Manatee Creek & the Caverns of Doom - Part 2 - 17/09/2015

So after the snorkel it was off to the Cavern of Doom. Just for clarity, I gave it that name.

Of the 6 of us on the boat just 4 of us were doing the dive. Me, Gill, a PADI AI from Newcastle via Northen Ireland and an American who I heard proudly declare had done 122 dives. The rest of us kept quiet about our experience, but someone once told me that there is always someone else with more dives than you. I chuckled. 

We dropped down into an area marked as a winter manatee sanctuary and slipped through a crack on the river bed in to a small murky cavern. The guide did his best to show us a whole host 'fascinating' features within the cavern, but once you've dived some of Mexico's cenotes you are a little bit spoilt.

I'd have loved to dive it by myself, but with five divers in total the cave was a little cramped. Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed it. In addition, I was a little under insulated (a 5mm wetsuit would have been the bomb). As such, I most enjoyed the little hot spring feeding the cave, as did the small amount of life found within the cave.

We returned to the dive shop where I sat through an interesting talk about manatees and earnt the PADI Manatee Awareness Speciality - my souvenir for this trip. "It counts towards your PADI Master Scuba Diver Rating." I chuckled again, but at $35 it seemed like a fun take home from Florida. 

"Leave nothing but bubbles and take nothing but photographs, Manatee Awareness Specialities and patches saying "I snorkelled with manatees in Florida.""

Gill descends

Swimming crab

Manatee Creek & the Caverns of Doom - Part 1 - 17/09/2015

My wife plays Roller Derby, but I have very little interest in the sport. What it does do is take her to some fairly interesting locations. On this particular occasion it was taking her to Jacksonville, Florida - a mere 2 hours drive from Crystal River.

Crystal River is home to a year round population of manatees and a number of dive companies offer the chance to snorkel with these gentle giants. I plumped for American Pro Diving who for a few dollars more will take you down for a cavern dive after the manatee encounter. They do other trips too in the afternoon but sadly I had to get back up the road to Jacksonville for Gill.i.am's tournament.

Despite being told we may have to drift around for a few hours we before we found them, we were in the water with a large a male within 15 minutes. Then a large female. 

As our presence and natural manatee behaviour began to stir up the vis we went back to the boat and headed up river for another two minutes before encountering a mother and a calf. The little one was really curious, much like the young seals of the Farne Islands.

It was a great encounter.

Manatee

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

The Last Days of Summer - 25/08/2015

The Mermaid and the Zookeeper were heading to the A-Frames. With them were two less experienced divers. I wasn't planning to dive as my mate was coming round to my house to collect some stuff much later in the evening. However, he came much earlier than anticipated. and left me twiddling my fingers at 6.30pm. 

A browse on Facebook meant I knew Hoddit and Doddit had just left Costa Coffee in Dumbarton and were heading up to the site for their first dive. I could make the second if I wanted. A quick look out the window and I noticed that it was one of the last days summer. I needed to take advantage this opportunity.

I arrived at the site to find three abandoned cars, a lot of midgies and bubbles making their way back to shore. I kitted up el pronto and got back in the car. The midgies were horrific. To escape them I went into the water early and waited there while the rest endured their surface intervals. 

The sun had set by the time we went underwater and I was tasked with leading us down to the 'big frame' which I did while keeping a close eye on the least experienced in our group. With just 12 dives under his belt, but he was performing admirably. I never really took many pictures, but we did see a few lobsters. 

Bubbles

This guy!

Return to the Dark Side - 21/08/2015

With Captain Al about to celebrate his 300th dive we headed to the A-Frames, Loch Long. Jester & Gill.i.am were joining us too. 

We arrived in daylight but by the time we were going in the water was dark, a factor that was enough to put Gill off the dive. We plopped into visibility of around 2-3m, but it was dark, very dark. In short, it was a night dive. It was nicely serendipitous - I first met Captain Al at this very site as we both did our PADI Night Spec. Now here we were celebrating Al's 300th dive and the return of night diving season. Happy days.

It wasn't a deep dive (15m) or a desperately long one (44minutes), but it was dark and that's how I like it. We emerged to the dim glow of the oil terminal lights.

I never took many pictures, but I'll leave you with a selection of photographic failures and Captain Al's 300th safety stop!

Fail

Fail

Almost a fail

Dead man's finger goatee

Selfie

Tea & Tiffin - 16/08/2015

With the weather forecast to be a bit miserable, myself, the Mermaid and Jester headed over to the Tea Rooms, Loch Fyne for a dive, shelter and tea! 

Described by Jester as the diving equivalent of 'glamping', the Tea Rooms is a small spit and lagoon popular with fishermen and divers. It is also the site of a small garden centre and tearoom called the Quarry View Garden Centre. Now, if you want to dive or fish here do phone ahead and don't bring your own picnic! The owner, quite rightly, does not take too well to misbehaving divers or fishermen. 

Anyway, back to diving. As it turned out the weather was bright and sunny and without the need for shelter. The day started well with a bacon roll before we kitted up and headed for the outside of the spit. We plopped into dark, but clear, water and made our way down to 19m.

We encountered a nice selection of fish - saith, wrasse, cod and a nervous catshark. There were some pretty critters too including:

• Devonshire Cup Corals
• Northern Sunstars
• Bloody Henrys
• Common Sunstars

As we came round the point and started to make for shallower waters we had a great encounter with a very curious Ballan Wrasse.

It was a nice dive that more than whiled away an hour.

Then it was time for lunch - toasties all round - before we headed along the road to Drishaig for some firework anemone action. It has to be said, the Mermaid was coming to grips with her new equipment, but we didn't expect her to also demonstrate a new form of site entry technique that effectively involved sliding down the small hill uncontrollably into the thorns and nettles at the bottom. Myself and Jester offered the appropriate level of faux sympathy before helping her to her feet.

The second dive was alright, but after a great first dive it was never going to be that spectacular.

Common sunstar

Devonshire cup coral

Northern sunstar

Ballan wrasse

Creepy statue

Northern sunstar

Firework anemone

Scorpion fish

Mermaid's purse

The Recluse - 03/08/2015

With both Jester and I having red letter days the following day we decided to keep the diving close to home and go dive the A-Frames. We were still wanting to photograph the reclusive anemones we'd seen on a previous dive as well. So we headed up, kitted up buddy checked and plopped in.

The visibility wasn't great, probably caused by one of the wettest July's on record and there was a definite halocline at around 18m where natural light disappeared and the temperature dropped.  I felt this temperature drop more keenly as my drysuit is now misnamed.

As we bumbled along accompanied by the hum of a nearby tanker, we met our anemones, once again closed for photographic business, As such we decided to just swim from frame to frame. Enjoying the peacock worms, goldsinnys, young cod and a lobster.

The weather held out for us which was a bonus. In fact, it turned into a very pleasant evening.

My camera had a full memory card, so I never took any photographs. All underwater photographs were taken by Jester.

Flat fish

Peacock worm

Me

Lobster

A nice night