Nervous Passenger - 24/02/2019

When teaching, some dives stick out way more than others. The ones you remember tend to be when something goes wrong. We don't tend to remember the dives when you complete your objective without incident. However, today it went so well, and I learned a lot.

The plan was fot me to do three training dives with three different people:

• A 30m ascent
• A 2 minute swim with mask removal
• Drysuit buoyancy skills

The first two passed without a hitch, but the trainee I was taking in for the third dive, Prawn, had proven to be somewhat spooked and had refused to dive initially. 

I had a chat with her and convinced her it was worth trying again. I offered to physically hold her hand the whole time. I broke the dive down into stages.

1. Breath face down in the water

2. Kneel down in 2-3m of water(or swimming pool depth as I put it)

3. If we want to continue drop down a little deeper to 10m 

4. If she was happy, go for a wee swim

I spoke softly ( I always speak softly - I actually have a lovely voice, with a singing Scottish lilt), I reassured her.

We went in and had an excellent dive. Confidence restored. It was one of those occasions when it was all genuinely rewarding.

Deep Learning - 22/07/2018

I like taking people down to where they've never been before. So after the wedding of two divers at Cairndow myself and the Chairman headed to Seal Reef to do a couple of 31m+ dives and attempt to sign off a couple of skills.

To help with the first skill a member of the Glasgow South Branch had agreed to be my victim. He was an unknown quantity and it didn't work out. So we abandoned that plan and just went for a nice dive to 34m.

At the surface interval we chatted, ate rolls and bacon before heading in again to complete the famous ScotSAC Master Diver Striptease or aqualung removal, swim and refit as it is more commonly called. Once that was nailed we headed down to 31m, u-turned and came back up.

That meant the Chairman had another few tasks ticked off on his journey to Master Diver.

Work Pays - 02/07/2018

Sometimes life throws up a serendipitous moment. For me work had required me to attend a meeting a few miles from my usual diving haunts. The meeting would take me to lunchtime by which point I had enough time in the bank to flexi off in the afternoon.

Jester, who never works Monday, had agreed to drive up and meet me for an afternoon dive at Seal Reef, St Catherines.

I was still without my camera so was again on the look out for things for Jester to photograph. We had been swimming about for 15 minutes when I noticed a cluster of clam shells lying outside a hole.  I peered in and saw the pulsating mass of an octopus. I signalled to Jester and showed him the hole, he looked in and wondered what I'd seen. Eventually after an underwater argument explaining what he was looking at, he reluctantly took a picture and continued the dive. 

Back on the shore we laughed. It was Jesters first ever octopus and my first ever octopus at the site. 

Work it seems pays.

The Zeppo - 28/01/2018

Herbert Manfred Marx is a name you may not instantly recognise. He was better known as Zeppo Marx the fifth, and youngest, of the Marx Brothers. HE was the straight man until he left. In life everyone takes turns at being the Zeppo. Today it was to be the Barrman's.

As it was, he and I were diving together. We decided to go deeper at St Catherine's and enjoyed a fairly pleasant bimble around the site. We had a nice enough dive, but his Zeppo moment came when we were back on the surface. As we all do, post dive the Barrman needed a pee.

We went to unzip his dry suit. It was snagged with a tooth out of position. We hummed and hawed, in the end I undertook the role of bearer of bad news and tooth remover. He needed a new zip. With that we packed up for the day.

The Instructor's Instruction - 06/01/2017

It's my first dive day of the year and I am resolved. Resolved to do more dives in more countries and more new places here in Scotland. I am also resolved to continue where I let off last year and work towards becoming a ScotSAC Branch Instructor, finish my Freediving course and do a Tri-Mix course.

So, as it happened, my first two dives of the year were as a trainee instructor at Loch Fyne's Seal Reef with my club. It was a funny arrangement working with a diver who has been described as our clubs "Scuba Diving Dark Horse", largely because of his pretty humble manner. Our first instruction dive was to be a dive lead and also a rescue skill. It  meant that we had to curiously do three dive briefings for one dive. We all chuckled at the anomaly. It seemed like overkill, but it what is.

My major take away was the SEEDS acronym.

• Safety - what do you need to know to keep you safe?
• Exercise - what is the skill we're looking to do?
• Equipment - do we need any specific equipment for this drill?
• Discipline - what's the plan and behaviours required?
• Signals - what signals are required?

