Northern Exposure - Part 2 - 29/04/2017

Camas Torsa

With all our divers now firmly ensconced at Resipole, Loch Sunart, our second day of diving took us to nearby Camas Torsa which translated from Gaelic means Thor's Bay. I'm not entirely sure of why its called that, but I suspect it may be because of the thunderous wind. That would certainly make sense.

However, that same wind gave the Barrman the opportunity to set up the new ESAC events shelter, as supplied by Cotswold Outdoor for a great price.

Having failed to pack my camera charger, it marked the end of my underwater photography, but I wasn't too bothered given I had never dived these sites before and preferred to focus on the basics of navigation.

 

My first dive was an exploratory one with the Chairman. We made our way down to 35m and found ourselves midway down a large wall. It reminded me a little of Anchor Point, but with less life.  My personal view was that it had been dredged by a scallop dredger in the last year or so decimating much of the soft coral life that should have been present.

 

That said we had a nice dive just exploring and enjoying the life that was there:

• Giant seapens
• Macropodia Rostrata
• Edible crabs
• Queen scallops

For my second dive on the site I teamed up with Ian (who has complained he doesn't have a nickname, that may change in my next blog...) Having already explored much of the site my focus was on giving Ian as good an experience as I could given the depth limitation. With that in mind I had said to the surface marshall that we'd be down for 50 minutes wit a plan to stay at 15m until we hit 100 bar and then return the same distance at 7-5m coming up with 50 bar.

 

As it was the current had increased and we drifted for 25m barely flicking a fin and so had to turn back at 25 minutes. The return journey didn't take too much longer, but it did take a bit more work as we headed into the current (most pronounced at the point).

 

As we surfaced I made a mental note not to rush back to this site, before celebrating Ian's longest ever dive - 54 minutes.

Camas Torsa Dive HQ



Northern Exposure - Part 1 - 28/04/2017

With summer nearly upon us my club, Eastwood Sub Aqua Club, has planned a trip to Loch Sunart in the Scottish Highlands. Despite its relative close proximity (around 140km as the crow flies) it takes almost four hours to get there due to a combination of traffic, ferries and single track roads. As such, we took the opportunity to stop two thirds of the way up at The Slates, Loch Leven.

 

The Slates is one of my favourite dives and I was especially excited for two reasons:

1. I had finally managed to repair my camera
2. I was going to be the buddy of Campbell who was returning to diving after a medical break

We took our time and kitted up making sure the Chairman (Campbell's new nickname) was comfortable before checking kit and heading into the water. We were keeping it shallow (20m) and it really paid off with a nice catshark, pink spotted sea cucumbers, sunstars and a compliant ballan wrasse. The Chairman was performing admirably and seemed pretty comfortable, but as we started our ascent he signalled he was cold - not surprising, the bottom temperature was about 4c.

 

We surfaced and dekitted, where he decided to call it quits for the day. With a number of other divers also doing the same it meant that it fell to myself and the Barrman to restore the pride of club. We kitted up, buddy checked and headed down.

 

As we reached about 12m I looked right and spotted one of the most brazen octopus' I had ever seen. Sadly, the Barrman hadn't seen it and as I fiddled with camera I realised he was about to fin right over the to of it. I violently shook my torch but sadly it was too late to prevent a silt tsunami.

 

I kept my eye on the octopus and waited for the cloud to disperse as much as possible, but it was too late to great picture. I mean, I got a snap, but I was later accused of simply having photographed a red rock by a rather mean spirited Shiny.

 

We continued round enjoying the pleasant drift and admiring a lovely selection of Devonshire cup corals, before emerging cold and ready to enjoy the warmth of the cars up to our base for the weekend, Resipole.

Sunstar

Catshark

Sea Cucumber

Anemic Bloody Henry

Ballan Wrasse

Red rock - curled octopus

Devonshire Cup Coral

Sunstar

Return to Anchor Point - 24/04/2017

Jester had wanted to dive Dogfish Reef, but my preference was to return to Anchor Point and further explore the wall that the Kingmaker had fully introduced us to a couple of weeks before.

We buddy checked and dropped down to around 30m and the bottom of the wall. The tide was ebbing and creating a considerable current that made for an excellent drift. 

As we glided along we spotted a couple of types of nudibranch as well as a few sunstars and Yarrell's blennies. It really was a cracking dive. I won't say too much more but I'll leave you with this picture of Cuthona caerulea taken by Jester.

