Going Deeper - 18/05/2014

Having been away with work I haven't been diving in about 10 days. Meanwhile my pals have been diving in various locations an have been very smug about it on social media websites.

Today was my first chance to get wet. Myself and Mr Fallsoveralot were meeting at Aquatron before potentially heading to the Caves. While at the shop, in walked Fast Ed who happened to have his kit in the boot of his car. A few smooth words of seduction and he was willing to abandon his wife for the afternoon to join us. :)

So we headed up to the Caves only to find the small stream in full flow and visibility likely to be poor. We therefore headed further down the road to the A-Frames to do a dive that would break his depth record, but stay within the limits of his training (30m).

Leading the dive out in poor visibility my plan had been to dive to the big frame, then head down past the deep frame before turning back once we reached our desired depth. In the poor visibility however and fairly swift current I missed it. Instead, we ended up overshooting and heading down to around 29m  before turning back and hitting the deep frame and what I normally call frame 2.

The depth and different route meant we encountered plenty of sea cucumbers, peacock worms, a firework anemone and a decent array of fish and crabs. Sadly, Ed also spotted fishing lure, and I found a plastic bag (floating at 20m) from East Dunbartonshire Council ironically promoting greener more sustainable behaviour

In total it was 45 minutes and by the time we surfaced the rain and poor vis was enough to dampen our enthusiasm for another dive. However, Grant recorded a whopping 29.2m on his computer - smashing his depth record.

Peacock worm

Pink spotted sea cucumber

East Dunbartonshire logo

Clean environment

Peacock worm

Hermit crab, dead man's finger and sea squirt

Buried edible crab

An Unexpected Journey Part 2 - 08/05/2014

I'm assuming you read Part 1, so I'll just continue with the narrative....

We came ashore high as kites because, regardless of what people think, we had just enjoyed an excellent little adventure. With Fast Ed set to continue our adventure, we prepared to dive the regular St Catherine's dive site. We entered the water determined to find some Conger Eels.

Dropping down to around 20m we stumbled across a lovely red cushion star before finding a large but shy conger eel. However, the dive highlight for the Zookeeper and Fast Ed was a spooked catshark that swam straight at my face. Naturally, I jumped. Even underwater I could hear Ed and Laura laughing. I felt like Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss' character from Jaws) when he finds the remains on the Orca.

Matt Hooper - The reason why most of us dive

Then came the edible crabs. A couple of them roaming freely over the reef. I've never seen that before. The carry-on continued as Ed unleashed his true inner self as he wrapped a length of seaweed round his neck like a Eurovision-esque feather boa - it seemed appropriate.

Edible crab

Jaws

Comb Jelly

Cushion star

Conger eel

Cushion star

An Unexpected Journey Part 1 - 08/05/2014

As regular readers will know, on a previous outing Laura and I scouted out the access to the lesser dived part of St Catherines, Loch Fyne. However, St Catherine's 3 - Bottle Bank is also a much contested site between divers and local residents who rightly have concerns about a minority of divers who persist with antisocial behaviour.

Laura and I had planned to dive the site, but chance comments by Martin and Ben in Aquatron made us wonder if we could keep all camps happy by diving the length of the shore between St Catherine's 2 & 3.St Catherine's 2 being the less contested site that features regularly on this blog.

Our new plan was to build up kit at St Cats 2, drive along the lane to the St Cats 3 entry, I'd drive back to St Cats 2 before walking the 500m back to the kit and Laura. We would then enter the water, dive the reef before heading as far along the shore as our air would safely allow. Still following?

Specifically, we were going in diving to 20m heading NE to the reef, working our way up the reef to 10m, where we would leave the reef and head NE to our distant exit point. At 80 bar we'd start to ascend to 5m and at 40 bar we'd surface.

Our Plan

The plan was set and it appeared as though it had appeased Poseidon himself as a pod of porpoise and a seal frolicked offshore and the tide flowed in our favour.

As we dived we encountered catshark after catshark - I mean loads of them. The dive came alive in a fun way when Laura who was feeling a bit floaty in her new undersuit grabbed what has now become known as her "Gandalf stick". Feeling a bit left out I too grabbed a piece of driftwood and continued our Unexpected Journey.

We almost made it too. We came up about 50m short of the target only to see Fast Ed cruising the lane in his car looking for us or perhaps something more sinister - you never can tell with that boy. We signalled with torches and we chatted from afar as the tide gently swept us to our destination. 

Butterfish

The Gandalf Stick

Catshark

Nudibranch

The distance travelled

A last Gasp Dive - 07/05/2014

Late in the day, while I was still at work, I got a message from Mr Fallsoveralot asking if I fancied a dive. The weather was tolerable I said yes and asked The Zookeeper (who'd been off work all week) to come along too. With a late departure, we headed to the A-Frames for a cheeky dip.

Once there we found a few divers at the site including Sergeant Chris. I got the impression that one of the guys was quite inexperienced when he told me the visibility was really poor and you couldn't see anything. He had also lost his buddy's and swum back to shore alone. I feared the worst after that encounter but we pressed on. 

Mr Fallsoveralot finally managed to put on his own fins for the first time. As all drysuit divers will tell you, the first time you accomplish that task is an achievement. Moreover, he never fell over once, I'll need a new nickname soon. Well done Grant! 

Diving down we found the visibility to between 2-3m - not great, but not what we'd been led to believe. We had  a really pleasant relaxed dive down to 18m for 47 minutes. Not bad for a last minute decision. I never took many pictures.

Starfish

Mr Fallsoveralot

Mr Fallsoveralot & The Zookeeper

Moody Loch Long (This is an unedited picture)

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

Feed the Beast - 01/05/2014

The Zookeeper and I headed out on one of our secret missions. The location was Loch Long's Twin Piers - a site I visit often due to convenience. As you may recall, we hadn't been there since the visibility in the loch deteriorated a few weeks ago (To read about it follow this link).

Firework Anemone

This evening,we were diving it for the first time in broad daylight, being that 'night' diving is out of season until October here in Scotland.

En route we had a conversation about how I had mistakenly thought pink spotted sea cucumbers were firework anemones and it was my last trip to this site that made realise I was quite mistaken. Moreover, I learned that the sea cucumbers when disturbed shrivel to almost nothing. It was therefore, strangely serendipitous that once we entered the water and descended down to 15m the first significant thing we'd find would be a small firework anemone.

As we moved towards the reef to find conger eels I began to get a better idea of the reefs formation. Previously I'd only seen it by torchlight. It was a glorious sight to behold. The huge rocks looked magnificent in the green hue and I began to link different part of the site together.

Once we reached the conger hole The Zookeeper produced her bag of chopped mackerel and squid to lure out the beast. Slowly it emerged unsure at first, but knowing the scent of Laura's goodies was too good to resist. We stayed there for about 10 minutes until our shifting had stirred up too much silt to see properly. We then headed off back to shore stopping to marvel at the anemones smothering the rocks.

52 minutes of pleasantly clear, if somewhat cold, diving.

Plumose Anemones

Plumose Anemones

Conger luring

Baked buddy

Burrowing Anemone

Comb jelly

Crab & Common sea star

Big Pier

Strike a Pose - 01/05/2014

I'm often accused of being too aware of when people are pointing a camera at me. However, I do occasionally have the odd photographic disaster. Today I tried to take a photo of myself in front of the Twin Piers using the timer on my camera. This glorious little video was the result.

I must learn to work the camera.