Return to Normal - 29/10/2018

Me photographing the cuttlefish below.

After training dives, a trip overseas and a wee break. I returned to my normal night diving routine with Jester as a barely tolerable buddy. We kitted up wondering where exactly the loch was. As it was, it turned out it was low tide and I mean Barry White low tide.

We meandered down planning to dive to the small speedboat then to the bottom of the reef (taking advantage of the shallower depths) and back up. It was a pretty

Everything went to plan with loads of cuttlefish, pipefish, gurnards, scorpion fish and only a small amount deco that was worked off before we even got to the ceiling.

It was thoroughly pleasant way to spend 62 minutes, an experience only added to by the glow of the Milky Way above us as we emerged from the water.

Short Spinned Sea Scorpion

The cuttlefish I was photographing

Greater Pipefish

Gurnard

Bouncing Bombs and the Wrecks of Loch Striven - 27/08/2017

Panoramic view from the Ferry

When I suggested to member of the club that we could do a little getaway and BBQ at Loch Striven I wasn't sure how many people would come given how inconvenient it is to get to. So I sold it on the promise of an introduction to wreck diving. However, at around the same time the BBC and BSAC very kindly cobbled together a news story that included one of the loch's most famous episodes.

Sir Barnes Wallis designed the 'highball' during WWII to allow aircraft to better attack large battleships, but the design and principle would ultimately used to more famous effect in the Dambuster raids.

Today there are still highballs on the bed of the loch, but our plan was to dive the shallow wrecks of a small WWII landing craft and a barge at a depth of 12m at Brackley Point. The shallow depth means that our ScotSAC Branch divers can enjoy two nice little wrecks.

With a number of people requiring to complete a variety of different training tasks, the Land Lady had decided to take control of the operation and earn her expedition organiser stripes. That allowed me to take a back seat and just dive with our only willing branch diver - Freeflow Bob.

We all arrived and pitched up for the day at what, it seems, is a very popular site for outdoor enthusiasts of all ilks.

We made friends and went diving. Freeflow Bob led me through our buddy check and took me down to 12m and off we swam. Almost instantly we hit wreckage and then swam along a relatively bland sandy bottom. We returned underwhelmed, but Freeflow Bob had managed to take a few snaps.

Our second dive a couple of hours later was to the right which offered up a larger, more identifiable wreck.

Back on the surface there were BBQs, frying pans with burgers, happy children and kayaking. It really was a fun day. We'll be back.

Dive site

Near the surface

Fun on the beach

Friday Night Lights - 06/11/2015

Jester was so taken with our dive last night thay was wanting to return to St Catherine's to visit my other known firework anemone in the vicinity at 30m. However, while  I guided us to it. It wasn't the star of the show. There were other lights.

In particular, the waves produced by the westerly wind meant that the shoreline sparkled with bioluminescence while the milk way glistened above. Quite a spectacular start to any dive. 

Once we went down we found an assortment of nightlife including our friends the cuttlefish, pipefish and stickleback. Oh, and my firework anemone for a belated Guy Fawkes Night.

The Alternative Guy Fawkes - 05/11/2015

I'm more interested in firework anemones than actual fireworks. With that in mind the plan was for Jester, the Zookeeper and myself to go hunting for the former type of fireworks. However, a three hour commute meant that the Zookeeper was exhausted and didn't fancy the dive. As such Jester and I headed to Seal Reef intent on re finding a firework anemone we found once before. 

Sadly, we failed. Instead, we found a proliferation of colour changing cuttlefish, a stunning nudibranch and Jester's first ever red gurnard.

We had heard that visibility in the area was good (8-10m) and it didn't disappoint. Visibility was easily 8m even in the dark. 

I was test driving a fully functioning Mares Eos 12rz and hoping to use the wide beam (with no hotspot) for some decent pictures.

We headed down to the small boat and off the bow looking for a firework anemone we found quite some time ago. We struck out, but we did find a langoustine, pipefish, cuttlefish and two red gurnards.

Moving onto the reef, and with deco fast approaching we headed back up gradually. As deco approached his minutes to deco hand signals looked an awful lot like flipping me the bird. Vulgar gestures aside, Jesters aging eyes were on fire, spotting a variety of worms before his spot of the night.  Blind luck I say, but it was a nice Eubranchus Farrani or, as I've heard the Mermaid describe them, "the wee fried egg ones".

It was a great 57 minutes as we emerged to booming of Inveraray fireworks.

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

Total Eclipse of the Loch - 02/11/2014

A rare free Sunday gave me the opportunity head up to St Cats, Loch Fyne with Captain Al, TDFKAMF, the Vice President and Van der Brett. It took a little longer than usual to get there as the quickest road was still shut due to landslips (fortunately, it was open by the time way came back). 

