At First Glance - 29/08/2018

I noticed while out for a walk with Gill - a quite unremarkable slipway. Clearly, rarely used. There was no dive guide on Finstrokes, or any other site for that matter. I had hoped it would be a decent training site. What we saw was in the end quite surprising. 

I'd taken Jester to see the site to see if he thought it was worth a dive. It was night and the weather was a bit miserable but he thought it was it too. So, we kitted up buddy checked and headed along the slipper rocks.

We descended through a halocline to about 3m and followed the slope down on a reasonable straight line using a compass*. 

We passed a few fish before spotting our first langoustine at around 7m, our first firework anemone at 10m and then many more. We swam out for around 30 minutes, both of us hoping for a ray sighting. A catshark hunting a langoustine, a sea mouse, more firework anemones.

Then as we started back towards the entry exit point we saw one. A lovely big thornback ray. Back on the surface we emerged entirely satisfied before heading off to find some food..

 

* It was dark and night time. I learnt the lesson a long time ago that in such situations on unfamiliar sites a compass is a thoroughly decent bit of kit to have on your person.

The King & I - 24/05/2018

So with a trip to Rocky & Zabargad on the horizon the Kingmaker was back in the water giving his kit a nice 30m shake down. I was driving so I got to pick the site and as I hadn't been to Drishaig in about a year that was where I chose. We kitted up in some pretty stormy weather before heading down the old fisherman's path and into the water.

The Kingmaker had forgotten his primary torch and my old primary was, er, out of action after a mishap a few weeks before. So between the two of us we had a cumulative total of about 800 lumens of light.  That wouldn't stop us. Afterall, we're tough folk up here. It would, however,  limit our ability to spot life. As it was, the life found us.

There were nudibranchs, firework anemones, a sea mouse, and all kinds of little critters. And the vis?! Despite being stormy and brown on the surface under 5m it was pretty clear - easily 5m, but dark.

After about 40 minutes we surfaced and made our way back. All in all a pretty decent shakedown. Roll on May!!

Highland Dancers

Sea mouse

Leeds Reunited - 29/05/2016

Regular readers may recall that I, along with some friends, went to Egypt where I met load of great diving folks. Well, this weekend the guys from Scuba Leeds were coming up to my patch for some shore diving. Being the friendly person I am, I offered to meet up with them and take them round some local sites.

In total there were around 12 of them which limited our options considerably. so the plans had to be ammended and condensed into a couple of dives at St Catherines (Saturday) and a couple at Finnart (Sunday) when I was joined by Jester.

Saturday started well with me teaching Josh from Leeds how to spot nudibranchs, while on a nice deep route around the reef. By the end of the day the score was 4 nudis to Josh and 6 to me with two seamice.

I'm not sure if it was the variety of life or the constant, reliable mediteranean West of Scotland weather, but I think a few of the Leeds people were starting to consider moving to Scotland and if the weather on the Sunday held up the deal would be done. As it was Poseidon was smiling on the Leeds divers and by the time we kitted up at Finnart on the Sunday people were rushing into the water to cool off.

The dive threw up a selection of sea lemons for Jester and I, while the surface interval threw up technical problems that meant I gave Jester my kit for the second dive. I didn't mind, I'd had a good weekend.

Seamouse

Northern sunstar

First nudi of the day

Josh's first nudis

Sea lemon

Discovering Boulder Beach - 25/05/2014

On a previous trip to Loch Fyne I had noticed small peninsula and a place to park by the road. I pointed it out to Laura and suggested we return to explore the site. Once home, I did some research to see if I could find information about the site. I found nothing, not a thing. The site, described by us as Boulder Beach, shall remain secret right now - that said it's probably been dived hundreds of times.

The Zookeeper and I headed at a 90 degree angle to the shore and immediately swam straight down beyond 20m. On the way down we encountered our first dogfish of the day. We then turned 90 degrees to the left. The topography was somewhat dull seabed, but there was plenty of life. As we turned again to go up to 15m  I spotted the tail of a ray, which turned out to be a cuckoo ray -  not a thornback ray as we thought. (Thanks to Andrew Sinclair for the insight).

Swimming back at 15m we completed a square, but continued past out entry point in order to dive an angled figure of 8. Just as well, as we encountered some of the most interesting topography and a sea mouse!

This was a decent dive with an extraordinary encounter with a beautiful ray. We'll be back at this site for more exploration.

Sea Cucumber

Cuckoo Ray

Sea Mouse

Scallop

The Zookeeper on Safety Stop