We had mixed success with the actual passing of skills but we did find a lovely little nudibranch and a very pretty macropodia rostrata. So all was not lost on the pleasure front either.

The Cold Light of Day - 02/12/2017

After Monday's chilly 2.8c, I was keen to avoid Loch Long when Captain Al, Freeflow Bob, Fast Eddie and myself went diving on a frosty Saturday morning. The experience had taught me that it was worth taking the mobile food kitchen for half time bacon rolls.So when we trundled up to St Catherine's, Loch Fyne we were at least prepared for the cold.

It was Fast Ed's first dive back since he dived with me at Triple Reef in June, so an easy site was required and Seal Reef seemed ideal.

We weren't the only ones there, South Queensferry BSAC were across from the East Coast for some training. They seemed friendly enough despite being BSAC divers. ;)

We kitted up and split into buddy pairs of Captain Al and Fast Ed and Ol' Freeflow and me.

It was pretty uneventful but for a large school of pollack, a cushion star and some bloody Henry's. We swam back to the sure after the 35 minute announcement that Captain Al was feeling the cold. If he was feeling it then, it was about to get a whole lot worse. We swam back to the exit point. As the person leading the dive I noticed the thermocline at 4m and sat beneath it for 3 minutes. Then when the three minutes was up and everyone was clear, I turned and swam hard through the cold.

I could feel it biting at my exposed skin. We got out and I checked my computer... 2.2c!  Not the coldest I've ever experienced but getting down pretty low.

Still the promise of a roll and bacon was enough to get me back to the van. I had ear problems so I sat the second dive out and watched as my friends came back looking a little chilly. 

The First Tango in the Dark - 16/09/2017

My club had planned to dive at the Farne Islands this weekend, but that was kiboshed by the unpredictable nature of East Coast weather. By way of contrast West Coast weather was looking great. The club then decided to have a small camp out at St Catherine's and potentially a night dive.

So I invited Jester to be my guest for the evening now that he had overcome a bout of Common Cold / Manflu / Manthrax / Unspecified Certain Death.*

I had been invited to dive the SS Kintyre the next day by the Wylie Fox and Jester was going to accompany me. So it seemed sensible for him to dust down his deep diving skills ** and prep for the next day.

I had expected a few members to join us, but their preference, after a hard days diving, was to enjoy a bottle of wine on the beach round the campfire. So we kitted up alone in the dark and headed down.

It was funny, because before we went in we had wondered if we'd see any old night diving chums such as sepiola atlantica. As it was we did, along with a catshark, a few nudis, sticklebacks, cushion stars etc.

It seemed Jester was ready to return to some sensible diving.

* Delete as appropriate

** He has none, this is a joke

Smoke On The Water... -08/08/2017

Fire in the sky

As everyone knows when there's smoke on the water, there's fire in the sky. Tuesday was no exception as Jester, the Announcer joined me and some member of my dive club diving at St Cats, Loch Fyne.

For Jester and I it represented out third straight day diving. Tonight, to compensate for the moisture build up in our drysuits from not being able to dry them properly we were having a BBQ and a bonfire - the latter to be tended faithfully by the Jesterlings while papa bear went in for a couple of dives.

The weather had turned (for the better) and our only real fear were midgies. However, the bonfire would ensure that even they stayed away.

We kitted up, buddy checked and then descended. Almost immediately the Announcer and I saw what we think was a young, female John Dory, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera. As it was the Announcer was having some ear troubles so I spent the rest of the dive with one eye on her making sure that nothing went wrong.

Our second dive which took place after the above sunset was going to be a short one with Jester making do with the air in the remainder of his tank (with a pony for backup). However, it was nice to diving again in the inky blackness of night. On our way back up we both killed our torches and waved our hands firing up the sparkle of bioluminescence. 

Deep Rescue - 08/07/17

The ScotSAC Deep Rescue course is a requirement for a number of things. First, and my primary reason for wanting to do it, it is a prerequisite for undertaking ScotSAC's 50m qualification.It is also required by all divers wishing to obtain the First Class Diver Award.

Our club BDO had arranged for the course to take place at Seal Reef, St Catherines and all I had to do was provide a willing corpse and let's be honest, Jester would do for that! 

