Wet 'n' Wildlife - 12/05/2016

After the weekend's heroics it was back to a more sedate shore dive with the Zookeeper and Jester. We piled everything into The Beast and headed west. In the end we lazily plumped for St Catherine's, which on a fine night is ideal for high jinks.

Having kitted up quickest, I was getting hot. I headed into the water and waited. The vis seemed promising, around 4m. Once all were ready we headed down. The Zookeeper thought I was narc'd when at the deepest point of our dive when I started knocking my malfunctioning camera off a rock. In fact, the memory card was malfunctioning. Naturally, banging it on a rock resolved the situation, though made me look crazy. Them's the breaks, but you get to enjoy a 2nd rate photograph of a northern/purple sunstar.

We worked our way back up nice and slowly seeing a few nice creatures en route.

As we surfaced, the discussion centred on those who emerged wet. Jester it seemed emerged cold and wet enough that he feared he'd lost an appendage while the Zookeeper was also had a wet bum. I felt relieved that I was dry. I smugly smiled internally.

Sunstar

Nudi

Scorpion fish

Nudi

Cushion star

Penetrating the Lady Isabella Barque (2) - 08/05/2016

Now, you may recall in my previous post I explained how Jester and I were now cocky, experienced Scottish RHIB divers, well my cockiness was quite misplaced. As I prepared myself to meet the Lady Isabella Barque I rolled or, perhaps, slipped backwards into the water on what was one of the worst boat roll entries ever made. Even as I sank, I heard the gentle ribbing of K-Pep ringing in my ears.

Lady Isabella Barque was once a graceful sailed barque carrying a load of nickel ore, now she lies in the shallow waters off the southern tip of Little Cumbrae, I wasn't expecting much (I think K-Pep intentionally talked her down) but she was rather beautiful. As Jester and I moved round over her seaweed heaving ribs, we spotted sunstars, three varieties of nudibranchs, ballan wrasse and edible crabs. 

Nearing the end of the dive we finally found the remains of her narrow holds and, being a gentleman, I gently penetrated, popping my head in to have a look. There was little to see though.

After we had all dived her, we spoke of how much we'd all enjoyed the dive. The calm waters, on a point that is often exposed, made for a great second dive. As wrecks go she's incredibly shallow sloping from two to fifteen metres. Jester rated her in his top five dives. K-Pep, who'd last dived her 15 years ago, was also highly complimentary. It seems, that despite lying on the seabed for more than 100 years, the Lady Isabella still has her charms.

The blast home was a much more choppy affair and I regretted, my decision to partially remove my drysuit instantly as the spray soaked my face and shoulders. As compensation Mother Nature threw one last curve ball - a lone porpoise.

And with that, we returned to base.

Lady Isabella

Lady Isabella 

Candy striped flatworm

Nudibranch

Sunstar

Lady Isabella 

Lady Isabella

Candy striped flatworm

Penetrating the Lady Isabella Barque (1) - 08/05/2016

Trail Island at Little Cumbrae

With the offer of joining K-Pep on his RHIB for the day and an almost perfect weather forecast, Jester and I headed down to Largs for a couple of  RHIB dives. Now, I've dived of a RHIB before, but never in Scotland and never in my drysuit - neither had Jester. Add to that that I'm no great fan of boats having suffered from seasickness many times and I am therefore not shamed to say that I was a little nervous.

As we blasted out from Largs to the island of Little Cumbrae I could see the Hunterston Bubble, something which had been on my Scottish to do list for some time. The bubble is caused by super heated sea water being pumped out from the nearby nuclear power station and has peaked my interest since I first saw it on Google maps when they began publishing satellite images.   

Honesty in diving is always the best policy, and K-Pep took us to Trail Island for a scenic, pick-your-own-depth, easy  wall dive. Once kitted up and in the water I felt my usual diving mojo flooding back. As we started down the tiered Inca like terracing we saw a lot of our usual favourites, but in huge quantities:

• Devonshire cup corals
• nudibranchs
• cushion stars
• a cuckoo wrasse hiding (hiding because Jester had chased it into a hole)

It was great. We surfaced as cocky, experienced, Scottish RHIB divers. While we chatted and watched a seal, K-Pep enjoyed some sub-aqua quiet time before we headed to for our rendezvous with the Lady Isabella Barque.

Cushion star

Sea Squirts

A very bloody henry

Nudibranch

Nudibranch

Then Came The Nudibranchs - 29/04/2016

Diving is a funny thing, you can expect to see one thing and then something else comes along that you entirely didn't expect. That was certainly the case when Jester and I headed along to Loch Long for a dive. Our plan had been to dive a site called Craggen, but a chance encounter with two divers at the A-Frames meant we switched lochs and headed over to Loch Fyne in the hope of finding better visibility.

