reef and started to spot the sea cucumbers. They were still quite small, but they were back. Coming up the reef I spotted a few nudis pointed them out to the Barrman who was wondering what we were looking for. Then, he spotted his first nudibranch.

A sense of pride overwhelmed me, my mask began to fill up with tears of nudi joy. It was a beautiful moment as yet another diver entered the water a nudi virgin and emerged all the man he will ever be. OK, so I'm exaggerating but in a relatively pleasant, but normal dive it was a highlight.

A Return to Form - 02/05/2015

I start this blog with an apology. The month of April saw me do a few dives but they were pretty unvaried. Sorry. Despite May having a bland scuba beginning it will reach a crescendo of excellence. So, stay tuned in and true to the faith!

Anyway, back to today's 'adventure'! Today with a rare Saturday morning off, I headed with some regulars (The Announcer, Jester, Cptn Al, Didier, and a Lawyer). Myself and the Announcer teamed up to as a buddy pair and plopped into the cool waters of Conger Alley, Loch Long for a quick dip before I returned to Glasgow to take in the unique brand of football that is Partick Thistle.

It started badly and improved drastically. The visibility was initially poor and The Announcer was having trouble with her regulator. Once sorted, we swung over to the other side of the reef where the visibilitity increased from 2m to around 6m. 

We pottered around for three quarters of an hour. It was all very pleasant with a nice array of life and to top the day off Partick Thistle won 3-0.

Conger 1

Sea Cucumber 

Bloody Henry

Sea Lemon

Ballan Wrasse

Conger 2

A Record Breaker - 05/05/2014

Today Mr Fallsoveralot and I went to Twin Piers. We've had two abortive attempts to dive it together. However, today was to be the day. The tide was out, and in this state the bottom of the reef is a pretty shallow 19m, but it was perfect for some light hearted exploration.

We had expected this to be a seal dive as when we were kitting up there was a seal frolicking on the surface just out from our entry point. On the dive the only evidence of the seal was a lot of disturbed plumose anemones and some pretty poor visibility (2-3m)

Exploring the reef we found some of my favourite bits of sea life. In particular, a rich abundance of the sea cucumbers - there is a video below of what happens when you disturb one. On top of that we found a couple of conger eels at very shallow depths, a big ballan wrasse and the odd rock cook.

However, today's real diving interest for me came in the form of two new records.

1. lowest ever air consumption - 15.7 litres per minute
2. longest ever dive - 1hr 1minute

Sea cucumber

Shallow conger

Yellow cluster anemone

It Was The Best of Dives, It Was The Worst of Dives Part 2 - 10/04/2014

Now as you know, that last dive was, to use a three letter acronym, PDG! (pretty darn good). For the second dive we had galloped across the Rest & Be Thankful to Twin Piers, Loch Fyne. By the time we had parked, rekitted and entered the water it was 9.15 and dark. So with strobes and torches on we began to descend.

By the time we reached 6 metres I was questioning if there was much point continuing as the visibility was less than 50cm. Laura convinced me to persevere by the time we reached around 10-12m the visibility had increased from zero to poor (2m). Navigating to the reef I barely saw any life - even on the reef it was scarce. Then finally, after reaching the reef, I saw a beautiful little sea cucumber, then a conger eel, then a dab, then a scorpion fish, then another sea cucumber. Don't get me wrong, it was still a terrible dive in terms of visibility, but the sea cucumbers made up for it!

The return was an awkward trip back through the poor visibility. We came out the water at 10pm, just in time for Ed to get up the road in time for bed.

Pink Spotted Sea Cucumber

Dab