So off down to 30m we went Jester 'died' underwater and I begn the lift under the watchful eye of the regional instructor. It wasn't pretty as I reached 20m Jester began falling between my legs pulling me into a horizontal position - the natural position for my twinset and wing. I wasn't going to recover that - at least in my head - and any attempt to do so would of perhaps risked an uncontrolled ascent. I called cut and we descended and pottered about before coming back up. 

My second attempt went better we got all the way up without any difficulty and the only problem was applying the brakes for the safety stop. I did, just in time, but it reminded me of the moment when the lights change just before you reach them and you have to brake hard.

Quite a reintroduction to cold water diving.

Southern Men - 27/05/2017

Leeds isn't very north!

Neil Young once penned an epic song about the Southern Man. However, it is the response by US southern rockers Lynard Skynard that we all remember. It's funny, but whenever my pals from Scuba Leeds come to visit I'm always reminded of this particular episode in the annals of rock - that's ANNALS btw.

The reason, well, when you hang about the people from the North of England you often here them self refer to themselves as "Northerners", but when you look at a map, they're lucky if they're much more than two fifths of the way up the UK. They don't even know what north is!! At this point regular readers who live 66° north will have a little chuckle to themselves.

However, it was nature who had the last chuckle as I dived with Josh and the rest of the crew at St Catherine's.

Doing two dives, we had three unusual visitors. The first I took as an omen, that strangely enough I had been imagining on the way up - a pod of dolphins on the surface. Now the irony of this wasn't lost on me because on Josh's last visit to Scotland we dived at Anchor Point and I told him about all things it was possible to see, but won't - yip, pod of dolphins was on that list. We enjoyed them for a few minutes before we kitted up and headed in.

Once in the water the second unusual visitor to the site was... a northern sunstar. I've seen them here before, but only occasionally. We chuckled back on the surface as I explained to Josh that what we had just seen (to be said in my best "northerner" accent) "t'was a northern sunstar". If this is lost on you because you don't live in the UK, then imagine the voice of Sean Bean from Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings Fame.

Then on the second dive as I photographed some little nudibranchs Josh swam over the top of the largest thornback ray I have ever seen. Too big to photograph and get in focus I switched to video...

Josh and I ended the day happy.

Northern Sunstar

Flabellina Lineata

Flabellina Lineata

Limacia Clavigera

Halflight - 23/05/2017

Despite the long days drawing in Jester and arrived at Loch Fyne in a strange misty half light. The Kingmaker had bailed out at 4.30pm citing a shortage of testicles as a legitimate reason for not diving on a day that he organised.

The midgies were out so a quick kit up was imperative. We did just that, buddy checking on the beach.

As we approached the waters edge neither of us were wearing our glasses I asked Jester if it was a seal in the water -  the grey blur in the halflight turned out to be just that. As we dived it circled us from above before deciding that we weren't that interesting (or food) and left.

Our plan had been to look for a firework anemone we had found before near the boat, but for the life of us we couldn't find it. Instead we found some nudibranchs and a lobster Nice compensation.

However, the search at 25m for the anemone had meant we'd approached our decompression limit much quicker than anticipated so our time the reef was ultimately much shallower than we had anticipated. A turn in events that yielded many more sea slugs and blennies.

We looked at our computers and realised we had been down for way over an hour and made our way to the surface through the feeding jellyfish gorging themselves on the plankton bloom.

We surfaced after 72 minutes in what I think was one of my longest dives.

Seal head

Entering the water

Cushion Star

Lobster

Flabellina lineata

Yarrell's Blenny

More Flabs

Sea Lemon

Limacia Clavigera

Deep Peace - 15/05/2017

It always amazes how on a perfect night how calming diving is. It takes on an almost spiritual quality when it all goes right especially as you go deeper. Tonight was one of those nights.

The Zookeeper, Jester, the Kingmaker and I had all headed over to Seal Reef . The weather forecast had been for rain and strong winds. We hadn't objected to the wind - wind keeps the midgies at bay - but the rain wasn't that appealling. However, the forecast had hinted at a possible window between 6pm and 8pm right when our activity at the site would be at it's peak and we hung onto this hope.

On site, it was dry, calm  and the loch (as it sometimes does) lay still like a millpond.  We kitted up and headed down. The visibility was excellent around 7-9m. 