It would seem a wise decision as our move to St Catherine's (despite taking us through blizzard conditions on the Rest & Be Thankful) reaped a plentiful bounty and a first for both myself and Jester. We kitted up in sleet and headed in.

Out first interesting encounter was with a particularly large langoustine who seemed quite happy to have us floating around, but he was pale into insignificance when we encountered one of the larger members of the spider crab family. 

Now, here in Scotland we are used to seeing what we call sea toads and their little cousins macropodia rostrata. However, when we saw the crab in question, my instinct was to think it a King Crab of sorts - I've eaten them once in the US (never again by the way!). Our best guess is Lithodes Maja* - the northern or deep sea king crab. It was big an definitely the stuff of spider crab related nightmares.

The return journey saw us encounter a rock covered in flabellina lineata nudibranchs. It was quite special. However, with Jester having mask troubles it was time to call it quits and enjoy dekitting in the final moments of twilight and a brief period of dry weather.

* If you know better and want to enlighten me then please feel free!

Langoustine

Lithodes Maja

End of the Night - 21/04/2016

With the Announcer requiring an early start and Jester working late (as always), the Zookeeper and I decided to dive twice with each of them at Conger Alley, Loch Long.

We kitted up and headed in, enjoying a dogfish and a few sea lemons as we pottered about. I'dforgotton half of my undersuit, but I really wasn't feeling the cold too much. We surfaced, switched tanks and, like a true wrestling tag team, the Announcer switched out for Jester who was waiting for us when we surfaced.

The second dive, was much the same, if a little deeper. With the exception of the reluctant appearance of a curled octopus. There were no Beryl related surprises to give Jester a scare.

However, the cold was starting to gnaw away at me. I was really feeling it. When I surfaced it was mostly dark, but there was enough ambient light to see the entry/exit. It was the end of the night diving season.

Catshark

Sea cucumber

Butterfish

Yarrell's Blenny

Banana Island - 16/04/2016

Dive pool

So, with a lay over in Qatar, I was staying in Anantara's Banana Island Resort. I was wondering how to while away the hours when I noticed they had a little diver training pool.

Curious, I popped into there dive shop and had a chat. After 5 minutes I was signed up to do a shallow dive along with a youngster who was doing a PADI Junior Scuba Dive.

The promise I was sold was poor visibility and very little life and not very deep - quite the package. However I was looking to while away the hours so I explained I don't mind poor vis and limited life - I'm from Scotland. :)

I dived it in a 3mm wetsuit, but with a water temperature of around 25c, I could of skin dived it!

Now the visibility was rubbish 2-3m depending on how much silt the wee guy kicked up, but there was a selection of life that was quite interesting. Sadly, my memory card, still full from two weeks in Viet Nam, clogged up before we found the good stuff.

Lot's of large grouper, a few different nudi's and flat worms. A great way to spend 50 minutes!

Swan Battle Boat

Grouper

Jade Green Seas - 09/04/2016

Leaving Port

So with another holiday, this time to Viet Nam, I was presented with the opportunity to go SCUBA diving at the Cham Islands just off the coast Hoi An.

The vast majority of Viet Nam's diving can be done south of Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City near Viet Nam's border with Thailand and away from the endless series of river deltas that punctuate much of the Vietnamese coast. As the area wasn't on my itinerary I made do with Cham.

Cham is a developing destination with just two dive operators, but it has recently been designated a UNESCO protected biosphere for the number corals that exist around the islands.

The guys at Cham Island diving were pretty relaxed, taking everything I said at face value and didn't bother to check my log book or certs. According to the owner, "people don't lie in diving". I certainly didn't.

All the gear was on the boat waiting and seemed in average condition. A-clamp, basic Cressi regs, Mares basic BCDs and decent mares 3mm steamers and 2.5mm shorties. With the water temp being a little above 20c I doubled up and took both.

It was still cool, but tolerable enough for a 30-40minite dive.

For the dives I was teamed with Myrthee from Montreal and Ian (our guide) an instructor from Ontario. Myrthee was pretty inexperienced but once properly weighted coped admirably.

Dive one was down to 20m to a garden of what the guide described as Cauliflower Coral - although it looked suspiciously like a variety of plumose anemone to me. In addition the dive was punctuated by the odd parrotfish, anemonefish and a selections of nudibranchs. It was fun, but the vis was like an average day back home and without a torch photography was always going to be challenging.

The second dive threw up much of the same, but with a nice scorpionfish, but by that time I was getting cold so I cut my dive short (30 minutes) while the other two pottered about at the bottom of the line.

Afterwards, we headed to a very decent beach for lunch before the boat trip home.

Now, I wouldn't discourage anyone from diving anywhere, but I wouldn't come here to dive. Instead, if you have a day to kill in Hoi An and fancy getting wet then give it a go.

Relaxing beach for lunch & dive boat

Nudi 1

Nudi 2

Lionfish

Sea Cucumber

Anemone fish

Starfish

Coral

Scorpion fish