We were the first people to arrive at the site, but a small group arrived from Splash Sports and a couple of guys from Bo'ness Sub Aqua Club. In addition, en route I'd spotted my own dive club diving a Twin Piers, Loch Long. I took the right course of action as I later heard that the visibility at the site was rotten.

By way of contrast, our visibility was terrible in the first few metres, but increased to around five below six metres. However, it was pitch black so it felt like we did two night dives as though it were a total eclipse of the loch. There was a nice array of life about on both dives. Life included:

• nudibranchs
• pollock
• cod
• scorpion fish
• pipefish

Emerging from the first dive boasting about the things we saw we started joking about a range of improbable spots (hammerheads, turtles, humpback whales etc). Which gave Van der Brett the opportunity to tell us about the time a encountered a great white shark while teaching in South Africa. When asked what he did he explained in great details that he tried not to look like a seal. There is a valuable lesson in there somewhere.

In dive 2 I took the opportunity to dive down to around 38m - a new depth record for me. This also allowed me to test the deco functionality of my Mares Matrix. It worked an absolute treat. Taking me to safety stops at 12m and 3m. The next test is to start using it with Nitrox.

That said, the best moment of the two dives was when TDFKAMF was a attack by an angry Yarrell's Blenny. Apparently, it was provoked by another inconsiderate diver!

However, the highlight of the day came when we returned to Aquatron at the tail end of their sale weekend and as well as my fills and usual banter I also got myself a bargain on a super sweet new Fourth Element Thermocline top as well as bumping into the Mermaid! Add to all this the fact that I recovered my lost Arctic sock (misplaced at the A-Frames on Thursday) and I'd say it was pretty darn good! Happy days.

Sealoch Anemone

Nudi

Squat Lobster

Cod

Greater Pipefish

Scorpionfish

Scorpionfish

Adventures in Macro - 21/09/2014

I take snaps, but I'm not desperately into photography. So while diving with TDFKAMF today a chance surface conversation mentioning macros got me messing about with the "Super Macro" setting on my Sealife DC1400.

The site was St Catherine's, Seal Reef, Loch Fyne. We headed in pretty late in the day and dropped down to the 20m before heading across to the reef. Sadly the visibility was pretty poor - 1-3m at best.

The highlights of the dive were:

• A nice pipefish
• Lion's mane jellyfish
• Some nice big fish around the wee speedboat

However, I spent a fair bit of time trying to take pictures of wee things like sea squirts with this new magical setting I've discovered. The results can be seen below. Pretty poor I'd say, but I'll get better and have since discovered there is a new firmware update. 

Pipefish

Macro Sqaut Lobster

Lion's Mane Jellyfish

Macro Sea Squirt

Macro Sea Squirt

Macro Anemone

Raining Catsharks and Dogfish - 14/08/2014

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” 

This evening the Zookeeper and I were both feeling the spirit of exploration. We packed everything into HMS Buffy and sailed like modern day Columbus' or Magellans to the nearest dive site we've never dived. The site was St Catherine's Reef, also known as the Council Yard.

I believe it is typically used as a training site and the Finstrokes guide was a bit vague on instructions and I think some of the comments relate to nearby Seal Reef (St Catherines 2). We therefore decided to park in the lay-by as the yard itself is now permanently locked. You can see the edge of HMS Buffy on the right of the photograph above.

We kitted up, buddy checked and headed in at the shore just down from the car. The initial past of the dive was very shallow, sandy and very red (quite Martian really), then we dipped below a halocline and, although dark, the visibility was decent at around 8m.

Just as I was starting to think that I'd been duped into diving a sand seabed, we stumbled into the first of our 'shark' encounters of the day. In total, I think we had four - or one 'shark' just playing games with us. Then came the reef.

It seems to me that looking from above with the shore at the top of the picture, the reef is a y-shape with a longish tail extending out to the left. We clearly missed the main part of the reef and stumbled onto the reef at around 14m . Some exploration of the tail found some lobster creels filled with small crab reprobates and juvenile offender cod. The lobsters were ubiquitous by their absence. To me it seems lobster creels are the Victorian prisons of the seabed - overcrowded, without compassion and indiscriminate.

We then followed the tail back to the main reef, dipping down to 20m and working our way back up. We saw the usual Loch Fyne life and had a bit of fun en route. 

We agreed that this would make a pleasant night dive with its easy access, large reef and nearby street lights. We are resolved to go back sans soleil.

Pre-dive beach surfing

Catshark snout by Laura

Measuring Catsharks by Laura

Catshark

The crab Barlinnie

  

Facesucker

Catshark

Lobster creel

Spider crab with sea squirt crown

Pipefish