As we bottomed out at 40m I felt the deep peace, before turning and heading back up 

Myself and the Zookeeper led us down to the bottom of the 2nd reef at 40m  before turning and heading up into the crater to the old rope and the magnificent firework anemone that sits there. Then came the nudibranchs, Flabellinas, Limacia clavigera and sea lemons and in the shallows a beautiful corkwing wrasse hung around, nervously protecting its eggs.

We surfaced all agreeing that it was one of, if not the best dive of the year in Scotland. We dekitted and drove home. Then the rain started. We all won at life, which was funny as much of our predive chat focused on who would win a fight between the Zookeeper and the Kingmaker. All but the (even doubtful) Kingmaker reckoned the Zookeeper would ease it in three rounds.

Bloody Henry

Langoustine

Sea Cucumber

Firework Anemone

Yarrell's Blenny

Limacia Clavigera

Cushion Star

Sea Lemon

Corkwing Wrasse

Back in the USSR - 16/04/2017

Spot the dolphin dorsal competition

The famous Beatles parody of the Beach Boys was running through my mind as I donend my drysuit after my short stint in Mauritius. Today Jester, Fast Ed and the Wylie Fox all headed to St Catherines for a dip.  We arrived early, fortunately for my body clock hasn't recovered from my travels so it didn't feel as bad as it usually does to get up early.

When we emerged from the cars we saw a pod of dolphins or porpoise playing just off the shore. Needless to say they are almost impossible to photograph but if you look closely at the picture above you can see a dorsal fin in the top right quadrant of the picture - no, it's not just a mark on your screen. Well, unless you have a mark on your screen and you can see two small dorsal fins.

We kitted up and headed off, taking advantage of the low tide to get down to the bottom of the deep reef at just 35m before coming back up. 

It was cold and bright two factors which I reckoned probably scared away half of the life we'd usually find on the reef. Or perhaps the presence of a local dive school and a padi openwater student was enough to clinch the deal!

We entered the water before the school with a promise to "not stir up the muck". I think we duly obliged and I explained that they (the school) wouldn't be going anywhere near where we were. :)

The visibility was good, but life was limited to the odd Yarrell's Blenny and a nice wee cushion star. We saw one nudibranch, but it was too small for either myself or Jester to successfully photograph.

Once out of the water both myself and the Wylie Fox knew that it was too cold for us to want to do another dive, but that didn't stop Jester and Fast Ed from going in again.

Cushion star

Jester

Yarrell's Blenny

Sometimes a Dive is a Metaphor - 24/06/2016

While the last few Brits decided whether or not hey wanted to leave the European Union, Jester and I decided to head to Seal Reef, Loch Fyne for a quick dip. In many ways, the weather had been kind to us:

• It was warm
• There was a breeze keeping the midgies temporarily at bay
• There was drizzle, again discouraging the midgies.

So we kitted up and casually headed into the water.

There was a bit of chop and the silt had been stirred up in the shallows. This led to Jester dropping his GoPro and us then having to spend 10 minutes trying to find it in poor visibility. He did, thankfully.

After that we headed down to St Catherine's famous speedboat encountering a small red gurnard and a lobster en route. It was nice. Although dark the visibility opened up and it reminded me of my preferred night diving exploits - dark but clear.

In total we pottered around for an hour finding numerous nudibranchs and yarrell's blennies. It was all rather pleasant until we surfaced and dekitted in a midgie infested hell hole. What a difference an hour made.

Britain choose to leave, Scotland to stay. Scotland now must leave.

Flabellina Lineata

Red Gurnard

Flabellina Lineata

Lobster

Flabellina Lineata

Milestones - 21/03/2015

When I first met Jester he'd done just 15 dives. Tonight, he was doing his 200th. Quite an achievement. It would be tough to top the fun of his 199th. We joked about poor vis and seeing nothing - perhaps we should have resisted. 

Entering Seal Reef in daylight at low flood, the viz was about 1m, hoping for better we kept going down expecting to pass through into clearer water. 10m, 15m, 20m, 25m - nothing. Then at 27m it opened up to 2-3m.

We passed lots of sea cucumbers, langostine, but nothing great. On the way back up, the viz was improving. The tidal flood sweeping the particles back up to the head of the loch.

We had fun without seeing muchand celebrated with a sugary overdose at the Malt & Myre. 