Cuthona caerulea

 

The site

Bloody Henry

Nudibranch

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

La Fest de Murene - 11/04/2016

With just one more day to dive with my new found friends at Just Diving I headed on a the boat with a couple of Germans from Munich and a French guy called Alexander who would ultimately be my buddy for the day.

As always I chatted beforehand to establish his experience. He lived near Calais in France and was a fairly regular drysuit diver.  That immediately eased my fears because, as we all know, anyone who learns to dive in cold water finds the warm stuff easy in almost all conditions.

The day was mostly a check dive for the German couple so the sites were to be kept nice and fluffy. We dived two reefs - Shamenta and Tikoraye. Both were fairly pleasant providing a nice assortment of reef fish, nudibranchs, amd as Alexander would proclaim as we surfaced from the second dive "en Fest de Murene". 

Now, my French isn't great, but even I could translate his proclamation as a festival of moray eels. Though to say that, was little bit of a disservice to a dive that also had Garden and Ribbon eels on show too. Not to mention a number of stone, lion and scorpion fish.

Two nice dives and a great way to end my time diving in Mauritius - especially when Jean spotted two great nudibranchs.

Moray

Lionfish

Fryeria marindica

Anemone fish

Red Scorpion Fish

Coin De Mire and the Giant Tuna of Death - 10/04/2017

OK, so there might be a little hyperbole in the title of this blog, but there certainly was a giant tuna.

Day 2 of my diving adventure with Just Diving in Mauritius saw Gill.I.Am join me for a couple of plongees (that's french for diving). I had agreed the day before with Olivier to ensure that the diving was pretty fluffy for Gill - she has trouble equalising.

With that in mind the guys had arranged for us to travel across to Coin de Mire to dive "the wall". If you look at the picture from the island The Wall is on the left of the island.

Before, while being briefed, Olivier had explained that there was cleaning station frequented by large Tuna. I was skeptical I've been to many cleaning stations where, well, nothing seems to happen. So my expectations were low. However, as well as beautiful topography topside which continues under the waves the site is encrusted with coral and the usual assortment of reef fish.

We plopped in close to the shore and began working our was down the wall during slack water. Eventually once were down at around 31m as we came round a large rock I saw a large shadow swimming away from me. Machu our guide for the dive signalled to stay low and wait. Then around 30 seconds later the Tuna reemerged from the gloom to have its teeth cleaned. We watched. It was definitely big perhaps around 2-3m and with the exception of a whale shark in Mexico the biggest fish I've ever seen. 

On our second dive we did the same dive again but from the opposite direction. It felt different and this time it had a very pleasant current running allowing for a nice drift amongst the corals. I think Gill.I.Am enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten to pack the camera.

King of the Castle - 07/04/2016

With what the Americans call Spring Break upon us my wife and I have headed for the Tropic of Capricorn and the tropical island of Mauritius. Before arriving I had contacted a local dive company called Just Diving led by a keen underwater photographer Olivier Fayolle. It turned out to be a great choice.

On this the first day I went diving alone and after a flash of my ScotSAC Master diver card was immediately accepted into the fold as an official Dive Ninja which meant that we were going to a more advanced site - Kingfish Castle.

We loaded onto the small Just Diving boat and headed out through the lagoon to the channel that exists between Mauritius and Coin de Mire Island.

By the time we hit the site the swell was up at around 2.5m (3m in my head) and as someone who isn't a huge fan of boats I was starting to feel nervous. I shouldn't have though. I've done this stuff before and survived....and enjoyed it.

We rolled back - negative entry - and immediately I saw the large rock beneath surface pushing up the waves. We dropped down in a considerable surge to 32m and headed for the small cave where Olivier knew the Kingfish lived.

They were there. We admired them for a few minutes before working our way back to the boat pick up, watching a free swimming Moray on the way. However, it was the end of the dive that threw up the most interesting encounter. As we sat at around 6m doing our safety stop beneath us something was moving at around 20m. A shark, too far way to photograph I watched, it potter about, before continuing with its day. 

As I posted on Facebook after the encounter, 

"Today I saw a white tip reef shark, it hovered beneath us as we floated in the deep blue. We regarded one another before it went about its business. Sharks are extraordinary, we need to protect them."

From there it was back into the boat and off to Eden Reef, a very pleasant but relatively fluffy reef dive on the outer edge of the Mauritian lagoon. Here, the only thing that happened was that Olivier made me the subject of one of his photographs - an image I'll treasure.

Me

Starfish

School of fish

Kingfish