Scorpionfish

Sea Cucumber

Sunsets & Cold Sweats - 10/02/2015

This blog could very well be called 'Cold & Colder' or 'Between a Cold & a Cold Place', but enough of that musing!

A continual procession of winter storms have stifled my willingness to dive of late. In fact, I've watched with glee as friends have headed out only to be put off by the weather - does no one look at the weather forecast these days? However, earlier this week I noticed that the weather, whilst cold, was to be dry and wind free. It was our chance. the Zookeeper , Jester and a new friend as yet un-named joined me.

We drove up through heavy rain, sleet and even snow and snow covered roads as we crossed over the Rest & Be Thankful. Then as we arrived in the twilight gloom the clouds parted and the sun set over calm waters.

We kitted up and headed down. I was armed with my UV torch and was curious to discover what would fluoresce. As such photography was at a minimum.

As we hit the water it was cold. I was glad I'd worn my 2mm Waterproof Ice Hood. I do get a gentle ribbing for this, but seriously, it's freaking cold out there! We passed into warmer waters at around 4m.

The Zookeeper and I bottomed out around 20m before meeting Jester and his buddy on the reef. He signalled that he saw a dogfish at 22m and so we headed down to investigate. We never found it, but what we did find was another thermocline. It was cold down there. We were caught in the sweet spot between two thermoclines.

Now, at this point I was sure I could hear whale noises, but closer investigation revealed it was the Zookeeper moaning with cold into her reg. It was pretty chilly (5c). We headed slowly up, with both of us chilling all the time shivering enough to put ourselves into a cold sweat at the thought of how cold it was! :)

We came out to find the others on the surface dekitting. We chatted about the cold, but at least it was dry and clear and the milky way was resplendent.

So what fluoresced? Well.....

• Nothern sunstar
• Prawns
• Short clawed squat lobsters
• Ballan wrasse

Setting Sun

Setting Sun

Northern sunstar

A Window of Opportunity - 03/12/2015

So the weather has conspired to keep me from the water in the last few weeks. I'm not bitter, I'm just not wet. A look at the detailed weather forecast on Tuesday saw me catch sight of a rare 4 hour window of opportunity. Jester decided it was worth the gamble too.

We met at Costa Coffee where, as chance would have it, some members of Eastwood SAC were also meeting. We decided to join them, although Grant and I dived separately.

As we got close to Seal Reef the rain stopped. We made it, the weather window! 

We kitted up and plopped in heading down enjoying the usual nightlife. As we passed back and forward we caught glimpse of the other divers and their silt clouds, but it didn't affect us. 

It was a great 63 minutes, but the action didn't start until we got out the water and discovered that Pat G had fallen foul of the famous St Catherine's stairway to heaven to the detriment of his knee - we later found out that he's broken his shin. 

So Campbell, took him to hospital while I took his kit home in my car. 

Sepiola Atlantica

Small Scorpionfish

Larger Scorpionfish

Pipefish

The Heart of the Matter - 10/09/2015

The Tinkers Heart

On a recent drive home from a dive site I listened to a radio show about the geographical and metaphorical hearts of Scotland. Much of the discussion that I listened to focused on The Tinkers Heart. in Argyll. I never even knew it existed and yet on many dive trips I'd driven within a few feet of it. So I had decided that on my next visit to the area I'd stop off and have a look. On this occasion, (the psycho that is) the Zookeeper was my buddy and she would be the lucky one to be made just a little more erudite by my curiosity.

As we whizzed along the road and right passed it. A quick reverse and there it was. Hundreds of years of Scottish tradition now fully restored and protected for hundreds more. It's simple, unimpressive but whimsically romantic given that hundreds of people have married on this spot over the centuries. Scotland is a great place to live.

Anyway onto the diving! Seal Reef, St Catherines was the venue and for once there was a seal, and not even in the water, but hauled out on the beach. I've never seen a seal out of the water except at the Farne Islands so it took my spectacle-less  eyes a few moments to realise what I was looking at. In that moment it looked up nodded and slunk back into the water and away.

We headed down encountering edible crabs, lobsters, loads of fish, and all in had a great little twilight dive. However, the water was cold - very cold. The summer is most definitely over despite the fair weather on the surface.

He just wouldn't stay still

Bloody Henry

Say hello to my little friend

Dude, switch out the lights!

The last light of day